Keep Believing in the Promise
Optimism and opportunity are everywhere. A great deal of our success is due to our commitment to the CLA Promise. Listen as Denny shares amazing client feedback as well as his thoughts on why so many people see what we have as something truly special.
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Transcript
Optimism and opportunity are everywhere. A great deal of our success is due to our commitment to the CLA Promise. Listen as Denny shares amazing client feedback as well as his thoughts on why so many people see what we have as something truly special.
[00:00:02]
Narrator: Welcome to Own the Promise, a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.
[00:00:16]
Denny: Hello, CLA family. This is Denny Schleper coming to you in the heart of opportunity season. I hope everyone’s winter and the opportunity season is off to a great start.
I know I was looking at some of the preliminary budgets for 2019, and it looks like the budgets are coming back with some very strong optimistic growth in 2019, in the upper 7 percent, close to 8 percent range in revenue growth for the firm, so a lot of optimism, lots of opportunity, obviously, in this season. I know that many of you are extremely busy.
[00:00:56]
It’s not everyone’s busy time of the year, but for a large part of the firm, it is, and I just wanted to share an experience that I had over the last week or so with the entire family, because I think it really is so critical and so important that we keep what we have at CLA very much in mind, and this experience really came from the wealth summit that we had in Arizona at the end of January.
[00:01:27]
For those of you that don’t know, we brought together roughly 280 or so clients throughout the country that participate in our wealth advisory services, and this was an opportunity for us to bring them together, obviously get to know them better, build stronger relationships so that we could help them better,
But also to do some education and an opportunity just simply to attract more activity in our wealth advisory services to them. But it was a time for these wealth advisory clients to learn more about CLA as well.
[00:02:04]
And I think what they learned and the feedback that I received at this summit was really something amazing to me, because I think when those wealth advisory clients were able to get to understand CLA and who we are and what we have to offer to a greater extent, it really was so well received.
And some of the responses that I received just made me step back and question myself, why is it that what we have at CLA, why is it so special?
[00:02:42]
And I’ve been thinking about that ever since the summit, and what really came to mind for me was all of the people in the CLA family that really go beyond I’d say their day-to-day jobs and even leadership roles that they take on, call it within their job activity, but people that go even beyond that and take on roles that are really what I’ve always referred to as “and” roles.
They do all the things related to their jobs, but on top of that, they volunteer for things, and so they really take on an “and” position, not an “or,” not an “either-or,” but really everything that they do in their job and the volunteer opportunities that they find.
[00:03:35]
And I just started listing some of those. I started listing, you know, really starting with the board of directors. If you think about, that’s an elected position in the firm, but all of the board of directors also have their day jobs, and so the board of director of time that’s put in is an “and” activity.
[00:03:56]
And then I look at the future innovation team led by Jessica Platt and all the future innovation team members taking on that responsibility for the firm, the young executive team, led by Kadian Douglas, and all of the executive — young executive team members.
[00:04:16]
It goes beyond that for the young executive team because it goes to probably 40 to 50 young advisory councils that are throughout CLA, and all of the additional effort and volunteer time that people are putting in at those young advisory councils, At each young advisory council, we also have a chair of those young advisory councils.
[00:04:42]
So another role that people are willing to take on and do this because of their commitment and belief in CLA. The D&I council, led by Linda Rubenstein, all the D&I council members taking on that responsibility to make CLA a better, more inclusive place to work.
[00:05:06]
The CLA Foundation, not only the foundation board members that volunteer their time but then throughout CLA, the numerous foundation committee members and volunteers that spend their time throughout the year to help on some of the foundation activities, such as the grant applications and so forth that they review.
[00:05:34]
So that when we start to award those grants, that takes a tremendous amount of time. But the other committees as well, those of you out in the CLA family that actually nominate some of the organizations, that takes additional time to actually work with those organizations on the whole granting process.
[00:05:57]
The ninja teams that were pulled together through 2018, all of that time and effort that was put into this, it went beyond that. I started thinking of all of you that participate in Yammer. There’s no doubt in my mind that CLA as far as an internal kind of social network, and we use Yammer for that, we use that more than any other firm.
[00:06:24]
We have more participation. We have more of you sharing thoughts, ideas, sometimes technical, sometimes fun, sometimes just very inspiring. That time that you put in communicating with all of the CLA family, that’s above and beyond.
[00:06:44]
All of you that even if you just purchased one item from the CLA store and all the CLA gear that’s out there, that, again, is extra things that people are doing above and beyond. And then I’m sure I’m missing a lot of things, but throughout all of our offices, there’s special committees.
[00:07:04]
Sometimes it’s a social committee or a fun committee, and all of you are putting in extra time in that. And I started thinking of all these additional things that people do, and I was realizing that it’s because I believe that all of you, including myself, really believe in what we’re trying to build at CLA.
[00:07:30]
And I wanted to share with you an email that was shared with me, shared with me by Steve Bien, and it’s a client of Steve’sand I’d just like to paraphrase what this client had indicated to him and actually it was an email sent to this person’s employer.
[00:07:58]
This person was attending the wealth summit that I referred to, and I’d just like to read this to you because I think it really highlights the CLA culture that we have. And it starts by saying, “I’m sitting in a hotel room in Phoenix on day two of a wealth management conference put on by CLA.
[00:08:23]
I was expecting to learn about the market, investments, our crazy federal government, etcetera, etcetera, and I did. But what I wasn’t expecting was the soft stuff that emerged during this day and a half about CLA the company. Maybe it’s on my mind because of the conversation we’re having regarding employment engagement.
[00:08:49]
I mean, I certainly didn’t expect to come away from a wealth summit with a firm conviction about my financial planner. But when CLA kicked off the meeting with their welcome and the CLA promise,” this is all in capital letters, says, “I BELIEVED IT. Their promise is really quite simple.
[00:09:14]
‘CLA exists to create opportunities for our clients, our people, and our communities. We do this by living the CLA promise. We promise to know you and to help you.’ And then they went on for about an hour regarding all the things they are, things they believe, things they know, the things they do, the things they don’t do, to make that happen.
[00:09:44]
I expected to see people squirming in their seats, wondering when we would get to the good stuff. But everyone was very captured.†Again, capital letters, “WE BELIEVED THEM.”
[00:09:59]
I went from trusting that CLA would be a great steward with my hard-earned dollars, and I now believe they are a mission-driven firm, really from the top to the bottom. And that changes everything for me. It felt like it was as much a personal promise as it was the entire company’s.
[00:10:22]
And it didn’t feel like something the marketing department or a consultant came up with for them to put on the footer of their PowerPoints.” I thought this email really again capitalizes on what we have and expresses maybe the belief that I know we have in the CLA promise, and the fact that this is being seen by our clients.
[00:10:50]
This is being seen by the outside public, our referral sources, and I hope all of you truly can sit back today in this very busy time and appreciate the CLA promise, the culture that we are all building.
[00:11:06]
And I know many of you sitting in the Wisconsin marketplace are going through a tremendous amount of transition on top of the busy season and the opportunity season, so I just wanted to hopefully encourage you, let’s keep this going, let’s stay together, and let’s keep believing in the CLA promise. Thank you all, and have a great rest of the opportunity season.
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Denny is the chief executive officer of CLA. As he goes about his duties related to the oversight of CLA’s direction, operations, expansion, and strategy, he is also an enthusiastic ambassador for the CLA Promise. He is fully committed to the firm’s position as a professional services firm that delivers integrated wealth advisory, outsourcing, and audit, tax, and consulting capabilities to help our clients succeed professionally and personally.
Good stuff! Makes me proud to be a part of such a great organization. Well done!