Summer at CLA
This summer, Denny challenges us to focus in on one of our six strategic priorities: create opportunities for our clients. When we do this, we’ll transform from a very, very good firm, to a great firm. And, with our #summeratCLA campaign underway, we make a conscious effort to take time for ourselves, while keeping our commitments to each other, our families, our clients, and our communities.
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Transcript
This summer, Denny challenges us to focus in on one of our six strategic priorities: create opportunities for our clients. When we do this, we’ll transform from a very, very good firm, to a great firm. And, with our #summeratCLA campaign underway, we make a conscious effort to take time for ourselves, while keeping our commitments to each other, our families, our clients, and our communities.
Narrator: Welcome to “Own the Promise,” a CLA podcast created to share what guides every decision we make and every relationship we cultivate.
[00:00:02]
Denny: Hello, CLA. Coming to you in the middle of the summer of 2018. Just wanted to be brief this month and give you a quick update really where we’re at as a firm. We finished up the month of May really right on budget year-to-date, and that’s a very good thing because we have projected pretty aggressive organic growth for the firm compared to prior years.
And being right on budget with the revenue is credit to all of us at CLA for our ability to seamlessly deliver to our clients, hopefully those opportunities, and create new opportunities for all of us at CLA as well.
As we headed into June, I don’t have the final results, but it looks like we’ll miss revenue by about a million and a half, and one of the things that I’ve been communicating to the leaders across CLA is that our past summers really have been summers where I don’t think we’ve taken advantage of the opportunities that we have.
[00:01:04]
Obviously the opportunities to enjoy ourselves across the country for the summer months, but also to provide some of those opportunities to our people and to our clients.
We’ve actually missed our budgeted revenue consistently over the last few years in the summer, and hence that was really the purpose for the summer at CLA, an opportunity for all of us to be a little bit more conscious about how we’re going to spend our summertime, fitting in all the priorities that we have as a firm.
[00:01:37]
I’m very hopeful as we head into July and August that we’re able to reverse that trend of missing budgets throughout those months. And really it’s not just missing the budgets overall. It’s really back to not creating as many opportunities as we think we should be committing to as a firm and really what we committed to with our priorities for 2018.
[00:02:05]
We got together about a month ago in St. Louis with the leadership group, and we took a look at our 2018 priorities, and what we found is there’s six priorities. Five of them we felt we were making very good progress on mid-year through ’18. However, the priority of creating opportunities for our clients is where we felt that we’re just falling short.
We’re not bringing all those opportunities to our clients, not only with the array of services that CLA has, but when we think about some of the things that are happening even with tax reform yet, this would seem to be a great time of year where we could start running projections, let’s say, for 2018, but running them with the new tax code and the new rates and try to help our clients plan.
[00:03:03]
Not only for maybe estimate payments this year, but just simply for planning and going forward, what impact the new tax law may have on their businesses, may have on them as individuals. That’s just one example. There’s so many different things we could be bringing along security opportunities, telecom opportunities. We’ve had some big wins in that area again recently.
And when you just look at the array of outsourcing opportunities that we could be providing to our clients, wealth advisory, the industry-specific consulting. There’s just so many opportunities that we have within the firm to really produce those opportunities for our clients.
We’re very convinced that we have the right six priorities, and as we move through the rest of the year, we’re going to continue to stress those priorities. But the one that I just wanted to stress today is that providing opportunities to the clients. That is the one that could prevent us from reaching our goals.
[00:04:08]
And reaching the goals really comes down to not just this aspect of hitting budget for the firm, but it’s really what I know all of us at CLA want to be, and that’s really a great firm. We are a very, very good firm, but I know the owners of the firm, I know leaders of the firm, the board of directors, we have all committed that we want to be a great firm.
And to be a great firm means that we really have to live this summer at CLA. We need to head into the fall, and I know some industries are just in the midst of beginning their busy time, but we need to head into the fall with the additional tax deadlines and so forth really looking to be a great firm.
And I know that’s a lot to ask of all of you within CLA, because you may be sitting back saying, “When did I commit to be a great firm?” But I think you did. I really do think the reason that you all are part of the CLA family, as I am, is we want to be a different kind of firm, and being a great firm is something that most firms don’t strive for, and it’s something at CLA that I believe will set us apart.
[00:05:27]
It’ll create those opportunities for ourselves and even people that haven’t even joined CLA as of today. So I just wanted to ask all of you to, again, recommit to being part of a great firm. And I know that we’re a large firm at this point, but don’t ever underestimate your individual contribution and how critical that is the success of CLA.
If we all just push that needle of being a great firm from an individual perspective just a little bit further–I’m not asking for unbelievable movement of a needle. Just moving it a little will really make that difference. If all 5,500 of us can do that, we will continue to be definitely a very, very good firm and we will become that great firm that we all want to be.
[00:06:27]
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer and enjoying all the other priorities in your life. And I want to thank you again for being part of the CLA family and making CLA part of that priority as well. Enjoy the rest of July, and as we head into the fall months. Thank you all again.
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.
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