march2021 - 20

FEATURE

5 Reasons to Conduct a Retreat in 2021
By Jean Caragher

MANY CPA FIRMS conduct annual retreats to keep them on
track. With the pandemic, more firms need to consider holding
a retreat to help them prepare for their future. Taking into
account what we've learned over the past year, here are five
reasons to conduct a retreat in 2021.
* Establish or reaffirm your firm's vision,
mission and core values. Your vision
is the description of your future firm,
which is communicated internally
only. What will your firm look like two
or three years from now, e.g., revenue,
size, locations, niches, services, remote
workforce, and use of technology?
Your mission is a brief statement of
your firm's basic purpose. Why do you
do what you do? Hint: It's not about
the money. Your core values are the
essential and enduring beliefs of your
firm, which should guide and inspire.
What core values do you truly believe
in? Clear and well-articulated core
values will attract to your firm people
whose personal values are compatible
with your firm's core values. In the age
of COVID and other societal issues, it's
more important than ever for you to be
clear about what your firm stands for.
* Create or update your firm's marketing
plan. Developing your marketing plan
requires you to ask: Where are we now?
Where do we want to go? How do we
get there? The pandemic showed us

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MARCH 2021 ■

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how quickly life and business can
change, and our need to be nimble. Your
marketing plan is the road map for your
firm's growth. It enables you to make
revisions as circumstances change.
Without a plan, your marketing activities are haphazard and ineffective.
* Build your firm's niche specialties. I
have been a niche marketing fan for
decades, and agree with what I hear
and read about the importance of
building niche specialties now. Niche
marketing is market segmentation, or
focusing on a particular industry or
service. In which areas do you have a
critical mass of staff and clients? Do
you have partners who are famous in
a particular area? What unique skills
and expertise do your team members
have? How have your clients in specific
industries been affected by COVID and
how can you help them?
* Develop new services. The pandemic
has also impacted the type of services
your clients need you to provide, e.g.,
cash projections, debt restructuring,
inventory management, data analytics,

M&A consulting, valuations, technology
consulting, and cyber security to name
a few. Are you prepared to offer these
services? What talent or company do
you need to acquire or establish a joint
venture with in order to deliver it? How
can services be packaged and brought
to market for your client base? What
services will your clients need in the
future?
* Build your firm's brand. As written in
a prior CPA Practice Advisor article, your
brand name conveys a set of expectations and associations and conjures up
the personality of your firm. Simply put,
it is who people think you are, from the
way a person answers the phone, to
the way you do business, to the look of
the invoice. It is more important than
ever to build your brand and deliver a
consistent message to the marketplace.
Let 2021 be the year you help
prepare your firm for the future by
conducting a retreat. Whether inperson (following CDC guidelines, of
course) or virtual, I'm confident it will
be time well spent. ■
Jean Marie Caragher is president of Capstone
Marketing, providing marketing consulting
services to CPA firms. She is the author of
The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms:
How to Create the Roadmap for Your Firm's
Growth and Gear Up for Growth: The Marketing Trends Manual for Accountants. For more

information contact her at 727.210.7306 or
jcaragher@capstonemarketing.com.
http://www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com
march2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of march2021
