Capstone Conversation With Stacy Dreher
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Hello everyone. This is Jean Caragher, President of Capstone Marketing. I am excited to be talking today with Stacy Dreher, Director of Practice Growth at James Moore & Company, who was honored as the Association for Accounting Marketing‘s 2024 Marketer of the Year. Stacy joined James Moore & Company in 2014 as a marketing manager. She was promoted to marketing director in January of 2020.
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everyone. Hello everyone. This is Jean Caragher, President of Capstone Marketing. I am excited to be talking today with Stacy Dreher, Director of Practice Growth at James Moore & Company, who was honored as the Association for Accounting Marketing‘s 2024 Marketer of the Year. Stacy joined James Moore & Company in 2014 as a marketing manager. She was promoted to marketing director in January of 2020. Stacy, that must have been some interesting timing there.
Stacy: Yes, that was interesting timing for all marketers in 2020.
Jean: Yeah. Let’s get promoted two months before a pandemic. And earlier this year, she was named Director of Practice Growth. Stacy leads a team of six marketing professionals. Stacy also joined AAM in 2014. She is currently a member of AAM’s Growth Strategies Committee and leads AAM’s AI Circle. Stacy, congratulations on being named Marketer of the Year.
Stacy: Jean, thank you so much. I am so honored, especially with all of the fabulous, talented people that are within AAM. It is really an honor to be recognized.
Jean: I’ve said this before, but the caliber of marketers who are being honored with Marketer of the Year is incredible. I’ve got a long viewpoint in this industry. But what professionals today are capable of doing and the roles that they have earned within their firms. We were talking a bit before the recording about your firm, and how over these decades has really transformed itself, not only in size, but in your niching, and what you’re doing with your marketing campaigns and this team that you work with. This award is very well deserved for you.
Stacy: Thank you so much. I feel like, for all of us marketing and growth professionals who are in the trenches working at CPA firms, we should have our own support groups. It is not easy being a growth leader for an accounting firm. In fact, I think I posted on LinkedIn maybe three or four months ago, I’m like, “I think this might be one of the most challenging jobs I’ve ever had.” I’ve been with my firm for 10 years and I just don’t see it slowing down, which is good. It’s interesting. There’s a lot changing and a lot evolving, and there’s always something next. I think that is very interesting within this profession too. I don’t feel like as marketing and growth leaders that things are getting stale, that there’s just so much happening in the industry to keep us on top of our toes.
Jean: And add to that the tools that are available to us that just expands everything. It’s not mailing a newsletter or maybe having lunch with somebody when you think of the whole digital world and how all of those tools just multiply everything that you do.
Stacy: Absolutely. And now we have AI on top of it. So now AI introduces another layer of complexity, but also a lot of opportunity for marketers. It’s a lot for us to get our…wrap our hands around, for sure.
Jean: So you may have already started on your answer to my first question here today. But what do you think is the greatest challenge in marketing CPA firms?
Stacy: I think there are a number of challenges, Jean, but I often come back to some of the basics, differentiation. When you look at CPA firms, I feel like we live in the sea of sameness. So what truly makes one firm different from another? When you’re performing compliance services, tax services, audit services, and accounting services, companies and our clients are seeing that more as a commodity. And so trying to differentiate yourselves by, “Well, we perform a tax return better,” or, “We provide really good customer service.” It’s like everybody is saying that. So I think it’s really hard to differentiate ourselves from our competition. Our services just aren’t that sexy.
“ … it is so much easier to market a professional services firm when they are truly niched either in a couple of services or in a particular industry, because you can truly differentiate yourselves from your competition.”
So how can we look and sound different than our competition? I think, this sounds really cliche, but I feel like it’s also true that there are riches in the niches. I think, and I’ve been down this path before, it is so much easier to market a professional services firm when they are truly niched either in a couple of services or in a particular industry, because you can truly differentiate yourselves from your competition. When you’re all in and focused in one area, you can do so much more with that as a marketing team and as growth professionals, from the suite of services that you can offer, and how you can offer them, and how you can do service delivery. It’s just a lot easier to differentiate.
And so for a traditional CPA firm like ours, we have 8 different industries, and we have probably 15 different services that we’re trying to market. And from a go-to-market strategy, each one of these industries is almost like their own company. And so they have their own buyer persona. They have slightly different tax services. How you sell outsourced accounting to a real estate professional is so much different than a manufacturer, and how you talk. And so for marketing teams, we’re historically underfunded within our firms. It’s so hard to make a true impact on your firm when you have a small group of people trying to market 8, 10, 12 different companies. So trying to figure out how you can make the biggest impact within your firm with the resources available to you is really challenging.
I also think it’s just so much harder to get in front of decision makers now. It used to be, and we even have… One of our older partners at the time used to laugh. He said, “I went to my first chamber networking event when I was a manager.” And he goes, “And I walked away with a client and I had no idea what to do.” And those days are kind of gone, right? Like we don’t just go to chamber networking events and pick up clients and come home. Decision makers are busy. They’re starting to be part of a younger generation. They have families at home. They don’t want to go out to dinners, and they don’t want to go to networking events, and they’re really busy running their families. So how do we get our message in front of decision makers now? I think that just requires a much more sophisticated marketing approach, and a much larger skilled marketing team to really get your message in front of decision makers. I think those are maybe the top three that come to mind when I think of challenges within our industry.
“How do we get our message in front of decision makers now? I think that just requires a much more sophisticated marketing approach, and a much larger skilled marketing team to really get your message in front of decision makers.”
Jean: Right. And you’re right, because back in the day, the phone would ring from a prospect. The partners would put some of their print brochures in their briefcases … and go to their office, and they’re totally in control of that conversation and telling the story about the firm. But we both know now that before you’re meeting with that decision maker, they’ve done their own homework. And on the basis of that homework, they contacted you because they want to talk to you. So the fact that you’re in on those niches is fantastic for many different reasons, not the least of which I think it helps you manage and lead your marketing department and helps you focus and prioritize what you do, and really run deep with knowledge and be able to share relevant, timely information with those decision makers within each of those niches.
Stacy: Right. No, I agree 100% because if you step back and look at the types of services that a CPA firm provides, I mean, theoretically, the world could be your oyster. Anyone could be a prospect for you. I mean, not anyone, right? Most firms are trying to work with larger, more sophisticated clients. So it’s not just like anyone off the street we’ll work with. But yes, to have some focus, right? And to have some energy. We’re not just going to go out and run ads across all industries and regions to try and bring in whoever we want. It’s very targeted, and I think that makes it easier for growth professionals. And I think that even makes it easier at the partner level too. When we have people like managers and directors within our firm who are trying to work their way up to a partner level, and they want to participate in business development activities, it’s a lot easier for them to wrap their head around, “I can get plugged into this specific industry. I can do this. I can get technically good in this area. I can figure out where I need to go, and when I need to be there,” because CPAs are so methodical versus you just need to be everywhere to everyone all at once. I think there was a movie recently, Everywhere, Everyone, All at Once. I don’t remember. It’s very good though.
Jean: I think you’re right about that. Okay, so we’ve covered some challenges and there are challenges, let’s face it. So tell us what you think the biggest opportunity you see for accounting marketers.
Stacy: That’s a good question. I think from truly an execution standpoint and being able to scale marketing efforts, AI adoption and integration right now has huge opportunity and huge potential. I said before, marketing departments, we have limited resources and when you’re trying to bring all of these different verticals to market and create all of this content and create these buyers’ journeys in all of these different verticals, that takes a lot of resources and we can’t just keep hiring people to help us do this. So if AI can help us do what we need to do at scale, I think that really helps smaller marketing teams and even smaller firms. It gives them a marketing and maybe even sales advantage to help you better compete with larger firms that have larger marketing teams and just more resources.
I think for small marketing teams who do a really good job at embracing AI, they’re going to find that they’re going to execute a much larger team. So I think there’s a lot of potential for that. And that’s a relief. I think it’s a good thing, but it’s also a bad thing because this is a whole new… AI is just a whole new system, right? Think of 30 years ago when people first started to go to Google and search online. That was a whole new concept for everyone where now Google searching is second nature. Well, now, that’s going to transform over to AI. So this is like the next adoption. So now everyone is going to start, instead of searching on Google, they’re going to be going to AI platforms. And so now marketers are thinking, “Okay, oh my gosh, I’m thinking how should I be found in ChatGPT, and how do I rank higher in AI searches?” Where before it was, “How do I rank higher in Google?”
“Now marketers are thinking, “Okay, oh my gosh, I’m thinking how should I be found in ChatGPT, and how do I rank higher in AI searches?” Where before it was, “How do I rank higher in Google?”
And it’s interesting. We just picked up our first client who found us on ChatGPT doing research, and they got connected with us, and found our website and went through, and now they’re a client. So that’s really exciting. I think there’s a lot of opportunity, but it’s also very challenging because it’s so new. And we’re marketers, we’re so busy already that trying to incorporate and build these systems to really help us feels a little daunting. But I also think advisory services that firms are offering now have incredible opportunity for differentiation and provide alternative revenue streams and services that marketing teams and salespeople can go to market with other than just traditional compliance services. And I think the more of these…whether it’s advisory services or specialty tax, or if these mid-size firms can provide more of that, that’s going to help them compete again with these larger firms.
I’m always thinking about, “Okay, how can a firm of our size that hasn’t merged up, that hasn’t taken PE investment, how are we going to continue to compete with these other firms who are going down that path?” So I think to the extent that we can package services and have a lot more to sell and creative ways of helping other businesses, that’s going to help us expand outside of our geographic reach, compete with larger firms and just make it easier for marketers.
Jean: Right. Well said.
“If marketers can do better at that [digital marketing] and can get their firm leaders to invest more in these strategies, that gives marketers the ability to operate more like a practice growth team, to bring in new business for their firm, to have a seat at the table and contributing to growth.”
Stacy: I think other opportunities, we’ve kind of alluded to this, but really anything in the digital marketing realm, I think is so important. So for firms and the accounting industry has been slow to adapt to digital marketing. I feel like accounting is probably 10 years behind other industries, but we’re doing better. We’re starting to catch up. I think there’s been a big emphasis around that, but still we’re under resourced when it comes to digital marketing. But I think if marketers can do better at that and can get their firm leaders to invest more in these strategies, that gives marketers the ability to operate more like a practice growth team, to bring in new business for their firm, to have a seat at the table and contributing to growth. I don’t know any CPA or a partner who wants to turn away a $50,000 potential opportunity that was placed on their lap, a company that found them online, they didn’t have to go out and get that. So if marketing can keep serving our leaders, these really good opportunities through digital marketing and account-based marketing, I think there’s a lot of potential and opportunity in that too.
Jean: One of the things that I’m hearing in your responses is that marketers have a real opportunity to recognize changes in how their firm is doing business, and how our market in general has changed in how they do business. And marketers have the opportunity to make that pitch to leadership and be an influencer within their own firms. And that’s exciting because, I think you’d agree, internal marketers, you need to make your path.
Stacy: Oh, you do.
Jean: At least in my day, and maybe it’s still this way, no one was holding my hand saying, “Hey, Jean, come on, I’m going to promote you because you’re so nice.” It was like you have to demonstrate your capabilities and place yourself in those opportunities.
Stacy: You do. You have to prove yourself every step of the way, and you have to put yourself out there. And I don’t want to say fight for it, but I think our partners don’t understand marketing. They don’t necessarily understand how to work with business developers. I mean, they’re coming along, but so it’s almost our job to educate them on, “Hey, this is what marketing can do. If you give us the resource, if you give me X, I’ll give you Y.” So what I found is starting small, so give me a little bit and I’ll give you a little bit in return. Okay, see how that worked. So give me a little bit more and I’ll give you a little bit more. It’s kind of this give and take, right? But yeah, to the extent, I feel like when I first joined our firm, I spent a decent amount of time just sort of like educating, and politicking, and talking, and, “This is what marketing can be doing, and we should be thinking this way. And how about this?” And it’s just like this slow process, right? You just have to keep talking about it and keep being persistent and never give up.
Jean: I hear those words all the time because I’ve been doing these “Capstone Conversations” for quite a while now, and some words keep repeating. So those are definitely common themes of accounting, marketing, and the roles that professionals play. So now over the years, you’ve been an A member now for 10 years, so you have your network of marketers and have met a lot of these folks. What skills do you see in them that have made them successful? Are there any commonalities or themes?
“You have to be able to persuade large groups of stakeholders to buy into your vision for marketing and growth. You have to be likable. You have to be persuasive enough.”
Stacy: Yeah. I mean, so I think some of it goes back to, and there are so many, right? So how do you pick on just some? But I think for growth leaders like ourselves, you have to be able to persuade large groups of stakeholders to buy into your vision for marketing and growth. And so you have to be likable. You have to be persuasive enough. There’s a little bit of the … I said politicking before and I say this a lot. There’s a sort of this politician component that goes into your role because you have all these different partners that you have to get in front of, and talk, and kind of get to know a lot of relationship building and a lot of education.
I think you have to really just have a high emotional IQ as well. Like really being able to read a room, understand who supports you, who doesn’t, who’s your champion, getting along with a lot of…I don’t know if you’re familiar with the DiSC profile, but being able to sort of read who’s the D, and who’s the C, and who’s the i, and kind of being able to understand a lot of that. And then I think as growth leaders, we can’t just understand marketing. I mean, we can if you oversee marketing, but I think it’s so helpful too. And I encourage a lot of marketers to also be thinking on the business development and sales side. So be thinking about how do you also develop a business development team, and how can you make sure that you’re overseeing those people as well so you can help tie sales and marketing together.
I think having some background in some of those areas is also helpful. Being a jack of all trades too, I think a lot of marketing growth leaders have worked our way up. And so we’ve been in the trenches writing articles, and we know SEO, and we’ve done design, and we know different… Being a bit of a jack of all trades can help you understand and help you better manage a team of people if you’ve done a little bit of that and have a broad understanding in a lot of different areas. So I think that’s important too. And then things like just being a visionary and thinking big and thinking very strategically. So always thinking about growth, thinking about driving revenue for your firm and what can we do to really help our firm grow.
And thinking like a leader of your firm, like thinking like you’re a business owner. So what would it be like if I was a partner of the firm? How would I want to invest my marketing resources? Where should we best spend our money to make the greatest impact? So I think there’s a lot of strategy involved in that and being able to think like a business owner and get in the head of the business owner. And then just things like being tech savvy and staying on top of things like AI, because things are changing so fast. So you don’t have to be an expert in everything, but at least be able to bring new ideas to your firm I think is very important.
Jean: So tell us which of your personal skills has made you successful.
Stacy: Oh, I don’t know. Jean, I think I’m a visionary. I think big. I’m like, “Okay, we’re a regional CPA firm,” but no, we’re not. We’re national, and we can compete with these big firms, and we’re going to go and we’re going to get bigger clients and we can… I’m not just happy with the status quo. I’m not just going to come to work and do my job and go home. I don’t know. Like I’ll take risks. I’m not really afraid to put my heart and soul into it and have some sweat in the game. You know what I mean? Have some fun.
“I’ll take risks. I’m not really afraid to put my heart and soul into it and have some sweat in the game. You know what I mean? Have some fun.”
Jean: I do.
Stacy: I’m passionate about what I do, which I don’t know how many people can say you’re passionate about accounting marketing because that doesn’t seem sexy at all, like I’ve said before. But I think just thinking big, what’s next? How can we move forward? What should we be doing? So I think that has really helped us being a growth leader. I’m also pretty competitive too. I think that little competitive streak, I want to…
Yeah, I think that’s important, but I’m also super humble. So I’m not one to go around and toot my own horn even within the firm. I don’t talk a lot about what our department has accomplished, and they need to be better about doing that. So I don’t know, maybe those two things.
Jean: Right. Okay. With that said, tell us what your top priority initiative is now.
Stacy: Oh, I have so many initiatives right now, Jean.
Jean: Well, then maybe…
Stacy: But no, I can talk about it.
Jean: …what’s the most fun one you’re working on? Or, just give us an example.
Stacy: Yeah. Okay. So going into next year, I’ve talked a lot about AI. AI integration and adoption across all areas of marketing is something that I’m really passionate about, and I’m going to find a way to make happen. I think that’s a big initiative for me going into 2025. How can we take our current processes and automate them and create good workflows and prompts through AI and integrations to take what we’re doing, and scale that without, like I said, having to go out and hire three more people to do it. So how can I do the work of 3 in 20 hours a week? I don’t think I’ll get there, but maybe I’ll get partway there. I think that AI integration is a big project for me going into next year. And then building a high-performance sales team. I also oversee a couple of business…a couple of people on the sales side. So really continuing to build out that sales team, and how that’s going to work with our firm, and having good alignment between sales and marketing and with our firm partners is also just an ongoing big priority for me.
“How can we take our current processes and automate them and create good workflows and prompts through AI and integrations to take what we’re doing and scale that without having to hire three more people to do it?”
And then I’ve been spending a lot of time this past year on really trying to upskill my current team. So taking my current team and really getting them aligned and thinking like a practice growth team. So sort of shifting that mindset of let’s think about how we can bring in more qualified leads, and how we can do this well. So that has also been a big priority. And just technology too. But I think a lot of firms are working on technology.
Jean: You’re right. You do have a lot of initiatives that are going on right now. If anybody was wondering why Stacy was named Marketer of the Year, like you’re explaining to us all…you just have your fingers in all these pots with the goal of bringing everything together. And that everything is collaborating or connected to the other so that you’re being as efficient as possible with the firm’s marketing and business development initiatives. That’s a big job.
Stacy: You said that well. You said that well in like 20 words. That’s fabulous, Jean.
Jean: You can quote me. Okay. So two more brief questions. What is your best piece of advice for accounting marketers?
Stacy: Oh, okay. So I think I mentioned this before about thinking strategically. Katie Tolin once told me, and this was maybe…I don’t remember when. She said, “What you need to be asking yourself when your firm leaders come to you and say, ‘We need to spend money on this,’ or if you’re thinking about putting together your budget or working on an initiative, you need to stop yourself and ask, ‘Does this contribute to the strategic growth of the firm?’ And if not, then don’t do it.” I think that’s really good advice. And I’ve even used that within our firm. When our firm leaders have come to me and said, “We need marketing to plan this party,” I have gotten more bold and said, “This does not contribute to the strategic growth of the firm. I don’t think that this is the best use of our resources.”
I think trying to just think more strategically like that. I think try as hard as you can with the scarce resources available to you to be a revenue driver within your firm, right? Versus the line item on your firm’s expense report. To the extent that we can be driving revenue, you’re going to be seen as a growth team and growth leaders within your firm. To the extent that we can bring as many sales qualified leads as possible to our professionals, or be guiding them to find the channels and where they should be plugged into to be helping with that as well. How can we help them streamline their business development efforts to get the most out of what they’re doing, I think is important.
Jean: Right. Okay. So then on the flip side, what would be your best piece of advice for managing partners?
Stacy: Yeah. So I think, for managing partners, I’ve seen this trend of growth leaders reporting up to a COO, or somebody other than a managing partner. And I just think that managing…and I know managing partners are busy, but I don’t think they should pass off the responsibility of overseeing your growth leader. Don’t pass that off to another partner or your COO because nobody is invested in growth as a managing partner and a growth leader. Partners are all invested in growth, but I’m telling, managing partners are the most invested in that. And there has to be that relationship between the growth leader and the managing partner. I think they need to have some skin in the game. And I think they need to be prepared to go to bat for their growth team and give them recognition when it’s earned and visibility when it’s needed.
“I think they [managing partners] need to have some skin in the game. And I think they need to be prepared to go to bat for their growth team and give them recognition when it’s earned and visibility when it’s needed.”
Jean: Right. Well said.
Stacy: And things like don’t skimp on investments and technology, but also making sure that you have a good plan in place for leveraging and maximizing this technology before kind of going all in on that investment. You know, and just making sure that you hire people who are going to make an impact on your firm’s bottom line.
Jean: Right. Wonderful. Well, I’ve been talking today with Stacy Dreher, Director of Practice Growth at James Moore & Company, and the AAM Marketer of the Year. Stacy, congratulations again.
Stacy: Thank you so much, Jean.