Golden Practices Blog

Two Great Honors, Two Amazing Marketers, Two Firms, One Houston Office Building

In June in Austin Texas, something really cool happened.

Two extremely dynamic ladies who work for competing firms in the same city--the very same building, no less--were both honored for their exceptional contributions to the profession of accounting marketing.

At the 2009 Association for Accounting Marketing conference--AAM's 20th anniversary event--Karen Love of PKF Texas was inducted into the AAM Hall of Fame (pdf), and Stacy Soefer of Gainer Donnelly & Desroches was named AAM's 2009 Rookie Marketer of the Year (pdf): awarded to marketers with substantial accomplishments within two years of entry to the profession.

Karen blew us (accounting marketing veterans) away when she created a strong awareness of the importance of community involvement LONG before "corporate social responsibility" was in vogue, and long before other CPA firms, large or small, got serious about it. Through personal and corporate commitment, she elevated awareness of her firm while "doing good" in Houston and beyond. She is a true leader in accounting marketing.

She was among the first marketers who were invited to become owners in their firms and, in 2002 was both AAM Marketer of the Year and recognized by Accounting Today as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in the profession.

Stacy, too, is exhibiting leadership and conquering new ground with energy, campaigns, and total "unorthodox" creativity that, I kid you not, had some traditional marketers rolling their eyes. Until they realized she's onto something good...real, honest-to-goodness differentiation of her firm in a very crowded marketplace.

Now other marketers are sitting up and taking notice. And heralding her work. And most marketers are envious of her ability to sell her firm's partners on some pretty non-traditional stuff like, say, conceiving the notion to volunteer as official judges of the International Federation of Competitive Eaters' Inaugural Matzoh Ball Eating Championship for charity.

That two Houstonians received such notable recognition in the very same year is remarkable and maybe even coincidental. But anyone who knows these two lovely ladies knows it's well-deserved on both counts!

Congrats to you both! And kudos to Houston for fostering such great and influential business-women.

Managing Your Corporate Giving Strategies

Responding to a query by a fellow marketing professional about how much to give to whom, Andrew Rose, Director of Marketing and Business Development at accounting firm Naden/Lean, LLC chimed in with some excellent tips.

To manage those random requests for dollars:

We struggled with this for awhile until I went to presentation on structuring corporate giving strategies. It was quite valuable.

One of the best things I took away was creating an on-line request form that solicitors should use to apply for sponsorships or contributions, providing me with the requisite information for me to make a decision.

And a policy for annual monetary contributions to clients:

We also have several large non-profits that are clients. I determine, based on their activities and billing, what would be a good dollar amount to allocate to them. I then communicate early in the year the total dollar amount to their executive director or development officer. I let them know they can use the money in any way they wish, but we would like exposure in return. This has lead to some ‘creative,’ mutually beneficial, sponsorship opportunities from them.

Lastly, be generous with the Joe:

We also will donate a nice, fair-trade coffee basket to almost any non-profit that asks for it. We tend to get as much bang (or more) for the buck from these baskets. Cost for the baskets is less than $100, but we get mention in event brochures and, more often than not, there is an announcement at a meal about our nice basket.

Andrew's contribution request form is what surprised him most. Though he and his partners point many people to it, the take up has been little, if any. Guess it's just too much trouble to fill out...

As an aside, Andrew, located in Maryland, learned these tidbits at a meeting of the Marketing Directors Support Group he founded in 2003. The "by invitation only" group which started as a few marketing types from across a variety of sectors has now grown to about 400 members. It's billed as "an educational and peer support group of marketing and business professionals." They meet monthly and bring in gurus on all sorts of topics.

The corporate giving topic was expertly fielded by Jim Choplick, marketing and communications professional (formerly with Constellation Energy--a big corporate giver) who credits colleague, Leanne Posko as the true expert (they are both SO humble).

Andrew says the two are "the most knowledgeable people I know in this area."