What to Do When You’ve Been Named Partner in Charge of Marketing

You’ve just been named Partner in Charge of Marketing (PICM). Now what?

While many CPAs are named PICM because they’ve had some sort of success or interest in marketing, these reasons alone aren’t enough to help them become successful. Being a PICM is a leadership role. Your job is to mobilize a group of people that can help you accomplish a larger goal. You don’t need to be an expert in marketing to lead growth for your firm, but you do need to get off on the right foot.

Align

Helping your firm to achieve the growth it desires requires alignment between your business strategy and growth efforts. You need to become familiar with your firm’s business strategy. Even more importantly, become familiar with the priorities within that growth strategy. It will help you determine where you should be spending more dollars and time.

Once you understand your business strategy, you need to spend time with the people driving that force. Many firms operate practice groups. You should spend time understanding how their efforts will support or potentially detract from your firm’s priorities.

Champion

Building or maintaining a culture of growth requires support from the top.

You are now in a unique position of influence. To develop and build your culture, you have to champion that effort. That means visually showing support through your time, encouragement, recognition and accountability for growth in the firm. It means that marketing is a priority and you will follow through on what you say you will do. If it’s not important to you, it won’t be important to anyone else. It also means helping your marketing professional navigate the politics that can arise inside your accounting firm. We all know that not every partner will be on board with your efforts.

Measure

As the new partner in charge of marketing, you need ways to measure your growth efforts. When it comes to marketing and business development, information is power. You’ll need to establish the best way to measure and benchmark your efforts. You can then use this information to make informed decisions and empower your people to make informed decisions around their marketing and business development efforts.

While these things alone won’t make you successful, they will set you on the right path.