Celebrating 30 Years: Marc Rosenberg’s Reflections

March 1, 2024, marks the 30th anniversary of Rosenberg Associates, consultants to CPA firms in North America. Thirty years have gone by so quickly, and it’s been an incredible journey! After merging with Kristen Rampe’s consulting firm, I went from being a “one-man show” to being part of a growing, thriving (and younger!) nine-person organization. Here’s my recap of those three decades.

I made an incredibly fortuitous decision to join a large CPA firm in Chicago as their first-ever COO. The firm, FER&S, was co-founded by Irwin Friedman, one of our profession’s earliest visionaries. He was one of the first leaders to start managing a CPA firm like a real business instead of a collegial group of unmanageable cats. Irwin was my mentor in the CPA profession. He was a tough taskmaster, but I will be forever thankful he taught me how to manage a CPA firm. My time with Irwin was the first step in my professional evolution.

I made an incredibly bold and risky move to leave FER&S ten years later to establish my own consulting firm in 1994. Until then, I had been a financial employee of several companies, starting with four solid years at what is now Ernst & Young. I would have no steady paycheck to count on and be 100% dependent on my ability to generate sales and profit. I had no clients to start with; I had never sold a thing in my life. And I knew from my time at FER&S, an aggressive marketing organization ahead of its time, that merely being knowledgeable matters, but not if one has no clients to serve.

I worked incredibly hard and, I think, smart, in building my firm. It was slow at first. Revenue in my first year was $41,000, and I took home $24,000. But my revenues skyrocketed year by year, enabling me to earn a great living for my family and, within two years, pay for my son to attend a top private university without borrowing money.

I was incredibly strategic in devising a 20+ year strategy for growth and success. It entailed the creation of four highly synergistic and profitable businesses: practice management consulting (always my main gig), managing partner roundtables, a publishing division, and a national MAP survey. In addition, I took advantage of my love of and strength in writing, a passion of mine since childhood (I was the rare student who loved essay questions and term papers). This has taken the form of writing crisp, action-oriented reports to end all my consulting projects, authoring 16 books that have been regularly updated, and composing 600 blogs and hundreds of journal articles. My professional bucket list calls for writing a John-Grisham-type novel where the protagonist is not a lawyer but a CPA. I can dream, can’t I?

I was incredibly fortunate in 1994 to have had the support and encouragement of the Illinois CPA Society to create and lead managing partner roundtables across Illinois. This endeavor quickly trickled down to three great groups of 25 partners each in the Chicago area. All three groups are running strong to this day. There are no adjectives to describe how grateful and blessed I am for the relationships I have forged with hundreds of roundtable members over 30 years of meetings.

It was incredibly groundbreaking to create a national MAP survey in 1998 that would eventually include 400 firms. When I started consulting to CPA firms, I initiated a practice that continues to this day: I would perform a quick benchmarking analysis of the firm, regardless of the project I was hired for, and quickly share the results with the partner groups. In my initial years of consulting, I used the most popular MAP survey of its day, the Texas Survey, as my benchmarking source. However, the metrics in the Texas Survey didn’t relate to the firms I was working with. After doing a little research, I found that (a) there was virtually no participation in the survey by the ten largest population states in the country (except Texas, of course) and (b) the firms in the survey were, on average, much smaller than the 5–15 partner firms I consulted with. So, I decided to create my own survey; that’s the genesis of The Rosenberg MAP Survey, now in its twenty-sixth year. Incidentally, it wasn’t my idea to title the survey with my name. A consulting colleague suggested it, and I couldn’t say no.

I was incredibly gratified to have participated in the mid-ʼ90s formation of the New Horizons Group, a think tank of the country’s leading consultants to CPA firms. I learned a ton from my colleagues in the group over these past 25 years: August Aquilla, Jim Bourke, Gale Crosley, Chris Frederiksen, Carl George, Charles Hylan, Angie Grissom, Rita Keller, Roman Kepczyk, Allan Koltin, Jim Metzler, Jeff Pawlow, Don Scholl, Steve Weinstein and Jen Wilson. I owe thanks to all of them for being sharing their expertise so generously and being so supportive of building my practice.

I was incredibly awe-struck to be named in 2004 by Accounting Today in their Top 100 List of the Most Influential People in Accounting, thus putting me up in the neon lights of the profession’s luminaries whom I had looked up to and admired for years. I have been named to the list for 20 consecutive years. I am so grateful for this honor.

I am incredibly indebted to my colleague Roman Kepczyk, who, in 2006, introduced me to an economical and highly efficient system for writing and self-publishing books. For the few of you who are not familiar with Roman, he is the country’s foremost consultant to CPA firms on technology. As stated earlier, I have been a passionate writer since grade school. If I had been forced to find another profession, I surely would have been a journalist or a novelist. After ten years or so of consulting, I accumulated over a thousand handouts, templates, policies, procedures, agreements, charts, graphics, etc., which were continuously updated. The full stack of these materials was 12 inches high on top of a filing cabinet, sorted into 16 areas of managing a CPA firm. I used this resource every time I planned and started a new project.

At a meeting that both Roman and I attended, he showed me a Cliffs Notes-style, 6” x 9” paper book with color front and back covers, on CPA firm technology he had just written and published. It was slick, economical (priced at a fraction of what it cost to print traditionally), and easily produced. I was stunned because this was exactly what I had dreamed of doing for myself for several years. So, I began writing my own books, starting with three and creating one to two each year. To date, we have written and published 16 titles on virtually every area of managing a CPA firm. Most of the books have had major updates, some more than one.

My favorite places to write are great libraries, especially the Library of Congress in Washington DC and the original, historic New York Public Library in Bryant Park. The books sell very well and result in dozens of compliments every year from satisfied clients. The books helped me create a national reputation that we enjoy to this day. So, Roman, thank you so much for leading the way!

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I have been incredibly blessed with a 20-year relationship with Jeff Pawlow and Charles Hylan of the Growth Partnership. We have collaborated on countless projects and initiatives. This led to my sale of The Rosenberg MAP Survey in 2008 to TGP. It’s amazing to me that they have owned the survey longer than I did. They have done a fabulous job with it.

I was incredibly fortunate to have met Art Kuesel in 2013. Art owns and operates Kuesel Consulting, the country’s leading provider of business development training to CPA firms from coast to coast. He is also the largest operator of roundtable groups – 9 at last count – in the country. Upon meeting each other, we immediately hit it off and started collaborating on various projects, culminating in the sale of my roundtable groups to Art in 2015. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to see the success that Art has achieved with the roundtables. Not only has he retained virtually all the firm memberships and provided excellent leadership to the groups but has increased the number of roundtables from three to nine (most of the new groups are remote). Even though Art and I are not legally partners, I feel like we are partners in spirit.

I am incredibly fortunate and grateful to have met Kristen Rampe, CPA, in 2015. She was a number of years into developing her consulting practice when we met, and we connected immediately. Since then, we collaborated on countless practice management consulting projects, culminating with her inclusion in the Top 100 Most Influential List. I am honored to be considered her mentor.

I am incredibly overjoyed that Kristen and I merged our practices in 2019. This included her group taking over the Rosenberg Practice Management Book Program. Under Kristen’s leadership, she added three outstanding consultants to our firm: Matt Rampe, Amanda Lilley and Jeff Arnol. Our team now consists of nine professionals plus a dynamite shipping department. How wonderful it is to be part of a company instead of being a solo operator.

I am incredibly honored and blessed to have worked with over a thousand CPA firms in North America in the past 30 years. I have always told my clients that I am one firm smarter than the last firm I worked with because I learn so much from each and every firm I consult with.

Lastly, I am incredibly thankful for the opportunities afforded to me over the past 30 years by so many wonderful people and firms. Besides marrying my dear wife Ellen and raising our two children, my career as a CPA firm consultant has been the most satisfying time of my life (yes, even more than the Chicago Cubs finally winning the World Series in 2016)!

Marc is not retiring, though he is working less and enjoying it more. He remains active with Rosenberg Associates and intends to continue this for years to come. Keep the cards and letters coming!