WASHINGTON D.C. — Institute for Organization Management, the professional development program of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, announced today that Elizabeth D. Kistler of the Georgia Society of CPAs has been awarded its National Institute Scholarship. Given to 30 professionals across the country, the National Institute Scholarships recognize each recipient for their involvement in industry professional organizations, community service, and professional background.

“National Institute Scholarships offer executives the opportunity to learn about emerging industry trends, expand their organizations’ influence, and grow their peer network,” said Raymond P. Towle, IOM, CAE, vice president of Institute for Organization Management, U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We are pleased to help these talented professionals advance their careers and organizations.”

Since 1921, chambers of commerce, associations, and other nonprofits have used the U.S. Chamber’s Institute program as a training platform for the professional development of their top talent. Institute’s curriculum consists of four, weeklong sessions at five different university locations throughout the country. Participants receive training in leadership, organization management competencies, as well as targeted curriculum in membership, technology, and financial management. To learn more about Institute for Organization Management, visit www.uschamber.com/institute.

Kistler will attend one of Institute’s five sites in 2012.  At the completion of the four-year curriculum, she will receive the IOM recognition, signifying completion of 96 hours of course instruction in nonprofit management.  In addition, all credit hours earned through Institute may be applied toward the CERTIFIED ASSOCIATION EXECUTIVE (CAE) industry certification.

“We are delighted to award these aspiring professionals with scholarships to help their careers and organizations,” said G. Daniel Hearn, IOM, CCE, chairman of the Institute National Board of Trustees, and President and CEO of the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce. “These individuals are dedicated to the industry and make a positive contribution to their organizations and communities.”

Institute is a 501(c) (3) affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and is the premier nonprofit professional development program for association and chamber professionals, fostering individual growth through interactive learning and networking opportunities.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest business federation representing the interests of more than 3 million businesses of all sizes, sectors, and regions, as well as state and local chambers and industry associations.

Atlanta, GA – CPA members of the Georgia Society of CPAs from across the state recently met at the Georgia State Capitalin honor of 2012 CPA Day at the Gold Dome.

“CPAs offer a unique and intelligent perspective, and events like this make a very real connection between the profession and Georgia’s legislators,” said Boyd Search, CEO of the Georgia Society of CPAs.

GSCPA members had the opportunity to hear from Secretary of State Brian Kemp as well as key speakers including updates from 3 CPA legislators – David Knight (HD-126), David Wilkerson (HD-33) and John Carson (HD-43). Other highlights from the agenda comprised of a networking breakfast and the potential for one-on-one time with individual elected officials.

“It means a lot to the Georgia General Assembly to hear from CPAs on their knowledge and experience of the respective industries they serve as well as on tax matters. I appreciate the help and support I have received from the GSCPA and its members as it pertains to the House Ways and Means Committee. CPAs are a valuable resource and offer an objective view on what affects Georgia and our citizens,” said Representative David Knight, CPA, Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

The Georgia Society of CPAs prides itself on acting as a voice for the CPA profession in Georgia as well as advocating for the interests of its members, the CPA profession and Georgia’s business community before regulatory and legislative bodies.

“As a CPA, our input is a key component in legislative issues such as tax reform and the budget. It is important that we act as resources to legislators when dealing with important issues that can impact our clients and local businesses. Georgia is at a turning point, and CPAs need to weigh in on the impact of future changes,” said Representative David Wilkerson, CPA.

For more information on CPA Day at the Gold Dome, contact Don Cook, vice president of membership and business development at 404-504-2935.

The GSCPA is the premier professional organization for CPAs in the state of Georgia. With over 12,000 members throughout the state, the purpose of the GSCPA is to enhance the accounting profession by providing superior advocacy, leadership, service, lifelong learning and personal and professional development opportunities. For more information, access the GSCPA web site at www.gscpa.org.

West Palm Beach, FL – Engineered Tax Services (ETS), a nationally licensed engineering firm and leading provider of specialty tax services to the accounting profession, is pleased to announce the addition of Heidi Henderson as Director of Sales for the Midwestern U.S.

Heidi began her career in accounting for a destination resort development in northern Utah. She later earned her real estate license, where she helped a variety of developments market, advertise and plan for multiple projects. She later expanded her education to include business and marketing and successfully helped numerous companies create campaigns that expanded their market reach and contributed to their overall success.

Heidi brings to ETS well-rounded expertise and a thorough knowledge of construction, development and accounting. “We’re very excited to have Heidi on the team,” says Julio Gonzalez, CEO of ETS. “She brings an enthusiasm and expertise that will help drive ETS to the next level.” 

The ETS team consists of multi-disciplinary professionals including Professional Engineers (PE), LEED Accredited Professionals (AP), Certified Public Accountants (CPA) and architectural professionals. ETS specializes in providing a wide spectrum of engineered accounting solutions such as energy tax credits, cost segregation studies, energy audits, carbon footprint certification and insurance appraisals, and its professionals have over 100 years of combined experience in energy modeling. Engineered Tax Services marries the science of engineering with the principles of tax and accounting to arrive at financial solutions that result in increased cash flow, minimized tax payments and increased return on investment.

For more information, please visit http://www.engineeredtaxservices.com

Atlanta, Georgia – March 7, 2012 – Onepath Systems LLC is pleased to announce the acquisition of Greensboro, NC-based Confiance IP Solutions, Inc. The acquisition brings together two established and respected names in the technology industry to expand their product offerings and better serve their customers.

Confiance, a Silver-Certified Cisco Partner, Cisco Master Managed Services Partner and an EMC Velocity Affiliate Elite Partner, has provided world-class consulting services that help their customers incorporate advanced technologies into their core business for five years. Their work has not gone unnoticed by the industry either. Confiance was recognized as the 2010 Cisco U.S. and Canada South Region Services Partner of the Year, the 2010 Cisco Carolinas Select Enterprise Partner of the Year and a winner of the 2011 Triad Business Journal’s Fast 50 Award as one of the fastest growing companies in the area. The merger with Onepath Systems will allow them to reach a broader audience with all their products and services, including their popular and unique network and system infrastructure monitoring service, Guardian.

“The Confiance team is excited about becoming part of the Onepath family and expanding our geographic presence in the Southeast, as well as adding Onepath’s intelligent building technology solutions and services capabilities,” says Mike Cotrone, CEO of Confiance. “Onepath shares our strong customer-focused philosophy and we believe that the combined organization will only enhance that focus as we provide our customers with a broader range of solutions and services.”

Created by a team of respected professionals with over 100 years of combined experience, Onepath Systems is an established leader in the Southeastern U.S. building technology industry. Always remaining on the cutting edge of the latest technology, their services and products include consulting, design, implementation and maintenance of audio-visual, IT, fire & life safety, security, structured cabling, access control and distributed antenna systems for Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions and state and local government agencies. Onepath Systems was honored as #2 on the 2011 Georgia Fast 40 in the Small-Middle Market category as well as #12 on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Top Workplaces for 2011. Ultimately, Onepath credits its success to having the right people on board, and Confiance is a perfect fit for their culture, service offerings and expansion plans.

“We are pleased to have the fantastic team at Confiance on board at Onepath. This partnership enhances our Cisco capabilities, while adding EMC solutions and valuable managed services offerings through Confiance’s proprietary Guardian managed services. Now, with nearly 200 employees, along with our resources in north Florida and Alabama, we have a very strong footprint in the Southeastern U.S. and can reach even more customers with our expanded offerings,” said Chad Merrill, vice president.

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Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Onepath Systems LLC is one of the leading providers of building technology solutions in the Southeast, where they have assisted their clients in integrating the best and most cost-effective solutions for their building systems needs. As building systems evolve, so does Onepath. Their strength is their client-dedicated team that provides unsurpassed quality, products, results and solutions. To learn more about them, visit www.onepathsystems.com.

Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high-degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

“I’m beyond thrilled to have been named a Super Lawyer,” says Mr. Burkhalter. “It’s one thing to be graded on the basics, but to have your peers recognize you and recommend you is humbling. I’m truly grateful.” Look for more on Brian Burkhalter in the upcoming Super Lawyers feature in Atlanta Magazine.

Mr. Burkhalter is a Partner at the MJ Patel Law Group in Atlanta, Georgia, where he focuses primarily on construction litigation, construction/surety and business litigation. Brian uses his skills to mentor and assist others through acting as Barrister in the Lamar American Inn of Court, the State Bar of Georgia’s Construction, Litigation and Young Lawyers Divisions Sections, the American Bar Association’s Forum on the Construction Industry, the Construction Finance Management Association, the Associated General Contractors of America and volunteering as general counsel for Stepping Stones Educational Therapy Center in Griffin, GA.

The MJ Patel Law Group serves multiple industries in the practice areas of corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate counsel, governance and compliance, intellectual property, estate and tax planning and complex business litigation and dispute resolution. The firm also has the distinction of having another team member listed as a Super Lawyer, Partner Blair Andrews.

The Specialty Tax Circle^TM will assist member firms with improving growth and profitability by leveraging services associated with specialty tax.  Firm leaders will come together for two meetings and two webinars annually.  The first meeting will be June 17-18, 2012 in Kansas City, MO and the second meeting is January 15-16, 2013 in Las Vegas, NV.

“This is a great opportunity for our firms to focus on opportunities and share experiences using the resources from Engineered Tax Services and Boomer Consulting, Inc.,” said Julio Gonzalez, CEO, Engineered Tax Services.  Boomer Consulting, Inc. knows how to successfully develop and facilitate communities via face-to-face meetings, webinars and the Boomer Knowledge Network, a special purpose online community with multiple resources.

L. Gary Boomer, CEO of Boomer Consulting says, “I am excited to take our proven model into the specialty tax arena where firms can learn about identifying opportunities, best practices, trends, and how to leverage technology in the process.”

About Boomer Consulting, Inc.

Boomer Consulting, Inc. provides consulting services to hundreds of the highest performing CPA firms. Their unique and powerful solutions target five areas critical to a firm’s success: Leadership & Management, Client Development, Talent Development, Technology and Compensation.  For more information visit www.boomer.com.

About Engineered Tax Services

Engineered Tax Services (ETS) is the only qualified professional engineering firm that has its own licensed engineers, including LEED Accredited Professionals, as well as tax experts, from CPAs to a former senior IRS executive, on staff. ETS marries the science of engineering with the principles of tax and accounting to arrive at financial solutions that result in increased cash flow, minimized tax payments and maximum return on investment and energy. These IRS-sanctioned services include Energy Tax Credits, Energy Policy Act Certifications (179D Studies), Cost Segregation Studies, Research and Development Studies, Repair and Maintenance Studies,  Historic Tax Credits Studies, Engineering Insurance Appraisals, Energy and Carbon Audits. For more information visit http://engineeredtaxservices.com.

by Kelly Googe Lucas, marketing and social media manager

This past week I attended the second annual Digital Summit here in Atlanta. The event played host to nerds professionals of all types and offered workshops and panels that touched on the latest and greatest in digital marketing. I gleaned some great information and have listed below some of the key takeaways. Enjoy!

Marketing is not a cost; it’s an investment. I’ve stated this many times and will continue to do so but it still amazes me how many decision makers don’t understand this. If you want your business to grow, you must invest in it and marketing is part of that investment. With so many people vying for the attention of your clients, you should be investing in ways that keep you top of mind so that the competition is just background noise.

Use Google Analytics. Even your huge, massive Fortune 100 corporations use free Google Analytics to track activity on their websites, so why shouldn’t your business? It’s a free tool and it’s important, sharing information that you can use to hone and refine your messaging and marketing.

A tweet is an invitation to something more. With only 140 characters, you can only say so much on Twitter. Tweets invite followers to read further and learn more. Use those limited characters to engage others and invite them to learn more about you and your services.

A hash tag (#) is a campfire around which people gather. I personally love this statement and find it to be so true. Using # creates an idea, sentiment or conversation in which anyone and everyone can join and comment. Find topics where you are a thought leader and join in the discussion or create your own.

Kittens can be polarizing. I’ll be honest, I’m still not 100% sure how this comment came about at the conference, but it was said during a presentation and it stuck with me, so maybe there’s a lesson in that.

Add a newsletter registration to your Facebook page. If you have a Facebook business page and a newsletter program, you should look to see if there is a way to connect the two. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for potential clients to connect with you. I can’t vouch for others, but I know MailChimp has a plugin for Facebook that allows you to integrate the two easily.

Add a Google+ button to your blog posts. Even if you aren’t active on Google+ (or on it at all, for that matter), you should still have a +1 button and a Google+ sharing button on every blog post. Google runs the largest online search engine and while this won’t be a magic bullet for your search engine results, it can only benefit you if your posts are shared on Google+. Google tends to smile on those that use its products and I imagine this is no different.

There was a great deal more that I learned and I will be creating separate posts on those topics. In the meantime, if you attended Digital Summit and have your own favorite nuggets of marketing wisdom, please share them in the comments below.

by Kelly Googe Lucas, marketing and social media manager

Google Analytics provides powerful information that you can use to increase traffic to your site.

At some point during a marketing strategy meeting, someone has referred to your website bounce rate. You just go along with whatever he or she is saying because in reality, you have no idea what a bounce rate is. You know it’s measured on your Google Analytics, but you don’t know what half that stuff is anyway. We’re here to help you get a basic grasp of what your Google Analytics report is trying to tell you.

Bounce Rate: This is a measure of how quickly someone leaves your site, or how long it takes them to “bounce” off your site. The bounce is measured as a percentage of people who stay on the site about 10 seconds or longer. If your bounce rate is around 40-50 percent, this is average. “If your bounce rate is around 80% or higher, you’re doing something wrong,” says Chris Zimmerman, president of Zimrock Marketing. “People don’t like it when it takes too long to find the info they need on a site. If they can’t find it within a few seconds, they bounce and go somewhere else.” This reinforces the importance of easy navigation and the importance of making a good impression immediately so that your visitors stay on your site rather than jumping to another.

Visits and Visitors: These rates are measured in a variety of ways including new vs. returning, how many pages per visit and visit duration. For an average website, you want your ratio of new visitors to return visitors to be at least two to one. Return visitors aren’t a bad thing; the more they come back the more likely they are to reach out to you. But if you’re trying to grow and increase business, you want more new visitors checking you out.

When visitors are on your site, how many pages are they visiting? On average, a browsing visitor will click through two to three pages to get an understanding of the company. Is your website organized in a way that allows visitors to get their needed information quickly and in a user-friendly manner? Also look at how long they spend on your site. Ideally, you want to see averages of at least two minutes. Believe it or not, this is a long time in the world of websites. It typically means they are staying long enough to learn who you are and what you do.

Traffic Sources: This is exactly what it sounds like, a list of sources sending traffic to your website. In your traffic overview, one of the sources is “Direct.” This means that someone manually typed in your web address that was found on a mailer, brochure, business card, etc. “Referral” traffic is when your site is linked from another location like other websites, email signatures, etc. “Search” traffic is when your site was clicked after coming up in an Internet search. While all traffic to your site is good, having a higher search traffic percentage is best as it illustrates you are making it easy for people to find you. Pay attention to the keywords section of the page. These are the terms people are typing into the search engine that lead them to your site. You can use this knowledge to better customize your messaging and tweak your content.

There is so much more to Google Analytics than just these features. All the numbers have meaning and can help you hone your marketing. I encourage you to take some time and pull up your analytics to review your rates and figures. If you find your numbers aren’t where you want them to be, look at your site and see where you can make some adjustments to create a better experience for your visitors. If you find you just don’t have the time or patience for this sort of thing, that’s why we’re here.

How often do you view your website’s analytics? Do you have questions about what your analytics mean? We’d love to hear from you.

by Sarah Warlick, writer and copy editor

It’s not a professional services firm, but the strategies the show employed to become so successful translate directly to good marketing advice for your firm.

As an award-winning comedy/news program, The Daily Show created an unusual niche.It’s been incredibly successful there too, on the air for well over a decade with millions of devoted followers. What could Jon Stewart and company possibly have to do with professional services or content marketing? Lots, according to Suzanne Doughty. She lays out some very insightful comparisons for small businesses in this blog post. Jon Stewart is an amazing talent, but the show’s success is based on more than a star:

Establish your own niche and voice. After an inconsistent start with a less-than-stellar host, the program found the right people in Jon Stewart and some writers from the Onion and began a consistently funny approach to the news. While a new business may feel the need to take any work it can find, you’ll ultimately become stronger by focusing on a particular niche and defined services that you can perform well. That approach lets you establish yourself as the expert of choice for a limited scope rather than just one of many in a crowd of general service providers. Really honing in on a smaller industry niche allows your firm to define and dominate your corner, as well as tailor your marketing efforts to this segment. If you’re good at it, word will spread within the niche and you’ll find plenty of work even from this smaller pool of potential clients.

Provide a constant supply of fresh, high-quality content. As Stewart and the new writers found their stride, the show began a consistent focus on current issues and news. By offering meaningful content that is of real value to professionals in your chosen niche, you’ll establish yourself as a thought leader and earn trust. Readers and users will naturally want to utilize your services based on the expertise you’ve showed through your content. For the most part, the people who find you through a topical search, are those who stand to benefit from your particular set of services, so you’ll be speaking to a self-selected pool of potential clients. If your content is good, they’ll return over and over to see what you’re sharing today. The more often they read your content, the more established you become as the expert in the field. Who else would they turn to when they need an accountant, attorney or engineer?

Co-opt the clout of recognized industry leaders.  Bob Dole was the first big-name political figure to appear on the show, and he’s been followed by an illustrious list of the most famous leaders in politics and journalism. Their presence brought more credibility to the show as a viable source for news and opinion. While your firm may not stand much of a chance of landing an interview with President Obama, it doesn’t need him. It needs someone that the users of your services will recognize and respect as an expert. Why not ask one of them? Creating relationships with these leaders is entirely possible through Twitter and other social media platforms. When you and your firm associate in conversation or more with recognized experts, you reap the rewards of their respected identity. After establishing yourself as a wise and trusted industry peer you can certainly float the idea of an interview or guest post. Make sure there’s a beneficial angle for the expert, such as a chance to reach a new audience or promote a new project. Treat these relationships with the respect they deserve, and let their names help your brand earn the same kind of status and recognition in its own right.

You may never be an internationally recognized star with hordes of middle-aged women lusting after your screen persona, but you can definitely help your firm grow and thrive by applying the same strategies to your content marketing that worked for The Daily Show. That’s probably a more useful outcome anyway.