| By Scott H. Cytron, ABC
Jason Lawhorn, CPA.CITP, MAcc, is a co-owner of Lawhorn CPA Group, Inc., a full-service accounting and consulting firm in Knoxville, Tenn. Lawhorn and his father, Jeff, recently transitioned and rebranded their firm as a way to widen the firm’s scope of business outside of Knoxville. Jason also heads up the firm’s technology practice. I sat down with him to talk about the process of rebranding a firm and the technology the firm pushes to its clients.
Scott Cytron: My first question is crucial to the rest of this interview … OK, it’s not crucial, but good info for our readers! How and why did you come up with the jungle theme on your new website? Specifically, I’m talking about the tagline, “It’s a jungle out there and a jungle in here too.”
Jason Lawhorn: When we first moved into the building we are in now, my dad’s late wife and my stepmother, Lorraine, designed the entire office and all of the décor. She used to hang wallpaper for a living before she and Dad were building the practice. It was a hobby of hers, and at that time, her vision of the office was a jungle theme. It appealed to men and women. After she passed, we perpetuated that theme through everything that we do because it has really become a part of who we are and a part of our culture. It is a real tribute to her memory.
Scott Cytron: When the firm transitioned from Lawhorn & Associates to Lawhorn CPA Group, Jim Green, a CPA.CITP in Jackson, Wyo., came into the firm. However, his firm is now called the “Lawhorn Green CPA Group.” I’m guessing this is part of your branding efforts, but would like to know how you arrived at inserting the Lawhorn and Green names into his firm’s name? Don’t you think he might lose his visibility in his local area? |
Jason Lawhorn, CPA.CITP
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Jason Lawhorn: No, I believe it’s just the opposite result. The way we merged the firms isn’t the norm in the industry because we use a dual-ownership subsidiary structure. You really have to look behind the purposive nature of what we are trying to accomplish. Jim has years of expertise and knowledge, and he is the one that is involved in the community in Jackson. He attends church there and the rotary, and has worked to build the relationships. We want to achieve having Jim under the Lawhorn brand because the brand is an indication of holistic service to small business everywhere, while maintaining the goodwill of his name in the community.
Scott Cytron: Can you explain how you went about branding the firm? What was involved? Do you think it has had a successful outcome so far?
Jason Lawhorn: Wow, it has been a long process for sure. We have been working on and off on the rebranding for two years. We would get one part down and realize there were several many more pieces that needed to be addressed. Kristy Short with SAS Communications 360 really helped us focus our efforts and move forward to the final phases, and ultimately transition into the early phases of the rebranding. As for our success, I am very pleased with the progress so far. I know there is more to come on the horizon, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress today.
Scott Cytron: Your website shows that you are an advocate of Creative Solutions’ software and services. Why CS, and how is this relationship working for you and your clients?
Jason Lawhorn: Yes, we are big advocates of Creative Solutions software, now the CS Professional Suite in Thomson Reuters Tax and Accounting family of products. We have been using their products and services for several many years. The innovation and customer service for accountants at CS is just the best I’ve seen. If you look at the competitors, you will see that they are two to three years behind. CS is always innovating and making its products better through the input of people like you and me. In order for that to happen, management has to be accessible and willing to listen. It is something they do very well and I have a great deal of admiration for the CS company for that reason.
The CS Virtual Office product we use allows us to work anywhere we have an Internet connection and is also scalable with the plans we are working on for national expansion. Then you have the portals, where we deliver all of our deliverables to the client. The client has access 24/7 to everything we prepared for them. Now, we even have the capability to offer our clients their own virtual office! CS makes us look like champions; I don’t believe we could do what we do without them.
Scott Cytron: How do you feel about cloud-based or Software-as-a-Service solutions for the firm and its clients, and where do you see this kind of platform going in the next few years?
Jason Lawhorn: As I just mentioned, we use CS Virtual Office in our offices and we have the ability to offer those other products, such as FileCabinet CS, GoFileRoom, QuickBooks, Client Bookkeeping Solution and the Microsoft Office Suite, in a virtual environment for our clients. Thomson does it for us and managing it is easy. More and more, accounting firms are moving to this platform; firms that do this as successfully as we have will have similar results – bringing our clients into the virtual environment. In terms of the cloud, I see offices moving more to virtualized servers with thin clients on everyone’s desk.
Scott Cytron: What do you think your clients most admire about your firm? What could you improve on for the future?
Jason Lawhorn: I believe the answer would be three things: Leadership, relationship and creativity. All of these things give the client direction, confidence and capability, and I believe limitless possibility. For the future, we are working toward providing more services that really lend themselves to being a truly holistic service offering for small business. When the client walks through the door, we want to be able to provide whatever the small business or individual needs to be successful.
Scott Cytron: If you were stranded on a desert island (or perhaps a jungle) and had access to only one kind of technology, what would it be and why?
Jason Lawhorn: In the past, I would have answered this question very differently. I love my Blackberry, my iPod and my iPad. I use them everyday, but if I were stranded on an island or in the jungle I think I would probably want a Wii and games like Mario Cart, bowling or Epic Mickey. I’m not a big video game player – as my kids could attest – but I really enjoy these Wii games. And, if I were stranded, I’d really want to be stranded. I’d kick back and play some games, roast a wild boar basted in blackberry toe jam. After all, most of these desert islands and jungle scenes have some kind of tiki bar somewhere. Yeah, stranded sounds amazing ….