Building Visibility Into a Firm's Growth Story

The mandate

Justin joined Lurie LLP, a then 160-person Minneapolis-based accounting and advisory firm, as Director of Marketing & Business Development in March 2020 — the week the world stopped.

Lurie's partners weren't marketing-naive going in — the firm had already invested in a marketing before. They had several marketing leaders over the last decade, but none seemed to get them where they wanted to go. Lurie had a marketing specialist on staff and a formal annual planning process led by top outside marketing consultants in the accounting industry. They didn't need someone to convince them marketing mattered. They needed someone senior enough to sit in the same room as partners who'd each built their own book of business over decades of trusted relationships, translate that same rigor into a modern growth function, and prove a return credible enough that people whose careers were built on being right would keep backing the investment. They needed an accountable and strong leader to drive growth forward. 

Justin eventually won the position against several top candidates, and inherited a marketing function built for high-touch client service, deep referral relationship building activities, and in-person industry sponsorships. But in March of 2020, and the months after, that business development approach came to a grinding halt. Every client conversation was happening online overnight because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its existential threat to the type of business clients that Lurie served. He had to act fast.

Beyond the challenges of the pandemic, the industry was changing fast. Lurie was also entering a period every mid-market accounting firm was living through: a talent shortage, rising client expectations, and a private equity-fueled wave of consolidation reshaping the public accounting industry. Firms that couldn't demonstrate differentiated value and organic growth capacity would not attract quality investing partners to consider. The risk was being left out and becoming acquisition targets years later on someone else's terms. 

The results

• Website traffic grew 67% year over year (52,680 unique visits vs. 31,782 the year prior), with national first-page Google rankings for PPP consulting searches. Organic traffic growth was directly attributed to the Economic Relief Team's content, including blog articles, news, and webinar content all organized into its rapidly deployed COVID 19 hub. 
• More than $3M in new business closed through the website, from clients coast-to-coast — inbound revenue the firm hadn't systematically captured before.
• Lurie grew revenue 20% year over year to $41.5M in its final fiscal year as an independent firm, following 15% growth the year before, with headcount growing from 160 to more than 200 over the same two years.
• The firm won a wave of major industry recognition during this window — including Accounting Today's Best of the Best Firms and Regional Leader, and Twin Cities Business's Best of Business Winner in the Accounting Firm category. Many of these were first time awards. 
• Justin was named a Twin Cities Business 2022 Notable Leader in Marketing, nominated by Kimpa Moss, Partner & COO, who credited him with being "at the center of our firm's strategic growth and change initiatives."
• In September 2022, Lurie joined EisnerAmper, a top-20 national firm, giving its 24 partners ownership in a larger platform. Managing Partner Beth Kieffer Leonard has said the deal was driven by the need to invest in technology and give younger partners more opportunity — not by marketing. What did change measurably during this window is the firm's visibility and provable growth story: the Lurie that went to market in 2022 had a recognized brand, a functioning inbound channel, and a run of industry firsts the Lurie of 2020 didn't have.

The growth itself belonged to the partners and the people doing the client work — through a pandemic, no less. What marketing did was make sure the market could see it.

Sources

• Twin Cities Business, "Lurie to Merge with New York Accounting Firm" (Aug 15, 2022)
• EisnerAmper, "Lurie to Join Forces with EisnerAmper" (Aug 15, 2022)
• Twin Cities Business, "Beth Kieffer Leonard" (June 15, 2026 — cited here only to independently corroborate the firm's growth and headcount figures during Justin's tenure and pre-acquisition by EisnerAmper).
• Twin Cities Business Notable Leaders in Marketing 2022 - Justin Robinette