Meet a Member: Travis Bradshaw

JUST THE FACTS

• Name: Travis Bradshaw
• Title: Managing Director, Advisory Operations
• Years of Experience: 20
• College: Evangel University | Marketing & Management
• Firm: CBIZ
• Location: Kansas City, MO
• Firm Size: $2.8 billion
• Email Address: [email protected]
• Professional Memberships: AAM
• Community Involvement: Volunteer youth recreation league sports coach
• LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradshawtravis/

 

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

You’ve been through several mergers in the past. What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned?

Very simply: Control what you can control. Communicate often and don’t make assumptions (good or bad).

For firms considering a merger or acquisition (M&A), what role should marketing play before, during and after the transaction to help ensure a successful integration?

Marketing should be a strategic partner from day one, not the team that gets the press release at the end. Marketing’s job is to protect the brand, align the story and keep clients, talent and referral sources confident throughout.

Mergers usually fail because of people and client attrition, not the math. Marketing’s highest-value contribution is consistency and speed: one story, told early, to the right audiences in the right order.

What advice would you give accounting marketers who are trying to build their careers in an industry where firms are growing larger, teams are becoming more specialized and consolidation through M&A and private equity continues to reshape the profession?

For any marketer, regardless of industry, the advice I’d give is the same: Only control what you can control (don’t worry about what might or might not happen), and become comfortable with change. Your firm and your role will likely change. Many times, that means you will need to personally or professionally make changes, too. I understand that is easier said than done.

One of the best ways I’ve learned to think about change is through the lens of “Where do I want this career to take me? What can I learn from this experience and carry forward to the next?” Your career is a “means to the end” and not “the end.” A lot of this depends on where you are in your personal life and career, so the advice can mean different things to different people, but the point is the same: How can I make the most of the situation?

We all know that marketers should be involved in M&A at the beginning, but a lot of us aren’t included or don’t have a seat at that table. Do you have any advice on how to be included earlier in the process?

The best advice I can give is to start building your case today. If you have a real example of an integration that could’ve gone smoother if marketing was included sooner, create a case study about it in real terms that leadership will understand. For example, was there a client communications issue or branding issue that created measurable pain?

Another way to meet in the middle with leadership, because sometimes secrecy and “need to know” are essential when mergers or acquisitions happen, is to have an agreement. You might frame it up like this: If we have a regular meeting every 30 days, a standing topic will be around M&A. I want to know how many potential M&As are being discussed, and you can assign a temperature to them. So, your leaders may say, “We have five M&As, but three are cold, one is lukewarm, and another is hot.” At minimum, knowing that something is coming and how “hot” it is will help you to prepare.

From an operational leadership perspective, how have expectations of marketing changed as your organization has grown, and what capabilities have become essential to supporting a larger, more complex firm?

What I have seen over my career is a shift from what seems like “busy work” to work that actually moves the needle forward. Related to that, there are expectations for marketing professionals to better understand the “business of our business” – how does our firm make money? If everyone (not just marketing) understands what makes the firm move forward, then it is much easier to operate and makes the growth of the firm smoother.

What is something people may not know about you?

Upon meeting someone in person for the first time, I can most often predict the first thing they will say: “You’re a lot taller than I thought.”

What is the biggest benefit you receive from your AAM membership?

The biggest benefit I receive from my AAM membership is the opportunity to connect with my peers in the industry. I joined AAM when I didn’t know much about the accounting profession, and the resources that were made available to me helped me immensely. It also opened doors for me through relationships that I made along the way.

What would you be doing if you had not become a marketer?

I really enjoy teaching and mentoring, so if I had not become a marketer, I would likely have become a college professor. 😊

If you had an unlimited budget, what is one thing you would implement immediately?

With an unlimited budget, I’d invest immediately in a single client-intelligence foundation. That means clean, governed CRM data, a full view of every client’s relationships and services and AI-driven signals that show where the next best conversation is. Then I’d staff it with dedicated enablement and pursuit support so the people closest to clients aren’t doing it on top of their day jobs.

Most professional services firms don’t lack expertise. They lack visibility into who knows whom, who needs what and when. Growth comes from connecting those dots, because the best next client is usually one the firm already serves. Everything else, including targeting, proposals, cross-serving and competitive positioning, gets faster and smarter once that foundation exists. Money is rarely the real constraint on it. Data, time and incentives are, and an unlimited budget removes all three.

What books have you read recently that you feel would be beneficial to other AAM members?

“The 6 Types of Working Genius” by Patrick Lencioni. This book has a framework that explains why some types of work energize you while other types of work drain you, even when you’re good at both. It gives you a simple, nonjudgmental vocabulary for talking about it and understanding where to apply your energy.

What blogs or social feeds do you subscribe to that are helpful?

I follow several organizations on LinkedIn from adjacent industries (finance, banking, law firms, communications companies) to get a slightly different perspective on similar issues or obstacles facing the clients my firm serves. I think it’s important to get out of the comfort zone, even if a little, and learn more about what others are doing to help clients. That could be from a marketing, operations or client service perspective.