marketing success depends on curiosity, collaboration, and client experience | capstone conversations

miller encourages marketers to go beyond traditional boundaries by working closely with other departments, including hr and it. she highlights that some of the most important strategic moves – from recruitment to software integrations – benefit greatly when marketers are included early in the conversation. 

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on the innovation front, miller points to client experience and ai as top priorities. she’s spearheading a firmwide initiative to formally map and improve the client journey at lanigan ryan. 

“we’ve done it informally for years,” miller notes. “but now we’re working on a structured plan to enhance every touchpoint, from first impression to long-term relationship.” 

miller also sees ai as a game-changer for marketers in accounting, citing the profession’s deep well of structured data. however, she flags two major hurdles for midsize firms: the cost and privacy concerns of implementing closed ai systems, and the risk of inaccurate outputs from early-stage tools. 

“marketers have an opportunity to lead in ai adoption,” she says. “but we also have to be careful. our clients trust us with critical data, and we have to earn and protect that trust.” 

4 key takeaways

1. marketers thrive when they build strong relationships with other departments, especially hr, it, and service line leaders.
2. specialization enables deeper industry knowledge and more impactful advisory services. 
3. miller urges managing partners to involve marketers early in firm decisions, especially m&a, rebrands, and structural changes. 
4. successful accounting marketers are adaptable, collaborative, and lifelong learners. 

more about alex miller
alex miller, marketing manager at lanigan ryan, was recently named the association for accounting marketing volunteer of the year. miller served as the chair of the 2025 aam summit conference committee. she has also been an integral part of the aam dei committee. miller is described as a trusted collaborator and mentor who brings vision, strategy, and a deep commitment to aam.  

transcript
(transcripts are made available as soon as possible. they are not fully edited for grammar or spelling.)

jean: hello, this is jean caragher, president of capstone marketing. i am happy to be talking today with alex miller, marketing manager at lanigan ryan, who was recently named the association for accounting marketing volunteer of the year. alex served as the chair of the 2025 aam summit conference committee. she has also been an integral part of the aam dei committee. alex is described as a trusted collaborator and mentor, who brings vision, strategy, and a deep commitment to aam. congratulations, alex, on being named volunteer of the year. 

alex: thank you. jean, thank you so much for having me. i’m happy to be here. 

jean: yes, you’re welcome. now, tell me first, were you surprised? 

alex: i was. 

jean: okay. 

alex: i was genuinely surprised. obviously love being a part of aam, and i’ve always done a lot with aam, but i always kind of assumed, you know, gosh, there are always people doing so much more, and… yeah, so it was heartwarming. it was heartwarming. 

jean: yeah. i know sometimes now they tell the folks when they’re gonna win, but i’m happy that they still hold some that are a surprise, because i just think the reaction and everything is really genuine, and fun. 

alex: sure. yeah. 

jean: now, you’ve been with lanigan ryan now nearly 10 years… 

alex: i have. 

jean: …which is fantastic. i mean, that’s a real milestone, right? ten years. what have you found to be the greatest challenge in marketing accounting firms? 

alex: you know, this is gonna sound so silly and simple, but i think the biggest challenge is just that it’s accounting, and accounting is not sexy. one of the things that i told people… this is still one of my favorite lines to tell people when i’m welcoming new staff accountants or new interns into the firm. i say, “okay, what’s your favorite subject and what’s your least favorite subject?” because mine, my least favorite subject of all time was accounting. and i just hated it. and if you’d have told me, back when i was in college, i would be working at an accounting firm, i would have laughed. 

jean: right? 

alex: that just wouldn’t have happened. but at the end of the day, you’re marketing an accounting firm that does accounting and consulting services, and so the challenge is really that there are a lot of people in the world, like me, who don’t really gravitate to accounting. and you have a lot of businesses, you have a lot of business owners, you have a lot of individuals who, they need tax work, they need financial statement reviews for their bankers. it’s a need-to-have, it’s not a want-to-have. 

jean: right. 

alex: so, that, i think, is one of the biggest challenges in trying to get people engaged in a conversation with you. 

jean: right. you know, i think that dovetails into accountants being more of the advisors, because, you know, the business owners, you’re right, they don’t get excited about getting their tax return done or getting their financial statements certified for the bank, and to pay for that, because it’s… right? it’s like working on your house. you know, you don’t wanna spend your money on things that you need. right? 

alex: right. 

jean: you really wanna spend your money on things you want, right? 

alex: exactly. 

jean: so, if the accountants are able to become more advisory, that opens the door to so many other ways that they’re able to help those same clients. 

alex: yes. yes. getting them in the door, of course… well, and that kind of talks to, you know, our conversation around, you know, what an opportunity is, too. i think there is a big opportunity in moving towards these consulting services, where people are more interested, right? i think in, we’ve seen it in the accounting industry, but in a lot of industries, there are businesses being sold, they’re merging together, and, you know, business owners are like, “okay, well, i know i need help with that. how do i do that?” that’s something that’s more top-of-mind, perhaps, than, “well, you know, maybe if you make this adjustment and make this purchase before this time at the end of the year…” but, you know, it’s a little more interesting. it’s a little more timely. so, absolutely, those consulting services, i think, are a huge opportunity, and maybe one of the ways you differentiate yourself and engage people. 

jean: yes. well, because now, remind me, lanigan ryan is fairly niched. is that true? [crosstalk 00:04:47] 

alex: i think to some degree we are. 

jean: okay. 

alex: we do have a lot of construction clients. and we do a lot of work with government contractors as well. i think that’s probably the nature of just being in the d.c. area. 

jean: right. 

alex: but yes, i think, you know, being able to work with these general contractors, subcontractors, you see a lot of really interesting things that pertain specifically to their businesses. so, i think that’s something that, you know, a lot of times, when people are leaving their former accountant and they’re coming here, they’re realizing, “oh, well, not only can you do my tax work, but you understand what it means to do job costing, and do a job costing schedule, and talk to our project managers about how to lay out these financial…” these numbers associated with the projects that we’re running. 

jean: right. right. 

alex: so, i think that that really gives us a leg up, and differentiates us. 

jean: yeah. yes. i’m a huge fan of niching, and i talk about it every time i’m able to mention that i do, because there’s so many advantages to niching, and getting back to that, oh, you know, they’ve gotta pay for the compliance, but by niching, you’ve got that deeper knowledge into whatever industry or service line that is, that opens up those greater opportunities besides the compliance. 

alex: absolutely. absolutely. 

jean: yeah. yeah. so, those are some opportunities, like that advisory for the accountants, but what do you see as the biggest opportunity for marketers in accounting firms? 

alex: oh, that’s a good question. well, one of the things i think is a good opportunity for us is, you know, one of the things i heard recently, of course, at the aam summit, we talked about how accounting industry is an industry that is primed for ai, because it is based on structured data, and accounting has oodles and oodles of structured data. and so, i feel like, as accounting marketers, as being in this industry, and being able to sit on top of all this data, it puts us in a prime position to leap ahead of some of our marketing peers and other industries in being able to adopt ai, and being able to adopt more of this technology, because we have a lot of that data that is needed to be able to use it properly. 

jean: right. 

alex: i personally absolutely love tech. i love software. i love being able to dig in and learn new processes. and i think that that’s something that’s really gonna help propel us forward. 

jean: right. so, speaking about ai, what do you think is gonna be the biggest hurdle to firms being able to use ai in a deeper way, with all that data? 

alex: i think, at least from where i’m standing right now, we are a midsize firm. and as a midsize firm, we don’t have the capital that perhaps a top-four firm has. and there’s a lot of privacy concerns when it comes to using ai. so, obviously, if you’re using a closed system, and everything stays in your firm, that’s excellent. but in order to have that closed system, you either have to put a bunch of money up to develop your own system, or you have to rely on a software that’s already been created, that perhaps doesn’t have the full extent of capability that you might want in a full in-house ai system.\ 

jean: right. right. 

alex: so, i think that those are some of the struggles, is just making sure that we are able to maintain our information privately. obviously, we have access to a lot of financial data of our clients. 

jean: right. right. 

alex: and i would say also, one of the things that they say is a cautionary tale for ai is just simply that ai sometimes is still in its infancy, and it makes up data. and that would be something that i would be horrified, as someone who has to communicate very technical information. of course, we wanna be as accurate as possible. but the fact that we could have a system that was built out very well and, maintained privacy, but perhaps was accidentally making up data, and then we’re pushing that out, that’s really scary to me. i certainly wouldn’t wanna push off anything like that into the world, that wasn’t fully accurate. 

jean: right. right. because the trust factor then is blown, if all of a sudden you’re just… 

alex: right. 

jean: …knowingly sharing information that’s not accurate or not true. right? 

alex: yeah. 

jean: but that could be a real game-changer for accounting marketers, because there are a lot of firms that are collecting a lot of data, and some are communicating that internally to their folks. you know, some are not. but being able to communicate more statistics and opportunities to help drive the revenue of the firm, that’s a game-changer in my mind. 

alex: it is. and truthfully, i think when people think marketing, they don’t think numbers. and the truth of the matter is, you know, a marketing has to be able to prove that what we’re doing is beneficial to the firm, and being able to put numbers, and pull opportunities, and be able to list those things out in conjunction with what the firm’s doing, that’s hugely valuable. 

jean: right, right. absolutely. yeah, it’s…boy. that is something that has changed over the decades, because, you know, back in the day, it was, you know, really, marketing was promotion, you know, and events. and you couldn’t always tie back that event to that lead or whatever the roi was. but the way that marketers are able to work today, there are…our goals are the same, but the tools at our disposal are so much greater and on point than it was in the early days, for sure. 

alex: i bet. 

jean: yeah, yeah. well, well, we won’t go into that too much. i mean, alex, i started at my first firm when they didn’t have computers. oh, my god. 

alex: wow. 

jean: and you think now, like, how do we live? like, how did we survive without a computer? 

alex: i think we had better filing systems, probably… 

jean: oh, my gosh. 

alex: …than we do now. [crosstalk 00:11:30] now, i just search. where is this document? 

jean: right, right. oh, that is true. so, you have built, you know, a network of accounting marketers over these years, in the profession. do you find that there are some common skills that successful marketers have in common? 

alex: yes, definitely. i would say the number one is definitely adaptability. i think… and even just, you know, we just talked about this, how marketing has changed drastically over the years. 

jean: right. yes. 

alex: i think you have to be adaptable, because at the end of the day, if your profession is changing, and we talk about ai, we’re talking about digital marketing changing, you have to be able to stay on top of those trends, and be able to deliver your message in the way that marketing is now doing it, and through the systems that you’re using, but you have to know how people’s preferences of being communicated with are also changing. you know, we know that the…tiktok has ruined all of our attention spans, right? everyone needs a short morsel of the video to be able to get right to the information. and that’s the kind of information you need to know and you need to be able to adapt to, to communicate on behalf of your firm effectively. so, that’s a big one. 

jean: right. 

alex: and number two, it’s kind of right in line with that, is just this willingness to learn. you have to be willing to learn. and i would say not only learning all the new stuff, but learning your profession. i mean, marketing, obviously you’re learning marketing, but i am a marketer at an accounting firm. so i also need to learn accounting. i need to learn consulting. i need to learn all the tax services. the better i can understand all of those services and what we provide, the better i am able to market and communicate about those services. 

jean: right. right. 

alex: so, i think that’s super, super important. and on top of that, you know, i think collaboration, that’s a big one. you’re never gonna be able to do everything alone. so, being able to recognize when you need help, and when you need to collaborate with someone, you know, talking with your subject matter experts, they are the people that are doing the services you are marketing, so you need to be able to work with them effectively. 

jean: right. right. and you need to figure out who those people are, right? 

alex: yes. 

jean: because i don’t know of any firm where every partner is really excited to have a marketing professional, or to collaborate, as you say, with a marketing professional, so, that was one of the lessons i learned early on. i spent too much time trying to get the partners who didn’t wanna have anything to do with me, you know, why they should work with me, as opposed to the other half, who were pretty excited. so, you have to learn who those folks are. 

alex: yes. find your resources. find your key people, your people that stand up and cheerlead for you. those are the people you need to find at your firm. 

jean: yes. 

alex: well, inside your firm and outside your firm, because you can have people that really stand you up in all kinds of different places. 

jean: right. absolutely. yeah, i think just all of this is so… and the idea of learning new things is so key, because it… i have no idea which summit this was, but one of our members got up in a session and said, “do you know that sometime soon, people are gonna be able to google our firms and find out information about us online?” and we were all, “what?” like, “what are you talking about?” and now, of course, you could probably…you’d probably find too much information about firms and people online, that you really should be able to access. so, it just, over the years, it has just…i don’t even know the right adjective to use, that it just has changed a lot. and i think mostly for the better. 

alex: yes. absolutely. there are upsides and downsides to everything, right? 

jean: yes, yes. there absolutely is. 

alex: but either way, you have to know what those are. 

jean: right. so, you’ve talked a little bit about, you know, skills of marketers that you know, you know, that are successful. which one of your personal skills has contributed most to your personal success? 

alex: i think probably personally, it’s just my curiosity. i am big on seeing the big picture. and i really wanna know what the end goals are. so, that has really gotten me far. so, when i start a project, if that’s the whole year’s marketing plan, or if that’s, “hey, we’re writing an article today,” i need to know who i’m working with, why we’re doing it, what the end goal of what that is. and if i don’t know those things, i ask questions. so, it’s really important to be asking questions. my opinion is there’s never a stupid question. and i would often, especially when i first started, i would often say, “hey, i know this might be a dumb question, but what does cas stand for?” because if you don’t ask the things you don’t understand, how can you possibly implement something that’s gonna be effective, that will meet the expectations of your internal and your external audiences? 

jean: yeah. 

alex: so, i think professional curiosity, and just finding the answers to my questions, has really opened a lot of doors for me. 

jean: mm-hmm. and i’ve had several people who i’ve interviewed for capstone conversations also identify curiosity as one of their main skills. so, i think that’s a lot behind being a marketer to begin with, because no matter what type of marketing you’re in, you need to learn your service or your product, and what it is that you’re promoting and selling, to be able to communicate why someone should be interested, and in this case, in selecting lanigan ryan over any other firm that they might be speaking to. 

alex: absolutely. absolutely. 

jean: so, tell us about your top-priority initiative right now. what are you working on? 

alex: oh, gosh. what am i working on? well, one of the things that i’m most excited about, that i think is a top priority, is client experience. and it’s a big one. it’s something that, of course, over the years, i have always considered that as an important aspect of everything i’ve been doing. you know, and client experience, this is something that your interaction with your client, but it’s the interaction with that person even before they become a client. it’s kind of that whole life cycle of how they’re interacting with your firm, with the people at your firm. and i think we’ve done that maybe informally for a number of years, and i think i would really like to kick off a formalized plan on how i can map that whole journey and improve that process. 

jean: right. yeah, because clients make choices, right? and we know as people, we can form an impression about a person or a company or a firm pretty quickly. so, we’ve really gotta be at the top of our game right from the beginning. 

alex: absolutely. absolutely. 

jean: yeah. i even see that client experience being a career opportunity for marketers, because we have seen marketers who have transitioned into different roles within their firm, which i find very exciting, because that just gives more longevity for these talented people to contribute to their firms, but in a different way. and our friend mitch reno, he’s, in my mind, like, he is the guy. 

alex: oh, yes. mitch is great. 

jean: right? for client experience. and i’ve had the chance to talk to him many times about it, and he’s very kind with his time, and sharing his expertise with his aam colleagues. so, yeah, you’re right. and also, i think that it kind of crosses over to a bit of what you mentioned earlier about the personalization, and the need to personalize communications. and that, i would think, would be a key component to client experience, because you really want to make them feel like you are focused just on them. 

alex: absolutely. yeah. and we talked about, again, the mergers and acquisitions, private equity coming into the industry. and that’s changing a lot of the experiences that your clients are having with your firm when all these big changes come through. processes are changing, and people sometimes are falling through the cracks. so, that is not something i want to happen here. so, we are gonna address those cracks. 

jean: watch out. that’s right. watch out, partners at lanigan ryan. so, alex, what would be your best piece of advice for accounting marketers? 

alex: for accounting marketers, gosh. i think my best piece of advice would be, really, just, don’t be afraid to ask questions. don’t be afraid to get involved in things that maybe at first glance don’t feel like marketing. because again, if you can learn the full scope of what’s happening at your firm, you can understand better, “oh, gosh. we work really well with hr. we understand how to target audiences. we’re trying to target a recruiting audience, and who should be working with us at our firm?” “yes, we should work together. we should understand what it is doing. and oh, i just realized that it helps implement softwares that communicate with other softwares.” and “gosh, i have some marketing tools that really need to connect with some of the other firms’ tools.” so, figuring out how you, in your role, can interact with other roles, that’s gonna exponentially advance your career. and that all goes back to asking questions. 

jean: right, right. i’m surprised about how many marketers are not collaborating with hr. 

alex: right. 

jean: shocks me. 

alex: i’m also very shocked by that. 

jean: yeah. right. i mean, talk about… i mean, to me, with the staffing crisis, and just the change in the workforce that the ability for hr and marketing to be able to collaborate, not only with recruiting, but retention is so important. 

alex: it’s so important. and marketers are generally the most…well, i don’t wanna say the most effective, but they are the most trained in communication. 

jean: right. 

alex: they are the ones that are creating content, you know, virtually. they’re creating written content. they are the ones that know your target audience and how to speak to them to encourage them to get the right behavior in place. like, if i, you know, the right call to action, right, that we talk about in marketing, getting someone to do something. 

jean: right. 

alex: yeah. i think it’s crazy that you wouldn’t want to get that extra insight into how to reach someone. 

jean: right, right. so, clearly, you collaborate with your hr department. 

alex: yes. yeah. 

jean: on recruit… yeah. okay. 

alex: yes. i love collaboration. big for me. 

jean: right. right. yeah. and it’s so smart, really. it’s so smart. so, tell us, then, what is your best piece of advice for managing partners? 

alex: best piece of advice. well, i think i have two, jean. i think, one, i think is specifically about marketing. and specifically about marketing, i would just advocate for my fellow marketers, which is, don’t forget to include your marketing people when you’re making these big firms’ strategy moves. 

jean: yes. 

alex: there are a lot of times, again, we know your target audiences. we know the ins and outs of your brand’s dna. we know your brand values. everything that would help decide whether or not a big move is the right fit for the firm. i think the marketer already has really good insight into that… 

jean: right. 

alex: …and they’re also gonna be able to help come up with a communication plan around, hey, this is how we should roll this out internally. 

jean: right. 

alex: this is how we should communicate this out to our clients, our friends of the firm. so, i think the misconception is that, you know, “oh, well, we haven’t decided this yet, so we don’t need to bring marketing in yet. there hasn’t been a decision.” i think there’s a misconception there. but the truth is, if you include them early on, i think that they’re gonna have a lot of things to say that can help shape how you make those decisions. 

jean: right. i couldn’t agree with you more about that. and that’s another response that i get quite frequently, is that, after the decision’s been made, or after they’ve decided to merge, or whatever it is, “oh, let’s bring marketing in, to help us out with an announcement or a press release,” or a whatever it is. i think that also drives home the point of the importance of marketers positioning themselves with the knowledge and the talent that they’re able to contribute to those strategic moves. 

alex: right. 

jean: because we need to be our own advocates. you know, there’s nobody sitting around, waiting to help alex miller be more successful at lanigan ryan, right? except you. 

alex: absolutely. 

jean: right? and i would say that about any marketer, you know, in aam and not in aam, that it’s up to… it’s just like when… you know, i think this still happens these days. you know, there used to be, for partners, you know, marketers are always busy, and there’d be partners saying, “well, what exactly, you know, is she or he doing?” and i know part of that is that, you know, some partners may not be paying all that much attention, but on the flip side, the marketers haven’t done a very good job of communicating to their partner group what they are doing and why it’s important. 

alex: right. absolutely. it’s a two-way street. you can’t just assume that they know. i mean, the whole reason they hired you is because they needed someone who had your level of expertise in this particular area. and part of that expertise is something that we expect of our accountants as subject matter experts, that they can take a really complex topic, and they can translate it into something that a business owner who doesn’t know much about accounting can understand. and i’d say the same is true for marketers. we need to be able to translate what we’re doing into something very simple, to say, “hey, this is what i was working on today, and this is how it impacts our business.” 

jean: right, right. yeah, if this conversation doesn’t give you anything else, it’s really the curiosity, it’s the asking the questions, right? it just, it’s not rocket science, but these are important things that marketers need to do, and to implement not only for the firm’s success, but for their own success within the firm. 

alex: absolutely. absolutely. 

jean: yeah. right. well, [crosstalk 00:28:12] 

alex: so, [crosstalk 00:28:12] second piece of [crosstalk 00:28:13] 

jean: oh, yes, i forgot about that. yes, what’s number two? 

alex: [crosstalk 00:28:16] number two. 

jean: okay. 

alex: my second piece of advice for managing partners, just to end on, is just not to underestimate investing in your people. i think, a lot of times, people forget that, hey, we’re going out, we’re trying to find new business, we’re trying to bring on new clients. we’re really trying to bring on new employees, right? the cpas are in short supply, but i think, if you focus on who you have, that’s gonna go a long way. invest in your people, give them the training they need, empower them with the right processes, and allow them to make certain decisions. and if you focus on them, that’s gonna cascade outwards. that’s gonna provide better client experiences. that’s going to create more referrals of people that, you know, “hey, you should work with them,” or “hey, you should work for them.” i think that that would be my second piece of advice. 

jean: right. and very good advice. where do you stand on the working in the office or out of the office or flex time? like, how is lanigan ryan handling that? 

alex: yeah. so, we are flexible. we say, basically, if you’re working in the office, and you have a designated space, that you’re working here three times a week, and you can work wherever else two times a week. and if you don’t have a designated space and you’re close by, we want you in the office at least two times a week. but truthfully, i think it’s important, to some degree, to have some of that in-office time, because there is so much that gets lost in kind of that sense of we are here, this is who we are, you know, the water-cooler talk. just being able to bond with one another in a way that’s not necessarily just, this is a formal phone call, this is a formal meeting. i think it’s really important for people to be able to connect, and i’m very fortunate to be here, to be at this firm, because people want to be in our office. people love being here. so, and i think the culture goes a long way into that. and of course, that policy of having people here, i think that matters. 

jean: right. 

alex: but yeah, flexibility’s super important. 

jean: right. absolutely. i think that’s a great happy point for us to end on. 

alex: yes. 

jean: all right. i’ve been speaking with alex miller, marketing manager at lanigan ryan, who was recently named the aam volunteer of the year. alex, thank you for your time today, and congratulations again. well done. 

alex: yes, jean. thank you so much. so super happy to chat with you.