CEO's Message—First Quarter 2020

At the time of 09/11/2001, I had a CEO’s message to write to our membership and remember to this day what I said.  It was the shortest CEO’s message I have ever written in 29 years as NACVA CEO, and here it is:

            “I am speechless”

Seriously, with what is going on today, what can one say?  I have a million thoughts and emotions going through my mind.  I am dumbfounded.  What is happening in our country and in the rest of the world with the coronavirus, and all so suddenly, is mind numbing.  But here I am, sitting down to draft another message and all I can think to do is say to you what I said to our 30 employees at NACVA HQ just the other day.  Here is my memo:
 
TO:                            NACVA Staff
FROM:                      Parnell Black, MBA, CPA, CVA
                                   Chief Executive Officer
SUBJECT:                The State of Our Condition
DATE:                       April 01, 2020
Over the last few weeks, our country has come from the strongest economy in its history to what is predicted to be complete economic collapse.  This is the kind of thing we thought only happened in the movies; I am pinching myself to make sure this is not all just a dream.  The situation before us is a business owner’s/CEO’s worst nightmare.  What is to follow throughout the coronavirus crisis and beyond, when it is behind us and we feel safe again, no one really knows.  What we do know is none of us will ever be the same.  Millions of people will be without a job and millions of businesses will file for bankruptcy.  This is already happening.

My number one priority is for the health, safety, and welfare of our staff.  It is the whole picture.  It was suggested that I put the business before health and safety.  I responded by saying all three areas are of equal concern for me because I fully recognize that the survival of our business provides for the welfare of all of us.  It pays our rent/mortgage, puts food on our table, and helps us take care of the others we love and are responsible for.  Health, safety, and welfare is one package, it is all a priority.

In two week’s time, our COO, Brien Jones, has done a masterful job keeping our team together and getting everyone set up in their home offices so that we can go forward as a going-concern business.  We have hardly skipped a beat.  What Brien has achieved in short order is worthy of case study and emulation in the academic and business world.  We all owe him our gratitude.

FOR NACVA, WE HAVE A LOT OF HOPE FOR SURVIVAL AND FOR MANY REASONS:

1. Incredible HQ Team: We have an incredible HQ team, and from what I see, all are committed to doing whatever is required for us to succeed.
    
2. Drastic Cost Cutting: Three weeks ago when the writing was on the wall as to where our country was headed with this coronavirus, we began taking drastic cost cutting action to hunker down, so to speak, and prepare for the worst.  Measures include:
   1. Stopped all very costly mass mailing campaigns with a plan to rely more heavily on Member/Client Services (MCS) outbound calling campaigns and e-mail.
   2. Cancelled our live venue conference in Philadelphia, converting it to a safe and less costly online event and expanding it from a two-day event to four days.  Most all of our 70+ faculty have confirmed they will be presenting at the event.  (Included in this issue of the Association News, NACVA Director of Education Enrichment, Diana Ridgeway, has a complete write-up on the event.)
   3. We will stop publishing The Value Examiner in hardcopy starting with the May/June issue but continue with it online, saving in printing and mailing costs.  Once the economy bounces back, we will go back to printing hard-copies.
   4. We are considering cancelling the three remaining live training events in 2020 and holding these events, like our conference, online.  (Details of these events are available at https://www.nacva.com/conferences.)
   5. Other costs, less significant in size, have been flagged and will be cut throughout the year.
   6. I have updated our purchase order policies to give me more input into the many decisions to incur an expense.
       
3. Great Online Training: We have an extremely good online training program that has been growing and improving over the last five years.  It is far better than any of our competition and something we are very proud of.
   
   Unbeknownst to many of you, my vision and plan over the next three years was to move 90% of our training online.  Live training is not only costly, our members and customers are gravitating more and more towards online training.  I foresee us holding one, maybe two, live major conference events each year.  We have been headed in that direction.  Five years ago, 20% of NACVA/CTI’s training revenues came from online programs.  Last year, it was nearly 50%.  The coronavirus has merely forced us to speed up our plans.

4. CVA Accredited by ANSI: Recently, NACVA’s Certified Valuation Analyst (CVA) credential was accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).  This, along with the accreditation from the National Commission for Certifying Agencies (NCCA), makes the CVA one of four credentials in the world to have achieved this level of endorsement.  No other business valuation credential comes close to ours in having third-party validation of its integrity, quality, objectivity, and rigorous adherence to a set of standards.  (Included in the Association News, NACVA’s Executive Director, Jonathan Jackson, has a complete write-up on this new accreditation and what was required to obtain it.)
    
5. Public Service Campaign Webinar Series: Over the next few months, NACVA/CTI, with the support of many of the Association’s top leaders, will roll out with a series of 12 live webinars offered at multiple times addressing different aspects of business consulting and valuation in light of the devastation the coronavirus had wrecked upon our economy.
   
   These webinars all award CPE with some being free to all who wish to attend and others available at one-half our standard pricing.  First in the series, entitled “Financial Triage for COVID-19” is available free to all who wish to attend.  Taught by long-time member and one of the country’s top experts in this field, Darrell D. Dorrell, this  program will be held multiple times in April.  (Included in the Association News, NACVA’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Brien Jones, has a complete write-up on this series and the team behind it.)

6. Members: Most importantly, the greatest thing we have going for us is our members.  So as long as we take care of our members, and treat them with the respect, care, and concern they deserve and deliver them the finest online training found anywhere, they will continue to support us.  This, in turn, will help us to survive the crisis that has engulfed the world we live in.

I will leave you with this:

We all have a tough road ahead and so long as we stick together, with everyone doing their part, staying focused, and level-headed, we will get through this crisis.  When it is over, we will be wiser, smarter, and stronger as a team and as an organization.  And far better equipped than would ever have been possible had we not had this enormous challenge laid before us.  We, along with society as a whole, will come out of this crisis a year or two from now better off than we were coming in to it.

I wish you all good health.

 

Thank you,