Congratulations again to Wipfli's Green Bay office on turning 100 years old this month!
We all received a fun lesson in Wipfli history earlier this year in preparation for the reception that was held at our Green Bay office last Thursday May 20 when the following information was shared with the office and firm:
On May 1, 1910 Clifford I. Smith opened the first accounting office in the city of Green Bay. The May 4, 1910 Green Bay Gazette included the following advertisement:
EXPERT ACCOUNTING
I build systems to fit any business, do auditing, make partnership settlements, open corporation books, etc. If your business will not warrant the keeping of a regular bookkeeper, let me do it for you, either personally or through an assistant. Ask me for list of satisfied clients.
C.I. Smith, Phone Wis. 985
C.I.’s practice later became Smith & Scheuring Audit Co.; Smith, Scheuring & Jonet; Smith-Ellingson-Schuldes Co.; Schuldes, Burns, Alk & Denis; Denis, Eisenreich, Wagner & Dhein; Wipfli Ullrich & Co.; Wipfli Ullrich Bertelson LLP; and finally Wipfli LLP.
My intial intrigue - which I still have not followed up on - is the "Phone Wis. 985". I'm assuming that was the three digit phone number back then. I wonder what C.I. would think of blogging, twitter and facebook? ;)
Another quick thought was that Smith would be a lot easier for folks to quickly pronounce than Wipfli - but I also quickly thought about all the scenarios where the Wipfli name has become synonymous with great things - and how it's a great conversation piece with folks just getting to know us.
So how does this post tie into CRM? Well - I was also intrigued by the first line of C.I.'s first ad: "I build systems..." What would C.I. think of today's CRM systems? Or the concept of XRM? While I'm sure that discussion with C.I. would be just as intriguing as the social media and networking conversation, I did have some intriguing chats with a few of our CRM customers at the celebration reception last Thursday.
The conversations ranged in industry from banking to manufacturing & distribution; from professional services to entertainment and contracting. They ranged in content from system integration to collaboration; from system performance to user adoption.
100 years later the ad would be rather similar, even if it would be adjusted a bit to be specific to our CRM team:
We help design and deploy (build) systems to fit your business processes, align with strategic objectives and enable other requirements; build partnerships, open communication channels within your organization, etc. If your business needs improved collaboration and a 360 degree view of your customer, let us help you. Ask us for a list of satisfied clients.