Our second annual team retreat is in the books and dare I say it might have been better than the first one?! Most of my team is based in my same town in Ohio (or close by it) and we know each other pretty well. But I have two employees that are out of state (TN and NV) so it was so fun to have everyone together. Last year we went to Hocking Hills, about an hour from where I live so this year we did a destination retreat in Scottsdale, AZ. We stayed at the prettiest Airbnb, hung out, went over a review of all our clients, and more. In today's post I'll share a recap of what we did each day, and what I've learned after hosting another team retreat.

Day 1: Wednesday

The first day was just my account manager, Maddie, and I (and my sister-in-law/photographer, Maiya). We got some coffee, arrived at the Airbnb, and reviewed our accounts and services. We also did a deep dive of all our CFO clients together. We're always trying to find ways we can improve our services and the experience for our clients! This first day was pretty chill while we did that review together and waited for everyone else to get there!

Day 2: Thursday

I was able to find tickets for the rest of the crew to get to the airport around the same time, so in the afternoon we headed to the airport to pick them up! First we went out to lunch at this really cool asian fusion type place before heading to the house. Everyone got settled in and we just hung out and kept things chill before getting ready for our dinner party. Oh, and a few of us went to Trader Joe's to get all the ingredients and food we needed 👌🏽 Maiya is the hosting queen and made an incredible spread for us. I brought her for the weekend so we could have multiple photo-ops, and before we ate we snapped a few group photos! Dinner was delicious, and afterwards we ended the night by jumping into the pool with our dresses on! We ended up staying in the pool for at least an hour... it was surprisingly fun and we got some great photos out of it!

Day 3: Friday

The main event for this day was our brand shoot 🤩 Gotta have updated photos for the website and marketing and everything. Once we were ready we started the day with coffee (of course) at Light Heart Coffee and then went to a photography studio in town. I'll admit, the studio isn't quite what I was expecting but we were able to get some great photos thanks to Maiya and my photogenic team lol. Once we were done with photos we went out to lunch at Flower Child. It was packed so we had to eat outside, which was nice but sooooo hot. After that we went back to the house to rest. Then someone, I think April, had the idea to paint canvas totes so we did an impromptu Hobby Lobby run. While we were there we found these cream long sleeve shirts and decided to do shirts instead of bags! We came back for dinner (tacos, yum) and a few more photos at the house (with an outfit change), and then got crafty. Everyone designed and painted their own shirt, it was amazing.

Day 4: Saturday

Maiya had to leave a day early so I took her to the airport in the morning. The day before was when Microsoft crashed but luckily Maiya was able to get home just fine! Other than that we had a chill morning just hanging out and going through every single client with each bookkeeper. In the afternoon we went out for some shopping, coffee, etc. We found this cute outdoor strip mall type thing, I think in downtown or old town Scottsdale and it was super cute. That night we did a sunset hike at Hole in the Rock in Phoenix then went to get some smoothies. Back at the house we played pickleball with the craziest wind storm going on and then had ice cream sandwiches in the pool 😂

Day 5: Sunday

This day wasn't exciting lol, we just cleaned and packed up and headed home. Some of us went out for brunch before heading to the airport because our flights didn't leave until later. It was sad to say goodbye but I'm so glad we got to have this time together as a team!

Tips for planning your own retreat

If you want to plan a team retreat, you want to make sure it's a time and place everyone can get to and that it works for everyone. I start planning dates about 6-8 months in advance so everyone can mark it on their calendars. You also want to consider flights or if they'll drive there, etc. Part of why I picked Scottsdale is because I knew a lot of flights could be directly to the Phoenix for a decent price. If you've gotta pay for 7 plane tickets, you don't want them to be like $1,000 a piece! If you can, you'll also want to get everyone's flights arriving within about an hour-hour and a half of each other, that way you're not driving to and from the airport a bunch of times.

Like I mentioned, I had created a quick itinerary for the retreat but wanted to leave room for creativity. One night we ended up going to Hobby Lobby and getting shirts to paint! We explored Scottsdale, did some shopping, went on a hike, got some work done, and just really got to bond and spend time together! I can't tell you how important it is to make time for that, especially when we typically meet together on Zoom or in Slack huddles.

Having this retreat really helped to create a better atmosphere as we go into our next busy season, which is usually from like mid-October to the end of January for us (since we are finalizing 2025 budgets and getting a bunch of clients cleaned up). During those busy months there's a lot of new clients that are coming on. We have a lot of cleanups coming on. As well as reviewing our current clients as we head into tax season.

Anyway, keep on the lookout for more content! We're still waiting on some stuff back from our amazing photographer, Maiya. And we are super excited to plan next year's retreat! If you guys have any questions, let me know. And I would love to help you with anything if you are planning your first team retreat!