Scaling an eight-figure accounting, tax, law and advisory firm by breaking all the rules.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: Advisor Edition: Building a 7-Figure Firm in 4 Hours a Week by Dr. Jackie Meyer, CPA, CCA
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With Dominic Piscopo, CPA
Robert Gauvreau, FCPA, founder and CEO of Gauvreau Accounting, Tax Law and Advisory, joins Dominic Piscopo on the Big Four Transparency show to explain how he’s scaling an Ontario-based firm from a non-obvious location—Peterborough, not Toronto—into a $20 million operation built around fast decision-making, aggressive reinvestment in talent, and a deliberately non-traditional partnership structure.
MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network
Gauvreau says he made a strategic decision from day one to never take on equity partners, arguing that the traditional partnership model is “broken” because conservative consensus-driven decision-making too often blocks growth. Instead, he built a structure of high-compensated “partners” who share in wins without taking on debt, working-capital risk, or ownership downside—while enabling the firm to move quickly without governance gridlock. He framed the tradeoff clearly: partners get stability and upside participation, while the founder retains the long-term exit value.
That choice, Gauvreau argues, is directly tied to the firm’s ability to execute entrepreneurially. Without needing unanimous votes or complex profit-allocation politics, leadership can evaluate an opportunity, pressure-test what could go wrong, and act. The approach, he said, is designed for speed and scale: Gauvreau’s stated target is to become a $100 million firm, while maintaining an “optimistic future growth oriented” posture rather than defaulting to “no, no, no” risk-aversion.
Gauvreau also details the “stuck zone” many firms experience around the $2–$3 million revenue level—where founders are still doing the work, lifestyle expectations rise, and reinvesting into a team feels financially and psychologically risky. His view: growth unlocks only when leaders make the uncomfortable decision to reinvest hard into people before the revenue fully arrives. He described the firm’s evolution from early-stage hiring of mid-level professionals to later-stage recruitment of senior specialists—including a former national director-level tax leader—once the economics and culture could support that caliber of talent.
The scaling story, he says, is paired with a personal shift: moving from technical expert to business leader. Gauvreau described the transition as “ego bursting,” requiring him to intentionally let others surpass him technically while he invests in leadership, mentorship, and vision. In 2024, he said he leaned heavily into coaching, programs, and reading—aiming to “become the leader of the $100 million firm” before the firm arrives there.
Gauvreau’s multidisciplinary strategy: combining accounting with a law practice tailored to small and mid-sized business owners. The firm offers bookkeeping, tax, valuations, and fractional CFO services alongside corporate legal work (including restructurings, incorporations, real estate transactions, wills and estates, shareholder agreements, and contracts). The rationale was practical and cultural: shorten client wait-times in an undersupplied legal market, eliminate professional ego conflicts between advisors, and keep clients from “graduating” to larger one-stop providers by delivering integrated services under one roof.
Top Quotes:
- “I decided right out of the gates… I would never take on an equity partner.”
- “When you get multiple people who are focused on the conservative side… the answer is going to be no, no, no, no.”
- “We can make decisions fast, because I don’t need a unanimous signed agreement every time we make a decision.”
- “You have to make a conscious decision to reinvest that money back into building a team. And it becomes a little scary.”
- “Watching my skills diminish… and watching other people surpass me—and intentionally letting that happen—is tough.”
- “You need to become the leader of the $100 million firm right now… in order to bring your team with you.”
Actionable Takeaways:
- Evaluate alternative partner structures (equity vs. income/non-equity) and assess how governance impacts speed of decision-making and growth capacity.
- Identify the common growth constraint at the ~$2–$3M revenue stage and apply a reinvestment plan that prioritizes team-building over short-term owner compensation.
- Design a talent strategy that evolves with firm scale—shifting from generalists to specialized senior hires as economics and culture enable it.
- Implement a decision-making cadence (opportunity ? risk review ? decision) that maintains entrepreneurial speed while still pressure-testing downside.
- Recognize the leadership/identity transition from technical expert to CEO and develop a personal plan for delegation, mentorship, and leadership growth.
- Analyze the strategic value of multidisciplinary services (e.g., accounting + corporate legal) to reduce client leakage and improve client experience through integrated delivery.
- Compare coaching/community options by stage of firm growth and select support aligned to the next operational ceiling (e.g., building the firm vs. scaling leadership).
About Robert Gauvreau
Founder and CEO of Gauvreau Accounting Tax Law Advisory, Best-Selling Author of The Wealthy Entrepreneur, Speaker, and Business Coach, Robert is the founder and CEO at Gauvreau | Accounting Tax Law Advisory.
As a CEO, Robert has built a team of more than 200 professionals and an 8 figure business, and Gauvreau has been recognized as one of the fastest growing businesses in Canada for the last 5 years according to the Globe & Mail. Robert is also a regular contributing expert in major business magazines such as Forbes, Entrepreneur and Business Insider.
As one of North America’s leading business finance experts and well sought after financial speakers on business finances, Robert has shared the stage with some of the world’s most recognized speakers such as Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Robbins, Kevin O’Leary, Keith Cunningham, Robert Herjavec, and many more. Robert is the bestselling author of ‘The Wealthy Entrepreneur: The Formula for Making Money and Gaining Financial Clarity in Your Business’ and is on a mission to empower the world’s leading entrepreneurs with the financial confidence necessary to make informed strategic decisions in their business and their life, so that they can achieve financial freedom and change the world together.
Transcript
Dom (00:00.789)
Hello and welcome to the Big Four Transparency Podcast. I’m joined today by Robert Gauvreau, founder and CEO of Gauvreau Accounting, Tax Law and Advisory. Welcome to the pod, Robert.
Robert Gauvreau (00:09.975)
Hey, how are ya?
Dom (00:11.613)
I’m great. I’m really happy to be talking to you. We had a little chat before this, but I came across your profile, someone mentioned you and they were like, yeah, this firm’s doing so well based out of Toronto. And it was just one of those things. I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t already kind of like following everything you were up to. And so I’m really happy to be on board.
Robert Gauvreau (00:32.44)
Well, 100%. Well, and thank you for reaching out. And maybe one of the reasons, we didn’t really chat about this, but we’re actually not in Toronto. We’re in Peterborough, which is pretty much off everybody’s radar, right? And, you know, everywhere we go, they say, where are you from? We say Toronto, because it’s an easier, more recognizable location. So we do get looped in there, but probably to off the radar a little bit in…
Dom (00:43.379)
Right.
Robert Gauvreau (01:00.728)
Peterborough, Ontario, where our head office is.
Dom (01:03.357)
Right, right. Yeah, when people look at me like glassy eyed when I mentioned Ottawa, I go like near Toronto kind of like and then they’re like, okay. Cool.
Robert Gauvreau (01:11.086)
you know the capital of the country? that one.
Dom (01:16.849)
Yeah, yeah, no, nobody knows about us. so to kick things off, something really interesting about yourself that I wanted to dive into first. So, You’re at a firm doing about 20 million in revenue, but you’re the sole owner from an equity perspective. Is that right?
Robert Gauvreau (01:35.532)
That is
Dom (01:37.169)
interesting. How like was that like a very conscious decision of like, we’re only going to do like principles or income partners? Or is that just sort of, you know, happened circumstantially? Like, I’m curious to understand some of the like rationale and the planning.
Robert Gauvreau (01:53.686)
Yeah, so honestly, it was very, very deliberate and it was from day one. For a few reasons. One, I think the old model is broken. When I was articling and got my CPA working with not one of the big four, but one of the larger global firms, you know, when they were talking about partnership and what that would look like and the timeframe, you know, I was pretty successful when I was young and I was ambitious, of course.
You know, I looked at that and said, are these the partners that I want to be partnered with? is business not about choosing who those people are and how you contribute and how you work together? And so when I left and started my own firm, it was very conscious that I would never take on an equity partner. Not that I don’t love my partners. I have the greatest partners that are in business. And they come in with a salary. We share the wins together.
But here’s the thing I know about accountants is that we’re very, very conservative in nature. And when you get multiple people who are focused on the conservative side versus the optimistic future growth oriented side, because we all get down there and it’s really hard to align, when that’s all we’re focusing on, the answer is going to be no, no, no, no. And we’re going to be in an industry that has zero growth. Shocking. That’s sort of where we’re at, right? And so…
Dom (02:57.481)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (03:20.268)
I decided right out of the gates, yep, we’re going to bring partners on. We’re going to compensate them. They’re going to be the highest income earning partners in our area. They’re going to be extremely successful, but they have zero risk from a debt perspective, from a working capital perspective. They’re going to help with the operations. They’re going to be included, but that there’s no downside for them. And yes, when I eventually exit from this,
When I’m old and gray, I’m going to get a nice little check, but they’re also going to participate in that on the positive side versus the negative side. So that was very, very intentional. And I think that is the way that even the bigger firms are starting to look at now, you know, is more so non equity partners, more so income related partners and how that model can help support people being successful and, mitigate the downside.
Dom (03:53.481)
Right.
Dom (04:10.757)
Mm Well, that’s interesting, because, like a lot of the conversations I’ve had around like equity partnership at these huge places, like, people say, right, it’s like, yeah, you’re an equity partner, but you are just basically an employee, because you’re one of like, you know, 1000s of equity partners, maybe or something like that. And ultimately, you’re not driving like the bold decision making. And like, Alan Colton wrote an article about that, like the, you know, the problems with the partnership model that I think
make a lot of sense where it’s like you, you then end up with so many people involved. That like there’s no bold decision making, there’s no like real like strong leadership bringing forward new ideas like pushing the firm forward. So I think that that’s like a great Yeah, great answer.
Robert Gauvreau (04:56.334)
I agree. Yeah, I completely agree. And I think, you know, one of the things being a $20 million firm, which is, you know, from zero up, the reason that we’ve been able to grow is that we focus on that, you know, and we’re very entrepreneurial, we can make decisions fast, because I don’t need a unanimous signed agreement every time we make a decision.
Dom (05:07.636)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (05:21.41)
We can hop on a call and say, hey, do we feel like this is an opportunity we should pursue? They’re totally focused on the positive sides of it. You know, we bring in the, let’s have a discussion about why this wouldn’t work. Great. Decision made. You know, we don’t have to have a vote. We don’t have it. You know, it’s an open dialogue, sort of consensus decision on making them, but we act very entrepreneurial. And that’s part of the intention too.
Our goal is to be a $100 million firm here in the next five years, which we will accomplish. But we want to be able to make quick decisions to capitalize on opportunities. just thinking of the traditional model, before we started solidifying that this was the way that we were going to do it, we were looking at all the models. We were looking at the national firms, maybe not so much the big four, because there’s so many.
people there, but looking at the national firms that had smaller offices and saying, are they doing things? Sometimes they were pinned against each other because it was almost like a profit share in the office. And I know one of the global firms, there were three partners and they had to submit to another office that was doing a review on how the income should be allocated to each partner on sort of a profit sharing standpoint, which I thought was ridiculous. And then there was another firm…
Dom (06:18.695)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (06:39.305)
Wow.
Robert Gauvreau (06:42.638)
locally, a larger firm, that they did have equity partners in there, but they were equity at like $250,000. So that was more like the golden handcuff to say, hey, you’re going to pay us $250,000. We’re going to get you in here. And then you’ll just never leave because you’re concerned about your $250,000, which is relatively nothing in the grand scheme of our careers. So again, it wasn’t like we just blatantly said,
Dom (06:52.19)
Yeah.
Dom (07:08.266)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (07:12.258)
This is our model, that’s it. We’ve constantly looked at it and I’ll continue to look at it and use references like Alan to say, what is the best model going forward? Is there a new better way that we’ll adapt to it?
Dom (07:24.893)
Mm So you mentioned scaling, you know, the goal being to scale to 100 million. Was that like the goal when you started this? And did you start this as just like a sole practitioner?
Robert Gauvreau (07:35.276)
I did start this as a sole practitioner. In 2008, I made the leap. We had this retiring couple. They were doing some bookkeeping. had maybe 40-ish business clients that they were doing year ends for. And so I jumped in and I was like, okay, we can update this. I’m a CPA with experience and knowledge and definitely committed to being the most advanced in knowledge and implementation.
So I jumped in there and at that point it was just survival mode, not so much trying to build a hundred million dollar company. And so at that point, and now it was really hard actually, the first couple of years to get things rolling. And I think we were talking about this before, like I was a business development guy too. I was really good at the shaking hands, connecting with people, but it took a really long time for those relationships to come to fruition. As we know in the accounting world,
you know, we sign a client now, we might not generate any revenue for 18 months, depending on their cycle. So, back then, you know, it was really just to build a firm where I could generate a nice enough income to feel happy about it and make a difference and maybe innovate the space a little bit and have a real great client focus. And so, as we evolved, again, we’re year 17 right now.
Dom (08:36.063)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (08:56.878)
So I would say about year 10, we were probably still in that, you know, two to $3 million range. It was hard to get there. And then we started talking about what $10 million in revenue would look like 10 years out. And I, you know, we kind of chatted to about operating systems and, and looking at different areas like that and when they should be implemented. And this was really when we started to look at EOS as our first sort of operating system back then to say, what’s our 10 year plan? What’s our 10 year goals?
and how do we start building this out? And even recently, some of my team who are my partners actually at this point said, you when we were having that discussion back when we were $2 million, they thought $10 million was almost unachievable at that point. And, and I when now that we talk about 100 million, I say, well, does this seem unachievable? And they would say and one Patrick, my longest standing partner,
Dom (09:27.381)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (09:56.662)
says, well, yeah, it seems unachievable, but you do everything that you say we’re going to do. So I believe it. I just can’t believe it. So it’s a little different. It’s definitely been an entrepreneurial run, and it’s been a lot of fun.
Dom (10:05.429)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Dom (10:14.323)
Yeah. So you mentioned being stuck a little bit at the kind of like two to three million or that being particularly hard. And I hear that a lot. Like, what do you think changed after that, that like unlocked growth? Because it seems like it was a long time to get to two to three million. And then like from two to three to 20 seems like it wasn’t too long of a slog, right?
Robert Gauvreau (10:28.973)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (10:35.56)
Yeah, and I think for anybody who’s in that sort of part of their journey, reading books about people who have had the growth stories, everybody had that sort of challenge. In fact, I was just down in LA speaking at an event and the founder of Ugg Boots was there and he was talking about the struggles in the first, you know, 10 years of Ugg Boots and it
you know, him sharing his revenue numbers were unbelievable. Like 10 years was like $2 million. That’s what he got to. And he ended up selling Ugg Boots for $16 million, which is unbelievable being a multi-billion dollar brand. anyway, what a fantastic story. So looking at all the stories, you know, the most challenging part is getting that revenue up and running and being able to scale it. And one of my I think our greatest challenge and
you we have 2,500 clients across North America too. A lot of their challenges is you’re doing a lot of the work early on. You’ve got your sleeves rolled up, you’re working hard, you’re getting everything done. And then it’s the investment in building the team, right? So you’re getting rolling, you’re working hard, you’re maybe making some good money. You have to make a conscious decision to reinvest that money back into building a team. And it becomes a little scary.
Dom (11:44.999)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (11:56.512)
especially if that income has become your lifestyle. And so now you can’t go backwards. So it’s really, really challenging, right? And so what we did is we doubled down on building team. And, you know, at that scale, you’re not being able to bring in the 20 year veteran who’s the top in the industry, which we have now, you know, but at that time it was okay, how do we get the three, four years experience people?
Dom (12:00.34)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (12:21.934)
to come in and start to be able to build this out. They can work independently. Let’s build them as professionals. And it just takes time. It takes a lot of time because you can’t go from zero to 100. And it takes a lot of cash resources because we’re a non-asset industry, right? We’re intangible assets. We’re not getting a lot of funding to help support hiring growth. So it’s a challenge. Once you get past that,
Dom (12:39.978)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (12:48.696)
And once you start scaling out your team, then you start up-leveling your team members, different industry experts. We’ve got one of the top tax practitioners in the country who was a national director at one of the big guys who’s now working with us because it was the right culture and the right fit. Those are the guys, the talent that we can go after now. Not there. Like, at $2 million, I couldn’t afford these guys. So…
Dom (13:14.461)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (13:15.596)
So really, you know, it’s one of those things you’ve got to reinvest heavy in people. You probably have to start thinking about an operating and accountability system because things are going to start getting a little bit out of control quickly. And you still have to have your sleeves rolled up and really be investing in yourself and becoming a leader. Because if you can’t figure out how to lead a $10 million business when you’re at two, you’re never going to get there.
Dom (13:40.659)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you talk a lot about like the need to be very intentional about reinvesting into the right talent. And I imagine that’s probably a lot easier to do right as the sole equity owner. Because we talked about this kind of like conflict a lot. And you know, if you have some old partners near retirement, they might say, No, we need to like optimize for partner draws this year, we need to optimize for partnership distributions. Whereas you can really just put your foot down, go, No, I’m going to pay out whatever it is.
5 % of the bottom line and then the rest is all going to go back into growth. And because you hold the equity and ultimately like you can liquidate that when you’re done with your career, whatever type of format that might come in, you’re then incentivized to like really make those calls and reinvest plus plus like you’re young while you’re doing this, right? So or at least you look very young. And so so you know, you really have kind of that like proper incentive alignment to chase that real growth.
Robert Gauvreau (14:28.738)
Thank you. Thank you.
Dom (14:37.781)
So that’s interesting.
Robert Gauvreau (14:38.606)
For sure, but let me say this though. It doesn’t get easier, right, from the reinvestment standpoint. So, you know, if you’re going from 2 million and let’s say that you’re growing at 30%, you know, that’s, you know, half a million, 600,000 of growth. Like, it’s not that substantial, but you’ve got to reinvest that. You know, if I, which we’re at about a 30 % plus growth in 2024 organically,
Dom (15:07.797)
Congrats.
Robert Gauvreau (15:07.918)
You know, when we’re, thank you. It’s a lot of, again, intentional, deliberate, structured growth, which is fantastic. But reinvesting at this level for people, like we created, I think, seven new positions that didn’t exist before at higher levels in 2024, which was millions of dollars. So to reinvest in the people ahead of time to keep up with the growth.
and the more sophisticated services, it is a massive reinvestment and it doesn’t become easier, especially if you want to keep that 30 % growth track, which we do, because our goal is, and why I started this, was really to help business owners have the financial confidence to make important decisions so that they can really change the world. I think of the salon owner who is, people go in,
They’ve got their hats on. They come out with a big smile. They’re standing a little bit more proud. You know, they’re creating confidence and, and happiness in everybody that comes out of that store. And we’re indirectly supporting them to help more people, you know, and that means everything to me as the founder and, and really means a lot to everyone that we’re working with. So I have like, I have this need to continue to reinvest because I feel like I’m letting everybody down if I’m not helping more people.
Dom (16:20.212)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (16:33.942)
So it doesn’t get easier with the cash contributions though. And you would never be able to do this if I had everybody trying to make that same decision. To your point, different people are at different stages. People are growing families. They’re buying homes. They need a little bit more cash. I can say, no, this is all going back in. And I’ll work with the banks. I’ll sign the guarantees. I’ll do whatever needs to happen.
Dom (16:34.164)
Yeah.
Dom (16:53.205)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (17:00.428)
so we can continue to fulfill our mission, but I don’t have to worry about the downside of everybody else.
Dom (17:05.769)
Yeah, When you talk about the mission, just this is a bit of like a, you know, a sidebar. But when you talk about the mission, I love your framing of the mission of like, imagine me as your personal trainer, helping you get that six pack. But in this circumstance, I’m the one doing the working out and you get the six pack. I really like that. That’s a that’s a cool one.
Robert Gauvreau (17:16.845)
you
Robert Gauvreau (17:24.718)
So I gotta give kudos to my guy, Dean Jackson, who is an incredible marketing, brilliant mind. Definitely anybody listening, check him out. He’s, yeah, he’s just, he’s absolutely brilliant. We were at a table one time and we were talking about how to differentiate it and he goes, you know what you are? You really are the gym trainer.
Although your clients don’t have to do the workout, you’re just doing the workout for them and giving them the six pack. And I was like, I’m using that. That’s brilliant.
Dom (17:55.252)
Yeah.
Yeah, that’s that’s an incredible framing of it. I love that. Pardon me. So As we talk about scaling here, obviously, your role has to change, right? You started as a sole practitioner. And then like at a certain point in that scaling, that’s not going to make sense anymore. And you mentioned, you know, making some of those transitions a little late. So like, at what point or if it’s still in process, like at what point have you changed from being like the expert to becoming
Robert Gauvreau (18:06.254)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (18:28.489)
right, like the CEO or to use EOS terms, the visionary or whatever that might be, right, the person in charge of actually just operating the firm working on the business, not in it, right.
Robert Gauvreau (18:38.998)
Yeah, that is a tough transition. you know, we just kind of chatted about this offline and I said that was maybe one of the hardest ego bursting sort of transitions for someone who prides themselves and being a top level expert to now giving that up to other people, which is great. You know, I’m more proud that I can build more of those people. But watching my skills.
diminish because I’m not practicing as much and watching other people surpass me and intentionally letting that happen is tough, you know, because we so much of our foundation and our career is based on that advice. And well, here’s the newest thing. Here’s the newest tax plan for you. Here’s the newest advice on how to help you become more successful. And, you know, I do more so the mentorship and the business strategy side still, because that’s what I do. And I just share it with everybody.
but yeah, watching that transition happen has been a challenge. And I would say, you know, 2024 was a huge year for that, for me. every year we have our team come in to Peterborough, large, big city of Peterborough. And we, we fly them in cause we’ve got team members all across Canada. We fly them in and we have a two day planning session. And my, it’s my biggest presentation. think I did 44 presentations and talks this year on stages, which was a lot.
And this is my biggest presentation of the year, right? Which is regrouping everybody, making sure everybody’s aligned, getting them excited about why we do what we do, and then helping build the vision out. And I remember at the start of 2024, knowing that we were approaching this momentum building growth that just is happening with consistency going, am I the leader that they need?
me to be to get them to the next level. And I didn’t, I didn’t know the answer would be yes. but I said, I’m going to damn well try and I’ll die, die doing it if I have to. so completely invested in becoming the leader of a business, not necessarily a CPA firm, but what is it that the best leaders in the world are doing to help lead their team to success? And you know, I focused on that. I spent a lot of money on coaching and, and
Robert Gauvreau (21:02.35)
programs and guidance and reading a lot, know, hundreds of books this year, which is great, but it’s something that has to happen. And if you want to get to a level, you know, $20 million is no joke. You know, if the wind blows out of the West, it could be a bad day, you know, it just, when you get to that level, but you need to become the leader of the $20 million firm before you get there. And that’s, I’m working on becoming the leader of the $100 million firm right now. And wherever you’re at,
Dom (21:10.613)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (21:32.386)
You need to know where you want to get to and you have to become that leader now in order to bring your team with you.
Dom (21:38.717)
Nice. So you mentioned coaching. Like, what are you doing in terms of that to get ready? Because there’s so many communities out there as well for like firm operators, and ones of different size, right? So like Brandon Hall, friend of the pod slash now, I guess, part owner of big four transparency, he, he, like is starting this community for like, very, very like ambitious firm operators. And then there’s kind of these other ones which are meant for like starting up and
Robert Gauvreau (21:41.144)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (22:07.487)
things like that. Were you part of any of these communities or you really did more kind of like executive coaching type of stuff?
Robert Gauvreau (22:14.088)
Yeah. And I, you know, it’s interesting. I had a podcast yesterday. I have a podcast called the wealthy entrepreneur. Make sure that you check it out. but I was talking about this yesterday and I feel like every different stage of your, of your career and your development is going to require a different skillset. And for me, this was my experience. So to each their own, early on, I had a coach that was specific in building an accounting firm.
and an accounting business. His name was Rob Nixon. He is one of the best in the world. Rob is a very dear friend. He’s got a firm called Profitable Partners. out of Australia. Highly recommend him. He’s got years of experience. And I would contribute a lot of my early success in getting the business built. Not the accounting, but getting the business built to be successful was related to him. And whoever it is,
Dom (22:43.412)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (23:10.968)
that you’re working with, friends of the podcast, not friends of the podcast, whatever it is, you’ve got to find the right fit for you at the right time. And then beyond that, I went, okay, there’s not too many CPA firms that are building multi-million dollar CPA firms. There’s a lot of capping that happens at the three, four, five million dollar level. So who’s the $10 million coach? Forget about accounting now, because if you’re talking about building a 10 or 20 million dollar accounting firm,
Dom (23:18.325)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (23:31.167)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (23:39.598)
There’s no coaches out there that talk to you about that because it doesn’t really exist. who’s the business coach that can help you get there? So I’ve had multiple mentors and coaches. you know, I’m actually just looking at the next level coach for me right now for 2025. These investments get crazier and crazier, by the way as well, but they’re worth every single penny. So yeah, continuing to find the coach for the right period of time and you will likely grow out of them.
You know, when you when you achieve what they’re teaching you and what they’ve done and accomplished, then you find the next level and you carry on and you are very grateful. Like Rob Nixon helped so many accounting firm partners become financially successful, you know, but he self admittedly was like, yeah, you’re beyond my program. So, you know, let’s stay friends. But, you know, you need to go find and he actually helped bring me into a couple other communities as well with with high performers. So, again, yeah.
Dom (24:31.263)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (24:38.168)
Finding the right community, the right coach, the right person who’s done what you want to do and getting them to help you get there fast is super important.
Dom (24:49.875)
Yeah, coaching is underrated. And I think it gets diluted a lot by like all these like coaches who are not so good. It’s funny to like make the comparison. But like back in the day, like I used to do like when I was working at Deloitte, actually, I was DJing on the side. And I was like, like, this is such a problem in the DJ industry. So many people call themselves a DJ and like they don’t actually know what they’re doing. And so people lose faith in that. And I feel like coaching is another thing that’s really been hit hard by that. And like these days, you know, maybe virtual CFO is starting to get hit by that too.
Robert Gauvreau (24:55.084)
Yes. Yes.
Dom (25:20.285)
where like, you know, that title starts to kind of like lose its name. because so many people are like claiming to be that it becomes really, really hard to dig through. And like my coach is not at all in the CPA space. Like he, you know, he runs a, engineering agency, like a tech agency and he’s been tremendous. And a lot of those concepts do carry over, which makes a lot of sense. so yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (25:21.378)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (25:43.768)
For sure. I know my wife, my wife, we were watching and I, so I had the privilege to work with Tony Robbins for a few years. so he has his business mastery events. He has his global accounting advisors. I was the global accounting advisor group for Canada, that worked with Tony for three or four years. was a fantastic experience, but I remember my wife. I know he’s got his, his Netflix show, documentary and whatnot, but there were.
Dom (25:52.338)
cool.
Robert Gauvreau (26:13.006)
There was another show that came on that was talking about scams and it was all about coaches who were scamming people. And her and I had this conversation where she was like, what a scam. This entire industry is a scam. It’s illegitimate. I’m like, I coach people. She’s like, yeah, well, but you know what? So are you wanting to be part of this scam industry? And I’m like, it’s not. It really isn’t. But to your point,
Dom (26:31.604)
Yeah.
Dom (26:37.396)
No.
Robert Gauvreau (26:39.416)
There’s been a lot of, you know, we always say this, it’s the bad apples. You know, they make the rest of the batch look bad, but coaching is such a powerful space when you find the right people who aren’t putting selfies out there in front of exotic cars and private jets that they’ve never been part of. They’ve never earned. You know, there’s a lot of coaches out there that are extremely successful and they want to share and mentor the next generation. And it’s overshadowed by a lot of the fluff.
Dom (26:46.335)
Yeah.
Dom (26:54.474)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (27:08.14)
You know, so I’m with you.
Dom (27:08.361)
Yeah. Yeah. So changing gears a little bit, something really unique about your firm I wanted to make sure we touch on is that you do law as well as kind of, you know, the full suite of accounting. And I find that really interesting. So I’ve spoken to a number of people who do like wealth advisory plus accounting firm. And I find that that’s really interesting. It’s like this higher margin work. You know, you’re already investing in the relationship. So why not have this other thing where you can, you know,
earn way more on the hours that are being invested based off of that trust. But law, think, brings a little bit of a different spin. And I’m curious for your take on this. But to me, I feel like a concern for a lot of these kind of like mid market type firms is that your client base might one day graduate to a big four or whatever, right? So you kind of keep losing those crown crown jewel clients. And this is like a concern that I’ve
heard from like a big four partner who had considered leaving doing their own thing. And I think law might be like a little bit of an unlock to maybe make it so that they don’t need to graduate, right? They can get all those services in one place. Has that been the case for you?
Robert Gauvreau (28:18.582)
And thank you for essentially justifying why I did it. But ultimately, so our, you know, a bit of background about our firm, we specifically just focus on the SME community. Right? So we’ve circled them, we feel, with a lot of the services that they need so that they don’t need to go somewhere else. Bookkeeping, obviously their financial reporting. We’ve got a boutique tax group.
Dom (28:22.9)
Okay.
Robert Gauvreau (28:44.718)
with cross border and Canadian in depth. We’ve got valuations, we’ve got fractional CFO services that may or may not be diluted in the market, but we offer that. Because I feel like if you don’t offer it, they’ll go somewhere else that does, that offers everything else. And then same with the law firm. There were two main reasons why we decided to register as a multidisciplinary firm in Ontario. So our law firm is very Ontario specific.
Law society rules a little bit different than tax filing rules specifically. But in this case, we had a lot of clients and maybe an undersupplied legal community where we went, OK, we’re constantly waiting and our clients aren’t a priority versus their own existing clients. How can we help support them get what they need faster? So the first one was, let’s bring in legal so that we can
make sure that they’re getting the advice they need in conjunction with tax. Second is looking at this professional ego issue that’s out there and it’s, you know, it is wealth managers, it’s CPAs and it’s lawyers where everybody comes in is like, no, I’m the expert, I’m the expert. And, you know, there’s competing interests sometimes when it should always be in the best interest of the client. And so we brought the law firm in to say, this is a very collaborative client focused.
Dom (29:46.281)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (30:11.288)
There’s no ego on who’s better. It’s, how do we collaboratively work for the clients? And then the last would be, yes, if, if they go somewhere else that offers legal and accounting as sort of a one-stop shop or a family office, you know, we’re sort of looking at some of our high net worth people wanting to transition somewhere else. And so we said, no, we’re going to bring these services to you instead of you looking to find them elsewhere. And
It’s worked. It’s worked really well. got to tell you building law firms harder than building an accounting firm. And and that’s even with all of the referrals internally of legal work. But legal doesn’t have that same reoccurring revenue model as a bookkeeping attacks, know, personal tax and annual tax compliance and financial reporting. So it’s slightly different. You focus on the minute book updates, which is huge. You know, your every client needs to go get their minute book updated.
Dom (30:45.672)
Interesting.
Dom (31:02.674)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (31:10.082)
Where are they going while they’re going to somebody else? And now you’ve got to have ongoing correspondence. If you bring it into one spot, it makes it easier or it should be. So yeah, that’s, that was our intention and thank you for sort of foreshadowing why we would do it. And it’s true though. It, and it, and it works.
Dom (31:18.473)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (31:25.565)
end of from. Yeah. And so this is corporate law, do you have tax law as well? Or it’s specifically corporate law.
Robert Gauvreau (31:32.652)
Yeah, so with our experienced tax experts as well, and a corporate lawyer, the collaboration between the two gets that done. So not specific tax lawyers, but corporate lawyers. So the tax team is more so taking on that significant tax expertise component, and the corporate lawyer is documenting some of that. So from a legal standpoint, we focus again on the small business owners’ needs. We’ve got tax planning.
So corporate restructuring, we’ve got corporate formation, we’ve got real estate transactions, wills and estates, and shareholder agreements, contracts. So it’s really, you know, no family law, no litigation, but let’s keep it tight so that anything a business owner would need, we can likely support them or have a good relationship with somebody else that we can refer them out to.
Dom (32:25.365)
That’s awesome. I find the corporate law scape, you know, a little bit awful here. Like I was, you know, I needed a bunch of help and I like, I had to change people halfway through and then it was, it was a whole ordeal. So that’s good to know. You know, I might be hitting your email at some point, maybe rather soon, which is good to know.
Robert Gauvreau (32:45.774)
100 % well and hey, it can all be done in one spot, right?
Dom (32:49.265)
Exactly. Yeah. No, that’s, that’s a tremendous kind of value prop. I’m a little bit conscious of time here. I don’t want to run too far over, but one thing I’m really, really curious about, and I’ve been curious about like my whole career as a CPA so far is the FCPA designation. So, I don’t know if that’s a thing in the U S but in Canada here, it’s a fellow CPA. So you get recognized for essentially, you know, above and beyond contributions to the profession.
Robert Gauvreau (32:53.422)
It is nice.
Robert Gauvreau (33:05.431)
Mm-hmm.
Dom (33:17.331)
I’m curious to hear the story of like what you think kind of like made the difference for you to be able to get that designation and then what that designation means, both personally but also like practically like has it unlocked a lot of things for you or what does that look like?
Robert Gauvreau (33:33.866)
I wish I get to so the last part I wish I could answer that it would be more but not that many people really know when I put that I’m an FCPA a lot of people don’t understand what it means and that’s okay. You know it wasn’t for business development purposes or anything like that. Really it’s a recognition that for me meant a lot because essentially the FCPA the fellowship is.
you know, more or less like a lifetime achievement award. You’ve you’ve rec you’re being recognized as someone who’s had a distinctive impact on the profession. And for me, this has just been part of my nature from being a younger person. I’ve gone and I’ve worked with young CPAs across the country, specifically with CPA Ontario. I’ve done a lot of events with them helping mentor their young next generation. I’ve done a lot of speaking with them.
I’ve been the CEO in residence at Trent University, which is our local university, contributing to the success of students and the recruitment of people into the profession. Obviously building a $20 million CPA firm as well, growing it. Yeah, there’s that part. So somewhat innovating the space that it… I wouldn’t say that we’re completely niche specific in the CPA world, but we’re very much small to medium sized business owner specific with a few…
Dom (34:43.039)
helps. Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (34:58.508)
very specialized niches like law firms, other professionals, contractors, and then obviously the rest of the small business community. So we have had an impact in those specific areas as well. And when we got the call that I was nominated and that I was actually being received into fellowship, it was actually a little bit of an emotional time as that sort of recognition because
You know, as much as I’m active in the community and, you know, contributing to large magazines as a writer, I’ve got a book and that stuff, it’s not for attention. You know, this is a very intentional business plan of, you know, continuing to make progress. But the FCPA was, it was a recognition that they gave me that I didn’t need, but really appreciated. You know, I remember going to…
Dom (35:52.819)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (35:55.084)
to the event and everybody was in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. And I was in my 30s at the time. And I remember going into the event and standing up, it was alphabetical and they were trying to put everybody in and they were like, sorry, are you like, what are you looking for? I was like, I’m supposed to be in this line. And they said, no, like what line do you think this is? I’m like, it’s for the fellowship people going up on stage, you know, shaking the hands of the president of CPA Ontario.
getting your FCPA, your photo, and you walk off the stage. It’s very formal, very quick. And they’re like, we’re not used to seeing people younger in this line. And that meant a little bit more, as embarrassing as it was for that moment. But really, again, it was for me to say, we appreciate everything that you contribute. Even though it’s not a very loud statement, it was just something that recognized
Dom (36:49.097)
Mm-hmm.
Robert Gauvreau (36:51.414)
My contribution is to the professional for me personally and it meant the world.
Dom (36:55.315)
Yeah, no, it’s interesting to hear that it’s not as like widely recognized because again, for some added context, for those who aren’t familiar, like I know probably two other FCPAs and like they probably both wear bifocals, you know, like it’s not it’s not something that’s tossed around lightly. So yeah, congratulations on that. That’s huge.
Robert Gauvreau (37:13.806)
Well, thank you. And, you know, again, because a lot of people don’t know what the FCPA means. I mean, I work in the contractor space. Again, that’s one of our niches. And we get a lot of characters in that space. And you can just imagine what they think the F stands for. But it’s not not failed. But, you know, other names that you might be referred to as so. So so it’s interesting that nobody really has a.
Dom (37:35.731)
Yeah.
Robert Gauvreau (37:41.688)
concept for what that is. But again, it’s something that I wear with pride and just on my email signature. And that’s pretty much all I talk about it, but, something I’m very proud of.
Dom (37:52.085)
Cool. Well, yeah, thank you so much for joining me on the pod, Rob. There’s a, you know, a few other topics that I would have loved to dig into, but in the interest of time, maybe we might keep those for a follow-up episode or something at some.
Robert Gauvreau (38:05.698)
Sounds great. No, this has been a lot of fun. Love being able to even share my insights with the CPA profession and other practitioners for anyone. If I can help in any way, feel free to reach out.
Dom (38:17.833)
Awesome. And I’ll make sure I link your podcast, book, and then I’ll have your kind of social media profiles as well for anyone looking to get in touch. Thank you so much,
Robert Gauvreau (38:26.827)
Excellent, thank you.