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Robert Gauvreau: Why This CPA Firm Founder Refuses Equity Partners | Big 4 Transparency

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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

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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.

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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. READ MORE →

Sell the Sizzle, Not the Bacon

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two seated people talking in office

Four elements to consider every time.

By August Aquila
MAX: Maximize Productivity, Profitability and Client Retention

Selling professional services is not as difficult as some accountants and consultants believe. I like to define sales as solving a client’s problem. If you think in these terms, you’ll realize that this is what we do every day.

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Sales is the life blood of every business out there. If we did not sell our services and products, we would not have a firm or business. So, don’t think of sales as something unprofessional. It’s an integral part of growing your practice.
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Add Health Care Planning to Your Firm’s Services

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portrait of Christine Simone
Simone
 Christine Simone is the CEO & co-founder of Caribou, a software solution for the finance industry to include health care costs and plan optimization in financial plans.

Reduce client stress and build stronger financial futures.

By Christine Simone
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

Financial advisors are well suited to help clients with all the important decisions in their lives. But that doesn’t mean advisors always recognize the areas in which clients need the most help.

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Take health insurance, a big concern for people across all income groups. According to a 2021 report from Spectrem Group (now part of CEG Insights), two-thirds of affluent investors (65%) say they want their advisors to help them with health insurance, but only 4 percent said their financial advisors are providing it to them (see bar chart). Further, among people who don’t have financial advisors, the top areas for which they would want guidance are retirement income planning, Social Security planning and Medicare advice.
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Stewart Spiers: What Local Firms Can Do that the Big 4 Can’t | Big 4 Transparency

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Faster, Leaner, Closer to the Client, and Two Hours to an Engagement Letter

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Sponsored by The True Adviser: Buy now | Learn more 
The True Adviser: Buy now | Learn more

Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Former Deloitte colleague Stewart Spiers tells Dominic Piscopo about leaving the Big 4 partner path to help build a tax planning practice at TAAG – why SMB clients pulled him back, what changes in speed and autonomy, and how partner economics differ between large and small firms.

Spiers spent roughly 15 years at Deloitte, starting as a co-op and rising through Private Company Services, before making a move many Big 4 professionals debate but rarely execute: stepping off the partner track to double down on the SMB clients he’s always gravitated toward. In this new episode of the Big 4 Transparency show, Spiers tells host Dominic Piscopo that his decision wasn’t driven by a bad experience at Deloitte, but by a career crossroads and a clearer answer to one question: What kind of work does he want to be doing in the future?

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For Spiers, the most energizing part of the job has consistently been working with owner-managed businesses, entrepreneurs, second-generation operators, and local companies where the accountant-client relationship is long-term and high-trust.

While Deloitte can deliver immense value, he described a growing friction between Big 4 structures and what many smaller businesses actually need. The firm’s push upmarket, bundled service-line model, and high billable rates can make it harder to serve “everyday” businesses where the ask is often bookkeeping, core accounting, and practical succession and planning – not ERP implementations and multi-service-line engagements.

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Who Is Your Ideal Wealth Management Client?

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portrait of Kelly Waltrich
Waltrich
 Kelly Waltrich is the co-founder of Intention.ly, a leading marketing consultancy to fintech and finserv companies.

You’ll need to market, but set business goals first.

By Kelly Waltrich
The Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

For CPAs, offering holistic wealth management services can be a game changer for your practice. These services are a clear opportunity to provide top-notch guidance to clients while fueling additional revenue streams.

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But let’s be real – simply hanging out a “wealth management” shingle won’t cut it in an industry in which competition is abundant, and differentiation is key. Making your clients and prospects aware of your expanded offerings, and growing your business as a result of those offerings, requires a much more targeted approach.
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