What product or service does your business provide?

Chartered Accountants for Independent Professionals - or, CA4IP -- is a national association of chartered accounting firms that provides a wide range of financial services to independent professionals across Canada.

The CA4IP association is among the largest firms in Canada providing services solely to the independent professional.

We distinguish between the provision of these services and the business we consider ourselves to be in, that of becoming our clients' most trusted financial advisor. This approach helps foster the development of long-lasting client relationships that are mutually beneficial.

What is unique about your business?

CA4IP is the only association of independent accounting firms in Canada that deals solely with the independent professional whether an IT consultant, a doctor, a lawyer, a dentist, a real estate agent, an engineer or an architect. CA4IP is able to provide a host of value-added services, such as Financial Coaching, Free Seminars, Benchmarking Analysis, access to our proprietary Audit Insurance program - services that are all tailored to benefit the independent professional. CA4IP associate firms know the requirements and needs of independent professionals better that any group of firms in Canada and we are constantly focusing on how we, as a group, can "raise the performance bar" as it applies to the services we offer and the way we deliver them.

Everything we do -- absolutely everything -is focused on the relationship we have with our clients. We value this above everything else and the pursuit of improving the standards by which we are measured in this area is, and will continue to be, a never-ending quest.

Why did you start your business?

Many years ago an aptitude test confirmed that I would be most productive and happy combining education with my fervent desire to help others succeed. This awareness gave birth to CA4IP, which is now a national association with all member firms practicing the philosophy and methodology of my founding firm.

How do you measure the success of your business?

As previously mentioned, the key to our success, I believe, is in educating our clients about the several strategies we have designed to positively impact on their net worth.

We view ourselves as our clients' "Net Worth" manager.

Our database of several thousand independent professionals indicates that the annual income of our average client is $132,544.34. And the average retained earnings in their corporations is $35,064.96.

This is the quantitative measure of our success, the qualitative measure is that for the quantitative measure to have been a success the education we provided and the strategies that we made available must have worked.

The real measure of our success, and the personal satisfaction I enjoy today, comes from the fact that I was able to utilize my personal skills, as revealed in the aptitude test I took years ago, and fulfill my desire to help others through education. I am still doing it, and I am still enjoying it.

What's the single biggest factor in your success?

I personally believe that the single biggest factor in our success has been the systemization of our business. This has enabled me to work "on" my business, not "in" my business...Our firm is one of the only ISO 9002 registered firms of Chartered Accountants in Canada.

What challenges have you faced and how have you overcome them?

One major challenge that we faced, odd as it may seem, was determining what business we were in, what business we wanted to be in and what business we should be in. Once this was decided, we had to determine what changes had to be made in our firms to implement the strategic initiatives we wanted to pursue.

It may seem obvious that we are in the accounting business and we do "books" for clients. True enough but we recognized early on that there are literally thousands of accountants and hundreds of accounting firms in Canada. Recognizing this, we thought we might be well served to do something different and the best way we could determine to do something different was, in fact, to "be" something different. When we started thinking about this we started thinking about our clients, what they needed, and then how we could deliver our service in such a way that it exceeded their expectations. The next thing you know we were a "client centric" firm and that made us different. So, realizing what business we were actually engaged in was a big challenge to overcome.

An even larger challenge which is on-going is the selection and training of the people who are part of our firms and responsible for delivering on "who we are". Employees have a large responsibility and it is our daily challenge to ensure they have all the tools they need to bring everything we say we are to reality.

A further challenge was systemizing our firms in order to ensure they are structured so clients' needs have paramount focus, not the needs of an accountant whose focus is often on the service but not the client.

We obtain feedback from every client that we serve and insist on constant and never ending improvement of our service delivery process.

What would you say/do to encourage other small businesses?

Systemize your business so that you work "on" your business, instead of "in" your business...ensure that your business is "customer centric" as opposed to "product or service" centric...and as Winston Churchill said "never, never, never, never, QUIT".