Kelowna-Based Firm Looking To Expand Operations Across Canada
KELOWNA – Strategic Director Erik “The Viking” Solbakken challenged the partners of MBA Chartered Professional Accountants to come up with a BHAG – a Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal.
Peter McFadden and Amrit Buttar have, and they are now shooting towards serving 15,000 clients across the country – which comes from 100 partners across Canada managing 150 businesses each.
“Peter and Amrit have turned their business model around and they want to roll it out to 15,000 business owners in Canada, and it’s starting here in Kelowna,” says Solbakken. “It will be based upon 4 Planning Pillars™ for Life: Business, Wealth, Retirement and Estate.”
The company has three core beliefs that have been integral to the success of the firm, which McFadden started from scratch in 1990.
“Number one, they believe that business owners are the most important people in society, because without business owners we have no commerce, no tax revenue, no government, no social support systems, and then we have no society,” Solbakken explains.
Secondly, they believe the traditional accounting firm business model is flawed and fails to serve clients due to often focusing only on billable hours and churning out tax returns.
“Our 3rd Core belief is that The MBA Way gives clients what they truly want and deserve,” he notes. “We offer transparent, up-front pricing so they can make a decision on Return On Investment (ROI) decision with respect to working with a CPA, as well as offering planning and advice that helps clients achieve their life goals.”
To get there, MBA looks at the client’s entire life through the 4 Planning Pillars™ lens, and from that provides an assessment of those sections, makes sure they are aligned within the business for success, and then manage to maintain the positive results.
Solbakken spent 26 years in public accounting practice himself before becoming a business coach, and started with MBA in 2019 with his Accountants Success Formula™ program.
“I showed them the fundamental flaw I could see in the accounting business model,” he recalls. “It didn’t serve the firm well, or their business clients.”
Another key aspect of the shift was moving towards eliminating traditional silos where accountants, lawyers, financial planners, and insurance experts work on their own without communicating with other professionals on the client’s overall plan.
“We get them all aligned, which only makes sense. Can you imagine building a house and everybody involved is working with different plans?,” he asks.
It turned MBA around, and their clients love it.
“The results were far superior than what they expected, and they don’t have to chase clients for bills,” he says. “We want to bring that across the country now.”
By Mark MacDonald
