Partnering like a pro: Advisors and accountants

Rod Burylo realized early in his career that giving and receiving referrals could help expand his business. 

One of Burylo’s first jobs in financial services was a commissions-based mortgage specialist position with the Royal Bank of Canada, where he often gave referrals to and received referrals from realtors and home builders, he recalled. He went on to form networking clubs with his peers to make more connections and enter more referral arrangements. 

Thirty-six years later, Burylo is still giving and receiving referrals today to grow his business as an associate portfolio manager with Oakville, Ont.-based Equate Asset Management Inc. 

He recently received a client referral from Luc MacCallum, a partner and accountant with Pinnacle Accounting and Finance in Calgary. Burylo and MacCallum have worked together for about 10 years and collaborated on about five households. MacCallum helps clients with their accounting needs, while Burylo provides investment advice. 

“We’ve been in business together for a lot of years, so there’s an innate trust,” MacCallum said of his working relationship with Burylo. “One of the nice things when it comes to referrals … is we build up these relationships and we vet them so that the clients don’t need to.”    

Here’s why the pair chose to work together and some of the benefits of an advisor-accountant relationship.   

THE PARTNERS  

• Referring professional: Luc MacCallum, partner and accountant at Pinnacle Accounting and Finance in Calgary 
• Accepting professional: Rod Burylo, associate portfolio manager with Equate Asset Management Inc.  
• Number of households they’ve collaborated on: Five 
• How long they’ve worked together: About 10 years 

Why give and receive referrals?  

In addition to business development, Burylo said giving and receiving referrals can help people retain clients and improve client outcomes.  

Professionals who engage in referrals are able to build a fence around their clients, Burylo said, meaning they’re more likely to protect their clients from being poached by other professionals.  

“By having this friendly group of respectable collaborating professionals, it means that if a client comes into my system, the likelihood of them leaving is really low,” he added.  

It’s also in the best interest of the client “if you network with other professionals that can fill in the gaps for what you don’t do,” Burylo said. “And if it’s in the best interest of the client, that basically means client outcomes should be better.”  

MacCallum said high-net-worth clients tend to have a team of professionals they rely on for their various needs, whereas clients who are less wealthy tend to have less access to various professionals. The referral process can save these people time and energy.  

“They’re getting professional advice without having to go through the hassle of listening to 15, 20 different firms pitch their ideas,” MacCallum said.  

Why they chose each other 

MacCallum and Burylo met through Burylo’s son, who also works at Pinnacle Accounting and Finance, about a decade ago. The two have worked together professionally since. (Burylo also invests in and has been a board advisor to Pinnacle.) 

MacCallum does bookkeeping, corporate tax returns, personal tax returns and tax structuring for clients, while Burylo helps them come up with an investment strategy to grow their money.  

“As soon as you get past that tax structure, I’m limited with what I can actually do for [clients]. That’s why you need these partnerships with other professionals because I can only go so far with my services,” MacCallum said.  

Burylo shared a similar remark.  

“While I have some advanced education and considerable personal business experience, having created, built and sold a few businesses over the years, I am definitely not an accountant and do not have Luc’s education and experience,” he said.  

Burylo refers clients to accountants at Pinnacle Accounting and Finance, including MacCallum, whenever his clients ask him questions about starting a business. He said those accountants will help his clients register a corporate entity and open a business bank account, among other things.  

In turn, Burylo said this mitigates his risk of missing something important or misunderstanding something critical to the client’s situation. 

“By having this friendly group of respectable collaborating professionals, it means that if a client comes into my system, the likelihood of them leaving is really low.”

– Rod Burylo

Furthermore, their close working relationship results in a streamlined tax preparation and filing process for MacCallum, a streamlined investment management process for Burylo, and smoother future financial planning process for both, Burylo said.  

“Sometimes having two professionals discuss similar topics, but in different ways, can help the client understand their situation, their unfolding financial and wealth creation plan, and make truly informed decisions,” he explained. 

When collaborating on a client’s file, Burylo said he doesn’t ask MacCallum for client documents and prefers to go directly to the source as this is “the most effective and the most compliant way to fulfil [know your client] obligations.”  

“Accountants will typically require tax related information regarding investment returns, RRSP contributions, etc., and while clients often provide those directly, I am regularly asked by clients to provide that information to their accountants or tax preparers,” he added. 

Another reason Burylo enjoys working with accountants like MacCallum is because they tend to refer clients to him with a substantial amount of wealth, he said.  

“They’re such great gatekeepers,” Burylo said of accountants. “I’ve been at these relationships for years, but when they send me referrals, they’re friggin’ awesome. The clients do exactly what’s supposed to happen right away, in part because they trust the accountants, so therefore, they trust me.” 

A client example 

MacCallum recently received pointed questions from a couple he has been serving for the past eight years about how to handle their finances as they approach retirement. 

MacCallum said the husband and wife, who have substantial savings both in a corporation and personally, asked him questions such as how they could access their savings in the corporation and what they should be doing with their money. He told the couple he could help them create a tax structure but couldn’t offer them professional investment advice.  

Instead, MacCallum advised them to consider branching out to other advisors, namely Burylo.  

The couple agreed to meet with Burylo, who spoke to them about their personal and corporate financial situation, objectives, risk tolerance and current investment portfolio. He then made recommendations for an investment portfolio which had a growth orientation while being tax-efficient, he said.  

MacCallum said Burylo employed a hands-on approach that the couple’s previous advisor was lacking, and soon after, the husband and wife switched advisors.  

“They loved what Rod had to say right off the bat,” MacCallum said. “They’re just like, ‘In all our working lives, we’ve never had anyone do this for us.’ So, I think that’s wonderful, and for me referring them, that obviously makes me look pretty good.” 

Burylo said the story sheds light on the obligation of an advisor to know their client.  

“The performance of the accounts had been objectively crappy. And the clients weren’t quite sure how bad the performance was because they weren’t hearing from the [former] advisor,” Burylo recalled. “The biggest crime is the advisor didn’t really know their client because $800,000 was sitting in cash in the account that nobody had ever talked to them about.”  

The risk of losing a client 

Having given and received countless referrals over the years, Burylo said the risk of losing a client in the referrals process does not cross his mind at this stage of his career.  

“I would be more worried about losing a client when you don’t have a referral relationship, not the opposite way around,” he said. 

However, professionals who are not as experienced in setting up referrals should vet and have a frank conversation with their prospective collaborators about what their referral arrangement will look like so that everybody is on the same page, Burylo recommended. 

“One of the main reasons you set up a referral network yourself and participate in it is so you protect your clients from being poached,” he said. 

Professionals should also research firms they intend to refer clients to so there isn’t an overlap of services that may result in a client being poached by the other firm, Burylo further recommended.  

“Vetting the firm to make sure that they’re just going to focus on [certain] topics is a worthwhile step in all of this for sure.”  

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