How Emile Gassler makes entrepreneurs rich

"Altime my guiding principle has been that I wanted to make my clients rich," states Emile Gassler, the man who joined his father's accounting firm in 1974 with a focus on tax advice for SMEs. "The limit, of course, is that I could not do business for my clients, but otherwise I did everything to support them. Feel free to call me a professional idiot."

Renowned firm

Mr. drs. E. Gassler RA (1944), also owner of Hotel Corona, managed to grow the Hague-based firm into a renowned firm - Van Noort Gassler & Co | Accountants & Adviseurs - with branches across the country in four and a half decades. "Now I am slowly withdrawing; I only step in when I really need to," he says. A good time to look back and take stock.

"When I knocked on my father's door after a career in secondary and scientific education, this was not exactly a fancy firm," Gassler recalls. "It had a tradition in tax consultancy since it was founded in 1919. In itself quite special in accountancy country, because the focus is usually on auditing."

Within a year and a half, Gassler managed to expand the office on Nieuwe Parklaan with a second branch by taking over an administrative office on Marktweg. "A great place, where in those days the entire Hague trade gathered every morning; I have a special affinity with those people," he says.

Golden times

Golden times are dawning. "If you weren't a client with us, you didn't really belong. A new élan emerged, we were entrepreneurs among entrepreneurs. Every client was another object of study to see what we could do." Gassler illustrates with a laugh: "A client who supplied the PTT had enabled PTT people to buy TV sets at big discounts.

The Inland Revenue found out and imposed retrospective assessments on those people, putting the relationship at risk. Not my job of course, but I investigated how much discount you could get on a TV as an individual. That turned out to be about the same, so the retrospective assessments went in the bin!"

From his educational background, Gassler initially trains his people himself. That 'Ajax model' is the formula for success, but it also has a downside, to which the firm almost collapses in the early 1980s. "The office became a training institute.

Not just in the trade, also in entrepreneurship. So over time, those guys all started working for themselves. Since then, I focused on a different type of newcomers: no young dogs, but loyal professionals who have been working for me for thirty years now. This is ultimately better for the clients too, who want continuity in such a relationship. Something you don't come across much these days."

Profit sharing

For another measure Gassler is taking to avoid fragmentation of his firm and client base, he finds inspiration in the field. "I took a good look at big guys like KPMG and Ernst & Young and developed a partner model that amounts to a contract with profit sharing according to a points system. As a result, the people who work with us really feel like partners and entrepreneurs, without having to buy in or start somewhere else for themselves."

That approach paid off: calm returned and the firm grew to eventually six offices from the mid-1990s onwards. The window to the rest of the world also opened when, in 1990, Van Noort Gassler & Co became a member of JPA International, one of the 20 largest accountancy networks in existence.

Van Noort Gassler & Co.

History will not repeat itself: Gassler's children make careers outside Van Noort Gassler & Co. So what does the future look like? "I am now talking to the owner of a similar-sized firm specialising in auditing. He is of my age and also wants his firm to continue to exist. It would be nice if we can strengthen each other in the coming years."

www.noortgassler.nl