They haven’t yet been accepted into Canada, but that doesn’t deter Rogers Associate Financial Partners Inc. from targeting potential immigrants as clients.

Early in December, the Calgary-based financial services company launched Immigration Assistance Canada, an Internet-based service that offers people who are interested in moving to Canada a referral to Canadian immigration lawyers and consultants. If and when these people arrive in Canada, the firm will have a connection to a new pool of prospects.

“It gives us a bit of a leg up in building a client base,” says RAFP president John Rogers. “When people come to Canada, they will want to purchase a home, and we have a mortgage division. They’ll want to purchase insurance, and we have an insurance division. If they run into financial difficulties while they are here, we have a debt-assistance division to help them.”

The IAC program will connect potential immigrants with immigration lawyers and consultants, who otherwise would not be available to them until they enter Canada, to help speed up the application process.

A form requesting IAC’s services can be downloaded from its Web site (www.igocanada.com). Potential immigrants submit the form and a payment of US$175, which, Rogers says, may be waived. RAFP employees then forward the request to the immigration professionals in its database, who then follow up directly with the applicants.

IAC’s services are available in English, Spanish, French, Ro-manian and Portuguese, and will soon be translated into German, Italian and Dutch — eight of the approximately 12 languages spoken at the RAFP head office.

RAFP has contemplated stimulating immigration since 1999, but lacked the resources to launch the IAC service until late last year. With the recent low level of unemployment in Alberta, which has caused a shortage of labour that’s forced some businesses to shut down, RAFP was inspired to launch the program — both to fill a niche not addressed by government programs and to benefit from it.

“It’s a service more businesses should get involved in,” Rogers says. “They should look outside their own country for workers if the workers aren’t available here.”

Rogers is well aware that more immigrants will mean new clients. “Because we made the initial contact, we have the potential to serve them as clients,” he says.

Firms and advisors have to be more creative in order to gain an edge in Canada’s maturing market for financial advice, says Dan Richards, president of Strategic Imperatives Ltd., a Toronto-based financial services consulting firm.

RAFP’s focus on its unique strategy to generate clients does this he adds.

“In an increasingly competitive market, firms and individual advi-sors are constantly going to have to look for ways to differentiate themselves,” Richards says. “So, thinking out of the box and saying, ‘OK, is there an underserved market we could address?’ is probably a good starting point.

“Part of the challenge is being first in,” he adds, “not following a path well trodden.”

Although other firms are offering similar immigration referral services, RAFP is trying to go further than its competition.

“Most people aren’t taking that aggressive a stance,” Rogers says. “They put up their Web sites and hope people will go to them. We’ve gone a little step further and will advertise in various countries.”

As a result, inquiries are steady at a few each day, and have been increasing since the holiday season. Advertisements RAFP has placed in Mexico City, Bogotá, Colombia, and Santiago, Chile, have done more than generate interest among immigrants, Rogers says.

“A common inquiry we’ve had is from people who want to invest money in Canada,” he says.

The IAC program is also generating exposure abroad for RAFP’s other services. The firm has received calls from stockbrokers abroad and high net-worth people moving to Canada who are looking for investment opportunities.

Despite the immediate positive response, Richards cautions that the challenge in embarking on a new initiative is the expectation of an immediate payoff.

“There are no guarantees, obviously,” says Richards. “But if you’re the first firm or financial advisor a person has dealt with, and if that person has had a good experience working with you, you have first-contact advantage.

“The real payoff,” Richards adds, “is if you can get word of mouth going — if you can become the advisor of choice for a specific community.” IE

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