Robert Naugler was ready to throw in the towel and leave public accounting. But he decided to give it one more try and reached out to Sterling in Glendale, CA.

"As far back as junior high school, I knew I would work in the accounting field. I thought accounting was fun and exciting and I wanted to help people. But after 12 exhausting years running my own CPA practice, I was ready to close my doors and exit the profession.

"My work schedule was 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. and that was during the off-season. The staff were unproductive with no accountability; I had to redo most of their work.

"Our collections procedures were “casual” which meant the clients paid us when they felt like it. Even though I hosted practice management seminars and roundtables, I knew nothing about managing my own practice and began to feel two-faced about it.

"Since it was impossible to get quality work out the door without my involvement, I put the brakes on taking on more business. I was deliberately blocking the growth of my practice.

"Needless to say, I wasn’t spending a lot of time at home. My wife was incredibly patient but the relationship between my son and I was distant. That was not surprising since I was absent for a chunk of his childhood.

"I thought about getting a “day job” instead of a “day and night” job. I was making “okay” money in the practice but not on a per-hour basis; I thought I could find a controllership position for more money with less hours and stress.

"One morning, I was going through my mail and saw a postcard from Sterling which said “Are you getting everything you want out of your practice?” That hit me right between the eyes. I called Sterling for more information and spoke to several of their CPA clients. One of them told me Sterling had saved his life. Half-joking, I asked how, since they weren’t medical professionals. He explained that he had been working long hours, making little money and had no personal life. Every point he made hit me like a ton of bricks; it sounded just like me. I knew there was something to learn from Sterling so I decided to do their program.

"At Sterling’s offices in Glendale, I studied management tools which had never been presented to me before—not in college, not by the AICPA, not by any other organization. I worked with my consultant who went through a host of points with me about my practice. She wrote a list of steps for me on how to specifically use these tools when I returned to the practice. Then she stayed with me, talking to me over the phone regularly to advise me where needed and to ensure I was getting through my list.

"With my consultant’s help, we implemented the components of the Sterling program. We began with a customized organizing board which defined each staff member’s job function, what they were expected to produce and smoothed out the workflow. A statistic was assigned to each of the staff to measure their productivity. The Sterling program includes exact steps every employee can take to increase their performance. All staff knew what they should be working on and were accountable for getting it done. Sterling also helped improve our communications procedures, collections and many other aspects of the practice.

"The practice improved immediately and dramatically. We started to get a lot more work done because the staff were playing the game of being productive. Sterling recommended paying bonuses based on job performance and that motivated the staff.

"What’s wonderful about the Sterling program is the bad staff tend to weed themselves out but sometimes they need a little help. For instance, I had a secretary I had to get rid of but could not bring myself to let go. My consultant helped me tackle it. She is willing to, and committed to, pushing me through my resistance to facing the tougher issues.

"Except for our larger clients, we required everyone pay for their services in advance or on delivery. As a result, collections also improved dramatically. Now our clients expect it and if they are not invoiced immediately, they think something is wrong.

"Interactions with the clients changed, too. We instituted up-front agreements so the clients knew exactly what to expect. We improved our product quality and customer service and got paid for what we did.

"A year after starting with Sterling, I took three months off over the course of a year. Previously, I never would have believed that was possible. Within two years after starting the Sterling program, we were leaving the office by 6 p.m. during tax season.

"I’ve been a Sterling client for 17 years now. My production and collections have increased by 300% and profit by 500%. It took only three months for me to recoup the investment in Sterling; I would have been very happy with 18 months.

"Now I have a work environment that is sane, fun and productive. I love my profession again and no longer want to leave it. It’s not that we aren’t busy, we are—but we are in control; there is a lot more order. The balance in my life has also been restored. Had I not put these tools in place with Sterling, it never would have happened. It’s a fun rocket ride. With Sterling’s help, we can identify and implement the steps necessary to achieve whatever we want, and it works. It’s a bit like magic."