Accountant Steve Callan, has been a Sterling, Glendale client for years. He first came to Sterling because he wanted to put more order into his life and his practice.
"I am someone who enjoys working with numbers and I also enjoy teaching people how to understand the benefits of using numbers to build prosperous businesses. So I decided to join the profession that allows me to do both.
"After graduating from college, I went to work for a regional firm in the San Francisco Bay area. I then moved to Bend, a city of about 80,000 in central Oregon, and have had my own firm there since 1982. There are now eight of us working in the office, including another accountant who became my partner in 2013.
"Although we are quite successful now, it wasn’t always that way. The problem wasn’t how to get more billings or increase my revenues, it was that my practice was a mess. I wanted more order in my life. Instead of me running the practice, the employees were running me, the clients were running me, and I was working a lot of unproductive hours. I knew that if I could put more order into my life, the billings, collections and everything else would straighten itself out.
"Then one day while I was on the road, I saw an ad for Sterling in an accounting trade publication. I filled out the postcard, but wound up leaving it in the hotel room. I knew that it was important enough that I not miss this opportunity to turn my practice around that I went back to the hotel room to retrieve the card and get it in the mail.
"So, on New Year’s Day 1998, I found myself in Los Angeles watching the Rose Bowl on the hotel room TV so I would be ready to start my Sterling training the next morning. I don’t recall who won the Rose Bowl that year, but I do know that attending the training helped turn me into a winner.
"With the Sterling program, I felt like I bought an MBA degree. I got so many great business ideas that I probably only implemented a third of them within the next two months. The biggest thing I realized in the training was that most of the problems were caused by me, not my staff or clients. I was certainly glad that through Sterling I had systems to take back with me and make things better.
"When I returned home, I immediately started putting what I learned to use. A big part of the changes was that I was better at confronting everyday problems that I used to just put off. Internally, I implemented more statistical information by employees so I could see who was being productive and who was not. With clients, I stood up for myself more so we had fewer write-downs and our collections got better.
"All of this made a big difference in the way I felt when I went into the office in the morning. Instead of being nervous, I was quite calm about going to work and my staff saw the difference. They were just doing what I let them get away with. Since I stopped letting them get away with substandard performance, they immediately fell into line, the confusion dropped off and the productivity increased. So, even though I was out of the office the first two weeks of January and I spent a good deal of time implementing the new systems, we made it through tax season without missing a beat. Since that time, our billings and collections have increased every year and overall our revenues have tripled.
"The key to the Sterling program is that it is centered on making you a better business owner.
"Most of us in the accounting profession are only trained to be good technicians; we are not trained to be business owners. But when you own your own practice, you’re not just an accountant anymore. You’re also in the business of accounting and too many people forget that. Sterling trains you on what you need to be a successful business owner. This encompasses all aspects of the organization including selecting and training personnel, marketing your services, smoothing out workflows and motivating staff to reach the goals you have set. It also extends to your life outside the office, since it does no good to reach your business goals but be too burned out to enjoy them. So, for example, one of the first things my consultant insisted upon was that my wife and I have a date night each week. My wife loved the idea, and 17 years later we still have our weekly date nights, even during tax season.
"Another huge part of the program is sometimes we, as owners, need advocates, and Sterling will be your best advocate for your practice. I mean that sincerely. For any leader, sometimes you need another person’s input that you are doing the right thing. You can’t talk to staff; that would be a disaster. Sterling helps you with that, giving you an independent person to bounce ideas off of and help guide you in taking the right actions.
"Then there are all the other aspects of the Sterling program which touch upon each part of the business. For example, there’s the new employee testing service which helps you select who to hire. There have been times when I thought I knew better than what the test showed and went ahead and hired someone anyway, only to regret it later. Through Sterling, I also developed a better process for what questions to ask prospectivet clients. I’m keener and this helps me make a better business decision about accepting new clients. Sometimes there are people you don’t want to work with, and it is good to know this ahead of time rather than grinding away with an unproductive relationship that doesn’t satisfy either you or the client.
"For me, even more than tripling my revenue, the biggest benefit has been in reaching my original goal of reducing the confusion in the office. I think I work less hours than I did before Sterling, but the number of hours worked isn’t what matters. It’s whether the hours I am spending in the office are productive or not. And they are. Whether I am doing billable work or the administrative functions of being a business owner, I am always productive. I’m never just sitting here spinning my wheels. There is no wasted time. There is no wasted effort. It is not bad working long hours when you know you’re getting a return for it."