We have all seen people who never grow up. It's not a pretty sight. Businesses are the same way. Unless they get beyond their adolescence, they can never reach their full potential. That is what the Sterling program does. It brings an accounting practice to maturity.

Before Sterling, I'd run my business my way and found myself utterly frustrated with the way I was managing it. It was miserable. I didn't handle staff well or effectively manage client relationships.

By doing it all my way, I'd acquired a whole slew of C, D and F quality clients who were more torture than treasure. With them, it was all about price and never about the amount or the quality of work involved in the job.

I have a six-person practice that specializes in servicing primarily restaurants and produce markets in the Chicago metropolitan area. After a dozen years, we were working hard, but not making a lot of money. 

I got a postcard in the mail from Sterling, I sent it in and set up a free phone consultation with one of their consultants. My wife and I spent three or four hours on the phone going over matters with him. We decided it was well worth the money to go to Sterling and see if we could get ourselves streamlined, organized, and moving in the right direction.

Haiden Turner has been on his own as a CPA for about eleven years, with his own practice for ten years. He is located in Farmer's Branch Texas, right outside of Dallas.

"We have a real mixture of clients; a general practice. We're more aligned toward businesses than individual taxes but we do a lot of that, too. A large portion of our business is helping people with their accounting software. We also do financial statement audits of some of our larger clients, on a recurring basis. At one point I had two CPAs working with me; right now I only have one assistant working for me.