"My wife and I were very good savers, but it just seemed that we would work and every month we'd write out our checks for the government and our mortgage, and that was all the money we'd just made. It floored us that so much money was being taken in and so little was left over.

"By the middle of 1997 I realized I needed some help, so I was looking around the market for a management company. I had been out to a seminar for another management company where I met a podiatrist who said he had gotten phenomenal growth through Sterling. He was managing by statistics and he was doing very well. That stuck in my head. I got information from a couple of different management firms and requested information from Sterling, too.

"My wife is the other dentist in my practice. I do more of the dentistry; I work five days and she works two as a dentist, so she does more of the management. She is very good at picking up on the things I am not doing. One of the things that appealed to us about Sterling was that they teach you how to manage yourself, instead of having somebody else manage your practice for you. My wife is a 'do-it yourselfer.' She even hates sending anything to the accountant! She's always looking for a good value, and Sterling's idea of being able to do it ourselves was a lot more appealing to us.

"Even so, I was somewhat skeptical because it was unproven to us. I even called a dentist I knew who had been with the Sterling program a few years prior, and I asked him if it had helped him. He said that in his two years with Sterling, his practice had doubled. I said to myself, 'Well, how bad can that be?'

"We started with Sterling in October of 1997 and did their Executive Booster Program and their Staff Training Program (SPEEDO). And even with the cost of the combined programs, we made it all back in six to eight months.

"Obviously it was the best thing because it helped us look at everything fresh and put in programs that have really paid off.

"The way the executive training program was set up was not what I expected. The Business step-by-step Integrity course was interesting and helped us to realize our own goals.The training helped us to see things we weren't seeing before. We scrutinized our office from three thousand miles away, differently than we had been doing on a day-to-day basis. "The most valuable course, and the one that fulfilled our main objective in going out for the training, was where we learned how to manage by statistics. Now we have weekly meetings, we have graphs posted; everyone sees what condition their area is in. We go over why certain statistics went up or down, what happened to cause that, and figure out how to apply the proper formula to get them to go up. I have my staff write this up each week for their own areas. We work to have everyone support each other to see what we can do to improve our situation.

"I have two offices, and some of our nine staff overlap offices. One is in Northampton, Mass, and the other one is in Williamsburg, Mass.

"My office in Williamsburg is tiny, with only two operatories in a little red house. It sits right near a river with plenty of parking, and it is very pretty. However, in terms of trying to make production, there is just no room for expansion in that office. But the patients love it!

"Compare that to my Northampton office, where we are in the back of the second floor of a downtown building on Main Street, with absolutely no parking whatsoever. We're completely invisible from the street. There's no reason why the Northampton office should be doing so well, in one sense. It's all from word of mouth, advertising and a good reputation. Only one patient in ten years ever came in because of our signage!

"The exciting news is that due to all the improvements in our cash flow and traffic, we have been able to purchase a new building with lots of parking, terrific exposure, and it's only a two-minute walk from my current Northampton office. We should be moved into that office by summer.

"Prior to Sterling we were seeing about 100 patients per week. Now we're seeing about 150 per week. We are now producing, both offices together, 80% more than we were prior to doing the Sterling program.

"After we came back from California we had a bunch of great ideas, but that's what normally happens from attending a seminar or whatever. Our staff, of course, was hoping this would all get swept under the rug. So we got Sterling to come to our practice and deliver their SPEEDO (staff training) Program. Now our tiny Williamsburg office is producing and collecting 60% more from two chairs, open only three days a week. That's less time open than we were before.

"The Speedo consultant did an excellent job of looking at our scheduling in our bigger office, figuring out what some of our blockages were, and helping us sort this out. She laid out the organizational groundwork, helped the staff considerably, and put in all those programs I needed to put in. It was nice to have it instantly there, 'Here it is!' It really did help us get everything up and running. My staff gained a much better understanding of what we wanted, and it worked out very well.

"Overall, the stress is significantly less now. It is a big relief not having to worry now about whether I'm going to have enough to pay the bills. The scheduling is tighter than it's ever been, and that causes me some stress, but it is very manageable. I only had one assistant to help me before, and now I have two. While I'm at work, I have new challenges because I'm seeing more patients in a day, but it is enjoyable! The scheduling is such that I'm producing more each day. I feel more worthwhile, I'm doing much more work. I was worried the quality of my care might deteriorate, but it has actually improved! That's very gratifying. I'm enjoying the dentistry more. I have six pages of people on call to come in if there's a cancellation. We're still somewhat resistant to having an associate in the office right now, but obviously we'll have to do something soon along that line! "The teamwork in the office is much improved. Some of my personnel were hired with the Sterling system already in place. They came aboard with the understanding that this is how the office is going to be run. They are actually the ones who are pushing me now!

"A light bulb just went off for me the other day. With the bonuses and incentives we have in place, my scheduler is keeping me working as hard as she can in the time availableŠ and I give her extra money for this! I figure if I'm putting in the hours every day anyway, I might as well make it worthwhile.

"Doing the Sterling program has freed up our expenses and given us the extra money, the profit that we didn't see before. What amazed me is that even with the bonuses that we give our staff, and with having two offices with two overheads, my practice is running at only 53% overhead. For a practice our size that is very low, lower than many of my colleagues who pay their employees a set salary. Not only do my staff work harder, but we're producing more and their salaries stay in line because we're more efficient.

"Sterling is a great opportunity to teach you how to better manage your office. Instead of looking at it after the fact, going 'Gee, what happened last year?' you can take a pro-active approach. It is a lot more fun and comfortable being in the driver's seat and running the office than it is to have to react when you have a bad month here or there and you don't know why. It would help any practice, no matter how big or small. I've proven that in a small office that has only two chairs, and another one that has four.

"I'd have to say the Hubbard management technology works. It's very efficient. When things don't go as well, it is because we haven't had our meetings or haven't put the formulas into effect. It really does have a sound basis and works very well.

"Sterling has exceeded my expectations. They have very strong support for their clients. They have meetings all over the country that allow you to gather new information about running your business, offered at no charge to their clients. That is phenomenal in this day and age! This is a great service to their clients. You can learn a lot! I take my staff and they have a great time, too. I think it is a very nice offering for the clients to be able to go to those meetings.

"The Sterling program has certainly given me more confidence. I feel like I have reached that point in my career where I am reaching my full potential as a dentist. I am able to produce higher quality, better work. In terms of my overall life, the financial security has allowed greater opportunities for my family stability, allowed me to take nicer vacations, and overall given me a much better life.

"There was no way we could have afforded our new building before Sterling. We are putting ten percent away toward retirement, and our retirement is now fully funded each year. We just came back from a 12-day vacation to England and Bermuda, and I can honestly say I wouldn't have been able to do that before. Life is much more enjoyable now, much more the way I wanted it to be."