How We Battled Back from Rock Bottom

In a matter of months we had to reevaluate our whole life, which includes three children. Since we couldn't keep up with monthly expenses and we had already relied on our credit to get the lab up and running, we were tapped out.

In 2012, seven years after my husband Greg and I started HD Lab, a C&B lab in Chicago, we lost a new client—one that had potential to become our most profitable account—over miscommunication regarding a crown with a loose contact for a very particular celebrity client.

That incident set the stage for a dark period in our business. The economy was in recession and the dental insurance market in Chicago was in crisis. Dentists were choosing to outsource offshore to save money. We had to suspend some of our smaller accounts due to ongoing non-payment issues. Other clients retired and some moved out of town or merged into larger dental groups.

In a matter of months we had to...