Business Development

What does it mean to truly develop a business?

A lot of people look at the term "business development" and think about acquiring new clients.  This makes sense, right?  After all, a business can't grow without acquiring new clients.

I'd argue that this understanding of business development is both short sighted and harmful.  If a business is to grow, it is obviously important that it's workload continue to expand.  However this does not only occur through the acquisition of new clients.  It also requires continuous improvement within processes, procedures and policies.  It also requires continuous development of staff.

By the way, this type of continuous improvement will support the acquisition of new clients and additional work.  For the processes that attain these results are integral to a company's existence.  So, as the company develops, these processes will, as well.

As the CEO, it is my responsibility to guide this whole company development within my company.  I must allow my vision to guide me in this process.

The Role of a CEO

I often think about the nature of my job.  What does it mean to be a CEO?  Last month, during A Pass's regular board meeting, I asked the two members of my board, Chuck Amos and Michael Ross, what I am supposed to be doing with my time.  What does it really mean to think about the big ideas?  What does it look like to be a leader?

My board members said several things.  First, they recommended that I constantly be learning as many different things about A Pass and business in general as possible.  Second, the role of a CEO is to parachute into those areas of a business that need the most support and help fix things.  Third, I should be thinking about things that A Pass could be doing in the future.  They tried to explain this third element of a CEO's role by mentioning Apple, Steve Jobs and Tim Cook. Cook's role at Apple can only begin to be evaluated now.  Has he been doing things that are leading Apple in the right direction?  His work could not have been evaluated in the first week, month or year because his work was about the future not the present.  (This is very different than a writer, for example.  A writer's success can be determined immediately.  Has the writer written a coherent sentence or article?)

Shortly after this discussion with my board I began to look around for new learning opportunities.  I enrolled in an educational program for CEO's and business owners offered by Oakland County, Michigan.  The program, a set of ten classes, is called FastTrac Growth Ventures.  It is supported by the Kauffman Foundation.  The program actually finished last night with each participant making a presentation about his business.

As a result of my thinking within this course and tangential activities, I recognized a couple of important ideas.  First, A Pass's strategic advantage is that we use our easily expandable and very diverse group of writers, editors, subject matter experts, and instructional designers to implement our clients' visions.  I learned how to think about A Pass's SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).  I'd say that the greatest threat to our work is quality.  How do we ensure that we submit the highest quality work when we have a virtual company and those doing the work are usually freelance associates?

This last question leads into a brief discussion of the leadership role of the CEO.

A Pass has a team of content area development directors who are responsible for ensuring quality of work.  These individuals work for our Chief Instructional Officer.  As the leader of A Pass, I had a vision for this group.  The group was established.  Now that the group has been established I need to let them do their work.  A leader holds his people accountable.  This group is accountable for high quality.  However, a leader also empowers his people.  This group is empowered to do what is necessary to ensure high quality.  In a future blog post, I may share the kinds of insightful steps that this group is taking to ensure quality.

As the leader of an educational development company, I think it is essential that I am always learning.  This blog post represents the current stage that I am at in my learning process.  It is quite possible that a comment will prompt me to see something in a different way.  If a comment does not do this, an article or book that I read in the future will most definitely do this. As a CEO, I have time to think and I will take advantage of this time.  

      

Working Hours in Virtual Companies

As the CEO of a virtual company, I often think about working hours. There are two reasons that I think about working hours, sort of two sides of the same coin.  First, I want to know that the people I hire are actually working.  I don't actually see them working; so, I just assume.  Second, I want to know that our staff is not working far too many hours.  If our staff is working 80 hours a week on a continuous basis something is wrong.  As the CEO of a virtual company it is one of my responsibilities to ensure everybody is working; but nobody is working too much.

As a growing company, A Pass Educational Group, LLC must earn a profit.  If we are not earning a profit, we should go out of business.  (Fortunately, we are earning a profit.)  Whereas our group of employees and retained contractors represents our largest expense it is imperative that we earn money from the work that this group of laborers is doing.  If we are paying them and they are not working it is not an equitable situation.  

I think that we've put in some pretty good systems to ensure that employees and retained contractors are working.  First, of all, it is their responsibility to ensure that work is turned in to clients on time at a high level of quality. We would certainly know if this was not occurring.  Secondly, it is easy to see who is logged into our intranet at any given time.  I want to stress that I believe that I have a very hard working group of employees and retained contractors.  I'm pretty sure that it is fair to write that most of our employees and contractors work closer to seventy hours a week than forty.  I am confident that it is because of the hard work of these individuals that A Pass is growing.  

One problem that we have is the perception among some employees and retained contractors that they are working too much.  I don't use the word perception lightly.  Perception is reality to the holder.  Truthfully, I probably have the same perception.  There are probably at least two questions that I must ask about this issue.  First, why are employees working so much?  Secondly, how can we ensure that employees work an appropriate amount? 

I do not have all of the answers.  I think it's a little gutsy putting this post on the blog to begin with.  But, I'm hoping that people might have some good ideas.  Are there articles or books that I should read?  Are there strategies for condensing the amount of work that project managers do?    

Another question that I should obviously ask is what are employees doing with their time?  This means, what specific activities take up the majority of their time?  

While I very much hope that people respond to this post, I do want to end on a very uplifting note.  I believe that one reason people are working so hard is because they are continuously looking for freelance associates whom they can place on their projects.  This is one of the most time consuming activities that our management team does.  Well, we have a new HR director starting in the very near future.  Hopefully this individual, who will be introduced in an upcoming post, will significantly ease the burden of our management team in staffing projects. 

A Thanksgiving Post

Have you ever stopped and thought about the fact that in the United States many of our most sacred days have too much profanity.  For example, this past Memorial Day how many people do you think stopped and thought about those who feel in battle defending our nation?  On the Fourth of July, how often do we stop and really think about how lucky we are that we have a democratic society in which our voices do matter?  How often do we speak with our students and children about these issues?

I believe that it is essential that at specific times during the year we should stop and recognize our good fortune.  We should recognize that good fortune does not just happen.  Others have had to sacrifice.  We ourselves have to work hard to succeed.  We have been supported by others.  Everybody should be able to  feel fortunate in some way or another.  

I once heard the talk show host Dennis Prager say that he believed that the words "thank you" are the most important words in the English language.  He explained that when people feel a debt of gratitude for something or multiple things they are raising their own level of humanity.  I wonder if the purpose of holidays is to enable people to raise their level of humanity.  

On this particular Thanksgiving Day I want to raise my own level of humanity.  A Pass Educational Group, LLC, has had an amazing year.  We have tripled in size over last year. Our clients continuously ask us to do new work with them.  Our freelance associates tell us that we provide them with benefits with which no other company provides them.  People involved in our organization enjoy the warm and supportive interactions that they have with one another.  I have an incredible sense of pride for what we have accomplished.  I am definitely living a better material life than I was living three years ago.  

But, it's important to stop and recognize that I alone have not built A Pass Educational Group.  Yesterday, I sent thank you notes out to both our freelance associates and employees.  These are the people who have enabled A Pass to prosper.  But, I also think that I should thank our clients.  Our clients have continuously asked us to do more work with them.  They have placed their trust in us.  They have worked with us when things have not always gone well to ensure that things could improve.  

In reality, maybe the words "thank you" should force me to feel a little small.  I have been fortunate because of the many people who have worked around me.  I have been fortunate because of the good will that others have shown me.  I"m very lucky and hopefully I'm a little better off recognizing that I would be unjust if I did not stop and say "thank you."  

Biblical Text and Common Core

My first full time teaching job turned me onto teaching middle school students.   I was teaching bible in a Jewish day school.  My responsibility was to teach students how to read a passage from text and interpret it in meaningful ways.  My students and I were working as biblical critics.  I loved creating lessons that encouraged critical thinking using text as a foundation.

After teaching for several years, I returned to the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to earn a master's degree in Jewish education.  One of my teachers, Carol Ingall, stressed that students should be asked to consider three questions when working with a piece of text.  First, what does the text say?  Second, what does the text mean?  Third, what does it mean to me/you/?     

I'm still coming off of a high from the NCTE conference.  So, I've been thinking about the Common Core.  

The Common Core does not advocate specific texts that students must read.  Instead, it demands that students learn to read text closely.  The purpose of reading text closely is to be able to use it in meaningful ways.  Consider that third question that Dr. Ingall encouraged my cohort to challenge students to consider, "What does the text mean to me?"

A reader cannot simply ask this third question upon first interacting with the text.  The necessary scaffolding is not yet present.  Instead, the reader must first ask Ingall's first two questions.  Then and only then can the reader apply a correct understanding for his/her own purposes.     

Here's the interesting point, from my perspective, the perspective of an educational development company CEO.  Any text can be read closely.  Students can read every well written text for their own purposes after first reading for meaning and simple understanding.  This means that students who do not like reading typical school text can be encouraged to read texts that they will find meaningful.  These texts could include sports or comedy books, comic strips, and game cheat sheets in addition to many others. 

As common core standards take root in schools across America, I would fully expect teachers to look for new and innovative texts on multiple different kinds of topics within which students can become engaged. Obviously, just as I created lessons to help my students engage with biblical text, lessons will have to be created to enable engagement.    

   

NCTE

The last few days I have been at the National Council for Teachers of English national conference in Las Vegas.  It has been absolutely inspiring.  On Thursday, the day I arrived, I listened to Will Richardson speak about writing and editing in the Twenty First Century.  He explained that today every student can write for an authentic audience.  Obviously it's not just students who can write for authentic audiences.  Everybody can.  I can.

So, I started thinking.  What would it mean for the CEO of A Pass Educational Group, LLC to maintain a blog.  There are so many things that I think about on a regular basis: financial issues; curriculum issues; leadership issues; personnel issues; marketing; family; my own growth; and, myself.  I think one of the reasons why a blog would be good for me is because I know that I am not an expert in everything.  I often relish feedback.  High quality feedback typically influences my decisionmaking.  I'm hoping that if I write this well, I will grow a community of readers.  Hopefully this community will reward me with feedback.

I did ask Will a question during his talk.  I asked how businesses should balance the need for confidential information with the need for transparency.  He explained that it was challenging.  He also said that he would opt for becoming known and interacting with strangers every time.  I'm not sure if I agree.  But, I do know that I am going to make this blog as transparent as possible.  I also know that A Pass Educational Group, LLC is not a perfect organization.  Like every business we have issues.  I am going to share these issues from time to time.  Hopefully the feedback that I receive will help me respond to these issues.

By the way, the most significant issue that we have right now is recruitment of freelance associates to work with us.  I have given out almost 500 flyers to potential freelancers at this conference.  But any suggestions on how to get more would be very much appreciated.