Kim's Blog

I Wish I Had A Crystal Ball ( Part 2)

In yesterday’s post (see “I Wish I had a Crystal Ball [Part 1]” below), I talked about the difficulty of trying to make a 2009 sales forecast. Confident in my knowledge that my company’s commitment to quality was not going to change, I knew another certainty for Shakespeare Squared.
We are the right size. In light of some of the mass layoffs, closures (the entire Mazer community is in my thoughts!), and shaky state budgets, I believe our decision to stick with my original vision might be working in our favor. I wanted to build it as if I were an employee and make it family-friendly, flexible, and have the ability to take on a large capacity of work. By having a database of over 500 pre-screened freelancers (and counting every day) our company can contract and expand as necessary, to take on the biggest projects while still not having to worry about huge overhead costs, or multiple locations we somehow have to fund.
As I entered the business arena in 2003, many development companies were headed up by past publishing executives. I was not amongst that group, but I knew I wanted to be part of making education better from the foundation up. Of course good timing was also key to our rapid growth. But interestingly enough, I found the largest criticism about my company from within our industry was that I wasn’t focused. Some suggested a language arts group, some a K-6 or 6-12 focus. I felt as if that seemed, well to be frank, boring. You see, I like variety. In fact, it’s something I promote so much that we make sure, in our hiring process, that we speak frankly about this. My vision is to have a widely accredited extended network while maintaining a smart group of editors and project managers in house who pay close attention to guidelines, client expectations, and quality content. I do understand the importance of, say, a Spanish editor on staff, and have started to build internally for specific disciplines - but I still stand by our vision. My staff knows it may be working on textbooks, multimedia or web content, leveled readers, assessment or even something completely different like white papers or a Spanish program for a marketing company. These seemingly unfocused projects actually allow my staff to draw parallels from various sectors and it makes us, as a whole, more knowledgeable.  It also seems, in this economy, many people are telling me we are now on the right track.
The best part about it? We seem to be doing something right. Our clients are very satisfied and business is pouring in.
Come back tomorrow for part 3.