Why is the Mission Main Street Project Important to WLS?

Bridget C Lewis, President and Owner of WLS.  

SA: Ms. Lewis, tell us about your business and what makes it unique.

BL: Workplace Learning Solutions LLC or WLS as we are affectionately known, provides professional development consulting to small businesses, government agencies and non-profit organizations with 1 - 2,500 employees.  What makes us unique is our commitment to delivering great service that actually meets our clients' needs.  We've found that often, consultants tend to be so eager to show off their knowledge and expertise that they forget to truly listen to the client.  We believe that listening must precede hearing so that we can gain a true understanding of the client's needs and concerns. Many other consultants will say clients don't really know what they need. And this is sometimes true, but not always. So our uniqueness lies in our ability to listen to the client, identifying and/or verifying the need, and then delivering services that will meet those needs.  Our goal is to add value to our clients' organizations and leave them better than when we first became involved.  We are interested in solving people performance issues in a way that our clients can identify with so that they will be more likely to continue using or referencing our solutions long after we are gone.  This is the only way to sustain any behavioral changes necessary to improve performance. We aim to become a seamless part of our clients' organizations for the duration of our relationship with them and always ensure complete satisfaction before ending a project.

SA: What services do you offer and how successful have you been?

BL: Our primary service to our business clients is the facilitation of soft-skills training programs. Additionally, we consult with clients to help identify the true needs and the root cause of performance issues.  Sometimes a client may believe that poor work performance is a result of lack of training. This isn't always the case, so through our performance consulting we are able to help the client uncover issues that may not have been as visible or easily detectable before.  We are also experts in the area of new employee onboarding and orientation and we develop customized solutions and agendas for some of our clients.  Additionally, we work closely with the smaller of the small businesses in areas including talent selection and retention, and performance management. Some of our most rewarding work has been through our involvement with the local workforce development agencies delivering job readiness training to the unemployed.  We also provide one-on-one career counseling for career professionals who are trying to advance in their current careers or perhaps change fields to something completely new.  Our efforts have been largely successful.  Our clients' consistently give rave reviews about the impact we have had on their business or their professional lives.

SA: Who are your biggest competitors and what would you say is your competitive advantage?

BL: The consulting field is clearly a very mature field with no significant barriers to entry.  Therefore, competition is fierce in this field.  Many of our competitors are much larger than we are and have been around for much longer, so their names carry a lot of power and are more readily recognizable.  Companies including SkillSoft, Dale Carnegie, Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and Georgia Piedmont College are examples of some of our larger competitors.  There are also numerous small companies and independent consultants that also compete especially in (but not limited to) the area of government contracting. But without giving away the recipe to the secret sauce (laughs) I would have to say my competitive advantage is definitely in my ability to bring teams of independent consultants together to form consortia in order to pursue larger projects, and also making myself available to the larger organizations for partnership and sub-contracting opportunities.  So far, I have been more successful with the latter in terms of winning actual contracts.  But we are still working on winning a contract through our consortium of small businesses and independent consultants!

SA: What was your key inspiration to becoming an entrepreneur?  

BL: I've always had a desire to be a business owner. Over the years, I've entertained the idea of owning a trucking company.  I was seriously interested in buying into a franchise (I used to crave owning a Mailboxes Etc.. now UPS Store).  I wanted to own a fleet of vending machines.  I wanted to start my own child care service.  I even considered the idea of a lawn care service. But money was always an issue, and being the mother of three (3), I listened to the external voices that told me these were all pipe dreams and that I should instead hang on to my day job.  Then, December 1st, 2009 came around, and that was the day I became unemployed. I knew almost immediately that this was my chance. I bravely embraced a new adventure and began exploring and charting a new course for my career.  Owning a business is an idea I always entertained yet never really took the steps to make it a reality… until that life changing event!  So I guess you could say that was one of my inspirational moments, if not just a plain old motivator!  I just knew I never wanted to be at the mercy of someone else like that again. But more than wanting to be my own boss, I'd have to say my biggest inspiration was and still is my commitment to making a difference in the lives of others.  Creating jobs for my employees and knowing I am helping them live better lives keeps me wanting to get better, and bigger, making more money knowing that as the business grows I will be able to do it again for others.  

SA: What is your most noteworthy accomplishment to date?

BL: My greatest accomplishment since starting the business in 2010 is that despite the odds, despite being broke, despite meager start-up finances I was able to weather the storms and keep the "doors" open.  It is true that you need money to start and run a business.  But banks don't like lending money to new unproven businesses, and what's worse in 2010 the banking industry was deep in trouble, reeling from the sub-prime lending debacle.  Banks  were closing and being taken over left, right, and center.  So, there was no love for me. (Laughs).  But despite the challenges I experienced finding start-up money, I was able to make it happen.  I cleaned out my 401K, I took out loans against my life insurance policies, I used up my severance package (which was pretty decent I might say!) To this day, I believe that I survived just on the sheer will to succeed.  My friends even started to discreetly send me job postings encouraging me to give it up and get back to work.  But I had a dream.  And the only way I could make that dream a reality was to stay the course.  And that I did!  I think to date this has been my greatest accomplishment.   

SA: What has been the biggest challenge you've faced as an entrepreneur?

BL: That's a funny question because my biggest accomplishment and my biggest challenge both came out of the same pot of stew.  The biggest challenge you can face as a start-up is a lack of funding.  And it doesn't help when you attend workshops and small business events that all you hear about is the importance of funding to sustain your business idea and convert it to a real viable business. It was a little scary at times realizing that my primary source of fuel was my own energy, will, and determination to make this business survive.  Starting a business with no capital or even limited capital is like driving blindfolded.  It's a potential disaster of magnanimous proportions!  However, I was able to do it somehow. I stayed the course, learned to live lean, brought my family along for the ride (my youngest son was in high school at the time). Think how difficult it was to pay the sports dues, or buy homecoming and prom outfits! But I'm glad to say we made it up the rough side of the mountain!  

SA: What impact is your business having on your local community?

BL: Right now, we are really impacting our local economy in two major ways.  Firstly, we are proud that we have hired local residents to work at WLS.  Since winning our very first government contract in 2013, we have employed a total of 4 employees, 3 being residents of our local county and 2 of whom are still employed with WLS.  I am proud that we have been able to employ DeKalb County Residents in our business. Our employees earn a competitive living wage for their work, and complete work that is meaningful and interesting. Secondly, we support our local workforce development agencies, such as DeKalb Workforce Development, by touching the lives of their clients through our job readiness training programs.  We have provided free resume reviews and interview coaching to several individuals we've met through our association with the workforce development agencies.  We have participated in Job and Career Fair events and continue to provide training and coaching to those in need of our services.  Additionally, we are active advocates against domestic violence and work in support of agencies such as the Georgia Coalition against Domestic Violence and the Beverly Cunningham Outreach Program.

SA: What is Mission Main Street and how would winning this grant help your business grow?

BL: Mission Main Street Grants is a grant program organized by JP Morgan Chase Bank where they will be awarding grants in the amount of $100,000 to twenty (20) small for-profit businesses. This is already exciting news because typically when you hear of grants you think that you need to be a non-profit to qualify.  However, in this case, you must be a for-profit to qualify. I really couldn't miss this opportunity to participate because there is always a need for cash to fuel new projects that will grow the business and expand our Bottomline. One of our projects that we would like to see get off the ground is the opening of our Job Preparedness Center. WLS has a dream of opening a Job Preparedness Center where individuals, especially the long-term unemployed can come to get retooled for the 21st Century workforce. I had occasion to observe, through my interaction with long-term unemployed individuals, that quite often the programs that have been set up to help them do not cater to individuals with drastic career change needs. Furthermore, in situations where individuals want to start over doing something new, they are often denied. I would see a woman who was laid off from her previous corporate job who wants to leave that line of work and get into the construction industry because she's always wanted to go into that field.  Or the IT professional who has been unemployed for so long that his certification has expired and now wants to reinvent his career as a truck driver. Or even the truck driver who wants to get into computers or nursing. These individuals would often be very frustrated because the programs that are set up to help them do not allow such drastic career changes. Many times the drastic change is driven by lack of opportunities in their current fields and so they just want or need a fresh start.  The WLS Job Preparedness Center will cater to these individuals who want a fresh start but cannot afford the cost for the training and/or testing needed to earn their new certifications and credentials. Being one of the Winners of the Chase Grant will be an immense jump start to getting that project off the ground.

SA: Why is this project so important to you?

BL: When I was unemployed in 2009 and early 2010, I became intimately familiar with the plight of those struggling to find work with no success.  I was one of them!  Their story is my story and just as I was able to find a way out of it, I want to help others do the same.  Not everyone will be able to or even want to start a business of their own.  But whatever their vision for their future we want to help them figure out ways it CAN happen, versus crushing their spirits with reasons why it can't.  We want to truly help individuals find their way back to work.  And not just by pointing them to job boards, but by also providing training in the technical skills needed for their new careers, and the soft-skills needed to be successful in today's workplace.  To do that we need to establish a center that will supply the tools and resources needed so that individuals can have a one-stop location to meet all their professional development needs.  Being the winners of this $100,000 grant will help us on the path to accomplishing this dream.  We have started a scholarship program to assist 5 individuals with achieving certain technology certifications which would then make them more marketable to would-be employers.  This grant could assist in ensuring we can meet and exceed that goal, as well as helping others rebrand themselves and start brand new careers.

SA: What are your business goals for the next 3-5 years?

BL: Our short term goal which we are working to accomplish over the next year or two, is to achieve $750,000 in gross revenues.  We are now a team of three (3), and I'd like to see us double in size by the end of 2016. We also would like to meet our goal of retooling five (5) long-term unemployed individuals and setting them on their way to new fulfilling careers either in their current fields, or preparing them to enter new and lucrative fields. Over the long-term (the next 3-5 years) we want to increase our output through winning more government contracts both locally and on the Federal level. We want to rev-up our marketing efforts so that we can attract more small and mid-sized businesses and non-profit organizations to our prospect and client pools.  Our Job Preparedness Center is a major part of our output goals over the next few years as well, as this will afford us the opportunity to grow out team to as many as 12 by 2018, increase our capabilities and the types of projects we can undertake, and most importantly finally break ground on where we will be located for the long term. We do aspire to national and international status and look forward to opening new offices in locations across the United States and also in the Caribbean.