-Lessons from LearnKey: What the CEO Needs to Know-
by Garrett French
LearnKey founder and CEO John Clemons decided early on that his company could
not be all things to all people. That’s why he decided his company would be the
best e-learning production company in the world. This decision bears out in the
breakdown of employee function: only ten percent of their 100 or so employees
are in sales and marketing, while 75 percent work on scripting, directing, filming,
editing, design, programming, and other aspects of production.
With clients and partners like publisher McGraw Hill, Osborne, Sylvan Learning,
media giant AOL, and over 2 million other customers, it’s hard to believe the
company started just fifteen years ago with two people in Clemons’ basement, which
he outfitted as a make-shift studio.
In my recent interview with LearnKey (http://www.LearnKey.com)
president David Clemons (NOT CEO John Clemons), he offered WebPro an exclusive
look at the pivotal decisions that grew LearnKey from 2 to 100 employees. Then
he went on to explain LearnKey’s methods for building core company leaders and
propelling their sustained, conservative growth.
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Pivotal LearnKey Decisions
1) The first key decision is obvious – in 1987 CEO John Clemons decided to use
his video production experience he earned in the studios of Brigham Young University
to make an instructional video for niche construction software. He figured VCRs
had attained a critical mass in the US, and assumed there were people who preferred
a talking teacher to the instruction manual.
The second decision came when sales were less than he hoped for.
2) After sluggish sales of his first video, Clemons contacted local hit-software
maker WordPerfect (remember them?), who invited him to make a video for their
software, as long as he "stayed out of their hair." He made the video, and then
made another decision.
3) John bought the right to put coupons and order forms for his WordPerfect instructional
video in every box that WordPerfect shipped. This was the money decision, and
for this decision he gets the WebPro Entrepreneurial Award of Excellence. After
boxes shipped with the video inserts, checks began pouring in to his mailbox and
he had to hire employees just to keep up with demand.
4) In ’94 LearnKey purchased a 15,000 square foot processing plant in rural Utah
and outfitted it for growth. They anticipated a great demand for their new method
of distributing their tutorials – CD. LearnKey was one of the first 50 companies
in the world to lay down $12,500 for the Phillips 521 CD-ROM burner. This decision
kept LearnKey ahead of the pack.
5) In the past few years, LearnKey’s entrance into the Internet has propelled
their sales to individuals, while their intranet learning tools have propelled
sales to government agencies, corporations, and education institutions.
These were some of the pivotal decisions that grew LearnKey from 2 to 100 employees,
but, as I learned during my interview with LearnKey president David Clemons, decisions
are only as good as the people making them. That’s the idea that formed their
approach to creating the core LearnKey leaders.
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Creating Core Leaders
In ’94 LearnKey moved to rural St. George from the cosmopolitan Salt Lake City.
Many employees chose to stay in the Salt Lake City market. LearnKey opened the
ground floor to the region’s untrained but motivated and trainable residents,
and in just two months had the company functioning optimally.
The LearnKey production process requires specialized workers, who are, according
to David Clemons, easy to find in rural markets and willing to learn new skills.
This level of specialization requires focused, plainly stated job requirements.
As David said, "we teach them the way we want them to produce and they duplicate
it over and over and over and over and over."
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