The Company You Keep

Recently, we were contacted by a long-time client in the healthcare industry. She introduced us to a colleague who needed some help with training in another department at the same company.

On the surface, that’s nothing remarkable. We often get referrals within the same company. But this one got me thinking: We’d been working with this client for several years. Five or six years, maybe; that’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure. That spurred me to dig through the files and see just how long we've been working for this client.

Turns out I was wrong. Actually, we began working for them nine years ago, almost to the day. I was stunned. Nine years! As of this writing we’ve been in business for a few months more than 11 years, and the fact that for almost all that time we’ve been doing projects for this client is amazing.

In those nine years we’ve developed dozens of online courses. In fact, they were just getting into online learning when we started working with them. And now it’s a staple of the services they provide to their own clients. We typically develop 12 to 15 new courses for them each year. I can only guess how many online learning programs we’ve created for them, but it’s almost their entire library of on-demand training.

While that’s remarkable, it’s not unusual. In fact, the first client we worked for back in 2008 is still a client today…although they were acquired by a larger organization a few years ago. So, that new company is now a client.

And there’s more: In 2013 we began doing projects for an oil and gas company. Over the next two years, we did a few dozen courses for them. Then that company was sold to a larger energy company and all of our contacts left, so the workflow stopped. That's unfortunate, but it happens.

Then, in 2017 I got a call from the Vice President whom we used to work for. He was with a new oil and gas company and needed our help. For the last two years, his new company has been a great client, and we look forward to a long-term relationship with them as well.

The moral of the story is this: Keep company with great clients and provide them great value. For 11 years that’s been our guiding light. We’ve been extremely fortunate to work with many, many great clients. And every day we strive to provide them great value. In the process many have become good friends, and we’re proud to be associated with each one.