By: Deborah Johnson Wood
Last year, the Edward Lowe Foundation named Grand Haven-based Media 1 as one of its Michigan 50 Companies to Watch—and it was one of only 13 woman-owned companies on that list. Last month, Media 1 earned Top Area Training Company for the third consecutive year.
And while the company's owner, Chris Willis, says the company hit a little bump in the economic road this year causing it to miss the $2 million revenue mark, its still coming in with a $1.75 million finish, up from $1.5 million in 2006.
Media 1 creates custom training programs for billion-dollar companies like Hewlett-Packard, Siemens, and Meijer.
"We position ourselves as an extension of a large, global company's existing training department," Willis says. "When they have something very high profile, or something that has to turn around so quickly that the internal staff can't do it, or the internal staff is maxed out, then they call us. But that keeps us out of the midsize-company market because the cost for them is out of reach."
Willis and her employees want to tap that midsize market. So they're doing something they've never done in their 14-year history—they're packaging their knowledge and skill sets into an affordable, customizable training product for midsize companies.
"We're looking at key areas where we can focus the unique skills we have," Willis says. "We're looking at how we can package some of our ideas, tools, and methodologies that could help midsize companies perform better."
Willis expects to launch the product sometime in 2008.
Source: Chris Willis, Media 1
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Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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