Carl Loder- CEO, CentralRacingParts.com

"Thrive did a great job building my online store.  I wasn't always sure of some of the decisions that were made in the construction process but Michael has won my trust!  Recently, five suppliers I had lined up to purchase from, visited my site.  Normally they require a "buy-in" for an initial order which can be upwards of $10,000.  When they saw my site, they were calling ME to represent them.  They waived their buy-in and are getting in line to be a supplier."

Solution: E-commerce store and credit-card processing

Dave Mace, First Employee, Maverick Creative Group

"Michael combines several talents to create an incredibly valuable service for his clients. He is part designer, part technician and part business strategist, making him a formidable partner. I've enjoyed working with him, and I've learned a lot from him."

Aaron Davis, Sedgwick County Health Department

"What does it for me when it comes to Thrive is their dedication to detail. Thrive takes the time to really listen to what I want and need and then make sure that they produce exactly what i asked for. I really appreciate their customer service, Michael and the team isn't perfect but when they make a mistake their team jumps on it to make sure any problems are resolved in a timely fashion. If you need an web-application built that works, I recommend Thrive!"

Solution: Emergency Responders Registration Database

Marta Curry, Waddell and Reed

“While Thrive Business Solutions is the company name, Michael personifies integrity in his industry. Thrive is genuine in their approach to listen, offer assistance and solutions to your agendas. Strive is one word as they pledge to help others, but they really thrive at it. I am fortunate to collaborate with them regularly through our Chamber Leads Group #3 - where many strategies and business networking goals are shared - and achieved!”

Pat Knolla- Founder / Owner, Knollas Pizza on 13th

“Thrives customer service has really impressed me. When I call they solve whatever I throw at them right away. I have been processing credit cards and have had my website with them for three years now and the rates have always been fair. Most importantly, they have integrity. I have never had to question if Thrive is doing something with my rates or service that I should be concerned about.”

Solution: Website, Online-Ordering, E-mail Marketing and Credit-card Processing

Mark Oelze, Owner, True Life Marriage and Family Counseling

"Michael is not only a man of great vision, but a man who has the mind and ability to take that vision apart and see it happen one step at a time. He does so with a steadfast spirit about him in a confident but gracious manner. When you are around Michael you are caught up in the same confidence that together what has been set out to do will indeed be accomplished. I can't say enough good about this man!"

Mike Steele, Co-Founder, The Galleon Company

“Michael is a man of high character and competence. He accomplishes what he sets out to do. I recommend his services without reservation.”

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The Growing Pains of Training E-mail
Written by Michael Cantrell   
Monday, 20 October 2008 20:57

 

Growing pains. I am 5'6" and have been that height since the eighth grade. I don't remember what real growing pains feel like, but I do know the sting of growing pains in our business. I have talked with many friends who own businesses around the city that I live in and there is a familiarity in the pain that growth brings. How do I fund growth? Where do I find good people? How does a company structure a reward package that really brings value and is motivating to its employees?

 

Besides these questions we here at Thrive find ourselves asking, "How do we create and maintain a training program?" Well after wrestling with the questions I thought I'd share some of the lessons we're learning from the journey.

1- What's the end goal?If you don't know what your end goals are you will probably end up creating a training program that is incomplete. As we wrestled through what to do it became apparent that we could easily become frustrated if we didn't take a step back and decide what our objectives were before we ever got started.

2- Choose the system you are going to use after defining your goals. Of course once we were pretty comfortable with the direction we were headed in we jumped in (as any tech company worth its salt does) and started designing a solution. As we were busy Googling what open source solutions were available I came across an enlightening article that I'll pass on: The author says, "The following are some of the more glaring weaknesses of an LMS:

  • The tools we use define the manner in which we undertake learning tasks. Using a structured tool like an LMS drives/dictates the nature of interaction (instructors-learner, learner-learner, learner-content).

  • The interface - generally, the initial reactions to the interface is confusion for many learners. I've instructed with various platforms, and the most difficult/disorienting challenge for new learners is figuring out how the interface works and where to get the information she/he needs. This confusion is due to two flaws in the LMS: 1) LMS' try to do everything - simpler tools, with the intent of performing one task seem to be easier for end users to understand,

Armed with this information we put the brakes on and re-evaluated what we were doing. After a half-hour of coffee and interrupting each other we agreed that we didn't need a whole new (confusing) system to manage our training program but simply needed to add some simple, valuable tools to the system that we have already assembled to manage our business out of. Take away point for the Thrive team: Simple is better!

3-Make sure whatever you come up with is flexible for future growth. While we all have ideas of where we would like to be in a year, in five years the reality is no one can forecast with 100% accuracy where you will actually end up. With that in mind choose processes and software that are flexible and easily adaptable to whatever position you may find yourself in. There are tons of proprietary software and programs that will paint you into a corner that you will find hard to get out of-- after all we have to use the system-- it costs us $20,000 to buy. Don't be the person saying that! Think ahead, try open source! (By the way that was a shameless Thrive philosophical jab!)

4- Be user friendly! Refer back to #2. Pick a system that is EASY to use. If your employees / contractors look at the system and run away screaming then you have probably made a huge mistake.

With all this in mind, join us on the journey. I'll keep you in the loop on what we discover.