We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Bisa Lewis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Bisa, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I developed WINGS Curriculum after nearly 10 years of training early educators on a variety of topics related to designing quality early learning environments, daily activity schedules, assessments, evaluations, and lesson plans for infants, toddlers and preschoolers. At the mercy of the child development centers and schools who contracted with me to train their faculty and staff, I was limited to providing instruction and guidance on the topics they hired me to present for the designated two to six hours on a given day. As a result, the early educators were only able to learn best practices for the topics on the decided upon agenda.

After several years of concern about the information I was NOT able to provide during a single day of training, I started compiling the content and handouts I’d developed for each of the training sessions related to developmentally appropriate practices with young children. WINGS Curriculum: The Ideal Curriculum for Children in Preschool was the result.

Bisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The initial WINGS Curriculum products included a binder with the teacher manual printed in full color and a CD-ROM with a menu of charts and fillable forms to support program implementation.

Not only did developing a user-friendly early education curriculum enable me to provide a comprehensive product for early educators with all levels of credentials and experience to adequately utilize with young children, it solved a major issue I’d noticed when conducting technical assistance/consulting to support quality improvement and national program accreditation. Many of the programs did not actually purchase a comprehensive curriculum, because the books and supplemental products were too expensive for their budgets. I continue to ensure WINGS Curriculum remains affordable, yet competitive in state and national markets.

Keeping WINGS Curriculum user-friendly and affordable, without watering it down, makes me proud!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I built my business reputation customer by customer, contract by contract and training by training. I have always made a concerted effort to conduct every workshop or consultation with integrity. Whenever I made a mistake, I sought to learn from it to avoid making the same mistake again.

Aside from conducting business with honor, I ensure each training and consultation is enjoyable and memorable with meaning and intention. It is my desire that every client and session participant is not only satisfied, but changed for the better. I feel accomplished when I see participants from previous workshops and seminars get excited when they see I’m the one conducting their session or consultation. It’s important for one’s reputation to precede them, in a good way.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

There are so many business quotes about the importance of customer referrals and word of mouth. Every single one I’ve read is right. Not only do people read customer testimonials and reviews, they simply ask relatives, friends and colleagues about quality products and services they’ve used. Whether good or bad, clients and customers share their experiences with others.

In my best selling motivational book, The PAID Educator: 10 Professional Ways to Supplement Your Teaching Salary, I discuss the four-step P-A-I-D approach for strategically discovering Prospects-Allies-Information-Dollars. Prospects and allies are essential stakeholders for developing and expanding clientele in any business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.drbisa.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbisa/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBisa
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbisa/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBisa
• Other: https://www.wingscurriculum.com/

Image Credits
Headshot by Overstreet Media Services