In this LMScast, Founder Karen Wisch of Graphics by Design talks about how she transitioned from traditional graphic design to web development. She began her profession in design when computers were widely used, and once a customer requested a website, she progressively moved into web programming.

Karen finally started using WordPress after learning it on her own. She talks about an exceptional effort with the Missouri Credentialing Board, which certifies practitioners in Missouri who treat drug use disorders. About seven years ago, the Board was managing license renewals and continuing education (like the MARS course) entirely on paper.

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The Board was handling continuing education (such as the MARS course) and license renewals all on paper around seven years ago. The Board selected Karen over larger organizations that wanted a share of their revenue because she suggested digitizing these processes. Karen replaced their traditional, mail-based continuing education and grading method with an online system using LifterLMS.

This change made it possible for classes like the MARS course to be fully automated and offered on-demand, transforming a time-consuming, biennial program into a scalable, effective, and adaptable educational experience. She stresses that the Board is quite pleased with the project’s success and that LifterLMS played a key role in it.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badget. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMS Cast. I’m joined by a special guest. Her name is Karen Wish. She’s at karen wish.com. That’s W-I-S-C-H, and her agency is called Graphics by Design. Karen caught my eye. She built a really cool continuing education project. Called the Missouri Credentialing Board.

We’re gonna talk about that. But first, welcome to the show, Karen. 

Karen Wisch: Hi. Thanks Chris. 

Chris Badgett: It’s awesome to have you here. And we were catching up before the, we went live here and you’ve been around for a while. You got the lifter LMS shirt in the background. Awesome.

Karen Wisch: Swag from you guys, right? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, we do a lot of strategic swag, it’s not, there’s no merch store. If you have an item you’re on the good list and doing awesome stuff. But tell us a little bit about you, graphics by design. How did you get into this space of helping businesses with technology and marketing and sales and modernizing their tech?

Karen Wisch: Yeah. I’ve been around forever, so I graduated with a degree in graphic design before there were computers. Seriously I took a. Basic coding class while I was in college, but there was nothing in my field as far as computers. We went through a lab one time and the professor goes, these are computers.

We think they’re a fad. He walked on through he was wrong. Over time, I did a lot of graphics for people, a lot of publications and stuff. And then one of the people I did. Graphic design for, they needed a website. And so I started with, oh gosh. What did Word have that they used? Microsoft had publisher what?

Not publisher. That was, they had something for websites. And I did that and then I did some HCML forum. And then eventually somebody contacted me through a referral and they said, our site’s been hacked. Can you fix it? I said I don’t know, but I’ll see if I can. And I was able to, and it was a WordPress site.

So I got intrigued by that and pretty soon they were coming to me for all of their website needs. It escalated from that is how I got into designing WordPress website. So it was basically there was a need and so I filled it. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Tell us about the Missouri credentialing board that’s at Missouri cb.com.

Yeah. What [00:03:00 ] what do they do and how’d they find you and what’d you build? 

Karen Wisch: They do credentialing for the state of Missouri for people who are substance use disorder professionals. So people in that sector need counselors and people to help with recovery. And I was asked to come and make a bid.

They were looking for someone to help them with their renewals. They, their licenses for their counselors for the state of the Missouri need to be renewed and they wanted to put that online ’cause it was a paper document at the time. And this was probably seven years ago. And so I went to a meeting with a couple other people and the other companies were larger.

But they wanted a percentage of each of the renewals. The credentialing board wasn’t super happy about that. And I said I think I can do it. Let me see what I can figure out. And I gave them a bid. At the time they also were doing a lot of continuing ed, and one of the things they did was a course that was called the Mars course.

And the assistant director was in charge of grading all that. So everything was done by mail. Again, this was seven years ago. So they would send out a program, like a document and a quiz, and then the people would mail that back in. He would grade it manually and then he would mail back the results in the next course.

There’s probably 11 different sections to the Mars course and I. He had to manually grade all 40 or 50 of them each time. So while I was there I said I think that we can set this up so this is all automated. That really sealed the deal for them because this was a lot of time for him.

And obviously using Lifter, it’s, once it’s automated, it’s all set up. It worked great. It [00:05:00 ] was a huge success for them. And. As I was telling you beforehand, that’s now, it used to be a class offered twice a year. Now anyone can go on at any time and start the course because it’s self-paced and they can finish it when they want.