Teaching

Marketing doesn't need to be a black box. We teach and work in the open.

We believe better marketing should be shared openly, not hidden or hoarded. So we teach what we know — to founders, teams, and rooms full of people who may never hire us — because that's how better marketing spreads.

Bring us in to teach

See popular topics

Why we teach

Teaching isn't our funnel. It's our conviction.

Plenty of the industry treats teaching as bait — a free webinar to capture an email and start the sell. That's not us. We teach because marketing should be understandable, and because the most generous thing you can do for a community is help it get better at the thing it does.

Marketing is leadership, and good leaders teach. So we explain the why, hand over the tools, and leave you more capable than we found you — whether you hire us or not. Often, that's exactly why people do.

The things worth knowing.

Six topics we come back to again and again — the ones that change how a small business sees its own marketing.

Customer-ing

Understanding and serving the people you serve — the discipline everything else is built on.

Pricing Strategy

Pricing from real cost and real customer value — so you stop guessing and stop leaving money on the table.

Brand Marketing

Name, story, and positioning — the work of being known for something true.

Found by AI

In addition to and beyond SEO — meet AEO. How to show up when your customers ask AI for a recommendation.

Marketing Strategy

Aim before tactics. How to decide what to do — and why — before you spend a dollar.

Business Modeling

How the pieces fit — who you serve, what you offer, what's the value, and how it actually makes money. The shape of a business that lasts.

Praised by entrepreneurs, founders, business leaders, university students, marketing teams, and community partners

"I like that we were provided practical examples and resources to use in class."

"Loved this class!"

T.J. is an automatic invite every time I offer this class. I'm certain his sessions will show up again as highlights of the semester.

Jeremy Wilson

Professor — Vanderbilt University

"My absolute favorite class and instructor in the whole teaching series!"

"It was very thorough and I left with a tool to reference for multiple services and products."

Your presentation was informative, impactful, and enjoyable. In one word, it was outstanding. College of Business faculty are still talking about it.

Dr. Millicent Lownes-Jackson

Dean, College of Business — Tennessee State University

"It was amazing! So helpful — T.J. was so engaging!"

Our entrepreneurs walked away with extreme understanding, practical techniques and tangible tools to help them with their pricing.

Jaron Spicer

Academy Alumni Director — Corner to Corner

Rooms that ask us back.

Two teaching stories, told in full — a pricing class rebuilt from student feedback and invited back season after season, and one staff workshop that multiplied into an Executive MBA.

Teaching — Strategy, Pricing

Corner to Corner

A pricing workshop for first-time business owners — surveyed after every session, rebuilt from the feedback, and invited back season after season.

Teaching — Executive MBA, Staff & Faculty

Tennessee State University

One staff workshop became a seat as Executive in Residence in the Executive MBA — then the Dean's invitation to teach the faculty themselves. Each room opened the next.

However you gather.

We teach wherever small-business owners and leaders already are — in workshops, through trusted programs, with community partners, and in classrooms.

Workshops & Sessions

Half-day and evening workshops for teams, groups, and events — practical, hands-on, and built around your people.

Incubators & Partner Programs

We teach through the organizations small businesses already trust — local incubators and community organizations.

Guest Teaching

Classrooms and lecture halls, from universities to professional programs — including Tennessee State and Vanderbilt.

Community Spaces

Chambers, downtown associations, churches, and local gatherings — where communities already gather together.

Featured teaching series

Paul, the marketer.

The greatest marketer of all time is Paul — yes, the apostle. First century. No budget, no media, no institution behind him — and two thousand years later, the result every marketer claims to want: advocates who carry the message themselves.

Thirty-three notes in seven parts with practical application.

Explore the series

Marketing is simple — and, misunderstood.

Short pieces that unlearn the noise: influence over convincing, aim over results, your customer over the masses.

9 minutes

Paul picked his people.

He could think it, and he could do it — and still never built alone. Fifth of seven: who went to Tarsus for Paul and why, who he hired on witness, who carried the letters and the follow-up, and why relationship, not software, is the whole point of CRM.

8 minutes

Paul made tents.

The sharpest strategic mind of his world spent his Corinthian mornings cutting cloth and sewing seams. Thinkers are rare, doers are rarer — Paul was both, and the doing is what earned him the hearing. Fourth of seven: craft and credibility.

8 minutes

Paul never worked a dead end.

Three journeys, three departures — every one from Antioch, not Jerusalem, where it all began. Third of seven: strategy and channels, and the test Paul ran on every city, room, and road — it had to lead somewhere.

7 minutes

Paul always went to the synagogue first.

New city, same first move — Paul walked in and went to the synagogue. It wasn’t a habit; it was the strategy. Second in the series: audience before message, and why the first audience wasn’t an audience at all.

5 minutes

The greatest marketer of all time is Paul.

Yes — the apostle. No budget, no media, no institution behind him — and two thousand years later, advocates still carry the message themselves. To start this series: how a marketer is made.

2 minutes

How AI decides which businesses to recommend.

Chicago traded up to take Trubisky and passed on Mahomes. Everyone had the same information — what separated them was how it got weighed. That’s the job AI is doing when someone asks it who to hire.

2 minutes

Why doesn’t my business show up in ChatGPT?

TMZ once called our landline looking for the famous T.J. Miller. They got me. Right name, wrong person — and that’s usually why AI recommends someone else instead of your business.

3 minutes

The difference between aim and result.

It is impossible to focus on the target and your aim at the same time. A lesson from the front sight of a firearm — and from Walter Payton — on why results-focused marketing misses.

1 minute

The gift of marketing.

A thoughtful gift beats an envelope of cash because someone knew you. Is your marketing an envelope of cash, or a gift that shows you care?

3 minutes

Guerilla marketing, marketing combinations, marketing ingredients, and synergistic marketing.

Levinson said it plainly: single-weapon marketing is dead — combinations work, and they help each other work. Eighty years of evidence, from the Harvard marketing mix to Guerrilla Marketing, says the same thing.

Want us in the room?

If you run a team, a class, an incubator, or a room full of small-business owners who'd be better for an honest hour on marketing — let's talk about bringing us in.

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