Seven workshops, two tracks
Four workshops on the parts of starting or growing a business that nobody teaches you — finding the real problem, knowing your customer, the first move, and what a business model even is. Three more on the conversations that business runs through once other people are in it: the first impression, the recommendation, the complaint, the moment someone remembers. Every one is live and practiced out loud on your own real situation. Nothing here is a personality test, a script to memorize, or a video you watch alone.
How you take any of these
Every one of the seven runs the same way underneath — a short teach, then real practice out loud on your own situation. How you take it depends on what you need right now.
01
One live cohort per topic, run on a regular weekly schedule. Small group, real practice, a workbook, and a two-week practice sheet. The place to start if you want one specific skill, on a set date.
02
One on one, on any single topic from the seven, scheduled around you. For the conversation or the decision you need worked through now, without waiting for a scheduled date.
03
Not one workshop but a running relationship. We build a learning and action plan across whichever of the seven your business needs right now, and adjust it as the business moves — the plan changes, the relationship does not restart each time.
Business fundamentals follows the shape of getting a business moving. The first is taking your first real step. The second is confirming the problem is real before you build anything for it. The third is getting specific about who you serve. The fourth is turning what you are doing into a business model you can check your decisions against.
Communication and influence follows the shape of a real interaction. The first is how you are read and how you hold a conversation once it starts. The second is what happens when you have to recommend something, handle hesitation, or ask for what you have earned. The third is what a person remembers afterward, and how you design that on purpose — including the experience that leads up to it.
Each workshop stands alone and none of them assume the others. Take the one you need, or take a whole track in order — if you take more than one, leave some space between them, so the practice from one is finished before the next begins.
Every session is built the same way, and it is worth knowing before you sign up: a short teach, a moment where you find yourself in the material, then live practice with a timer running. No block runs more than ten minutes before you are on your feet using your own material. You will feel cut off by the timer. That is deliberate.
How these are designed
I design learning for a living, and I use the same approach here that I use for universities and school systems. It rests on established research on how adults learn rather than on instinct, and it comes down to four commitments that shape every session.
Every session opens with the real customer, the real client, or the real conversation you walked in with. Never a hypothetical, and never a case study about a company you have never heard of. Naming what is at stake, out loud, predicts follow-through better than the content does.
I demonstrate the move once, completely, on the thing you are trying to do. Then I step back at the pace you set. Skill transfers when it is rehearsed in the work itself, not in a classroom exercise standing in for the work.
One sequence for everybody underserves most of a room. Multiple routes to the same skill are designed in from the start, not added afterwards for whoever asks. You choose how far to go and in what order.
You leave with a workbook in your own words and a two-week practice sheet, because tools you keep and reuse beat material consumed once. The follow-through is part of the design, not a courtesy afterwards.
And one limit worth naming, which is part of the approach too. The evidence says a single workshop session can build real knowledge and real connection. It does not say a single session builds mastery, and I am not going to tell you otherwise. That is why the practice sheet, the check-in, and the option of a second and third workshop exist.
Track one
For entrepreneurs, side hustlers, and small business owners who do not want to hire this out and pay for it every time — hiring it out is expensive, and so is doing nothing: the time, the money, the clients, and the launch that keeps not happening while you wait to figure it out. Four sessions on the parts of starting or growing a business that nobody hands you a manual for.
Workshop 01
Turning a vague idea into one real first move, and a shape for the business you can point to.
Most ideas die in the planning, not the market. You research, you plan, you wait for confidence that never shows up, and six months later you still have not talked to a single customer. This session skips the steps that feel like progress but are not, and gets you to the one move that puts the idea in front of a real person this week.
Who it is for: Anyone with an idea for a side hustle or small business who has not started yet, or started and stalled. You leave having done the thing you have been circling.
Workshop 02
Getting clear on the problem you are solving, before you spend a dollar building or marketing anything.
It is possible to build a good answer to the wrong question. Most side hustles and small businesses do not fail because the founder did not work hard enough — they fail because the problem was assumed instead of confirmed, and nobody found out until the money and time were already spent. This session takes the problem you think you are solving and tests it against what people do right now, not what they say they would do, and against what they already complain about when nobody is trying to sell them anything.
Who it is for: Anyone with an idea already forming who has not yet asked a stranger whether the problem is real. Also useful once you have customers, when growth stalls and you are not sure why.
Workshop 03
Getting specific about who you serve and what they need, so every later decision has a real person behind it.
Ask most new business owners who their customer is and you get an answer like “everyone who needs this,” which means no decision gets any easier, because nothing is specific enough to decide against. This session narrows that down to a person you could describe to a stranger: what they are frustrated by, where they already look for help, and what would make them choose you over doing nothing. Every later decision — what you make, what you charge, what you say — gets easier once this one is settled.
Who it is for: Anyone who has an offer but is marketing, pricing, or building for “everyone,” and feeling the drag of trying to speak to no one in particular.
Workshop 04
What a business model is, why it matters, and how you make money — built in pieces, not delivered as a lecture.
Say “business model” to most new owners and watch the eyes glaze — it sounds like something for people with an MBA and a boardroom, not someone running a booth or a service out of their car. It is a simpler question than the term suggests: who pays you, for what, how often, and what it costs you to deliver it. This session builds yours from what you are already doing, one piece at a time, so it stops being a slide you skip and starts being a page you check before you make a decision.
Who it is for: Anyone who has a business or a side hustle running and has never written down how the money moves through it. Also useful before you approach a partner, a lender, or your first big client.
Track two
The three that started this studio. If you are running your own thing, there is nobody standing behind you to smooth over a bad first impression, a pushy ask, or a forgettable experience — these three are the moments that decide whether a customer or client comes back, on their own.
Workshop 05
How you are read in the first seconds, how to open a conversation that goes somewhere, and how to stay steady when someone is angry or impossible to read.
In customer-facing work the interaction is the product. Someone decides whether they trust you, whether they will keep listening, and whether they will come back — in the first few seconds, mostly on evidence that has nothing to do with how well you know the product. Two people can know the same catalog, run the same script, and get completely different results. Most of us were trained on the system, the menu and the register, and almost nobody was trained on the part that decides the outcome. This session is not a personality assessment and it is not about being nice. It is the specific, observable things that make a person willing to trust you, listen to you, buy from you and come back.
Who it is for: Anyone whose work runs through other people and who wants to be better at it — and particularly people early or mid career who were handed the job without this part of the training. If you are running your own thing, this is the interaction that decides whether someone becomes a repeat customer or a one-time visitor, with nobody else there to fix a bad impression. It carries into every room you walk into afterward, including the ones that have nothing to do with work.
Workshop 06
Persuasion that does not push, used every shift — making a real recommendation, handling hesitation without pressure, and asking for what you have earned.
Almost every job that involves people involves persuasion, and almost nobody in one has been taught how to do it well. What most of us absorbed by example is a set of tactics: create urgency, assume the sale, overcome the objection, never take no. Those work often enough to survive and they carry a cost that shows up later — the customer who buys once and never returns, the review that mentions feeling pressured. The alternative is not going passive. Under-influencing is its own failure, and it is more common in the people who care most: they let someone buy the wrong thing, never mention the option that would have solved the problem, and never ask for the referral they earned. This session teaches the middle, and one test runs through all of it — would the other person be glad if they knew exactly what you were doing and why?
Who it is for: Anyone who recommends, quotes, closes or asks — and anyone who has been avoiding doing it. If you are pricing, pitching, or closing your own work, this is also the skill behind negotiating with a vendor, a landlord, or a client who wants a discount you cannot afford to give. These are the same skills that run a lease, a salary conversation, a contractor and a teenager, which is why people tend to say this is the one that followed them home.
Workshop 07
Being the one they tell someone about — designing and mapping the small, repeatable moments that turn a customer into a referral.
People do not remember the average of an interaction. They remember its high point and how it ended, and they will describe both to somebody else. For a small business or side hustle, that description is most of your marketing budget — nobody has an ad that beats a client telling three people. Most of us spread effort evenly across an interaction and then wonder why none of it registered. This session finds where the memorable part of your own work sits already, and maps the whole experience end to end — a light version of what is called service blueprinting — so the good moment is not an accident that only happens on your best days, and the point or two where people nearly do not come back gets fixed on purpose.
Who it is for: Anyone who wants to be asked for by name. In a customer-facing job that is the clearest signal of value there is, and it is the one most within your own control. Particularly useful once you have a few repeat customers or clients, because the map shows you exactly where they nearly did not come back. It works just as well for a team deciding what it wants to be known for.
Two ways in.
A scheduled workshop
A live online workshop — Tuesday 22 September evening or Saturday 26 September morning for Good With People, or the next date on the regular weekly schedule for any other topic. Small group, real practice, a workbook, and twenty minutes with me afterwards.
$39 a seat · next available date
Register and pay →A private session or ongoing support
Not a group workshop — one on one, on whichever topic you need, scheduled around you. Or, if you want a running relationship instead of a single session, an integrated learning and action plan across the seven that adjusts as your business moves.
Private session $45 · ongoing coaching scoped to you
Talk about coaching →Not sure which? Send one line about your situation and I will tell you which of the two is the better use of your money and time. Or put your own numbers in and decide without talking to anyone.