I deliver high-impact keynotes, workshops, and continuing education masterclasses that bridge the gap between traditional industries and modern technology. As a Lead Instructor for the National Auction Association’s Auction Marketing Management (AMM) program and the AI curriculum developer for the Certified Auctioneers Institute (CAI), my sessions are built for active practitioners, not theorists.

The Promise: Your attendees will not just learn about the future. They will leave with a 30-day implementation plan, concrete workflows, and the practical capability to reclaim ten administrative hours every single week. Live demos, real-world constraints, and tools they can deploy the next morning.

Topics

From Old School to New School: Marketing & AI

Our flagship five-hour continuing education course designed to bridge the physical-digital divide. Auctioneers learn to build targeted buyer personas, optimize for the shift from traditional search engines to generative answers (SEO to GEO), and deploy multi-tool AI workflows to automate cataloging.

  • The Promise: Draft a complete auction catalog in under fifteen minutes and reclaim ten administrative hours every single week.
  • Slogan: “AI is your leverage, not your replacement.”

AI Adoption for Traditional Industries

How to practically incorporate AI tools into daily operations without replacing the expertise that makes your business work. We break down the CLEAR prompting framework and the Symphony Effect (combining ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity into seamless multi-tool workflows) using live, interactive demonstrations.

  • The Promise: Move from theoretical understanding to active everyday utilization within thirty days.
  • Slogan: “AI is a tool, but your expertise is the filter.”

The Agentic Shift

What happens to your business when AI agents begin making decisions on behalf of your customers? Marketing assumes someone sees the ad; brand assumes someone recognizes the name. Every one of those assumptions breaks when the human leaves the loop. This talk traces the structural shift to systems where technology decides within human constraints.

  • The Promise: Learn to position your brand and structure your data to be cited and chosen by AI decision agents.
  • Slogan: “Agents do not look at ads.”

Leadership & Decision-Making

Lessons from running a national trade association and building a technology-driven company in a traditional industry. Focuses on practical frameworks for small, high-trust organizations: when to systematize and when to stay human, how principles outperform predictions, and why the gap between knowing and doing is where most leadership fails.

  • The Promise: Build self-sustaining systems that scale beyond the heroics of any single individual.
  • Slogan: “Principles outperform predictions.”

Digital Marketing & Analytics

Cut through the noise of complex dashboards to identify the data that actually drives conversions. Learn to optimize your Google Business Profile (your free digital billboard) and establish a simple, weekly routine to find where prospects drop off before completing high-value actions.

  • The Promise: Build a five-minute weekly data habit that reveals where your leads are dropping off.
  • Slogan: “Website visits mean nothing without action.”

Teaching From the Middle of It

Why the person one step ahead in the fog teaches better than the expert who mapped the terrain from a helicopter. This talk is about proximity as a teaching credential, the gap between accumulating knowledge and applying it, and why the most honest form of education happens when you are still figuring it out yourself. Built for educators, trainers, and leaders.

  • The Promise: Upskill your team or organization effectively without needing to be an absolute expert beforehand.
  • Slogan: “Proximity is a teaching credential.”

Recent Engagements

DateEvent / HostSession / TopicDuration
Nov 2026Indiana Auctioneers Association Annual ConventionPractical AI for the Auction Professional1.5 hr
Jun 2026TranzonAI Proposal Generation and Agentic Workflows for Auction Professionals1.5 hr
Jun 2026Arkansas Auctioneers Association Summer Conference (Tull, AR)From Old School to New School: Marketing & AI for Auctions5 hr (Full day)
May 2026Industrial Auctioneers Association European Members’ Meeting (Rome, Italy)AI for Industrial Auctioneers1 hr
Apr 2026Nebraska Auctioneers Association ConferenceMarketing in a Changed World + The AI Advantage3 hr
Apr 2026NAA Certified Auctioneers Institute (CAI)Partnerships, Joint Ventures, and Referrals1.5 hr
Mar 2026UW-Madison Extension, Sauk County Institute of LeadershipAI for Leadership1 hr
Mar 2026NAA Certified Auctioneers Institute (CAI)Marketing & AI3.5 hr
Mar 2026Schrader Real Estate & Auction Annual MeetingUsing AI Within the Auction Industry75 min
Mar 2026World Wide College of AuctioneeringAuction Marketing: A Strategic ApproachHalf day
Feb 2026Weichert Realtors / H. Barry Smith Co.AI for Real Estate Agents1 hr
Feb 2026NAA Digital Marketing SummitData That Drives Decisions: Mastering Google Analytics & Search Console1 hr
Feb 2026North Dakota Auctioneers Association ConferenceAI in the Auction Industry + Digital Marketing for AuctionsHalf day
Jan 2026Michigan Auctioneers Association ConferenceAI Unveiled: From Old School to New School3 hr
Jan 2026Wisconsin Auctioneers Association ConferenceAI Unveiled + Ethics & AI2 hr + 1 hr
Jan 2026Minnesota State Auctioneers Association ConferenceThe 1-Hour AI Advantage1 hr

Book Me

I am available for keynotes, workshops, and continuing education sessions for state and national trade associations, corporate events, auction schools, and private training.

What I Deliver

  • Customized, Interactive Demos: No dry slides or static lists. I run live, real-time tests on actual assets (real estate, equipment, or personal property) suggested by the audience.
  • Actionable Toolkits: Attendees do not just take notes. They leave with a physical and digital toolbox, including the CLEAR Prompting Framework reference, multi-tool AI worksheets, and 30-day implementation roadmaps.
  • Continuing Education Credits: Content is structured to qualify for state-level auctioneer and real estate continuing education (CE) requirements, as demonstrated by the five-hour approved curriculum.

If you are looking for a speaker who bridges traditional industry expertise with modern technology strategy, I would like to hear from you.

john.schultz@grafeauction.com