Bring your owners and staff together to work on attracting the right business, developing customer relationships, and building processes your team can use consistently. I design and personally teach private workshops for one auction company or a group of companies learning together.
I’m John Schultz, Partner and Chief Marketing and Technology Officer at Grafe Auction. I teach from the work I do in the auction business, using practical examples and time for your team to try the methods themselves. You can learn more about my speaking and teaching work.
Built around your companies
Before the workshop, each participating company completes an assessment and joins a discovery conversation. I review selected examples of your work to understand your marketing, customer service, prospecting, and current technology.
Those inputs shape one shared curriculum. Each company applies the lessons to its own business and builds its own plans during class with my guidance.
The workshop has one host agreement and one invoice, with no per-person or per-company workshop charge. The host can arrange cost sharing within the group. We agree on the participating companies and preparation scope before work begins.
Choose the time that fits the work
One day focuses on a narrower set of priorities, such as improving prospect follow-up or developing one useful AI-assisted workflow.
Two days give teams time to connect related parts of the business, practice the work, and plan how to put it into use.
Three days allow broader work across marketing, customer relationships, and repeatable workflows. The outline below is a starting point; assessments determine the emphasis. Plan on approximately six hours of instruction and working time each day, plus breaks.
Day one: Attract the right customers
Start with the assets you sell, the people most likely to buy them, and the information they need to act. We also examine how prospective sellers find and evaluate your company.
Topics can include website content, SEO and discovery through AI search, reviews, email, social media, paid advertising, and agency reporting. We connect the measures in a report to a decision about what to keep or change.
Your team develops a marketing example around an actual auction or asset category and a simple weekly review routine. Practical AI prompting, company context, and verification begin here and continue throughout the program.
Day two: Develop relationships into opportunities
Work on prospecting for new customers, finding opportunities within existing relationships, and reconnecting with past customers and prospects. We cover qualification, discovery questions, CRM follow-up, referrals, and how to pass an opportunity to the right person.
Customer service is part of that work. Teams practice setting expectations, recognizing customer needs, and handling difficult conversations. AI can help research a prospect, rehearse seller objections, and prepare a proposal draft from discovery notes.
Your team develops a prospecting and follow-up process, then practices a conversation or proposal tied to an opportunity relevant to your business.
Day three: Make the work repeatable
Take a selected task and turn it into a process another employee can follow. We use company policies, examples, and verified information to give AI useful context, with clear points for human review and approval.
Your team documents one workflow with its inputs, steps, owner, and review points. Another team member tries it so we can identify what needs clarification. We also address staff adoption and which decisions employees can make themselves.
Each company builds its own 90-day implementation plan with specific first-30-day assignments.
What your team takes home
For the three-day program, the working outputs are a marketing example, a prospecting and follow-up process, one documented AI-assisted workflow, and your team’s implementation plan. I provide the class materials, reusable instructions, and working templates used during the workshop.
Shorter programs have a narrower set of outputs agreed in advance. The plans are developed by your team during class; separate written audits, system builds, and ongoing implementation work require their own scope.
Continued support
Optional annual advisory packages are available to individual companies. These include twelve monthly, one-hour remote sessions with staff to review progress and work through questions. An onsite option adds one eight-hour return visit, reserved when that package is booked.
We agree on preparation and between-session support as part of the advisory scope. Ongoing system development is a separate engagement.
Planning your workshop
The host provides meeting space, reliable internet, and a screen and projector if necessary. Participants bring laptops, and we confirm tool access beforehand.
I’ll provide a proposal once we discuss your needs, format, location, and timing. Travel and lodging are additional; software subscriptions, venue costs, and meals are separate. Dates, final scope, and payment terms are agreed before booking.
Custom workshops do not automatically carry continuing education credit. If CE matters to your group, include that in your inquiry so we can discuss the applicable approval process.
Tell me about your group
Share the business questions you want to work on and the time you have available. We’ll use that to discuss a useful starting point.