Skills and Tools
Applied AI
I have used AI every single day for the past three years. Not as a gimmick, but as a working method that has changed how I operate. I use it to improve processes, create content, automate the repetitive parts of my day, and build software I would never have been able to build alone.
The clearest example is The Trade Analyzer, a live web app I built using Claude Code despite having no background as a developer. But the bigger point is the mindset. I am not interested in AI as a buzzword. I am interested in what it lets a curious, process-minded person actually do. The leaders who win the next decade will not be the ones who resist these tools or the ones who hype them. They will be the ones who quietly learn to use them better than everyone else.
I’ve also designed, trained, and deployed a custom AI chatbot with a specific business objective: improve lead quality without forcing visitors through a contact form upfront. Rather than acting as a support tool, it engages visitors in genuine conversation and collects qualification information naturally throughout the interaction. The result was a 33% increase in lead generation compared to the conventional chatbot it replaced. It’s trained on company-specific information so it doesn’t fabricate pricing or program details, hands off structured lead data to the sales team, and generates a customized learning plan for each prospective student based on the conversation itself, so leads arrive at the sales conversation already understanding which program fits their situation.
Beyond those two projects, I’ve integrated AI across a wide range of operational and communications work. That includes CRM process development and automation, email campaign development at scale, presentation and documentation creation that meets real instructional standards, systems process mapping and redesign, and the development of AI agents that perform structured, autonomous tasks rather than just responding to one-off prompts. This breadth isn’t accidental. It reflects a deliberate practice of using AI on real work across different tools, platforms, and contexts, long enough to develop genuine instincts about it.
What this experience translates into, beyond the projects themselves, is a working understanding of where AI delivers real value, where it still requires human judgment, and how to teach the difference. That’s the layer I find most useful, because it’s the one that determines whether AI actually improves an organization’s work or just adds another tool nobody quite trusts.
Marketing Strategy & Communications
At CanScribe I inherited a marketing operation that was functional but not optimized. Over time I rebuilt it from the ground up, not all at once, but piece by piece, as I understood each stage of the funnel well enough to improve it. Strategy, for me, has never been a document you write at the beginning of the year. It’s a living thing that changes as the data changes. The ability to hold a clear strategic direction while remaining genuinely responsive to what the numbers are telling you is something I’ve developed over a long time and consider one of my strongest capabilities. The results speak for themselves.
Google Ads
Google Ads was one of the first platforms I got seriously into, and it’s one I’ve never stopped learning. Search, display, and video, I’ve worked across all of them, managing campaigns for two institutions simultaneously at points during my career.
The skill that matters most in paid search isn’t knowing where the buttons are. It’s knowing how to read what a campaign is actually telling you versus what it appears to be telling you. Fraudulent clicks, keyword cannibalization, quality score issues, attribution problems, these are the things that silently drain budgets and distort performance data. At CanScribe I reduced fraudulent clicks by 70% and brought cost per conversion down by 62%. At Focus College I reduced cost per conversion by 73.8% in a matter of months. Those results came from treating the platform as a system to be understood, not a dial to be turned up.
Meta Advertising
Facebook and Instagram advertising require a different mindset than search. You’re not reaching people who are already looking, you’re reaching people who might be interested if you say the right thing at the right moment. That demands a much sharper instinct for creative, audience psychology, and the relationship between your ad and what happens after someone clicks it.
I’ve managed Meta campaigns as part of integrated strategies across both CanScribe and Focus College, and learned early that the landing page is at least half the battle. An ad that converts well to a page that doesn’t is just an expensive way to generate disappointment. Thinking about the full journey from first impression to enrollment — is something I do instinctively now.
CRM & Marketing Automation: Keap/Infusionsoft
Keap is the CRM I know most deeply, and I’ve now implemented it from scratch at two separate organizations. The first time you implement a CRM you learn the platform. The second time you learn what actually matters, what to set up first, where the complexity is worth it and where it isn’t, and how to build automation sequences that the sales team will actually use rather than work around.
Beyond Keap specifically, my broader capability here is in thinking about how information should flow through an organization. A CRM is only as valuable as the data going into it and the decisions coming out of it. Getting both of those right requires understanding the people using the system as much as the system itself.
Email Marketing
Email is where I’ve seen some of my most dramatic performance improvements, which is part of why I take it seriously in an era where a lot of marketers have moved on from it. At CanScribe I brought open rates from 12.11% to 42.87%. At Focus College I took them from 5.4% to 32.2%. Those numbers don’t come from tricks, they come from understanding segmentation, writing subject lines that are honest about what’s inside, and sending emails that are actually worth reading.
The discipline that email marketing teaches, be relevant, be clear, respect the reader’s time, is one I apply across every other communication channel I work in.
Data Analytics & Forecasting
This is probably the skill I’m most quietly proud of, because it’s the one that’s hardest to teach and the one that’s made the biggest difference to the organizations I’ve worked in. I built forecasting models at CanScribe that allowed us to predict enrollment and revenue with real accuracy, not as a theoretical exercise, but as a practical planning tool that changed how the leadership team made decisions.
My tools here are primarily Excel, Keap’s reporting infrastructure, and platform-native analytics across Google and Meta. But the tool matters less than the habit of mind — asking the right questions of the data, being honest when the data contradicts what you expected, and translating what you find into something actionable for people who don’t want to look at a spreadsheet.
WordPress & Landing Pages
I’ve managed WordPress websites and built landing pages in support of campaigns at both CanScribe and Focus College. My approach here is functional rather than aesthetic, I understand enough about page structure, form integration, load performance, and conversion optimization to build pages that do what they’re supposed to do. I’m not a developer, but I know enough HTML and CSS to solve problems without waiting for one.
SEO: RankMath & UberSuggest
SEO is an area I’ve developed more deliberately in recent years. I work primarily with RankMath for on-page optimization and UberSuggest for keyword research and competitive analysis. My understanding of SEO sits at the intersection of content strategy and technical implementation, I know enough to make good decisions about both, and enough to know when something requires deeper specialist knowledge than I have.
Leadership & Team Development
I’ve led teams across marketing, admissions, student services, IT, and accounting, sometimes all at once. The skill of leading people who work in fundamentally different disciplines, with different metrics, different priorities, and different professional languages, is something I’ve developed over a long time and still actively work at.
What I’ve learned is that most leadership failures are communication failures. People don’t underperform because they don’t care, they underperform because they don’t have what they need, whether that’s clarity, resources, feedback, or trust. My job as a leader is to remove the things that get in the way of good work and then get out of the way.
Process Improvement & Systems Thinking
If there’s a single thread that runs through everything in my skill set, it’s this: I am always looking for the friction. The step that takes longer than it should. The handoff where information gets lost. The process that made sense three years ago but hasn’t been questioned since. Finding those things and fixing them, systematically, with buy-in from the people doing the work, is something I find genuinely satisfying and something every organization I’ve worked with has benefited from.
Design & Content: Photoshop, Canva, InDesign
I’m not a designer, and I don’t pretend to be. But I have enough working knowledge of Photoshop, Canva, and InDesign to produce competent visual work and, more importantly, to give clear and useful direction to people who are designers. Understanding what makes something work visually, hierarchy, contrast, the relationship between image and text, has made me a better marketer and a better collaborator with creative teams.
Platforms & Tools: Quick Reference
For anyone who wants the straightforward list: Google Ads, Meta Advertising, Keap, WordPress, Brightspace LMS, Excel, Microsoft 365, RankMath, UberSuggest, Photoshop, Canva, InDesign, ChatGPT, HTML, CSS, Microsoft Teams, G-Suite, Windows OS, Apple OS, Zoom.
