St. Edward’s Free Small Business Workshop

I attended this workshop yesterday. I understood that it would be promoting one of St. Edward’s «classes.» By the time it was over, I doubted that this was a class in any meaningful sense, nor that it had very much to do with St. Edward’s University.
The so-​called «classes» only met twice, at a downtown hotel conference room and never at St. Ed’s. Additionally, I noticed no discussion of any course outline, assignments, projects, examinations, papers, grades, or certificates. In reality, what was being sold were notebooks filled with somewhat outdated material and 9 audio CD’s for $ 695 (with $ 200 off if you registered the same day as the workshop.) Various incentives were offered for free, like a «fiscal exam» of your business by some of St. Edward’s staff in the Business Dept. A $ 79 value but free to you if you register today! I suspected these value added incentives were simply opportunities to sell you additional services.
Myself, I am staying away, and looking instead for expert instruction and coaching from Austin’s own Small Business Development Program. (Maybe they at least won’t offer up the Kodak corporation as an example of successful marketing!)

If you have registered for a sales tax ID recently or changed your address on it, you have doubtless seen the yellow postcards in the mail announcing a «Free Workshop: How to Start or Run a Small Business» at a hotel conference room. As this is apparently put on by St Edward’s University, one would think that the free workshop would actually involve education. It does not — what it does involve is advertising for their paid course.
If you’d really like to sit through two and a half hours of someone telling you why you need to shell out $ 695 for their course, and occasionally get tiny bits of obvious information («Your business location should be convenient to your customers, not to your house.» Gee, you think?!), then sure, go. If you’d like to get a spectacular example of marketing speak, you’ll get plenty of it. Gary Johnson is an engaging speaker for folks who don’t immediately realize they’re just being advertised to, and he knows how to sell his course — that is all he’s there to do. I think the only thing I actually learned at this «workshop» was the existence of Subchapter S, a type of corporation. The only thing you’ll be doing in your provided «workbook» is writing down reasons to buy the $ 695 course.
There are other free resources, especially regarding business taxes, out there in the central TX area and Austin specifically. Ones that are actually usable resources and not a 2.5-hour waste of your time.