Operator / Builder / Cheyenne

Built to run without you holding it together.

I work with owners of $1M to $10M businesses on the systems that let the company grow without running everything through them.

Apply Find where you fit ↓

4 companies / 1 exit / 27 years

JJ Steelman in a black shirt, arms crossed, against a dark studio backdrop

The record

500+Small businesses helped

27Major clients

4Companies built, 1 exit

$650M+In revenue helped generate

2018GHL power user since

Find where you fit

Five ways to work with me. One of them fits where you are.

They're ranked by how close we'd work together. Start at the rung that matches your business, not your ambition.

Letters

Anyone, free

Occasional letters on what's working, what broke and what I'd do about it. No content calendar.

Get the letters →01

MAAD Society

Under seven figures

The community for owners who are still building toward a million. It's relaunching, and it's where to start if you're not there yet.

Visit MAAD Society ↗02

Optimus Mastermind

Owners who want a room

A mastermind I run with Brad Hart. Operators working on the same problems, holding each other to the numbers.

Visit Optimus ↗03

Ascend

$1M to $10M, one-on-one

Advisory with me, directly. We find what's stuck, build the plan, and your team runs it with me in their corner.

See how Ascend works →04

Bigfoot

Want it done for you

My agency. A full team that builds and runs the marketing and systems for you, so your people don't have to.

Visit Bigfoot ↗

Rooms

Some of the rooms I've been in.

No names. The people in these photos know who they are.

JJ and a guest at a conference, an event screen behind them

JJ and a guest at a table with a laptop, a conference wall behind them

JJ and a guest in front of an event backdrop

JJ at a martial arts belt ceremony with instructors and a student

JJ and a guest outdoors, both wearing conference lanyards

JJ and a guest wearing conference badges

Companies

Four companies. One exit. Three still running.

Company	What it is	Status
Synergy	Full-stack marketing, PR and development firm	Sold 2008
4GED	Coaching and consulting	Active
Bigfoot Marketing Solutions	Full-stack marketing and systems agency	Active ↗
Paddyverse	Software company. Products include PandaDash, a white-label platform built on GHL.	Active

GHL power user since 2018.

The short version

Forty years on the mat. Twenty-seven in marketing.

I've been training for forty years. The first thing the mat teaches you is that it doesn't care how you feel. You fall, you get up, and you do it again tomorrow.

Business turned out to work the same way. I sold my first company, Synergy, in 2008. Since then I've built three more and worked with more than 500 small businesses. That was enough to see the same pattern over and over: the owner is the system, and the system breaks the day the owner gets tired.

So that's what I build now. Systems that have to work when nobody is watching.

Read the whole story →

Straight answers

Who I can help. And who I can't.

This is for you if

01Your business does between $1M and $10M a year.
02You're still the one holding it together, and you know it.
03You have a team, and you want them running a real plan instead of waiting on you.
04You want someone who's built companies, not someone selling a course about it.

This isn't for you if

01You're under a million. Start with MAAD Society ↗. It's built for that stage.
02You want a team to do the work for you. That's Bigfoot ↗.
03You want motivation, hype or a guru. I'm not that guy.

Field notes

I write down what I learn.

002

Forty years of standing back up.

"The lesson is not the technique. The lesson is the floor."

001

Why I stopped trusting AI hype merchants.

"If your prompt library is the entire product, you are selling sheet music to people who do not own instruments."

All field notes →

Next step

Seven figures and still the bottleneck? Apply.

It's a short application. If it looks like a fit, we get on a call. If we agree to work together, I audit the business and show you what to fix first.

Apply