A small training session in a dark room, one instructor working through a system with a client at a laptop.
Private Claude training · One client at a time · London & remote

More done with the people you already have.

You leave with one part of your business running better, safely, and you know how it works because you helped build it. Not a course in what Claude can do. I sit down with you, take one of your workflows apart, and rebuild it on Claude while you learn by doing it with me. I am Joel Smalley, and I have spent three decades taking complicated systems apart and making them run.

§ 01 · The difference
Why this is not a course

I don't teach a course.
I re-engineer your work, and teach you while I do it.

Most AI training walks a room of strangers through features and functions. You leave knowing what the buttons do, and nothing about how your daily activity changes.

I start from your business instead: one task, one workflow, one system that needs rebuilding for your role. We analyse it together. Your own work is the syllabus, and Claude is the tool we build it with.

A trainer's job is done when you know the tool. Mine is done when the work runs differently.

I only work one-to-one, or with a group from a single organisation, preferably the same division or role. No mixed rooms and no generic examples. I work on your data, your systems and your cases.

You also learn what the courses skip: how your data is held, how it should be named and connected, who and what may reach it, and what can then be built on top of it.

No mixed groups
One client per engagement. Everything discussed stays in the room.
Your workflows, not demos
I build on your real tasks and systems, so the result runs immediately.
Taught by the builder
I build and run businesses on Claude today.
§ 02 · Your consultant
Who you are hiring

You are not buying a curriculum.
You are getting someone who has done the work.

Joel Smalley, lead instructor at Maxy Institute.
Joel Smalley, MBA
Principal, Rubytech · Lead Instructor, Maxy Institute · London

I have done one thing for thirty years: take a complicated system apart, work out what it is really doing, and rebuild it so it runs. The first two decades of that were in quantitative finance, pricing and trading derivatives at JPMorgan, CIBC, Daiwa and Tullett Prebon, getting decisions out of large, complicated datasets fast enough to trade on them.

I took the same discipline into other industries for the decade after that, leading technology, product and innovation across payments, insurance, healthcare, logistics and real estate. Today I build and run businesses on Claude. They are the same systems I teach.

So the person in the room is not a trainer reciting release notes. I am a consultant and strategist who has put technology into difficult organisations, and I teach from having done it.

Applied in capital markets
20 years trading, market-making and quantitative modelling
Applied in industry
C-level technology and innovation roles across six sectors
Builds on Claude today
Maxy, Real Agent, SiteDesk and Education Hero: live businesses running on Claude Code
Education
MBA, Rotman, first in class · Postgraduate Diploma, Quantitative Finance
Certifications
AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations, Teaching the AI Fluency Framework, and AI Fluency for Small Businesses (Anthropic and PayPal). Anthropic, Certificates of Completion, 2026.
§ 03 · The engagement
How it runs

Start with your work. Build only where it helps. Hand it over.

01 · HALF DAY
Discovery.
I start with your work, not with the technology. I map your role, your workflows, and where your data lives. You commit to nothing beyond this session, and you leave with a written assessment either way.
02
Analysis.
Together we take one workflow apart: every step, every system it touches, every judgement only you can make. Where AI is not the answer I say so, and sometimes a simpler fix is the right one. That is consulting work, and it is also the first lesson.
03
Re-engineering.
We rebuild the workflow together on Claude, at your desk and on your live systems, and only where it genuinely earns its place. Everything we build has an owner, a way to switch it off, and you on the hook for anything that matters. You are using it the same day, and you are taught as we go.
04
Handover.
You run it, and you understand what you are running: why it is built this way and how to change it. Going live is the start, not the finish. Watch it and it tells you how the work itself should run. Most clients keep an advisory retainer as the systems change.
Format 01 · One-to-one

You and your consultant.

For an owner, partner or director whose own work is the business. Full days at your desk or over video, on your live systems and real cases.

  • One client, one room. Nothing leaves it.
  • Your own Claude setup, built with you, owned by you
  • The pace is set by your work, not by a syllabus
Format 02 · Private group

One organisation, one room.

Up to six people from the same organisation, ideally the same division or role, so every example is everyone's example.

  • Shared workflows re-engineered once, adopted by all
  • Team conventions: naming, access, review, handoffs
  • Never mixed with another organisation

Every engagement begins with a discovery session: half a day mapping your role, workflows and data before anything is built. Afterwards most clients keep an advisory retainer, because the systems change and so does the platform underneath them.

§ 04 · What you learn
Beyond features and functions

Four things you need to understand about your own data.

Claude Cowork and Claude Code are the tools. Tools on their own do not change how a business runs. What I teach, using your own workflows, is how to put your data to work.

Once you understand these four layers in your own business, you can judge any AI proposal on its merits, and extend the system yourself long after the engagement ends.

Layer 01
Substrate.
Where your data actually lives: files, inboxes, CRMs, spreadsheets. And what shape it has to be in before an agent can use it.
Layer 02
Ontology.
Naming the things in your business and how they relate to each other, so the system works in your words rather than generic ones.
Layer 03
Access.
Who, and what, may reach each piece of data. Permissions and boundaries you decide, rather than whatever the defaults happen to be.
Layer 04
Intelligence.
What agents can responsibly do on top: research, drafting, monitoring, whole workflows that run while you work.
What I draw on

Behind every engagement sits a 27-module Claude curriculum in three parts, foundation, assembly and mastery, covering plans and privacy through to Skills, connectors, MCP and Cowork. I do not march through it. I use the modules your work calls for, when it calls for them.

§ 05 · Proof
Construction, estate agency, finance, training, health research

Clients that have benefited from the Maxy systems.

§ 06 · The comparison
Why not just Anthropic Academy?

Anthropic teaches Claude.
I teach your business on Claude.

Anthropic Academy

Free, general and good: Claude as a product, task automation, rolling it out across a company. The right place to learn what the tools are. Do it, and I will point you at the parts worth your time.

Maxy Institute

Private and specific: your workflow analysed, rebuilt and handed back to you running, safely and in your hands. The Academy leaves you knowing the tool. I change how the work runs.

§ 07 · Pricing
Indicative · each engagement priced on enquiry

You pay for the work, not for seats.

You are paying for a workflow rebuilt and handed back to you running, not for seats on a course. Each piece of work is scoped and priced after the discovery session, based on the workflows involved and how much rebuilding they need. Small businesses are welcome: most start with the discovery session and one day, and that is often enough to change how a week runs.

The discovery session stands on its own. If it is not the right fit, I say so and point you somewhere better.

Enquire →
Discovery session · half day
£950FIXED
One-to-one consulting & training
£2,400/ DAY
Private group · up to 6, one organisation
£4,500/ DAY
Advisory retainer
from £1,500/ MONTH
§ 08 · Get started
What to send me

Start with a discovery session.

Tell me your role, your organisation, and the workflow that takes the most of your week. I reply personally within two working days, with my view of whether I can help and how, and a proposed discovery session.

  • What you do, and where the hours go
  • The systems and data your work runs on
  • One-to-one, or a group from your organisation