Wednesday, March 11, 2020
North Idaho College has partnered with Amazon, the National Association of Community College Entrepreneurship, and Tinderbox Marketing to offer Amazon Small Business Academy, a new workshop series to help North Idaho and Eastern Washington businesses develop and expand their online sales through the Amazon platform.
Amazon Small Business Academy is an eight-week workshop series starting April 16 from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the NIC Workforce Training Center, with beginner, intermediate, and advanced modules geared to help companies anywhere along their online sales journey.
“This is an opportunity for companies who want Amazon to be part of their online sales strategy, but would prefer to learn in-person with a trained instructor and group of their business peers,” said Ryan Arnold, NIC director of Regional Entrepreneurial Strategy. “Learning the ins- and-outs of online platforms can be intimidating when going it alone, but NIC’s partnership with Amazon allows our small business community to learn in a safe classroom setting.”
Amazon Small Business Academy will be taught by instructional partner Josh King, founder of Tinderbox Marketing in Spokane. King received training in Seattle at Amazon HQ in early 2020 specifically to instruct Amazon Small Business Academy in the region.
“Josh has a great background as an entrepreneur, instructor, and professional coming from digital media and corporate marketing,” Arnold said. “Partnering with Tinderbox Marketing will give students access to an instructor who not only helped design the curriculum and was trained directly by Amazon to deliver it, but is personally equipped to help small business owners and entrepreneurs succeed.”
The Amazon Small Business Academy program is part of an initiative of Amazon and NACCE to help fund curriculum development and instruction of digital business courses in community college classrooms around the country. The weekly, two-hour workshops will cover the fundamentals of online business strategies, marketing, merchandising, inventory management.
Courses will cost $25 per class, with discounts for those to choose to sign up in advance for all eight classes. Those students interested in the regions of Bonners Ferry, Sandpoint, and Kellogg can also attend remotely via an Interactive Video Classroom at one of NIC’s three outreach centers.
“North Idaho College is thrilled to be one of the first schools in the nation to host Amazon Small Business Academy as a tool to help our regional small businesses and entrepreneurs with the world of online selling,” Arnold said.
For more information or to enroll in classes, visit www.nic.edu/AmazonSBAcademy, email venture@nic.edu or call (208) 929-4038.