Behind the Scenes: How TwoPhDs Came to Be

We thought it would be fun for you to see how this all started!

How did the idea of TwoPhds begin? What were you hoping to accomplish?

Barbie: When I was in graduate school working on my Ph.D., I had the idea that one day my husband and I would start a business. It made sense because he has a Ph.D., and we both worked as freelance consultants. So I bought the domain twophds.com and put the idea aside while working in academia.

Fast forward seven years when Corey, who also has a Ph.D., and I started talking about how we could use our experience and education to help others, especially those in small businesses. She came up with the idea to start a blog and create short courses, and I told her I had the perfect domain name. It’s funny how that idea I had to start a business with my husband all those years ago was meant to be, but only with a different Ph.D.!

Corey: I had originally started my own blog, TexanInTraining.com. While I loved the creative outlet of writing and learning how to market my own website, I knew I was missing a big component to see it flourish. My idea to start TwoPhDs was to take our skill of teaching and combine it with what I saw so many small businesses needing. I am surrounded by successful entrepreneurs, but I often have thought, if they just knew this (insert one of hundreds of things I saw), they could grow their business so much more!

I approached Barbie on a whim, and here we are!

You’re still working a full-time job as a professor, so why are you making time to launch TwoPhds?

Barbie: That’s a really good question. I think for most people, one full-time job is enough! I love teaching students how to communicate in whatever industry they plan to pursue, but my own communication industry experience left an impression that these important skills need to be taught outside of academia too.

For 25 years I’ve worked many different clients. Some of these have been national corporations and others were smaller, not-for-profit organizations. Over the years I worked in internal communication departments and also in external agencies. With each organization and perspective, I observed how learning better communication skills was a need and often a struggle across the board. Whether it was a manager trying to communicate with a subordinate, or a company trying to reach a customer, there was always a need to know how to do it better.

This need was evident in my own family. My father owned his own business for almost 40 years. During that time, I watched him face many challenges and opportunities. My dad was skilled at what he did, but that didn’t mean he always knew the best way to communicate with potential customers or vendors. He had his hands full operating the company, managing employees, and working with clients. That often left little time to research how to grow his business, and funds were not available to hire an outside company to help.

I also experienced this one day at the ad agency. I’ll never forget taking a phone call and a teenaged girl asked me how much it would cost to have a logo designed for her father’s small business as a birthday gift. Her question hurt my heart because I knew there was probably no way they would be able to afford an advertising agency. I gave her the names of several freelance designers that might be more cost-effective.

That is when I made an important realization. I realized my father and other entrepreneurs are experts in their areas of business, but I am an expert in helping them learn how to communicate their businesses to others. So I feel both my job as a professor and the TwoPhds venture will help me do that.

Corey: My answer is even simpler: I saw a need we were able to fill. We also have the ability to have some flexibility in our schedules, so that means any downtime we did have has now been filled with this. But it is so, so fulfiling!  

If you weren’t a professor, what would you be doing?

Barbie: If I weren’t a professor, I would probably own a training and consulting business. Oh wait, that is what we do at TwoPhds! With TwoPhds, I can learn while teaching others what I know. It’s the perfect mix of insightful academics and industry practice. It really is the best of both worlds!

 Corey: Everything! I have always dreamed of owning my own business, so probably be doing something that I could express my creative side. We also farm cotton, and agriculture has been a big part of my life. I always thought I was going to do graphic design and marketing for agricultural companies, but instead I’m hoping to teach them the skills to learn how to reach their market!

Tell us a little about your background, how did you end up teaching business communication?

Barbie: As a child, I loved commercials, and I always knew I wanted to work in advertising. So in college, I majored in advertising and minored in marketing. I spent the early part of my career working in financial marketing where I helped establish marketing programs for credit unions in both Texas and Tennessee. I also worked in healthcare where I helped a hospital with public relations, graphic design, and content creation. My experience also includes working in two different advertising agencies. One was a small agency with national clients, and the other was a regional agency with many different accounts ranging from healthcare, education and finance to restaurants, technology, and politics. When I left the industry for academia, I was a principal and vice president of strategic planning. I conducted research, developed brand strategy, and helped clients to consider business from the point of view of the audiences they served.

When I was in graduate school, I was able to use my work experience to teach different courses like advertising management, research methods, and graphic design. As I was finishing my doctorate, I was offered a job teaching in the management department at the business school. There I was the director of the business communication program and taught other management courses such as organizational behavior. In business communication, I was able to connect my industry experience with my academic research. Academic research gives us insight into why we need to communicate in different areas while industry practice tells us how we should communicate to be effective.

Corey: I had no idea I wanted to teach, especially at the college-level until I was assisting in a graphic design course as a masters students. I was first able to teach a lesson or two, and then, that course as well as many others. I fell in love with students being able to grasp concepts, apply them to the outside world, and then share those joys with me. After completing my doctoral degree, I ended up not being in a teaching role at a law school.

While I loved my job, my heart was officially in teaching. I taught several courses while working full-time, was turned down from a few full-time teaching roles, and then on a whim, applied for the job teaching business communication. The job looked interesting; my education was in communication and I had hands-on experience with business, so why not!

I received my offer and haven’t looked back. It came at the perfect time, as I had my daughter weeks before starting this career, and it has given me a great balance of work and life!

What makes TwoPhds different from the courses and websites that are already out there?

Barbie: I am amazed how the Internet has made it possible to connect with people from across the globe with only a click of a button. Whether we are having conversations on social media or using the web to learn, it has made it easy to access and share information. While this is a good thing in theory, there has also been a lot of mis-information floating around the Internet. From get-rich-quick schemes to programs selling information based on opinion, you can find it all online.

The goal of TwoPhds is to offer research-based insight and industry experience to support practical strategies that small businesses can use. We know finding the time and money to go back to school and earn a new degree isn’t practical. But we also know that because so many people have big dreams and great ideas for new businesses, they might need help finding ways to harness those ideas and turn them into strategies they can implement. Our approach is to give people the why and the how to make those business dreams a reality.

Corey: What Barbie said! Yes, yes, and yes. The online education area is booming, but what I have noticed is that so many “experts” are not experts at all. Often, they started one business and had success, and then proceed to offer their blueprint to others. Barbie’s years of industry experience, combined with our research-based insight is what makes us truly unique. I think the other differentiating factor is our motivation. While we would love to sell thousands of courses, it is more important to see small business dreams succeed. We want to offer an affordable way for people to go back to school, but in a time-efficient, industry-proven way.