I'm Tim Jedrek
Digital Marketing Agency Owner | Software Engineer | Pilot
This is my personal website. If you're on here already, just wanted to let you know that there's a link in the menu, and also a button down below, that says contact which leads you to a form where we can get in contact. Or you can email me directly at [email protected] or call me at 314-358-2100. That's acutally my direct line. No phone trees, robots, or off-shore customer service. I'm a real human being that's willing to talk with you and get to know you. If you're not ready for all that just yet, feel free to explore the website to learn more about me and check out some of the projects I've worked on.
About Me
Last updated October 2024
I'm on a mission to find 100 flight schools in the world to partner with and double their student body. Everyday, I work with the team at Right Rudder Marketing to implement and execute the latest technical strategies and tactics to move flight school businesses up higher on Google search. Our collective goal is to get those flight schools known to their prospective students. Through our efforts we've helped flight schools in America achieve:
- Bringing multiple flight schools to over $1M in annual revenue
- 10X the number of leads coming in a flight school
- Doubling flight school student body and revenue generating flights bringing in over $6M in annual revenue
- Doubling the amount of Google reviews at a flight school in under 6 months
- Dominating in a flight school's local service area to rank #1 on Google Maps and organic search
Tim Jedrek giving a talk at King Schools' EDU CON in San Diego, CA September 2023
It is truly awe inspiring to see our flight schools transform their operations into large scalable businesses. I love being a part of that because I know that by growing our flight schools' businesses, it drives more people into aviation and brings more pilots into the industry. And that's what really matters. Having a lasting impact on our students and the future pilots of the world. How I Got Here
Right Rudder Marketing is pretty new. It all started in October of 2022 and we signed our first flight school in April of 2023. But I've been in the game longer that just that. I started my career in manufacturing. Specifically quality assurance management in the food industry. With over a decade of experience working in the food industry, I built teams, worked with B2B sales, facilitated federal government and third party audits, and created systems and procedures to build and optimize the departments I managed. Every quality food safety audit I managed had a passing result and had scores above a 90. I had a perfect track record. I bring that same work ethic to every aspect of my life. I always want to achieve the best and do the best.
Tim Jedrek walking the factory floor. Full PPE and everything (for safety and food safety of course!)
Tim Jedrek and the quality food safety team at Tyson Foods working during the holidays
It was a great career and one that helped fund my pilot certificate. I started at the bottom as an entry level technician and worked my way up the ladder to the department head as a quality manager. I am very proud of my accomplishments and achievements. I am very proud of the teams I managed and the work we completed. However, I always had an itch. I had the aviation bug. After I did my intro discovery flight, I knew I had to be in aviation. ✈️
On the other hand, I had been creating websites and programming for fun. I started this programming hobby when I was in high school and I really enjoyed learning how to code and program. Learning a new programming language or framework would literally keep me up all through the night coding away on my laptop and I enjoyed every minute of it. I was fortunate enough to go on to sell my first website to a restaurant in 2019. The realization that this could be a sustainable business, a way to generate income outside of food manufacturing hit me hard. I wanted to make this a reality. From there, I took on more projects and helped interior designers, musicians, lawn care companies, and various other small businesses with their websites. However, I noticed that the companies I worked with didn't care about how I built the website, whether I used WordPress, Wix, or GoDaddy or even if I coded the whole thing from scratch... What business owners really cared about was growing their own business and getting new customers and sales. I knew I had to upgrade my perspective and learn how to really benefit business owners and give a quality product and service.
The World of Marketing
What really mattered was not just the website. But instead how the website fit into a marketing plan as a whole. In an effort to grow my clients' businesses, I dived head first into marketing and sales. I attended conferences, read books, took courses to further my skills, and found mentors and coaches to guide me on the path of success. Having mentors and coaches to teach me the secrets of business was the 100LL fuel that I needed to grow my business to where it is today. From just a side gig to now a full scale marketing agency on it's way to multiple seven figures, it is quite literally the most rewarding time of my life. I am blessed to be surrounded by a group of similar marketing agency owners that helped guide me and show me how to do SEO, how to run Google Ads, and how to grow businesses the right way. Which is the "Right Rudder" way 😁.
One of the first lessons I had was choosing a niche or a specific industry to focus on. In the past when I was selling websites, I had tried to serve everyone and any business. I quickly learned that doing so is short sighted. As a business, when we think about our marketing plan, we need to think about to whom our message impacts. We need to focus and dial in on who our target customer is and who we want to help and bring value to.
Choosing Aviation and Flight Schools
Which brings me back to that itch we were talking about earlier. My mentors taught me that if you want to grow a successful business, then you want to be in business with something you have knowledge in. Something where you spend a majority of your time and money on or have insider knowledge. For me that was aviation and the flight training industry. I don't know about you, but I've spent tens of thousands and soon to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in flight training and flying around for fun.
Tim Jedrek and one of his business mentors, Josh Nelson
Enter Right Rudder Marketing
And that's pretty much how I got here. I combined the two passions I had for aviation and programming and founded the company, Right Rudder Marketing. A lot of trial and error, and a lot of sleepless nights coding away and building software and marketing websites for flight schools. Now, I'm more focused on building up the Right Rudder Marketing team to scale and duplicate my work and methodology to all our future flight schools to grow their businesses. The recipe is the same. A multifaceted approach to marketing online to remain omnipresent in the minds of our target customers.
The Right Rudder Marketing team at the annual 2024 FLY-IN in Medellin, Colombia
Tim Jedrek at FSANA 2023 giving a talk on marketing
Tim Jedrek with John and Martha King
Flight School Handbook of Marketing Knowledge
I'm excited to share that I've recently written my first book, The Flight School Handbook of Marketing Knowledge. It's a project that's been in the making for a while, inspired by my experience helping flight schools grow and succeed through smart marketing strategies. I wanted to create something practical, something flight school owners can use right away.
The book breaks down the exact steps we've used to help schools all across the country—things like improving their online presence, getting more student enrollments, and streamlining their marketing efforts. These aren't just theories; they're real strategies that have delivered results.
If you're a flight school owner, I'd love to send you a free copy. Whether you're doing marketing yourself, creating an in-house team, or looking at marketing agencies, this can be a helpful resource to make sure your efforts lead to real growth. Just reach out, and I'll get one sent your way!
Tim Jedrek holding the Flight School Handbook of Marketing Knowledge
What Else Do You Do?
If I'm not flying, writing, or collaborating with a flight school owner... I enjoy my time with my wife, Dianyi. We enjoy traveling, running marathons, learning foreign languages, and acquiring new skills like rock climbing, golf, boxing, painting, cooking, dancing, shooting, hunting, and ice skating. Anything really. We love doing novel things together. Life's pretty short. Gotta enjoy it!
Tim Jedrek and his wife, Dianyi, at a music concert
Tim Jedrek and his wife, Dianyi, learning how to paint
Tim Jedrek and his wife, Dianyi, climbing trees
Tim Jedrek and his wife, Dianyi, ice skating
What's Next?
That's up to you. You can peruse the website and look at some of the work I've done. And then you can contact me. See you soon.
