An applied programme for people who want to build and run a local service business of their own. It’s self-paced, and every stage sends you out of the classroom: make a decision, build something the business will use, and come back with what the market told you.
A useful business education should change what you are able to do. By the end of the Local Business MBA, you should be able to evaluate an opportunity, find demand, make and price an offer, deliver it reliably, read the basic economics, build a team, and test whether the company can function without your constant intervention.
You won’t wait until the end to use any of it. The company grows alongside your understanding: customers stand in for case studies, the market does the marking, and the grade that matters most is a business that runs well.
The programme cannot guarantee that a particular business will succeed. Market, timing, judgement, effort, capital, regulation, and the quality of execution all matter. What it can give you is a coherent order of operations, and better questions, stronger tools, and less avoidable confusion when you meet uncertainty.
Marketing, finance, operations, leadership, and strategy appear when the business needs them, in relation to decisions you are making now. Each stage contains four kinds of work.
How to evaluate local demand, identify a useful customer problem, choose an operating model, estimate basic unit economics, recognise legal and delivery constraints, and decide whether the business fits your time, money, skills, and desired life. Then the launch itself: website, booking software, phone system, and the bare-minimum systems.
A market thesis, a viability scorecard, a lean launch budget, a first offer, and a 30-day validation plan, ending in the launch checklist and your first job.
How to speak with potential customers, choose and test acquisition channels, build local visibility, separate polite interest from evidence of demand, shape the offer, price responsibly, run useful sales conversations, and follow up without pressure.
A first-customer plan, channel tests and a channel scorecard, a lead-tracking system, pricing logic, sales scripts, a follow-up sequence, and a simple pipeline you can read.
How to define good work, schedule and coordinate delivery, protect quality, recover well when something goes wrong, communicate with customers, and track the operating numbers without documenting everything that moves.
Core workflows, service standards, checklists, customer communication and recovery tools, quality controls, and an operating scorecard.
How to identify the right work to transfer, design roles around outcomes, recruit and evaluate candidates, onboard deliberately, establish decision boundaries, and manage without hovering. The complete step-by-step VA hiring system is the separate VA course, not part of this programme.
Role scorecards, job briefs, interview tools, onboarding plans, decision maps, reporting rhythms, and a management cadence.
How to test owner absence, strengthen the management layer, reduce decision dependence, run the remote daily workflow, and judge growth in relation to margin, resilience, service, balance, and the life the business is meant to support.
An owner-absence test, a dependency map, a management scorecard, an independence plan, the template vault put to work, and a considered definition of enough.
Lessons are short enough to use the same day, and the programme isn’t built for binge-watching. You work with templates, scripts, checklists and decision tools, then adapt them to the market and the company in front of you.
Students beginning from zero follow the complete path. Existing operators use the start-here material to find the stage where progress is currently constrained. A delivery problem may lead back to a promise made while selling. A delegation problem may reveal that delivery was never sufficiently clear. The sequence helps you find the earlier decision beneath the present symptom.
The full five-stage curriculum, worksheets, template vault, systems walkthroughs, quarterly health checks through your first year, and direct access to Chris. Best if you can work independently and want the complete method.
Join the programme →Six months for owners with an existing business: three rebuilding the foundation, three putting it all into action, strengthening the part of your business that matters most now.
Request the details →For established owners with an owner-dependence, management or exit problem: one-to-one work through Chris’s personal site, closed for now.
Read about advisory →Enrolment is open to anyone who meets the practical requirements. Before enrolling, confirm that you can:
The programme gives you the complete operating path. The decisions, conversations, promises, and company remain yours.