An applied programme for people who want to build and operate a local service business of their own. The programme is self-paced, but the work is not abstract: every stage asks you to make a decision, build an operating asset, and return with evidence from the market.
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 will not be asked to wait until the end to apply the material. The company develops alongside your understanding. Customers replace hypothetical case studies. The market replaces the examiner. The quality of the operation becomes the most important assessment.
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 concise enough to use, but the programme is not designed for passive completion. You work with templates, scripts, checklists, and decision tools, then adapt them to the market and 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 →Established operators with a consequential owner-dependence, management, or exit problem apply through Chris’s personal site rather than treating the programme as bespoke consulting.
Read about advisory →Enrolment is open to anyone who meets the practical requirements; admissions here means an honest fit check, not manufactured selectivity. Before enrolling, confirm that you can:
The programme gives you the complete operating path. The decisions, conversations, promises, and company remain yours.