Services curriculum

Deciding to start

Helps you decide whether to go out on your own, what size of firm you want to build, and whether your rate could support your life before you leave a job.

Starting your kind of business (pick yours)

Pick the lesson for the kind of business you're starting: a trade, a health or wellness practice, a studio, an agency or a consultancy. Each one shows what the first year asks of an owner.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Buying a business instead

Helps you weigh buying an established service business instead of starting from zero, and what to check before you sign.

Choosing a niche and an offer

Helps you choose who you serve and what you sell them, so clients can see why to hire you, and test the offer on real prospects before you quit.

Licenses for your work (pick yours)

Pick the lesson for your kind of work. Each one says which North Carolina board licenses it, what it takes to qualify, and what has to happen before your first paid job.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Forming your company and registering

Helps you decide when to form your company and how to register it in North Carolina. You don't need an LLC to land a first client, but licensed work needs its license first, and repair, maintenance or installation work needs a sales-tax certificate before the first such job.

Insurance, contracts and getting paid

Helps you choose the insurance a service business needs, put every job in writing, and protect your right to be paid in North Carolina.

Pricing your services

Helps you move from selling hours toward pricing by the job or the result, price trades work without mixing up markup and margin, and hold your price when a client pushes back.

Winning clients

Helps you turn referrals and local searches into booked work: running the first call, writing a short proposal, showing past results and getting found on Google.

Product-market fit and the numbers

Helps you tell whether clients come back and send others, and track the few numbers that decide a service firm's health: margin per job, billable time, cash and your biggest client's share.

Bootstrapping and borrowing

Helps you fund the firm from client revenue first, then find the loans that fit a WNC service business, from a microloan to an SBA loan for equipment or buying a business.

Growing the firm

Helps you get the business out of your own hands: systems, your first employee or contractor hired by the rules, apprentices, and a firm someone could one day buy.

Founder stories (pick one)

Pick one long interview with someone who built a service business, from a junk hauler and a dry cleaner to studios, a staffing firm and a design consultancy, including one who went bankrupt and rebuilt, and take a single habit from it into your own company.

Any one of these finishes the module.

Founders from here (pick one)

Pick one story from someone running a service business in WNC, from movers, painters and landscapers to a consultancy and a wellness guide, and take one idea from it into your own company.

Any one of these finishes the module.