Small Business Center Training and Events
From one hour to 10 weeks, the Small Business Center offers small-business training to help you start and build your business.
One- to three-hour webinars covering common business topics, offered by Wake Tech's Small Business Center and the Small Business Center Network of North Carolina.
Free, community-based entrepreneurship programs offered in the Fall and Spring semesters that include curriculum training, mentoring, networking and access to capital. Application required.
Wake Tech student-focused entrepreneurship programs for degree and non-degree students.
This training and pitch competition is for student entrepreneurs and small-business owners in Wake County, aimed at accelerating business growth.
An eight-week, fee-based training program offered each Spring semester for established small-business owners who want to sell goods and services to public entities.
This program provides affordable retail space in downtown Raleigh and small-business counseling to participating minority- and women-owned businesses.
Course details and registration information
Wake Tech also offers a number of courses on starting a new business.
Course
Entrepreneurship for Skilled Trades and Professionals
Name
SEF-3001BA3
Available Classes
Not currently offered.
Intended Audience
This is designed for students that are currently or have recently studied any skilled trade or curriculum area and have an interest in learning more about opportunities in being an entrepreneur.
Description
Kauffman FastTrac® teaches aspiring, early-stage entrepreneurs how to launch their businesses. Students will have access to content, templates, and tools as they progress through five modules that mirror the entrepreneurial journey. By the end of the course, you will have developed and refined your entrepreneurial vision into a thoroughly researched and tested business plan. In addition, there will be training and preparation for pitching in a pitch competition as well as 2 additional weeks of QuickBooks training. The class will be taught asynchronously over the course of 12 weeks and graded in a pass/fail manner.
Course Objectives
- IDEATE
Get started making your idea a reality and exploring the journey of becoming an entrepreneur.
POSITION
Position your idea in the market, understand your customers, and solidify your business model.
COMMIT
Commit to reaching your market, making a sale, and protecting your business.
REFINE
Perfect your strategy before launch and make sure your finances are in order.
LAUNCH
Plan for launching, leading, and growing your business.
Outline of Instruction
- Section 1: IDEATE
Assess your entrepreneurial traits and personal priorities to better understand how your business goals might be affected by your strengths or
weaknesses and your personal vision.
• What are the characteristics of a successful
entrepreneur?
• What are my entrepreneurial traits?
• What is my personal vision?
• Does my idea fit with my personal vision?
Section 2: POSITION
Any good idea will remain just that—an idea—unless it finds a place in the market and earns customers. In this section, you’ll figure out just who your
customers (and competitors) are and where to find them. You’ll identify critical attributes of the business landscape and your customer that will help you
transform your idea into a business. You will learn about legal structures that are best suited to your business, and you’ll start to think about how you’ll exit
your business when the time comes.
• Is there opportunity?
• Are there customers?
• Is there a path to reach them?
• Who are my competitors?
• How will I compete?
• How much money can I expect from my customers?
• What startup costs will there be?
• What legal entity should I use for my business?
• How do I want to exit my business?
• Based on what I learned, how do I move forward?
Section 3: COMMIT
A business isn’t real unless it is reaching paying customers and generating revenue through bottom line. You’ll use that information to identify your funding
needs. Finally, you’ll learn how to protect your intellectual property, your business, and yourself from legal risks.
• What do I want my brand to communicate?
• How can I best communicate that brand message?
• Will my marketing reach my customers?
• How will I sell?
• How will I distribute my product?
• Which financial tools can I use to
summarize and monitor my predictions?
• How much money will I need?
• Do I have any intellectual property?
• How do I stay on the right side of the law?
Section 4: REFINE
Now that you’ve sold and distributed your product/service, you have valuable information about the assumptions you made about your customer and
your market. Now is the time to refine your business before you publicly launch. In this section, you’ll take your lessons learned from early sales and early
customer feedback and apply them to the future of your business. You’ll measure and analyze your financial results against your previous predictions.
You’ll consider what people might need, and you’ll think about how to protect the assets of your business. You’ll learn what advisors and boards might do
to help you as you work to launch. You will think about how you might fund your business. Finally, you’ll learn how to build and communicate the plan for
your business with potential funders and others.
• What are your early sales numbers, and what are
they telling you?
• How can you use early customer feedback to
improve your product/service?
• Who might you need to help you in the business?
• How will you identify, recruit, and retain those
people?
• How can you protect your intellectual property as
you involve others in your business?
• Who might you want to help you make decisions and
think about the business?
• Where will you get any money that you need?
Section 5: LAUNCH
You’re ready to launch your business. In this section, you’ll learn strategies for launching, leading, and developing processes that will allow your business
to grow. You’ll learn how to draw attention to your new business. You’ll think about your leadership style, your company’s culture, and how to manage the
exciting challenges of growing a business. You’ll learn about best practices in process management and identify the success metrics that make sense for
your business. You’ll forecast the financial future for your company and think about how to set yourself up for success. Finally, you’ll plan for worst-case
scenarios and envision the best-case scenario—when you exit!
• What does launching mean, and how can I let more
customers know I exist?
• How can I lead, inspire, and develop a healthy
culture for my new business?
• How should I think about and document the critical
processes that allow my business to run smoothly?
• How will I measure success?
• Can I plan for disasters and emergencies that would
disrupt my business?
• What financial metrics can I forecast?
• How might I exit this business?
• What actually happened with the finances of my
business, and why?
• What can I do to improve my business finances?
Contact Hours
36
CEU's
No
Industry Standard, State, or National Certification
No
CE to CU Articulation
No
Prerequisites
Students must be enrolled in or has completed a curriculum in skilled trades or professions at Wake Tech.
Text and Supplies Needed
Access to Kauffman FastTrac will be provided
Clinical Site/Special Facilities
Requirements for Successful Completion of this Course
- Attendance 90% or above
- Participation
Accreditation/Special Approval Requirements
Intended Audience
This is designed for students that are currently or have recently studied any skilled trade or curriculum area and have an interest in learning more about opportunities in being an entrepreneur.
Specific Industry or Business Support Needs
Industry or Job Titles Related to training Outcomes for Employment
- Entrepreneurship
- Owner
- Founder
- Principal
Events
We also can provide half- to full-day events focused on small-business training. Here are some examples of intensive training focused on small-business owners.
- Barber & Cosmetology Business Summit
- Black Business Momentum
- Hispanic Business Momentum
- Financial Fortitude Summit
Connect
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