Sound familiar?

Busy isn’t the same as moving forward.

The week fills up with customers, suppliers, quotes and new ideas, and by Friday it’s hard to say whether any of it moved your business closer to where you want it to be. That’s not a discipline problem. When your direction isn’t written down, every request competes on equal terms. The loudest task wins, the newest idea feels the most urgent, and saying yes feels easier than stopping to think. Stepping back takes time you don’t have. A third of small business owners say limited time to work on their business is one of the biggest pressures they face.
Start Designing Your Business

What you’ll build

Three finished documents you’ll use the day you complete them.

  • Your Business Canvas

    Your whole business on one page: six parts rated and explained, a score out of 30, and the opportunities and threats around you.

  • Your Business Design Blueprint

    Your purpose and five decisions about how you’ll win, tested before you rely on them, plus a Business Brief for AI you can paste into any AI tool.

  • Your Priority Plan

    One strength to amplify, one weakness to address, a “say no” line and a week-by-week action list you sign and start tomorrow.

What changes

A clear reason to say yes or no, written down before you need it.

You’ll know which part of your business is strongest, which part is holding you back, and the one priority you’ll work on first. Your week 1 actions start tomorrow. At 30 days, you’ll have two things you can count: a completed action list, and at least three requests or ideas you turned down because they would have pulled you off course. The course is four short lessons, about 55 minutes of teaching, and three exercises you complete for your own business in Google Docs or Word, around an hour in total. Every exercise has an AI prompt, with clear privacy ground rules, and a version you can complete without AI. A worked example from Kelp & Kiln, a hypothetical ceramics studio, follows every step.
Start Designing Your Business

Course curriculum

    1. Course Welcome

    1. Scan Your Business From Every Angle

    2. Lesson 1 Focus Question

    3. Exercise 1 file (Word)

    1. Choose Where You’ll Play and How You’ll Win

    2. Lesson 2 Focus Question

    3. Exercise 2 file (Word)

    1. Stress-Test Your Blueprint With AI

    2. Lesson 3 Focus Question

    1. Commit to the Priorities That Matter Most

    2. Lesson 4 Focus Question

    3. Exercise 3 file (Word)

    1. Course Summary

    2. Next Steps

    3. Research Foundations

About this course

  • $297.00
  • 15 lessons
  • 0 hours of video content

Your guide

Despina Karatzias, Founder, Institute of Excellence

Despina founded the Institute of Excellence in 2014 and has spent nearly two decades working alongside small business owners, councils and tourism operators. She holds a Master’s in Digital and Social Media Marketing and received the Outstanding Contribution by an Individual award at the 2022 Victorian Tourism Awards. This course is built the way adults change how they work: by looking honestly at their own business, testing an idea and committing to a small next step. It draws on Australian research on small business planning and growth, adult learning research, and a large body of evidence that if-then plans, like your “say no” line, help people follow through. Every source is listed in the course so you can check it yourself.
Start Designing Your Business

Common questions

  • Who is this course for?

    Small business owners in any industry, including trades, health, hospitality, retail, professional services and tourism. It suits you if you’re working hard but can’t tell whether the week moved the business forward, you say yes to most requests because there’s no clear reason to say no, or you have more ideas than time. It also works if you’re starting out and want a plan before habits set in.

  • Who isn’t it for?

    If you need a full business plan for a lender or grant application, this course gives you the direction and first priority a full plan builds on, not the full plan itself. It also doesn’t go deep into marketing, people, pricing, customer experience or technology. Each of those has its own IOE course.

  • Do I need to use AI?

    No. Every exercise has an AI prompt to speed things up, with clear privacy ground rules, and a version you can complete without AI.

  • How long does it take?

    About 55 minutes of lessons and around an hour for the three exercises, which you can spread across a few sittings. Then 30 days of small weekly actions, with checkpoints at day 7, 14 and 30.

  • I’m just starting out. Will this work for me?

    Yes. You rate how strong your plan is for each part of the business, and that shows you where to start.

  • How long do I have access?

    For as long as the course is available, so you can come back and re-score your canvas in 90 days and choose your next priority.

Ready to design the business you actually want to run?

$297. Four lessons, three exercise files in Google Docs and Word, four AI prompt cards, and ongoing access.

Start Designing Your Business