Short Work Co. Mike JacksonBusiness Systems & Practical AI Book a First Look

Your students finish the course. Then your team's work starts.

Short Work Co. helps continuing education providers of 5 to 75 people get certificates, completion reporting and re-enrollment off the owner's desk. I start with how your courses actually run, then fix what slows them down inside the systems you already have.

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The work the provider owns

In many licensing programs, the provider, not the student, reports completions to the state.

In Texas, for example, providers of continuing education for property tax consultants report their students' completions to the state licensing agency themselves. Around that duty sit jobs that often still run by hand:

  • Certificates made and sent one at a time.
  • Group registrations typed in twice.
  • Past students who haven't re-enrolled, sitting in a list nobody works.

If one of those is yours, that's a good place to begin.

Before you buy more continuing education software

Registration platforms, learning platforms and state reporting portals each do their own part. The slow work tends to sit in the gaps between them.

The systems you already pay for often do more than they're set up to do. So I start with the tools you already use. I recommend a new system only when nothing you have can do the job, and I'll write down why.

How it works and what it costs

  1. First Look

    Free

    Thirty minutes on how your business runs. From your answers I draw a one-page map, then we spend 20 minutes on it within 2 days. You keep the map.

  2. Business Map

    $4,500

    Your whole business on one page, plus the two areas that matter most mapped step by step. You get a ranked list of fixes, each with a price.

  3. Build

    Usually $5,000 to $15,000

    I build the top fix inside the tools you already pay for, at a fixed price agreed before work starts, and make sure the people using it every day are comfortable with it.

  4. Keep it running

    $2,000 every four weeks

    Optional. I look after what we built, make small changes as you need them, and check it's still helping. Cancel any cycle.

Nothing gets built until we both agree it's the right thing to build.

If the problem is already clear, we can skip the Map and go straight to a build.

What a fix can look like

Here is the kind of change a Build makes, shown before and after. It's a made-up example, so it carries no hours or dollar figures.

Before and after

Certificates and state reporting

Illustrative example. Not a real client.

Before
When a course ends, someone downloads the attendance list, makes each certificate by hand, emails it, then types each completion into the state's reporting portal.
After
Completions recorded in the registration system you already use create each certificate and send it, and build the completion list in the format the state portal takes, ready for one person to check and upload.
The simpler option I considered
A checklist for each course. It would help, but someone would still type every name twice.

Who you'd be working with

I'm Mike Jackson, the founder of Short Work Co. I've been in business for 21 years, the last 15 running operations at a 47-year-old training company.

I lead every engagement myself, from the first conversation through the recommendation, the work, and the handoff.

Questions

Do you work with our learning platform?

That's where I start. I work inside the systems you already have instead of replacing them. If your platform can't do something you need, I'll tell you why in writing before anything new is built.

Which states and licenses do you work with?

The approach is the same for any state or license. The reporting rules are set by your licensing agencies, and the work happens inside those rules.

What will it cost?

The First Look is free. The Business Map is $4,500. Most builds are $5,000 to $15,000, at a fixed price agreed in writing before any work starts. Keeping it running is $2,000 every four weeks, and you can cancel any cycle.

What happens in the First Look?

Two short calls. First, 30 minutes on how your business runs, and you do most of the talking. From your answers I draw a one-page map, with the spots where work waits on one person marked. Within 2 days we spend 20 minutes on it together.

Start with a free First Look

Answer plain questions about how your business runs and you get a one-page map of it, with the spots where work waits on one person marked. Then 20 minutes on it together. You keep the map and leave with one or two ideas you can use, whether or not we work together. If I can help, I'll tell you what I'd do first and roughly what it would cost. Written recommendations and prices are the paid Map. No pressure.

Book your free First Look

Free30 minutes, then 20Google Meet