Education and Training

If your members, clients, or employees keep asking what happens to a business when the owner is ready to step back, we will come talk to them about it.

Two women behind the counter of a local hair salon, one showing the other something on a tablet
Most of the businesses we talk about are this size. We build the session around who is actually in the room.

The North Carolina Employee Ownership Center builds sessions around whoever is in the room — a chamber breakfast, a lunch and learn for an association, a conference session, a half day workshop for a county's business owners, or a series for a professional group. Tell us who the audience is and what you want them to walk away with, and we will build the session around that.

What a session can cover

  • What employee ownership is, and how an ESOP, a worker cooperative, and an employee ownership trust differ from one another
  • Why succession is the quiet problem facing so many North Carolina businesses, and what happens to jobs when an owner has no plan
  • How selling to your employees compares with selling to a competitor, selling to a private equity buyer, or closing the doors
  • What the process actually looks like, from the first conversation to closing, and what it costs
  • How the tax treatment works, for the seller and for the company
  • What changes after the sale — how employee owned companies handle retention, productivity, and building wealth for the people who work there
  • For advisors: how to recognize a client who is a candidate, and how to raise it without derailing the relationship

We can also go the other way and keep it to one clear idea. For plenty of audiences the goal is simply that everyone in the room leaves knowing employee ownership is an option.

How long, and where

Anywhere from a short segment on someone else's agenda to a series running over several months. In person anywhere in North Carolina, or virtual.

  • A brief segment inside a meeting you are already holding
  • A lunch and learn, about an hour
  • A conference session or keynote
  • A half day workshop
  • A series of sessions
Workers and a forklift on the floor of a manufacturing plant
From shop floors to chamber breakfasts — the audience changes, the questions rarely do.

Who we work with

Chambers of commerce. Trade and professional associations. Economic development organizations and councils of government. Community colleges. Nonprofits and foundations. City and county government. And individual companies who want their own employees to understand what ownership actually means.

Sessions we have run

In-person workshops with a local host in Halifax, Northampton, Martin, Forsyth, and Rutherford counties, among others, often over lunch. Lunch and learns, breakfast sessions, and training tracks with the Winston-Salem Black Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Durham Black Chamber of Commerce, the Lewisville-Clemmons Chamber of Commerce, Greater Winston-Salem, Inc., and B Local Triangle.

We do not sell transactions and we are not paid on them. The information is unbiased by design, which is why partners keep inviting us back.

Looking for a public session?

Upcoming sessions that are open to anyone are listed on our events page, with registration links.

If your audience needs continuing education credit

For CPAs, financial planners, attorneys, and other professional advisors, ask about Advisor's Edge, our workshop series built for advisors and offered for continuing education credit. Mention it on the form below and we will point you to the right option.

A large group of employees photographed together inside their workplace
Employees of a Carolina Textile District member company.

What it costs

NCEOC is a nonprofit, and most of what we do is free or close to it, funded so that this information reaches business owners across North Carolina. Tell us about your group and we will be straight with you about what it takes.

Tell us about your group

The more you can tell us, the better we can shape the session. If you do not know the answer to something yet, leave it blank — we can work it out together.

Business owners, advisors, chamber members, employees, a mix? The more specific, the better we can pitch it.
Even a rough answer helps. "Understand that employee ownership exists" is a perfectly good goal.
Format
Do attendees need CE credit?
City or county, if in person.