My son, Asher is now 5 and a half. We recently saw the Disney Cars 3 movie, which he loves, and we discovered a pricey deluxe set of Disney Cars cars. It was way more expensive than we would be willing to pay for. However he was persistent and kept trying to come up with ideas where he could earn money for it by doing chores. We’re not really into paying him to do chores that he eventually just needs to do as a part of the family. So instead, we decided this was the perfect opportunity for Asher to learn how businesses work. So we told him that if he would do something that would earn the money and learn about how companies make and sell products, we’d meet him half way. He was on board with the idea. I felt after walking through this fun exercise with him, I’d share with you what we learned.
The Overall Business Model
Asher’s goal was simple. Generate $20 of income. If he met that goal, we’d purchase the box of cars. But what would we sell? Artwork? Lemonade? We settled on cookies. They were a commodity he could make cheaply and quickly and sell to almost anyone. Would we make a stand? Perhaps place the stand at our community gate for people to see when they exited our community? By the common playground? No. That was too slow as the foot traffic would be poor and would easily drive by without stopping. We needed to move fast, as it was going to be hot, and… he’s 5. And the opportunity, it so happened was on the 4th of July. So we decided door to door sales was good and to do so in the midday while people were awake and at home.
Planning and Goals
We backed our way out from $20. We settled on a simple $1 per bag, and we’d fill each bag with 3 cookies. On our white board we actually worked bottom to top (Hey, I made this up as I went.) We figured out we’d need to make 20 bags. 20 bags with 3 cookies each meant 60 cookies. With Mom’s help, we estimated we could get 15 cookies per cookie sheet, and so it would take cooking 4 sheets of cookies to meet our goal. In order to help Ash figure out the 60 bags, we counted 20 sandwich bags at 3 cookies each.
Product Manufacturing
The raw materials were the Nestle Tollhouse and Pillsbury cookie dough you get at the grocery store. We grabbed chocolate chip and sugar cookie flavors, so people had an a element of choice. Asher and Mom dolled out the cookie balls, and we multi-tasked while they baked and cooled.
Marketing
Basic marketing – make some good, simple signs. Asher drew up two signs to paste on the sides of his little red wagon. We also went for thematic consistency by having Asher wear red white and blue clothing, which we’ll see later.
Packaging and Point of Purchase (POP) Display
Part of any good Marketing plan is to create appealing packaging and a nice display. We kept it simple, yet tied to the festive nature of the holiday. We used sandwich bags and tied them each with a blue chrome pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaners were too long, so Asher snipped them in half. Basic modifications of a raw material met our needs.
For the “Point of Purchase” display, we settled on a simple box that was large enough to display the cookies and small enough not to be cumbersome for Asher to hold while giving his spiel. Asher decorated the bottom with red and white tissue and sparkly tinsel.
Distribution
Asher was ready to take his batch out on the road. His red wagon, decorated for curb appeal, also had two large ice blocks in the bottom (Mom’s idea!), where we sat the box to keep our cookies cool in between houses on this summer day, which got to 93degrees.
Even sister Finley got in on Distribution by providing some push power to the wagon.
Sales
And the scary part for most people, Asher handled like a boss. He practiced his spiel, answering questions, and handling rejection (door to door sales can be hard!) before going out into the neighborhood. His speil was simple – introduce yourself, tell why you are there, call them to action. It went something like this: “Hi, I’m Asher. I’m learning about how money works. Would you like to buy a cookie?”
Common questions were, “How much are they?”, “What flavors do you have?”, “What are you raising money for?”, and “Can you make change?”. We also practiced saying, “Thank you, have a nice 4th of July,” no matter whether we made a sale or were rejected.
As we walked we targeted homes with cars in the drives. We learned that not everyone is always home, to wait patiently, and sometimes you have to ring twice.
Many people were super nice and always supportive. We did the math every time we made a sale, watching Asher get closer and closer to his goal. In our morning run, we got to $12. And in our afternoon run Asher reached his goal of $20. He actually made a bonus 50 cents, as some folks gave more cash than needed. Supporting a budding Entrepreneur is lots of fun.
The Results
So as I mention above Asher reached his monetary goal, and yes he’s using his profits to buy the cars. But the money is not the real result here. I’m inspired by Robert Herjavec’s story and Robert Kiyosaki’s story, where both of them never said, “I can’t afford that.” They said, “HOW can I afford that?” I grew up hearing the former. Asher and his sister will grow up hearing the latter.
And just as powerful, Asher learned what it means to make a product, package it, sell and distribute it, and shoot for a goal. For a first time business, we tried to keep it simple while hitting all the highlights and working extra hard to make his first venture into the world of business as positive as possible. Our neighbors responded well. One customer took a photo of Asher with his display of cookies to show his wife, and another customer told us his first business was selling soda pops door to door at age 8. How inspiring!
Like most parents, I hope to have planted a seed that was real for Asher and that may one day inspire him and Finley to launch and grow many successful businesses as an adult. But most of all, I am proud of him for trying something new and for seeing it through to the end.
What fun Kidpreneur stories can you share below? I look forward to sharing them with my children.