Marketing Lessons From My 9 Year Old
During the summer months, my son usually stays with me most of the week. Keeping him ‘entertained’ is a lot of work but this summer was a little different. My son, Matthew, came to me earlier this week and hit me with it…He said Dad, I want to run a Lemonade stand!
Awesome!
There’s something the schools never teach, and something only I can encourage. That is entrepreneurship and the power of working for yourself. So when my son told me that he wanted to start a business, let’s just say I was pretty proud.
Not so fast though. Out came the doubters, a few of Matthew’s family members and local kids from the neighborhood told him his idea was silly and that he wasn’t going to make any money. Funny how that seems to come up a lot for people who have dreams…(Especially in our business…)
But what does this have to do with what we do? I like to call it ‘taking action’. You see, Matthew didn’t have a game plan laid out. I mean he knew what he wanted to do but he just didn’t know how to make it a reality. So I sat down with him, drafted a small budget and showed him operating costs versus potential profits. After he had his plan on paper, off he went.
It wasn’t perfect, we didn’t ‘make any returns’ on his investment to start, but he dove into it. Matthew sat out in the sun and sold his product to the neighbors. Was it successful? He sold out of lemonade in 2 hours! Did he make his money back from the first day? Nope but guess who is awake bright and early this morning, mixing his lemonade and ready for another day in ‘trenches’ LOL
He took action and he didn’t listen to his doubters! He knows he will have to take his profits every day to re-invest and grow his business and he’s up and at it right now ready for a new day in the lemonade sales world! He calls his business ‘LemonTopia’ by the way…Fitting don’t you think?
Amazing what you can learn from watching a 9 year old kid ‘see’ for the first time that he can turn an idea into a business…All he needed to do was take action and not listen to the people that tell you ‘you can’t do it’…
