Training My Son for Entrepreneurial Success
Adam, my 9 year-old son, recently decided he needed to make money to buy a little scooter that he covets (although I'm hoping by the time he works hard for the money, that the lesson about investing vs. spending will have sunk in deeper).
So, given the combination of his interest, his age and maturity -- and having just finished his first year of competitive speech and debate -- I decided it was time for him to spread his wings.
He sorted through several ideas on his own and he approached me yesterday to "sell" me on the idea of washing my car. After some coaching on three levels of pricing and service, he washed, vacuumed, and detailed the interior of my car. It took several inspections and rework before he passed my "satisfaction" inspection as I was trying to train him to make sure he fully satisfied his customers in case he decided this was a service he wanted to sell. Sure enough, by the end of the process and after having pocketed a crisp twenty dollar bill, he was eager to go sell the neighbors.
Over dinner last night, Adam was worried about whether or not he should take on the risk of sinking capital into car washing supplies prior to knowing if he was going to have any sales success. I had the older children offer ideas and we settled on the notion that he should take orders first by scheduling the car washes in advance and only invest in the supplies if there was sufficient demand. It was a good lesson in risk mitigation.
Following a similar process to what I previously wrote about with a former neighbor boy (see the article below for much more detail) I put Adam through some training, printed him some business cards (shown above), and created an order template with a built-in script in case he got nervous and needed the confidence it provided.
Once his confidence was high enough and his "pitch" polished enough, I equipped him with an order pad and sent him out the door. He went up to the doors and handled the sales calls and transactions by himself, while I watched from the curb.
His sales pipeline metrics were impressive. He only had capacity for four car washes tomorrow due to other chores and commitments, so with a sales plan of four customers, his results looked like this:
His order pad looked like this after only 20 minutes of selling - a sellout on his first attempt (plus he "up-sold" one neighbor on pet sitting). One thing my mother taught me was to set our children up for success -- not failure -- and I was relieved that it was a good initial experience for him.
Based upon his current enthusiasm, another entrepreneur has just taken flight. One final note, I will go with him tomorrow as he washes the cars to inspect his work to make sure he does a thorough job as I want to make sure he delivers to a consistent standard. I love this little man and I want to teach him well. (See Part 2 of the story here...)
In case you missed it, my previous article on training Andy, a former neighbor boy is pasted below:
“Planting the Seeds of Entrepreneurship”
As usual, when my pregnant wife pulled into the driveway, 10-year old Andy bounded over from next door to help her carry the groceries. His normal practice was to race her to open the door before she had a chance to open it for herself. He had also volunteered to shovel the snow from our sidewalk (we lived in Minnesota at the time). Andy and his family had just moved in as our next door neighbors, but he had already captured the heart of my dear wife. He was a true little gentleman in the making, but he also had the ambition to be an entrepreneur. One day, he proudly told my wife that someday he was going to have his own business. My ever hospitable wife invited him over one Saturday so I could meet this unusual little man.
He knocked on our door promptly at the appointed time and I was amazed at how charming and communicative he was at only ten. I invited him in and we began his crash course in business, planting the seeds of entrepreneurship in the fertile soil of this boy’s dreams and enthusiasm. First, we sat down and listed all of the potential services he could provide for our neighborhood from snow shoveling to lawn mowing, depending upon the season. Then I worked with him to set a fair price for his services, some at a flat rate to make it easier to sell, while others -- such as “cleaning out the garage” -- were set at an hourly rate, since it would be too difficult to estimate the scope of the job. Since he had convinced us of his work ethic and quality through his initial “free trial” when he volunteered to shovel our sidewalk, we then created a promotion whereby he would offer the initial service engagement for each new customer at no charge to entice them to hire him on a recurring basis.
Once the promotional details were nailed down, and armed with the list of services and their associated pricing, we created a brochure with a simple name and logo. The name wasn’t very creative. If memory serves me right, it was something like Andy’s Home Services. The logo was a quick little something I created using Clip Art that came bundled with PowerPoint. I explained to him that we didn’t want to waste any time or effort in a fancy business name or logo at this point; our focus was simply to land some customers. The other refinements could come later.
He liked the brochure, but he could barely contain himself when we printed off his new business cards with the company name, his name and his title of “President” emblazoned on them. I dug up an old business card case and a leather folio and stuffed them full of his business cards and brochures.
Next, it was time to develop his sales pitch. After warning him that he would get a lot of doors slammed in his face, we worked up a list of frequent objections and the responses he should give to each in return, such as, objection: “my husband does all of our yard work” and response: “are there any projects that he hasn’t had time to get to yet?” or objection: “how do I know if you will do a good job” and response: “I’ll do it the first time at no charge to prove to you the quality of my work.”
Once he was fully familiarized with his pitch and had practiced responding to the potential objections, it was time to see him put it all into action by role playing. I had him stand in the hallway outside my den and knock on the door and then I would answer the door in various “moods” to test his mettle. At times I answered his knock in a gruff and belligerent manner and other times I was polite and gracious. The point was to surprise him to see how quick he was at thinking on his feet and providing an appropriate response. At this point, my wife came upstairs to see what all the ruckus was about and had a good laugh at all of our antics.
Finally the moment arrived when he was ready to be launched into the neighborhood. Fully equipped with his brochures, business cards and his friendly grin, I pointed him to the home directly across the street to a warm and inviting Christian family. I wanted his first attempt to be met with a friendly face. As he loped across the street with the kind of enthusiasm that I wish all of my salesmen possessed, he threw one last glance over his shoulder at me to get a nod of approval as he rapped on the door. The entrepreneurial seed had taken root.
- April 29, 2011
- Introduction to Entrepreneurship
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