Business:
Brainstorming Your
Business
Today's Snack: Make a salad with these foods, which are all important for your
fabulous brain: spinach leaves, hard-boiled egg slices, small chunks of
leftover steak or other red meat (encourage your parents to bring home a doggie
bag next time they go out!), a scant handful of walnuts, and a half-teaspoon of
flax seeds. The dressing is up to you!
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Supplies:
Paste this into your browser, print out and fill in:
http://bizkids.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/Kids-Business-Plan.pdf
New
businesses usually start out with a flash of inspiration that helps you solve a
problem. You get an idea, and suddenly, your mind is flooded with all the
possibilities. It's fun to dream up a business that will be raking in millions
of dollars in just a few short weeks.
But
. . . you have to keep in mind these three restrictions:
1.
Keep your business plan
practical, realistic and achievable. It has to make sense in the real world.
What you charge has to be fair compared to prices people are paying for other
things. Make your goals modest, and when you meet or exceed them, you'll gain a
lot more confidence than if you set goals that are 'way too high, and fall
short.
2.
Keep safe. Work with
your parents and other trustworthy adults to make sure your interactions with
other people are safe for you. In terms of work, wear sturdy shoes (not
sandals) any time you are working outside or around equipment. Stay away from
saws, grinders, meat slicers and patty-making machines. Wear safety glasses
whenever it makes sense.
3.
Keep legal. Under age
15, you can't be working very long hours, nor can you work very late in the
evening. Check local rules by calling your city government. Check with the IRS,
too: after you make a certain amount of money, you have to pay income taxes on
it, and if you don't, you can get in big trouble. Also check with state or
local authorities about if you need special training, have to pay a fee, or
obtain a license, permit or certificate to make money in certain fields, such
as hairstyling, giving massages, selling plants, selling foods you made from
plants you grew, and other services for the public.
But when it all works out,
it's awesome! Consider 11-year-old Greyson McClean of Milwaukee, Wis. A few
years ago, he was playing with Lego's but didn't like the stickers that come
with Lego's because they don't come off, so you can't re-use those Lego's for
something else.
He tried drawing little
graphics on tiny slips of paper and taping them on. But then one day, his
mother was peeling a decal off a new pair of sunglasses, and they tried it on
Lego's. It came off easily!
So they came up with the
idea of reuseable static-cling graphics for Lego's and other toy bricks. His
whole family is now involved in www.BrickStix.com.
It's a wonderful, growing business!
As you dream and
brainstorm about the business that you would like to start, be thinking of
problems you or your family and friends encounter in everyday life, and what
you could invent or do to make that better.
As with almost everything
else in life, things will go better for your business if you think it through,
thoroughly. The link above from Biz Kids is a guide that can help you do that:
(This guide provided courtesy of www.bizkids.com)
