Newsletter – Entrepreneur – June 3, 2022

If your kids have that entrepreneurial spirit, there are lots of ways you can encourage them this summer. Of course, you could go with the standard lemonade stand, but there are other things you can do, too. Some parents promote their kids’ bath bombs, salt scrubs, and baked goods on social media and take orders there. Other parents rent a booth at their local farmers markets. Some families work together to sell firewood, farm fresh eggs, and local produce from a table in the yard. Kids can also sell their toys at a yard sale. Or get more creative. After a big storm, kids can offer to pick up sticks from neighbors’ yards. They can host a soccer camp for young kids in the neighborhood. They could even host a story time in the front yard once a week and charge a dollar per person. Regardless of what your child chooses, here are some tips from Laurie Sepulveda from Women Who Money:

1. Help them figure out their why. It’s important for kids to have some incentive for pushing through inevitable difficulties when starting a money-making business.
2. Offer suggestions—but not too many. Let kids come up with their own ideas.
3. Let your kids make mistakes (so long as they are legal and safe) and experience difficulties. Your positive reaction and encouragement in response to their unpleasant experiences will teach your kids how to navigate the inevitable negative aspects of life.
4. Provide coaching so your kids can learn from their experiences. Make suggestions and provide opportunities for training them for success in the future. You can share some basic business principals about marketing, customer satisfaction, etc.
5. Be sure they see the finance piece. Talk about pricing, expenses, profits, losses, etc. We don’t want our kids to have unrealistic ideas about making money.
6. Earning money will likely fuel the entrepreneurial spirit, but you can also fuel that spirit by sharing your know-how and providing the motivation they’ll need in their money-making ventures.