My friend, Janice Campbell, of Everyday Education shares 5 reasons entrepreneurship should be part of your teenagers education:

Mindset: We live in a society that teaches passivity, rather than active exploration and initiative. … Entrepreneurial training takes this a step farther by teaching students how to act with freedom, integrity, and purpose in their work life.

Flexibility and Preparedness: Entrepreneurial education provides a way for anyone of any age or financial condition to be better prepared to independently generate personal income. Business transitions are a fact of life. Factories close or automate, corporations merge and shift focus. It’s critical to be prepared to observe trends and be ready and able to move into another field or to supplement income with a microbusiness.

Learning:  Teens who choose run a business rather than flip burgers for the summer learn not only the service or product they are selling, but they also learn about business structures, bookkeeping, customer service, marketing, creative problem solving, real-world communication, and much more. Real bookkeeping for a small business is a lot more memorable than exercises from a consumer math textbook. Best of all, the skills and knowledge gained can be applied to many other parts of life.

High-School Transcript: A small business is a great addition to a high-school transcript. … entrepreneurship demonstrates initiative, hard work, creativity, perseverance, and other valuable skills and character traits. It’s likely that you’ll be able to grant credit for many of the business functions (bookkeeping, salesmanship, web design basics, etc.) your student learns as her or she builds a business.

Using the Micro Business for Teens curriculum will earn you 1/2 credit of high school credit and running your business can be another 1/2 to a full credit.

Fun: Finally, entrepreneurship is just plain fun. It empowers individuals– moms, dads, teens, pre-teens– to create something of value and share it with others in a profitable way. A young person who starts a microbusiness gains a lot more than spending money. He or she gains confidence, valuable experience, and a host of new skills that can be used for life.

Janice, you are so right. There are so many things a teenager can learn by starting their own micro business-and earn money while learning!

So, don’t delay, get an idea and get started. Start with reading the blog posts here and then my books will help you launch your own micro business.

Carol Topp, CPA

Here’s an interesting idea for a micro business. Ten year old Alex McDuffie of Ohio raises and sells worms for composting.

Worms make great soil for gardens; it’s called “black gold” because the soil is so rich. Alex sells 10 pounds of worms with a bin, newspaper, and dirt. He leaves his business cards at an a garden store for customer to contact him.

This type of micro business is not very time consuming, but you do have to spend a little time caring for the worms. You probably need a large backyard because compost bins can attract bugs and animals.  They can be a bit smelly too. You don’t want them too near your house.

As with any business, you will need to do some research to learn how to raise and sell your worms. Selling compost worms is a great business for a teenager or even a pre-teen!

I was contacted by a TV producer from PBS’s Biz Kid$.  She is looking for teenage entrepreneurs to showcase on the show. If you are reading this blog, she wants your story!

Here’s what she wrote:

Hi Carol,

I came across your website while researching stories about young entrepreneurs. I am a TV producer currently producing Biz Kid$ – an award-winning PBS series where kids teach kids about money and business. The series helps young people understand the basics of making and managing money, and how to start their own business.

Biz Kid$ is produced by the creators of Bill Nye the Science Guy and has aired on over 90% of PBS stations, reaching over 115 million US households.

Biz Kid$ includes short profiles of young entrepreneurs from across the country. We are always looking for interesting business stories about young business owners. I would love to enlist your help in reaching out to teen entrepreneurs, and possibly showcase their business stories on Biz Kid$.

Please visit our website for more information: www.bizkids.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards
–
Shilpa Singru
Associate Producer
Biz Kid$, Seattle, WA
www.bizkids.com
425-286-3567

So can you help Ms. Singru?  Are you a teenager with a business?  PBS might put you on their show.

Contact her directly or email me and I’ll forward your story to her. Be sure to tell me if you get picked for the show!

Go check out an episode (or several) now.  You’ll learn a lot and maybe get encouraged by what other teenagers have done.

Biz Kid$ shows

15 Things Retailers Should Never Say

Negative Customer Service Phrases to Avoid

By Shari Waters

Shari has a great list of 15 things to never say to a customer.  Most apply to a retail business, like a store in a mall, so I edited her list to those that most apply to teenage micro business owners.

When running a micro business, if your customers are happy, you’re happy. Here are 5 tips to providing great customer service as a teenage micro business owner:

1. Smile: Learn a lesson from Wal-Mart and greet your customers with a smile and a friendly “Hello.”

2. Dress well: Make sure your work clothes and hands are clean, even if you are hired to do dirty work like housecleaning. Wear dark pants that don’t show the dirt and change your shirt between customers if it gets dirty.

3. Say “Thank you” every time they hire you.

4. Follow up with a handwritten card to new customers. A card may seem old fashioned, but new customers will appreciate your thoughtfulness. Simply write, “I appreciate your business and I hope that you will contact me in the future.”

5. Be on time: Arrive a few minutes early if you can. If you will be later than 10 minutes, call and explain that you have been delayed.

More tips  to come…

What kind of advertising is best for a micro business?

The best kind of advertising is the one that costs the least and brings in the most customers. Many people say that word of mouth advertising is the best type of advertising because it doesn’t cost you, the micro business owner, anything.

There are a few problems with word of mouth:

• It’s unpredictable. You may not get any new customers if no one talks about you!

• Hard to get started

• You have no idea of what people are saying

One way to kick start word of mouth marketing is to offer your services for free. Then ask for the recipient to write a nice testimonial about you and to tell all their friends.

True Story: My friend, Dave Huff, started a Mac support business, Mac Home Support, (http://machomesupport.com). He’ll help anyone that needs help with their Mac or Apple products. We called him to help my daughters and I straighten out our iTunes library after I accidentally deleted all the music on my iPod.

We don’t have a Mac, but we did need help with iTunes. Dave spent an hour hour in front of our PC answering our stupid questions like, “What do the blue circles mean?” and “What do the checkmarks mean?” Then he showed us a neat feature called smart playlists to help get us organized.

When I asked what we owed him, he said, “I want you to tell everyone you know about my business.”  So I did. I put it on Facebook that evening and now I’ve told all of you about MacHomeSupport.com too. That’s how word of mouth works in the digital age.