Over the years I have been working on developing the entrepreneurial skills in my now 15-year-old lad. Not everyone is cut out to have a boss… and I’m one of them. And honestly, I don’t know if my son would do well having a boss or being responsible for his own future. Making sure he knows how to run a small business is, therefore, kinda important to me.
In today’s post, I’ll talk about some of the things we’ve done, some courses to take, and skills learned throughout.
What Have We Done?
When my son was little he grew and sold vegetable plants. He made some 50$. He thought it was great and anything leftover went into the garden. Some of those were mini tomatoes and he sold whatever we didn’t eat. For an 7 year old at the time that worked out pretty good for him. 🙂
Enter in the rabbits. I’ve raised rabbits for years now. At one point my lad said “mom, can I have a rabbit?” I said “sure, but she’s going to be part of the herd and any babies she has and we sell you get most of the money. Not all”. “WHY?” he queried.
I went on to explain about how I paid for the feed, the housing, did most of the work, dad paid for the hydro and water. Everything costs money so he had to do his bit too. It all made sense to him.
Now his role in the rabbitry is … if he sells a bunny for me, he gets a 10% commission. He much prefers this to owning a rabbit and having to make decisions about them.
Fancy mice are a big part of his life now. I happen to adore a good mouse and have successfully passed this along to my lad. He asked three years ago if he could take over the mice. He feeds, waters, cleans out, plans who to keep, what colours he likes and so forth. Assistance is given with selling (as I post online) and do driving for him. I get a commission in my sales and some extra to help with feed costs. It works for him.
Skills learned in these jobs?
You need some skills to be successful. These are just some of the ones my son has needed to learn.
- attention to detail
- photography
- animal husbandry
- communication skills
- selling and what all is involved beyond the pitch
- inventory management
- people skills
- Decision making
- independent thinking
- and more I can’t even think of right now
Skills Needed to be an Entrepreneur
To be a good entrepreneur you need to have some talents you can share with the world and skills in which to market those talents.
If you can turn something that you are interested in, into a passion and saleable product, you can be an entrepreneur.
To do that you need to learn how to
- manage your time – how to use your time wisely in management, creation, publicizing, etc.
- develop your curiosity so you can problem-solve, create solutions, discovering opportunities, etc.
- be resilient so you can handle rejection, bad days, slow progress etc.
- communicate. If you can’t communicate, how will you convince people they need YOUR particular product? How will you understand any issues that come up with it?
- Think critically and strategically – problem solve, sorting our difficulties, planning steps to take
- Network – finding others who be partners, help you find new opportunities, provide spin off markets etc.
- handle money – from who to hire, saving for a rainy day, planning expenses,
- Learning how to make sales – from public speaking to organizing the information to be shared, to figuring out a sales pitch.
Entrepreneurial Classes to Take
Classes like
- Financial management
- Entrepreneurial classes
- Public speaking
- Classes to increase your skill level in whatever your passion is. So for instance if you sell essential oils… really learning what each oil can do, food safety, sales, etc.
- Business classes
- really, take whatever class helps you to learn specific skills that you need to succeed well.
SchoolhouseTeachers.com is one such place to take a class in entrepreneurship for your teens.
You can take a class at your local community college like this one at Fanshawe.
Teaching Entrepreneurship is a website devoted to teaching these skills.
How about you? What have you done to encourage your children’s entrepreneurial skills? Have I missed any classes or courses they should take? Any important skills?
