TEACHING KIDS TO BE ENTREPRENEURS (with a real life example)

When I asked my son Miles (age 7) what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said either a professional soccer player or do what daddy does.  We all hope that the professional soccer path will work out, but just in case it doesn’t my husband Ryan and I are trying to be good examples of independence and helping our kids identify opportunities.  Who doesn’t like to call their own shots  and I believe kids are no different.  They observe us working hard, setting our schedules, and working together on a daily basis.  During the summer months, the kids eat lunch with us practically every day.  Needles to say, we get to spend a lot of time with each other (which is a wonderful blessing).  Ryan and I are involved in a couple of different ventures including real estate, healthcare supplies, as well as water bottle distributing (the water bottling company is what we will discuss momentarily).   Did these things come easily?  No.  Did we take chances?  Yes.  Are there hard days?  Yes!  Are we happy?  Yes!!  Do we get to spend more time as a family? Yes!!

So whatever you do, know that your kids are watching.  They are watching you and learning from you.  Your persistence, your creativity, and your self confidence can be passed onto them just by them observing your habits.   Take the time to teach your kids about being entrepreneurs early on so so when the time comes they will be able to create their own opportunities.

The below information is just an outline of a business that we started.  It is fun, it was fairly easy to set up, our kids were involved from day one, and one of the cool things is that we are giving back to the schools within our community.

1.  First, is deciding what you are going to sell or provide, that will be fun and that will give an opportunity to give back to your community?  Questions we asked were: What can we provide in large quantities?  What do people use everyday?  After some round table discussion (actually it was a pancake breakfast around our island), Miles our youngest son, had the excellent idea of selling bottled water.  Bingo!
2. Now, what were we going to name this bottled water company and how do we get the water?  Well this was kind of an easy decision.  We live in the small charming town of Fairhope located on the Eastern Shore of the Mobile Bay.  Fairhope was founded by its founders to give each person a fair hope in life.  So , why not call our bottled water Fairhope Water??
3. So, we have a name! Now we want to give back to the community.  My husband Ryan’s idea was to give back to the local schools with each bottle sold.  We decided we could donate .05 of each water bottled sold and provide books for the local schools.  Our kids loved this idea!  We have tons of books at our house, but keep in mind, there are children who do not have any books to call their own.  Remember curling up in bed when your parents left to read the last couple of pages of that book??

Steps That Need To Be Taken

1.  We decided on a name, Fairhope Water, next we needed to register our company as a DBA (the easiest).
2. We needed to locate a source for our water.  We wanted spring water and our bottles needed to be BPA Free.  A quick local online search gave us a number of suppliers.  After contacting a few, we decided to use a small company that sourced their water from the Blue Ridge Mountains and within 1 day shipping to us. The bottles were nice; a bullet style, they were BPA free, and we thought the pricing was great.
3. So we had a supplier and an idea of costs, now we had to come up with a label.  There are many options here.  We chose the same company who hosts another one of our websites to design the label.  You can also use a service like Fiverr and have a ton of options to choose from.  Here is example of one of our flyers along with the label we use.  “Fairhope Water – Our Children Our Future”
4. Now you have to get all of your social media and website info squared away.   WordPress is the most popular, but Square space and Wix are great step by step web builders.  You will need some form of online presence.
5. One of the biggest steps is, who are your your customers going to be?  Local grocery stores, markets, ice cream shops, and restaurants.  There are lots of opportunities out there.  We went ahead and ordered the water, 1 pallet, and then went out to sell.  You definitely will need confidence!!  Here is a picture of the Fairhope Water stocked at one of our local stores.

Here Are The Numbers

1. Each pallet of water that we receive contains 72 cases of water.  24 bottles per case, for a total of 1,728 bottles of water.
2. We donate .05 of each bottle sold to help purchase books for the two local elementary schools in our town.  This equates to around $86.00 to purchase books.  You will want to work with the elementary school principal as well as the librarian or reading specialist to get the okay.  Don’t worry, you will get the okay!.  They typically have their own program on how to distribute the books.  We like to leave that in their hands.
3. You can either work with a local bookstore to purchase the books at wholesale pricing or work with one of the local teachers to purchase books through scholastic (remember those order forms that come home with the children).
4. We stamp each book with the Fairhope Water logo to show that Fairhope Water donated the books.
5. We have a standard price that we provide to all customers.  The customers then take it upon themselves to charge what they would like.

What Does All This Look Like?

Pallet of water just received

Evian stocking water at a local supplier.

Making a delivery with the kids

When we first made our deliveries of books to the schools we included a galvanized bucket to hold the books.

A local supplier getting behind the Fairhope Water concept.

So there you have it!  If you are trying to come up with an idea that can involve your kids and give back to the local community,  do what we did or something similar.  It is great working with and being a part of  your local community and in the process teaching your kids about being independent entrepreneurs.

More information about fairhope water can be found here, www.fairhopewater.com

Lastly, we have been able to donate close to 1000 books to the local schools in the  2 years the company has been operation.  We hope to surpass that number this year alone.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

Thanks for looking!!