Earning lesson three

Earning 103

Finding the right balance !

Over the next few months, Clarissa really struggled to get the right balance between school work and starting her business. She reached out to her Uncle Duke once more for some wisdom on how to make it all fit.

Her Uncle was eager to help and said, “You will need to make sacrifices in the good times if you want it to pay off in the future.”

This means giving up some of your play time with friends, your weekends to work on your business, and even waking up early to get a head start on the day. Also remember you can’t do everything by yourself, and in order to create something big, you will need all the support that you can get.

So rope in your family or friends to help out, but make sure there is enough value in it for them as well, to make it all work together.

Setting the standard !

As Clarissa got her first consistent customers, she was struggling with people not taking her seriously enough. So, she took her uncle’s advice and looked up some content on YouTube for help.

Here are the steps she managed to find that really helped her stand out as a business owner, and not just a young kid:

Take yourself seriously and take your business seriously.
Create a proper branding style; a logo; a name; and good packaging if it is a product.
Read up on brands that you admire and see what these businesses have that you don’t, and create that.
Always add your flavour. People will come to your business when it is different.
Remember you are allowed to make mistakes and to have fun with it.

So how did it end ?

As the year went on, Clarissa made a big impact on her community with her entrepreneurial spirit and confidence as a young business owner! Her sneaker cleaning service did okay, but was not always in demand, however her baking products were a huge hit with the neighborhood. Clarissa was baking treats every single weekend and making a really good profit.

Clarissa did have one major setback along the way that really hurt her business. She provided a catering option to a local birthday party, but she did not manage to get a deposit done before the event, and still went ahead with providing the baked goods.

Clarissa still has not managed to get the money owed from the customer, and has learnt an important lesson from that mistake. Now going forward, Clarissa will only provide the products/service once she has been given at least a 50% deposit, or paid in full.

Even through this struggle, Clarissa managed to save up enough to pay for her painting lessons, and is even looking at options for after high school to go and study a degree in Art or digital design.

All of this was made possible through her own self belief that she could make a difference on her own!

Clarissa was doing so well, she was even getting calls from her big sister Joy, asking to borrow a few hundreds every month end!

So what did we learn?

Let’s recap all of the amazing lessons we learnt with Clarissa …