The Lemonade Kid

When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my brother and I were in Cub Scouts. And like most good scouts, we participated in fundraisers. One year, my troop was tasked with selling Christmas ornaments. He who made the most sales received the distinction of getting to walk up on stage at an end-of-year award ceremony and be recognized in front of all the other scouts. Well, I lived out in the boondocks, so making sales - as charming as I may have been - was something achieved few and far between. Nonetheless, I managed to sell a bloody ton of ornaments through good old-fashioned pounding the pavement; door-to-door at its most vigilant.

Well, as noble as my effort was, there was one resourceful kid who beat me out using another bit of old-fashioned knowledge: own the system, don't work for it. He outsourced! He did what so many other kids these days do: he got his dad to do the hawking for him. This kid must have supplied his old man with caseloads of ornaments, so that he could take them to work and sell them to all the staff. Hey, we've all seen this before: "My kid is selling pies; be a pal and order a couple." If you're a boss, and you hit up all your faithful, work-to-get-ahead employees, how can you lose? (Ouch... when did I get so cynical? Oh yeah, when I lost the Cub Scout sales award. Now I remember.)

I learned a lot then, but the lessons would really not be realized until years later. While I took the long, time-consuming, labor-intensive route and sold ornaments on a 1:1 individual basis, capitalizing on the bare minimum of sold goods-per-lead, the other kid pulled off a wholesale approach by sending cases of ornaments to a single point of distribution - his father's office - and outsourced the selling and distribution. Dad got the good feeling of helping his son, the scouts racked up a ton of sales, and the kid got the accolades for doing nothing more than delegating. While I honed my salesmanship, he unwittingly accrued upper management and business ownership skills.

Now, as smart as that kid was - perhaps even without his knowing at the time - he missed the whole point of the exercise: to learn how to sell. Yes, he won the award, but he never got the selling experience that the scouts intended him to have. To this end, a word of advice to all parents: let your kids do their own selling! It's not about how many apple pies or reindeer made out of clothespins that get pawned off; it's about the "art of the sale" itself that every kid should learn. After all, selling - at a base level - makes the world go 'round.

As was suggested to me this morning, one needs to know enough about the system in order to know how to best work the system. One of the best things any kid should do? Open a lemonade stand! And if not lemonade, then cookies, birdhouses, or magazine subscriptions. Learn and develop the skills that will refine over time, building the foundation for not just a good entrepreneur or leader, but a great one.

Comments

[Mark - The Brand Innovator]

Steve,

Great post and great business metaphor.

I had similar lessons as a paperboy. And I was reminded of them recently when I read "RAIN", a parable that follows a young New England paperboy as he learns the business of being in business and quickly becomes the best paperboy in town.

As a paperboy for the Shreveport Times for about 8 years, I could relate to the series of humorous poignant vignettes. He illustrates 40 "rainmaker" business lessons that apply to anyone in business and sales.

The format for RAIN includes an actionable business model at the end of the book with instant takeaways and practical advice. I think you and your blog followers would like it.