Sean Black was a kid in my class. He was 13 years old, and
had a love of life. We were talking about money one day after singing the song:
“Money, money, money,” by Abba and the kids were saying how they would love to
have a lot of money.
Well, we started dreaming aloud about having more money, and
Sean then said that he was very frustrated about the fact that he always had to
ask for money; he wanted his own money. Did I know of anything he could do
because he was too young to work and had to do chores in and around his house
in order to earn some pocket money.
We started dreaming around what kids could do and I said:
Why don’t you start a car washing or a pool cleaning business? You get a lot of
people to sign up to get their car or pool washed every week. Then you either
go and wash it yourself, or you get someone to do it for you. You pay them half
the money, and you pocket the other half.
Sean decided to go and give it a try. He kept us up to date
for a couple of weeks. He had a lot of employment problems and discovered that
other people aren’t reliable. Besides, washing cars was hard work, and took a
lot of time if he couldn’t get others to help him. He was just wondering what
to do about it when he spotted an ad in the paper.
The ad had nothing to do with car washing, but was about bouncing
castles. He read the ad with interest, and then went to talk to his dad. He
said: “Hey Dad, I have a business proposition for you.” Dad was surprised, but
went to sit down seriously, and asked how he could help. Sean told his dad that
he had made $200 with his car wash business, and about the problems he was
having with reliability. He then told his dad about the ad and asked his dad if
he would like to help him with finance of $1000 so that he could buy a bouncing
castle. He offered his dad $250 as a deposit, and showed him that if he helped
him, the castle could be paid off in four weeks. Then they would have pure
profit.
His dad was very impressed with the deal, and decided to
help his son, taking his deposit, and giving him a loan. The last time I saw
Sean, he and his proud dad were both watching their bouncing castle at a school
fete. Apparently Sean was able to pay
his dad back in two weeks. His dad helped him to invest the rest of the money he
made. They were planning to buy a second castle.
There are some lessons in here for all of us:
1.
You can be successful in business at any age.
You need to dream first, and then find a way to make that dream a reality.
You need to dream first, and then find a way to make that dream a reality.
3.
Don’t look at the problem. Look at the solution.
You will always find one.
