Being an entrepreneur has many benefits. You can achieve financial and lifestyle freedom. You can be of service to others, while steering your own course. Perhaps best of all, you can have a powerful, positive impact on your kids. Entrepreneurs teach children this priceless lesson: You can manufacture your own money.
Emily Ridgeway has great mentors…her entrepreneurial parents. Ed and Stacey Ridgeway own Mason’s Chimney Service Company. We’ve worked together for a few years. They have put their business plan together and participated in our Biz Plan Challenge program. Along the way, their kids have picked up a thing or two about making money and living the dream. Stacey sent me this email the other day. It inspired me! Hope it does you, too. Here’s an excerpt…
Ellen,
I thought you’d enjoy a chicken story. Emily was given responsibility for the chickens on our farm, 12 happy hens and a rooster who thinks he’s a dog. She was told in exchange for caring for the chickens, including cleaning the pen and being sure they had access to food and water at all times, she could keep some of our egg money. Ed and I get $1.50 of the sale to put toward food and Em gets $2 per dozen eggs. She has regular customers who come for eggs and she’s learned to keep a certain amount of cash on hand for change. She has a plan “B” to keep customers happy, a secondary supplier for when her chickens are molting and not producing as well. This provides continued sales to keep her regulars even though it decreases her profit.
Emily even has an investor for her adventure, the owner of a local pet store. Emily tells him silly chicken stories whenever we go in to purchase our dog food. He suggested that her current sign is a nice design but hard for folks to read when traveling at a clip past the farm. He offered to invest $50 toward a new sign in exchange for being part of the designing of the sign. She is so excited! I am happy because she is using the Dave Ramsey envelope system to save for the sign so she has cash for the purchase and won’t owe after the fact. My little entrepreneur! Big or small, The Bare Bones Biz Plan fits all business sizes! Ed and I are using what we’ve learned with Mason’s have put together a business plan for the farm and the bees/hive products and of course we are constantly tweaking Mason’s plan, too. Keep up the great work we really appreciate all your efforts.
Stacey Ridgeway
Mason’s Chimney Service
Thanks, Ridgeways!! If you need one more great reason to make your business a profitable success, here it is: Your kids are watching.
