Being youth month in South Africa, I want to focus on Youth-Preneurship. Without being too clichéd, we’ve all heard before that “the children are the future”. As such what type of future will they inherit or create?
If we continue at the current rate, we will run into serious trouble in the future. We have serious challenges with unemployment, crime, poverty, longevity and ultimately personal happiness and fulfillment.
Today I want to share with you 3 points on how you can start, develop and grow your Youth business from home, school or your garage.
1. Find the need…
There are literally hundreds of needs all around you. Needs for goods and services. Needs for solutions. By solving peoples problems you solve your own money problems. Focus on high-quality, high profitability opportunities.
Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing:
Schools, businesses and homes in your area require stationery on the daily basis…Pens, pencils, writing pads, invoicing books, reading books, curriculum books etc. Register your company , speak to your principal or governing body to partner with them. Offer them a partnership they can’t resist. Offer them cost savings (competitive pricing), a small profit share in the form of a donation (please check for legality prior), or sponsor the schools rugby team on their next tour. Offer them more value (while keeping some for yourself) than they can get from a competitor.
Find a manufacturing supplier who can give you competitive prices and high quality which you can pass onto your school. Now find just 10 – 100 more schools and you’re into a serious business with serious prospects of a bright future.
Grow fresh produce on your school or communal grounds (get the right authorization before hand). Seeds cost little to nothing. If you’re really smart, get them sponsored by the local nursery. Add labour, a bit of education about crop rearing, soil fertilization, irrigation and viola! You have perhaps the freshest produce to offer to parents, local shops, restaurants and even super markets. With the right mentorship and guidance, you could launch your path to entrepreneurial wealth, job creation and the passage to big business requiring farm lands, hi-tech equipment, irrigation systems, logistics and distribution systems.
Start a bespoke cupcake birthday business. Try to supply every birthday at your school. Then supply the church, temple, mosque, synagogue with their birthdays and special occasions and events. If they’re really good cupcakes and are value for money, beware…success can be sweet.
Showcase Birthday parties with your DSLR and sell them only the pics they want? Package various options and snap away. Photography can be a great way to start, but real business occurs when you have an army of school going photographers working for you. You find the leads, make the sales and collect the cash…you own the business, your staff do the work. Find the need, fill the gap and prosper.
2. Beat the Competition – There is always competition.
To find a spouse you have to compete…To land a job you have to compete… Competition is about the survival of the fittest. It’s an ancient reality of “adapt or die…” By harnessing this law while in your youth it allows you to grow through rapidly changing environments, it forces you to outwit, outsmart and outplay your competition. You win by adding value. You win by staying relevant. You win by being flexible and adaptable in an ever-changing environment. Find ways of adding value and you will have customers to serve. “Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who stood their ground”.
3. Innovate, create…
You can start today by innovating and creating new products and services that the market has never seen before. Think Facebook, Twitter…develop your own app? Think about the cell phone? Twenty years ago we were in the stone ages…today mobile communication is at your finger tips. Think about products that people use every day that can be improved such as the electric toothbrush, razor blades, tooth paste. They’re always “new and improved” but don’t create any new results, yet you always pay more for them. Create something really “new and improved” and steal away the market. Create apps for parents such as “track my kids”, so that parents can monitor the whereabouts of their children 24/7. Develop an app you can tie back to your cellphone, so you never lose you keys again, ever!!! Solve problems, make millions…Mark Zuckerberg solved communications and social interactions through taking them online…Oops, he is a billionaire in $’s!!!
Innovation and creation does not lend itself to new products and services exclusively. You can add on value to existing products and services, launching your business from that platform. Someone found a way to take an age old commodity like vodka which has been drunk for hundreds and thousands of years and repackaged it in an innovative, creative way. I’ve seen blue bottles, silver bottles, black bottles, square bottles, triangular bottles and even skull shaped bottles of vodka! Same old wine in a new bottle…smiling all the way to the banks.
Note that these are just some ideas for your early stages of business growth and development. ..As business grows, so should you…Remember that ideas are a “rhyme a dime” but execution is king!
Wishing you youthful entrepreneurs immediate and sustained success. Keep on, keeping on. Signing off in the words of Steve Jobs “Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry!!!
For more on your Entrepreneurial Development, Sales Conference, Sales Training and Sales Coaching needs, contact me for a free 30 minute consultation to showcase our products and services to help you and your organization fulfill its goals and objectives. I welcome hearing from you.
Keep smiling, keep shining!!!
My name is Vinesh Maharaj and I’m your coach and partner in success…
Mobile: + 27 84 990 1539
Email: vinesh@vineshmaharaj.com
Vinesh Maharaj: Your coach and partner in success 