00:00:02to do something a little bit different
00:00:04usually I do profiles of famous
00:00:06entrepreneurs and the top lessons you
00:00:07can learn from their success or on a
00:00:09managing a question for one of my
00:00:10readers today I want to share a little
00:00:12bit about my story and how I became an
00:00:15entrepreneur as well as a program really
00:00:17helped give me the confidence to start
00:00:18my business and a top three lessons that
00:00:20I learned from that program I hope you
00:00:22enjoyed
00:00:29okay so here’s a little bit about my
00:00:31story I have been an entrepreneur as
00:00:33long as I could remember the first
00:00:35memory that I had to be an entrepreneur
00:00:36is when I was five years old I convinced
00:00:39my three-year-old little sister to draw
00:00:41some pictures with me we can crayon and
00:00:43then we went door to door trying to sell
00:00:44it and we made our first sale to our
00:00:47neighbor for ten cents and I’ve been an
00:00:49entrepreneur ever since most of the
00:00:51business that I had early on didn’t go
00:00:53anywhere baseball card businesses and I
00:00:55made a little bit of money extra
00:00:57spending money but that were real
00:00:58businesses it wasn’t until high school
00:01:00where I joined the program called Junior
00:01:03Achievement that really gave me the
00:01:04confidence to become an entrepreneur and
00:01:06what junior achievement is is they have
00:01:0840 kids that they get into an
00:01:10after-school program called the company
00:01:12program and they launch their own
00:01:14company and you have to come up with a
00:01:16product idea you have to elect a
00:01:18president and vice president sit to do a
00:01:20business plan yet to raise capital
00:01:21basically all the things that you have
00:01:23to do to run a real business but you’re
00:01:25in high school and you’ve got some
00:01:27mentors from different companies to help
00:01:29guide you along the way and so to new
00:01:31German really gave me a lot of the
00:01:32confidence that I needed to start my
00:01:34business when I got to university I
00:01:36remember not having anything about
00:01:38entrepreneurship until I got to a fourth
00:01:40year course and in that class I had
00:01:43already done most of the stuff that they
00:01:45were teaching in my junior TV program I
00:01:47was already running my business so
00:01:49really give June achieve a lot of the
00:01:50credit to me wanting to start my own
00:01:52business and to the success that I’ve
00:01:54had as an entrepreneur and so i thought
00:01:56i would share the top three lessons that
00:01:58I’ve learned from my experience with
00:01:59Junior Achievement that have helped me
00:02:01grow my business
00:02:09so the first lesson that I learned was
00:02:11you have to sell I was in junior
00:02:14achievement for three years and some
00:02:16years we had really good products but
00:02:19bad sales people on our team and we
00:02:22didn’t really go anywhere with a company
00:02:23in other years we had not so great
00:02:26products no decent products gift baskets
00:02:28these aren’t high-tech products it’s
00:02:30high school but we had a really good
00:02:32sales team and we were a lot more
00:02:34successful and selling is it really a
00:02:36skill that they teach you in school but
00:02:38it is a really vital life skill that you
00:02:40need to be successful as an entrepreneur
00:02:42and as even a professional and so I
00:02:45really credit junior achievement for
00:02:46giving me that skill but you have to
00:02:48really think about in your organization
00:02:50selling you need everybody to know how
00:02:52to sell nor for your company to get to
00:02:54that next level success
00:03:01the second thing I learned from gene
00:03:03achievement is get big corporate orders
00:03:06when we first started we tried to sell
00:03:09to our friends and our family and
00:03:11basically I mean everybody that we knew
00:03:12who would you know maybe we could guilt
00:03:14into buying one of our products they
00:03:16would quickly discovered that we were
00:03:17out of friends and family who wield the
00:03:19seller stop to and sales dried out so we
00:03:21had to figure out other ways to vote and
00:03:23and get orders and my most successful
00:03:25euro student achievement was what we
00:03:27were able to get a big corporate company
00:03:29to make bigger purchases so we had fewer
00:03:32clients but they made a lot more
00:03:34purchases and it was an ongoing type of
00:03:36transaction so if your own business
00:03:38something I still think about today a
00:03:40lot of people are struggling trying to
00:03:41sell one off deals to customers who may
00:03:44not come back or maybe a long time
00:03:45before they come back again and it’s
00:03:47really time consuming but if you can go
00:03:49and get bigger orders that are more
00:03:52dollars for you and could be an ongoing
00:03:53type of deal as well it’s much more
00:03:56profitable for your business
00:04:03the third thing I learned from junior
00:04:05achievement is get everyone involved in
00:04:08the Junior Achievement company you might
00:04:09have 40 high school kids in the program
00:04:11there’s only so many management
00:04:13positions once you like your president
00:04:15all your vice presidents everybody else
00:04:16they’re just workers in the company and
00:04:18it’s really important that you make them
00:04:19feel involved an important part of the
00:04:22company or they’re going to leave the
00:04:23company it’s just going to be the
00:04:24management team that’s left and that’s
00:04:26important lesson for your own business
00:04:27you might be by yourself now you might
00:04:29let a couple people around you and
00:04:31you’re the founder of the business
00:04:33you’re going to care way more than
00:04:34everybody else but you want to make sure
00:04:36that everybody does feel like they’re
00:04:38attached to the company and they feel
00:04:39that they’re important they feel like
00:04:40what they’re given is a meaningful
00:04:42contribution and they’re happy about
00:04:44what they’re doing with your company the
00:04:47more you can make it feel like employees
00:04:49are really happy but they’re doing and
00:04:50that what they’re doing is really
00:04:51important the more likely you’re going
00:04:53to get better workers you can retain
00:04:55them and your company’s going to grow
00:05:04so Junior Achievement helps over 250,000
00:05:07students here in Canada and many many
00:05:09more around the world wherever you are
00:05:11there’s probably a local junior
00:05:13treatment chapter close to you and I
00:05:15encourage you to check it out get
00:05:16involved and be a mentor to the new up
00:05:19and coming generation of student
00:05:21entrepreneurs
00:05:29so that’s it for today thank you for
00:05:31joining me for this video if you enjoyed
00:05:33the video please give it a thumbs up I’d
00:05:35also love to hear your thoughts and
00:05:37feedback if you want to leave a comment
00:05:38below and stay tuned for the next
00:05:40episode
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