The other day, my kid decided he wants to have a lemonade stand, somehow the idea was later transformed into a juice stand.

So he collected all the juice bottles we had in the fridge, and then set up his mini-table and chair and started selling …

The lessons he learns from this small experiment are fundamental points all small businesses should address.

5 Basic business lessons to learn from a kid’s lemonade stand.

 

1. Location location location :

As many businesses do, my kid made the mistake of setting up his small business in the wrong location.

Depending on type of business, – but in many cases – location is the most important factor that has an influence on a small business success or failure.

My son decided to set his shop in the living room, while people were sitting in the garden, and were not willing to go to the living room to “buy” from him, so he eventually had to move his “lemonade stand” to the garden, and as a result sales skyrocketed.

 

2. Be visible :

To give credibility to his business, even though in this case it wasn’t really necessary, we created a small banner for his juice stand business.

On the other hand, For small businesses, this step is very important. Without a visual that explains to the customers what you are offering, don’t expect to get much clients.

 

3. Advertise :

A problem arose, even though my kid was now in the garden next to the family and guests, they were too busy talking to focus on him.

As a solution, i helped him create a couple flyers, he later distributed to his mom and guests.

Flyers are an effective and cheap advertising method that small businesses should never ignore, but make sure to follow the rules of designing and creating a good business flyer.
A bad business flyer is a waste of money, so make sure to invest in the design and not go with “included” or cheap design.

 

4. Cross sell :

Selling juice was going good, but kiddo realized he can sell something related as well, so he started selling us cookies and hotdog rolls.

It was a hit, we loved the food, and we bought much more cookies and hotdog rolls than juice.

For small businesses, a lesson many learn through experience is:
That cross selling may be the biggest factor in your business success;
It is very frequent that the secondary product or service becomes much more successful than the main one.

In startup world, they call this behavior “pivoting”, it is when a company starts offering a secondary product/service, that soon becomes the main product/service.

 

5. Go to the clients :

When the guests left, kiddo wanted to sell the neighbors, to do so, he should move his stand to the other garden, to be accessible to the neighbors.

For small businesses, even though location is decided, they should never ignore opportunities of doing the selling in a none traditional way, via events, markets, or even online via social media, email marketing to businesses & customer databases …

Businesses simply need to go to the clients where they are. Hire sales people, or even outsource sales.

This way, they add more clients to their initial client base.