Marketing 101- Basic Business Lessons Learned From Children

By Laura Betterly

My son Craig is twenty. Over the years, I've watched him grow with great curiosity.   He has been thinking of what he's going to create and build when he grows up since he was little. Fortunately, he's learned some hard lessons in the last couple of years. Lessons better learned earlier rather than later with respect to basic business and marketing.

Craig's first hard lessons in business came when he was a young boy.  As many young boys do, Craig had several ideas on how to make a buck.  In every venture he took on, he started up with big thoughts of the profit he would create.  He had high hopes and went out full force with little planning.  Unfortunately, Craig did not make BIG money on most of these days.  However, he did learn some very important lifelong business and marketing lessons instead.

Craig's case study #1:

Lemonade Stand: Craig spent the morning whipping up a large batch of lemonade to sell on the street. He set up a table, had some cups, put out a sign, and was ready to sell his lemonade.

Result: Craig had zero sales. In fact, instead of selling it, he ended up drinking all of his inventory.  When the day was over he wasn't left with money, he was left with a stomachache.

Lesson Learned:

1. You actually have to produce something that others are interested in and want to buy. Just because you think it's a great idea, doesn't mean others will think so, too.

2. Price point has to be determined by competition, perceived value, and the market. Of the several people who did stop for lemonade from Craig, none were willing to pay the $1.00 he was charging for a glass.

3. Location, Location, Location...In retail, location is king. Our suburban street that has virtually no traffic during the hours Craig decided to set up was not the place to launch this type of endeavor.

Craig Case Study #2:

Selling Lemons: (Please excuse that several of his ventures involved lemons, we're in Florida and they are readily accessible.) Craig spent the morning picking lemons from our trees in our backyard. He brought them around to sell door to door to our neighbors.

Lessons Learned:

1. You can't sell something to someone that they already own. All our neighbors had lemon trees, so it made no sense for them to purchase from them from Craig. (The only exception to this is when there is an added value or perceptions to the product as in the case of water, which we all have flowing freely in our houses, but will often only drink if it is bottled.)

2. Don't solicit in an area that prohibits it.

Craig Case Study #3:

The Fart Straw: Now in my opinion, this one has/had some possibility. What my son discovered was that if you took a straw that had the ribs on it that allowed it to bend (primary use for small children so they don't knock over cups) and put one end under your arm and blow in the other end, it makes amazingly cool fart sounds.

Result: Although Craig did not sell this, he did find out all the children in the neighborhood loved this and the parents hated it. So, there was definitely a market for this type of product.

Lessons learned:

1. Market research is the key to success. By having the children in the neighborhood try this new application of "straw technology", he saw that others really enjoyed his product. The fact that parents hated it was a plus point, as any rebelling child will want what his parents don't want him to have.

2. Since I thought this was a viable idea from his initial research I actually saw an intellectual properties attorney to see if we could patent a non-traditional application of a straw. What I found out is that I could trademark the name, but not the concept. So what is the lesson?  Even if it is a great idea, if you cannot make or keep it unique in the marketplace it isn't viable to mass produce.  This is unless there were/are marketing dollars to rise it to the top.

Regardless of Craig's failure in his first start-up business attempts, I have high hopes for Craig. He is an entrepreneur in the making. I continue to help him on his ventures.  I figure it's smart for me since he'll be picking out my nursing home when the time comes.

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Laura considers herself an eclectic serial entrepreneur.  Although her first love was playing guitar (she performed in NYC punk bands in the late 1970's and early 1980's), she has spent most of her career being a tech geek, handling the marketing and promotion for her clients as well as several of her own projects.

Laura co-founded Visiosonic (PCDJ.COM) in 1999 and was responsible for the PR and Marketing. As a result, PCDJ gained recognition as the first duel MP3 Player for DJ's. The free player was downloaded more than nine million times. She forged relationships with other tech companies such as MP3.com and Live365.com and worked with celebrities such as Ice T, Nile Rodgers, Jam Master Jay and Chaka Kahn to name a few. She also co-founded In Touch Media Group which engaged in internet marketing and PR.

She has been a featured speaker at such diverse functions as CES (The Consumer Electronics Show), Winter Music Conference, NARAS, the Grammy's organization as well as the Federal Trade Commission. Laura has been interviewed extensively and featured in such newspapers as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and Newsday as well as on CNN, CNNfN and NPR to name just a few. In fact, she has been interviewed in and been on over 200 newspaper, TV, and radio shows.

In late 2010, Laura put together "Mobile Local Fusion" a marketing course designed to teach others the basics of local and mobile marketing.