Lemonade Day Project
Chassidy Lindsey
Lemonade Day is a fun, experiential program
that teaches youth in K-5th grade the math, business and financial skills
needed to start, own and operate their very own business - a lemonade
stand. Kids create a business plan, set a budget and financial goals, and
calculate expenses, sales, profit and more!
Children experience the feeling of earning
real money, using 100% of their profit to spend, save and share based on their
own goals. “Lemonadeday.org”
I have managed to get students through Quest
who will volunteer and help with us starting our own Lemonade Day. We also have
a sponsor who will be donating us our Lemonade stand and also $50 to get all
the supplies we need to make this Lemonade Day a huge success. We will be
hosting our Lemonade Day at Sunset Park on Saturday from 9am until like 4pm
rotating the kids out to give them a break. We decided that with the money we
make we will donate it to a Charity to help the misfortune. I acquired a few
quotes from the book:
What Is a Business Plan?
By the time you complete this book, you will have written a business
plan that you can use to design, start, and operate your own venture. A
business plan is a document that thoroughly explains a business idea and how it
will be carried out. The plan should include the following:
business plan
a document that thoroughly explains a business idea and how it will be
carried out.
- the story of what the business is and will be,
- all costs and a marketing plan,
- description of how the business will be financed, and
- an estimate of projected earnings.(Pg45)
The
Business Plan Is an Operations Guide
Whether or not you need
to raise capital, a business plan will be a vital tool for guiding the internal
operations of your enterprise. Business owners and managers increase the
probability of success by taking the plan in their heads and committing it to
paper. The transition may be bumpy, because the process of writing a coherent
plan will require answering difficult questions. However, in addition to
guiding you as the entrepreneur, developing the plan will generate an increased
clarity of vision, mission, and goals for your entire team. With your business
plan as your benchmarking tool, you can compare your company’s progress to your
stated plan. You can also use the business plan as a point of reference when it
seems you are going off track or becoming distracted from your goals. The
presence of financial and operational goals and measures, as well as mission
and vision statements, can feed a drive for success and motivate a team to
excellence.
Marketing Strategy and Plan: Reaching Customers
A description of how you will reach your customers and your anticipated
sales volume brings the opportunity and research discussion to the bottom line
of sales. Your marketing
mix will be the combination of the four factors (the “Four Ps”) that
form your competitive advantage—also known as core competency—product,
price, promotion, and place. As you choose the elements of your marketing plan
, always keep your vision in mind. What benefit is your product or service
providing to customers?
Funding Request and Exit Strategy: The Ask and the Return
Your business plan should explicitly state the amount of funds you will
need in accordance with the financial projections you provide. Whether the need
is $500 or $50 million, the reasoning for the request will have to be clear and
compelling. Then you should identify the type of financing you require or are
requesting and include your own financial contribution and that of any partners
or co-owners, the amount of debt (loans) you will need to take on, and the
percentage of equity (ownership) you want to retain. This is where you state
the financing terms you would like, including rates and repayment periods.
Recognize that this is part of a negotiation process and that the request
should be carefully structured. If you intend to sell shares of stock in a
corporation or are forming a business partnership, legal counsel will be
essential so that you do not violate federal regulations and laws or create an
improper agreement. The importance of your “ask” cannot be overemphasized. Business
plan readers need to know what you want.
Your Company’s Mission Is to Satisfy Customers
The mission of your business, expressed in a mission statement, is a
concise communication of your purpose, business definition, and values. The
function of a mission statement is to clarify what the business is trying to do
in the present, but it can provide direction and motivation for future action
through a clear and compelling message.
As noted in Chapter
2, a well-crafted mission statement will not only tell your customers
and employees what your business is about, but can (and should) be a guide for
every decision you make. It should capture your passion for the business and
your commitment to satisfying your customers. A mission statement should be
limited to 21 to 40 words to induce clarity in concept and expression. The
mission statement should address the following topics: target customers;
products and services; markets served; use of technology; importance of public
issues and employees; and focus on survival, profitability, and growth.
Your Company’s Vision Is the Broader Perspective
The vision for your business is broader and more comprehensive than
its mission, painting a picture of the overall view of what you want your
organization to become in the future, not what it is at the moment. It is built
on the core values of the organization. It should energize your people, and
they should embrace it with enthusiasm and passion. This means the vision has
to be compelling across the organization. It has to matter. Employees need to
be empowered to fulfill the vision. Examples of vision statements for various
organizations appear in Exhibit
3-3
The Six Factors of
Competitive Advantage
Competitive advantage comes from one (or a combination) of six factors:
1.
Quality. Can
you provide higher quality than competing businesses?
2.
Price. Can
you offer a lower price on a sustained basis than your competition, or does
your higher price reflect quality and/or uniqueness?
3.
Location. Can
you find a more convenient location for customers?
4.
Selection. Can
you provide a wider range of choices than your competitors can?
5.
Service. Can
you provide better, more personalized customer service?
6.
Speed/turnaround. Can you deliver your product/service more quickly than the competition?
The importance of each factor will depend on the wants and needs of target
customers. More isn’t always better, if customers aren’t interested.
Checking Out the Competition
One useful exercise is to learn everything you can about particular
competitors, especially those that have earned the respect of the marketplace.
Try to identify the sources of their competitive advantage. Examine their Web
sites. Conduct Internet searches. Track their advertising and promotion,
including print, broadcast, Internet, and sponsorships. If they are retailers,
shop their stores or have your friends and family do so. Get to know them (but
do not do anything unethical or illegal to obtain information). You will also
need to keep an eye on your competition after you have started your business, because
new factors might undermine your competitive advantage.
Today’s entrepreneurs, even those starting microenterprises and lifestyle
businesses, may face competition from far beyond their neighborhoods, because
customers can go shopping on the Web. Optimism is a trait that frequently goes
with entrepreneurship, so beginning entrepreneurs tend to get excited about the
Web’s huge customer base. What they often do not consider is that the
competition is already selling to their potential customers through the Web.
Therefore, get online and conduct a thorough search of your industry. You may
find that there is literally a world of opportunity or, conversely, that the
world is full of competitors.
To determine whether you have a competitive advantage that will enable you
to outperform your closest and strongest competitors, ask these questions:
unique selling proposition (USP)
the distinctive feature and benefit that set a company apart from its
competition.
- Competitive offers. How does your offer compare with those of your leading competitors? What are the key features of each?
- Unique selling proposition. Based on that comparison, what is your unique selling proposition (USP) , the distinctive feature and benefit that sets you apart from your competition? This will require a comparison of offers and identifying what is unique about yours. What is it about your offer that your competitors cannot or will not match?
- Cost structure. What is different about your business activities and the cost of doing business, compared to the competition? Overall, are you at a cost advantage or disadvantage?
Marketing is
the development and use of strategies for getting a product or service to
customers and generating interest in it. Marketing is the business function
that identifies customers and their needs and wants. Through marketing, the
name of your business will become a brand and come to mean something clear and
concrete in the customer’s mind. A brand
identifies distinctively the goods or services of one organization from others
through a design, symbol, name, term, or other distinguishing features.
.
Research Your
Market Before You Open Your Business
Large
corporations spend a great deal of money on marketing and marketing research
before they introduce a product or service. They need to get it just right.
Take a lesson from the big companies: research your market. Introduce your
product to potential customers. Be open to honest criticism. It is not always
pleasant to hear, but it can be valuable. Criticism can help you fine-tune your
business. Use the information you receive to create a product or service that
meets the needs of your customers.
Today, there is
an added focus on getting products and services to customers earlier in the
development process, to get their feedback sooner and bring in revenues more
rapidly. The leading information on lean launches is from Eric Ries in his 2011
book, The Lean Startup , as noted in Chapter 3
. The Lean Launch Pad and other “lean” start-up methods involve the research
methods described here with accelerated and iterative primary research. For
additional information, visit Steve Blank’s Web site at http://steveblank.com,
which offers considerable information about the process and “minimum viable
products,” or see The Startup Owner’s Manual, by Steve Blank and Bob
Dorf. This is frequently paired with the Business Model Canvas described in Chapter 2.
Customer
Research
You will want to
find out everything you can about your ideal customers. What do those
individuals eat, drink, listen to, and watch on TV? How much do they sleep?
Where do they shop? What movies do they like? How much do they earn? How much
do they spend? If they are businesses, questions may revolve around their
products, employees, or customers.
A large
corporation might hire a consulting firm or advertising agency to conduct
marketing research or may have its own marketing division. Small business
owners can and should conduct research, too. This can vary from a simple survey
that can be carried out in a day to detailed statistical studies of a large
population.
Several of the
methods described previously are well suited to learning about your prospective
customers. If you already have a customer base, you should be learning from it,
too. A few examples follow.
- Surveys. Well-designed marketing surveys ask people directly, in interviews or through questionnaires, what they would think about a product or service if it were available. Your marketing survey should ask about
- product or service use and frequency of purchase;
- places where the product is purchased (the competition!) and why consumers like to purchase from these businesses; and
- business names, logos, letterheads—everything that will represent your business in a customer’s or potential customer’s mind.
Make sure your
marketing surveys also gather specific information about customers that will
help you understand them better. They should include
- interests and hobbies,
- reading, television-watching, Internet, and social-media habits,
- educational background,
- age,
- occupation,
- annual household income,
- gender, and
Developing a
Marketing Plan
After you
understand how customer-focused marketing should permeate your business, you
will be ready to develop a plan for introducing your product to your market.
The marketing plan can serve as a stand-alone document or be part of an overall
business plan. Either way, it should be a functioning, evolving part of your
business. We began with customer analysis because before you can develop a
marketing vision, you will need to know who your customers are and what they
want.
- Q: Why does a customer go to a hardware store to buy a drill?
- A: Because she needs to make a hole.
The hole
is what the customer needs, not the drill. If the hole could be purchased at
the store, the customer would not bother with the drill. If you are marketing
drills, therefore, you should explain to the customer what good holes they
make. If someone invents a better hole-maker, drill manufacturers will soon be
out of business.
Your marketing
plan must include an understanding of prospective customers and their wants,
needs, and demands. It should also identify and analyze market segments. The
plan should incorporate industry research and trend analysis. It will state
your market-positioning approach. In short, a marketing plan looks at all
aspects of the market space for your enterprise, from the broadest perspective
to the narrowest.
education
reform. Yet, when he was growing up in Hollis, Queens, in the 1960s and 1970s,
Simmons never could have imagined that his life would have turned out like
this.
Window of
Opportunity
Early on,
Simmons decided that he wanted to make his own way in the world. His father had
been a teacher, and his mother worked as a recreation coordinator. Both enjoyed
stable jobs, but Simmons was not driven by a need for security. He wanted to
live a fast-paced life and call his own shots. In 1977, Simmons, who never
liked school very much, enrolled at the City College of New York as a sociology
major. That year, something happened that permanently changed the course of his
life. He went to hear a rap artist named Eddie Cheeba perform and was amazed to
see how the rapper had cast a spell over the audience with his freestyle
rhymes. In Simmons’s own words:
Just like that,
I saw how I could turn my life in another, better way. . . . All the street
entrepreneurship I’d learned, I decided to put into promoting music.5
5
Russell Simmons, Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money + God, New York: Crown
Publishing, 2002.
At that time,
rap and hip-hop were underground musical styles, but Simmons set out to change
this. He believed that rap music had the potential to reach a larger audience,
and so he teamed up with another aspiring rap producer, Rick Rubin. Rubin had
built a recording studio for rap artists in his New York University dorm room.
Together, they decided to transform Rick’s studio into a viable record label.
By 1985, Def Jam Records was officially underway.
Def Jam
experienced its first surge of success when it scored a hit with Run DMC’s
remake of the Aerosmith classic, “Walk This Way.” Bridging the worlds of rock
and rap music turned out to be a stroke of genius. Simmons and Rubin
single-handedly introduced a whole new market of mostly white, suburban,
heavy-metal music fans to hip-hop. Suddenly, Run DMC was being featured on MTV,
and rap was no longer an underground fad.
The Four
Marketing Factors
Learning
Objective 1
Combine the four
Ps—product, price, place, and promotion—into a marketing mix.
The four
Ps—product, price, place, and promotion
—together will communicate your marketing vision and competitive advantage to
your customer. If you tweak one P, you will have to pay attention to how it
affects the others. If you raise your price, for example, are you now still
selling the product in the right place? Or will you need to move to a location
that will put you in contact with consumers willing to pay the higher price? Where
will you promote your product now? Will you have to take out ads in different
magazines or newspapers to reach these new consumers?
promotion
the use of
advertising and publicity to get a marketing message to customers.
As you choose
the elements of your marketing plan, always keep your vision in mind. What is
the benefit your product or service in providing to customers?
- Product. The product or service should meet or create a customer need. The product is the entire bundle, including the packaging. Your customer might not be consciously aware of your packaging, but that does not mean it is unimportant. Starbucks revolutionized the American coffee shop in part by introducing Italian names for the different serving sizes.
- Price. A product has to be priced low enough so customers will buy it and high enough for the business to make a profit. Price should also reflect your marketing vision. If you are marketing a luxury item, a relatively low price might confuse the consumer, who will be led to wonder about its quality.
- Place. The location where you choose to market your product—whether in a retail storefront, in a customer’s home, on an online store, or from a cart on the street—must be where customers who will want or need it shop. Selling bathing suits on a beach in Alaska in February is not going to fill a customer need. Where should you go to bring your product or service to the attention of your market? If you are selling luxury items, you will need to place them in stores that are visited by consumers who can afford them.
- Promotion. Promotion is the development of the popularity and sales of a product or service through advertising, publicity, or other promotional devices, such as discount coupons or giveaways. Publicity is notice that is free; advertising is purchased. If a newspaper writes an article about your business, it is publicity. If you buy an ad in that newspaper, you are advertising.
Letter: Good Morning Ms. Lindsey,
This sounds like a great opportunity for the student here at Quest
Preparatory Academy-Bridger Campus. Please let me know when there is a good
time to discuss this further.
Regards,
Tiffany
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