For the past couple of weekends there have been a group of girls running a lemonade stand on the corner (great location!) in my neighborhod. It seems whenever I am running back and forth to soccer games or a tennis match those girls are out there raising money for various charities and running their enterprise.

As I kept making trips in and out of the neighborhood, I loved the progression I saw. Much like our own businesses - I saw their endeavor evolve. First they had a table, then chairs and then more chairs and then the awning. Just like us they had to add more support, supplies and structures to help them do what they set out to accomplish.

On one of my trips up to the grocery store and dry cleaners (and yet another class of lemonade - pink this time), I saw a group of boys running down the front yard of a neighboring house, laughing and carrying a table and a waving a sign that said “Air ” - I just had to laugh! Competition! They knew a good thing when they saw it and went for the trendy item (air). Since I was driving by in a convertible - I had plenty, but I stopped anyway just to support my local entrepreneurship. Notice in the photo at the lemonade stand - the blue table was from the “air stand” - they didn’t last too long and I imagine the girls convinced them to add it to their “shop”. Another wise business move - having your business look big!

I love the Lemonade Stand sign. A true testimony to how our businesses change….we add some products/services…we run out…we substitue others…we test things…we keep on with our business even though we are no longer selling “lemonade” at our “lemonade stand”. We listen to what our customer wants along with what we can offer (or what we have in our pantry, so to speak!)

It takes vision, creativity, courage, and a willingness to let go and see what happens!

The next weekend the girls were at their Lemonade Stand again. I stopped by for a sip of my favorite sweet pink treat along with a homemade chocolate chip cookie ( a new addition to the product offerings). One of their father’s rode by on the lawn mower and yelled something to his daughter…I heard him say…”she’ll want to see it”. I couldn’t believe my entrepreneur eyes…they took out graphs and charts!! These creative business women knew the power of watching sales and determining what was selling and what wasn’t. I don’t know if you can see this graph but it’s obvious from the numbers that the lemonade, cookies and Gatorade are the big winners. While the pudding was creative it didn’t sell as well.

They also understood at the tender ages of 10 - 12, the power of a pie chart to tell a story. They showed me a pie chart of several charities where ALL the money from their lemon-inspired business was going to. My heart was engaged. I bought another cookie!

Support Your Neighborhood Lemonade Stand!

(You never know - you could be impacting the lives of these creative young women (and men)…they could be the future Bill Gates, Oprah, and Richard Branson’s….)

Yum…

Laura

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am and is filed under Business Planning, Vision/Goals/Plans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.