I’m starting to think I ought to get my daughter Maggie to be my business mentor. She has better instincts than her mom and none of the baggage.  

Maggie, now almost 15, demonstrated these instincts at the tender age of seven when she started her first business. Like many seven-year-olds, she liked both eating candy and painting her fingernails. She hatched a plan to open a business called Sugar and Style where girls from the neighborhood could buy candy while getting a manicure. The young girls in our Midlothian cul-de-sac far outnumbered the boys so she understood her demographics.  

Maggie is an extremely enthusiastic kid so I’m used to the excited phone calls where 10 sentences of detail spill out before I even realize who is on the end of the line. As this business plan developed, I received one of these phone calls with a request to come home IMMEDIATELY because she had noticed that the PaperTown store at the intersection of Huguenot and Robious roads had closed. She thought this would make an ideal location for her new business venture. Seeing this as a teaching moment, I explained that the owner of the shopping center would charge her rent for the space. She asked me how much, I guessed and said $2,000 a month. She told me that was stupid because she wouldn’t make enough money for herself if she had to pay a landlord $2,000 a month. She had the balance sheet logics down.  

The second call came a few days later. She asked, “Can I buy a shed?” Money isn’t a problem for Maggie. Unlike the rest of her family, she’s a saver and I knew she had the cash. She explained that if she bought a shed, she wouldn’t have to pay rent and she could make more money.  It’s not easy to deter Maggie and not being able to argue with her logic, I told her to look in the paper and research the pricing.  She called a few hours later having located what she wanted at Sam’s.  She had a handle on controlling her fixed expenses.

 The only chance you have of getting Maggie off topic is to stall her until she has a better, more brilliant idea. So I told her we’d go and look at the shed on the weekend. The next call came two days later. “Do you think the Smiths will let me put the shed on their corner?” First I said no and then I asked why in the world she would do that. In her own little way she had figured out that retail success is based on location, location, location. The Smiths live on a corner up the street so there would be more traffic and she could get some of the girls from other areas of the neighborhood to shop. She understood location was a key component of building traffic.

 We had a busy schedule that weekend so I managed to stall into the second week. Her new idea was a whopper.  Did I think First Market Bank would let her open Sugar and Style inside a branch? She had added a philanthropic side to her enterprise and planned to give half of what she made to Children’s Hospital. She reasoned that First Market Bank might agree to host her business in exchange for the opportunity to teach other kids about entrepreneurialism. Her plan was to entice the bank by agreeing to save all the money she made in her First Market Bank account. I told her to write a letter and called the VP of Marketing, Katie Gilstrap, to tell her there was a business proposition on its way. She had a handle on business negotiation and she was developing her brand. (Click here to see Maggie's Letter to First Market Bank.) The rest of the world doesn’t’ move as fast as Maggie, so when First Market Bank’s answer wasn’t immediately forthcoming, she pressed on.

 I knew what was up the minute I turned on to our street. Crayon headlines announced the grand opening of Sugar and Style from every mailbox, street sign and tree on Corner Rock Road. As I approached our house, I saw our chalkboard easel smack in the middle of the cul-de-sac proudly announcing the opening with an arrow pointing to our garage. Each sign had the name of her business with the tagline, “A place where you can buy candy and get your nails done.” Her tag line clearly differentiated her shop from both candy stores and nail salons, which she considered competition. Her advertising was inexpensive and clearly targeted her audience. She was keeping her costs of sales low.

As I pulled into the driveway, I was greeted with the sounds of giggles from half a dozen young girls. They sat in my garage enjoying chocolate candies and getting their nails painted. They were clearly having a great time. From the looks and sounds of it, she had created a remarkable experience for both she and her customer and without the help of her Mom’s hero, Seth Godin.

Maggie turns 15 in December and her instincts for business haven’t waned.  I’ll share more of her adventures in my next post!