Friday, June 20, 2008

Putting It into Practice

Chocolate Chip Cookie and Milk
image courtesy of Allposters

As a result of Autumn attending her Entrepreneurial Leadership camp, she came home equipped with a whole new set of skills. She can write a business plan, and a financial plan. She learned about marketing, and a whole slew of other business solutions.

Autumn has been baking for a neighbor for several weeks. She had been paying me for ingredients, utilities, and so on. This week, I had her buy her own supplies. We went to the grocery on Wednesday, and she had her list in her hand. She bought flour, sugar, Crisco, butter, vegetable oil, brown sugar, confectioner's sugar, eggs, nuts, jam, and chocolate chips. She was quite surprised when she got to the register and the total was $42!

When we got home, I had Autumn measure how many cups of flour, sugar, and so on were in each bag. From there, she figured out the price per cup of everything. This way, she could figure out exactly what each recipe was costing her to make it, and she could see what her profits were. She made a table of the cost of ingredients so that she can figure future recipes out quickly.

Last night after she finished baking for another customer she had two dozen cookies left. She divided them evenly. She then made a flier with a list of her cookie choices, and her phone number. She walked around the neighborhood giving out samples and fliers. She got another order on the spot. She'll be baking again today!

19 comments:

Kelley said...

Tracy, it's wonderful that Autumn is learning this so early~ it will surely benefit her later on, too!
I wish her all the success with her baking business! Ü
Wishing you a blessed and wonderful weekend!

Momala said...

What a great experience for Autumn! I'm sure these skills will serve her well throughout her life!

Rebecca said...

soooo.... I am dying to know that stats.

How much did it cost to make PER cookie?

And how much does she profit per cookie?

That is so great. Good for her!

Anonymous said...

What a great experience for her! She is learning useful skills she can use all throughout life.

Rachel said...

Tracy, that is amazing. I wish Autumn could teach us what she learned (condensed version, of course)

Jodi said...

Way to go, Autumn! Congrats on the new customers. Cold calling is not fun ~ Kudos to you for tackling it!

Terri said...

What is such a wonderful experience for her! It is neat that she is learning how to do this at such a young age.

Julieann said...

This is so wonderful--I am taking notes for Alexis--what a wonderful learning experience Tracy!

Julieann

Kittee said...

That is so wonderful! What a great "business" your little one is setting up!

~~Deby said...

What a industrious mother and daughter team you make....
I am in awe.
Deby

Tracy said...

This is a great way for Autumn to combine so many lessons!

* She's putting an enjoyable past time to a practical use.
* She's honing her maths skills.
* She's learning about small business.

I have but one question ~ do you have food safety laws in your state? The reason I ask is that ours are quite strict and I'm wondering how something like that affects Autumn's business?

Abounding Treasures said...

Congratulations to Autumn for learning so much so quickly and being brave enough to go *door to door* offering samples and fliers!

All this will stand her in good stead in other areas of her life :o)

Tracy said...

Tracy,
About the food safety laws, there are many people here who have home baking businesses. For instance, many people hire an individual to bake wedding or birthday cakes. To my knowledge, there are no restrictions on that.

Unknown said...

That is wonderful, Tracy! I wish Autumn well on her new adventure!
~Kelli

Stacie said...

That's awesome! She is such an entrepreneur! I bet everyone LOVES her cookies! She will get alot of business, I'm sure! =)

Tori Leslie said...

Wow, how cool is this. She is learning so much and putting it into practice already. Bravo!

Karen said...

What a wonderful experience! I read many years ago that "Mrs. Fields" handed out free cookies to get her business off the ground. You go, Autumn!

sherry said...

Okay, now this is so weird. Over the weekend and yesterday I checked your blog and a few others only to find *no* new posts. Then this morning they show up on the blogs I visited earlier. How weird.

I'm thankful to finally see your new posts, Tracy!

Country Gal said...

My daughter will be starting to sell at our local farmer's market next week. It's a great opportunity, and I hope it goes well. We both have a lot to learn!