Learning How to Deal with People

Customer relationship

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Something that all business owners need to master is the art of great customer service. Without a good grasp of human nature and how to deal with it, your business may bite the dust quite quickly. Or it may not go under, but it will certainly never reach its full potential if you don’t practice excellent customer service.

Teens are notorious for being either very outgoing or very shy. If you happen to fall into the shy category you will need a little work to get you accustomed to talking confidently to people. Your business, whatever you may choose to do, will depend on you being able to communicate effectively with your customers or clients.  Try taking part in some activities that will encourage you to speak to people. This can be an organization such as Toast Masters where the members write and deliver speeches at the meetings, or a simple debate class or club with other homeschool friends. [Read more...]

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Learn by Helping

Bud, WV, July 26, 2001-- "Youth Works&quo...

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Something that is important to learn for teen entrepreneurs is the way to organize and conduct day to day business tasks. This is a vital skill that needs to be mastered prior to the beginning of a business of any type. The good news is that teens all over the world are finding ways to do just that while also providing needed items to other teens in poverty stricken areas of the world.

There are many ideas for ways to do this. One such idea thought up by teens was to fill backpacks with an assortment of school supplies and send them to teens all over who have no way to afford their own supplies. This is totally non profit and is done through donations and volunteers. [Read more...]

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Expressing Your Opinions Politely

What do teens do?

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Everyone has an opinion about most things in life and they usually have no problem expressing this opinion whether others want to hear it or not. It’s perfectly ok to express your opinion about something but make sure that you know how to do that. This is particularly important when running a business.

If your business is one that makes it necessary to deal with many types of people, you can bet that they are going to have opinions on everything from politics to religion and anything else you can think of. Many of these people are going to be loud in letting others know what they believe about certain things. They can also get obnoxious about it. [Read more...]

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Don’t Be Too Proud

Some Good Rules to Live By

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One of the most difficult things to do, it seems, is to ask for help when you need it. This may be especially true if you are a teenager who is running a business from home. You most likely had to beg your parents to let you do this, and you probably had to prove to them that you could handle the responsibility. So, it is little wonder that if you get in a tight spot and need some help to get out of it that you are very hesitant to ask.

Before you panic, stop and take a deep breath. Figure out just what caused the dilemma you find yourself in now and see if you can come up with a few solutions to the problem on your own. If you just don’t see a way out, it’s time to ask someone for advice or guidance. [Read more...]

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Don’t Get Too Big for Your Britches!

Seven Deadly Sins by Rox Steady

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An old saying that many parents have used in the past is “Now, don’t you get too big for your britches!” This was typically used when a child or teen was starting to try to act well beyond his or her years. You are probably very familiar with that “I know everything there is to know about everything” stage. As much as you love your teens that has got to be the worst stage they go through.

This is something that you may see magnified if you have a teen entrepreneur who is trying to start a home business. Obviously, if your teen is motivated enough to begin a business so young, there is a lot of intelligence there. Of course, you’re quite proud of your teen and want that to be known. However, be very careful how you go about doing that. You could very well turn your teen into one of the most arrogant creatures you’ve ever met. [Read more...]

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Dressing for Success

Another Business Suit Shot

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Something that many teens who are homeschooled as well as running their own businesses from home tend to forget about is the way they look. This isn’t necessarily in the area of hygiene, although that can certainly be a part of it, but they can also neglect to dress nicely most of the time. Why would they worry about it? No one is actually going to be SEEING them, right?

While this may be true, there is still every reason to learn how to dress for success. This means that you will still shop for really cool clothes, shoes, jackets, and coats. You will dress up in these clothes and go out. These nice clothes are appropriate for places such as a nice restaurant, church, shopping, a movie, and other occasions. Take full advantage of dressing up. You are learning to dress for success. [Read more...]

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The Artistic Teen

TeenArt_052510-7

Image by City of Albany, Oregon via Flickr

When you have a teen who is blessed with an artistic talent or gift of some sort it may sometimes feel as if you don’t know what you should do to help her or him travel down the best path in life. For many of these teens, opportunities can come from all directions. This is when they will need your help to sift through them all and sort out the best choices.

First of all, you need to make sure that your teen is truly interested in making a career out of his or her gift. Sometimes there are some teens who are endowed with a true gift for something but have no interest in actually pursuing it. Granted, this is not the usual way this plays out because a talent is typically something that the person who has it loves doing. But that’s not the case one hundred percent of the time. [Read more...]

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Managing Your Email List

Painting by Annika Ström: Please remove me fro...

Image by See-ming Lee ??? SML via Flickr

Once you’ve decided to start an email list, you’ll need a way to manage your contacts so you can easily add and delete contacts, and send them a variety of electronic communications. While some people try to handle their lists through their personal email accounts, when your list grows, you’ll soon run into problems. Not only may your internet server flag you as a potential spammer, keeping track of hundreds – if not thousands! – of subscribers would be a nightmare. Make it easy on yourself and start with a robust system from the beginning.

Here are some questions you’ll want to ask when evaluating email list management systems:

  • Will it generate an online form for installation on your blog or website that allows someone to subscribe and unsubscribe easily, at the push of a button?
  • Does it have the ability to send your newsletter in the format you choose (text or HTML, for instance)? [Read more...]

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Email List

Incentive to subscribe to email list

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Your favorite restaurant sends you an electronic postcard for a free birthday dessert. You get an email coupon from your dog groomer, offering Fluffy a free toenail clipping. The Apple Store sends you an email about the latest software to make your life easier. Across the Internet, around your neighborhood, through all industries, companies are using email lists to track, entice, and market to their customers. No matter what business you’re in, a customer list is literally your bread and butter.

Research shows that it’s infinitely easier – and cheaper – to sell to existing customers than to convince new prospects to buy. And when you market online via an email list, you circumvent many of the challenges of traditional direct mail – namely, cost. With email lists, you can manage and mail to thousands of contacts at the click of a button, for the fraction of the cost of “snail mail.” This special report will show you easy ways to manage and grow your own email list, resulting in bigger profits for your wallet and higher visibility for your business. [Read more...]

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Virtual Business Misconceptions

Starting Your Own Business

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There are so many reasons that teens may get the idea to start their very own businesses. At times, these reasons are not exactly the right ones. There are also several misconceptions when it comes to Virtual Professions. Following are a few of these.

  • You want to get rich over night. Well, sadly this is just not going to happen for you no matter what you may have seen in the movies. Admittedly, there ARE a handful of businesses that became profitable rather quickly but these are the rarity and not the norm. In fact, if you make it through your first year with even a slight profit, you can consider your business a success.
  • A lot of money is needed to start your own business. Yes, many Virtual businesses require quite a bit of money to start. On the other hand, there are just as many home businesses that can be started for little to no financial outlay.  It truly depends on what sort of business you want to get off the ground. [Read more...]
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