Running a successful classroom business requires planning, preparation, and dedication. However, if done correctly can bring a whole new world of skill sets to your classroom.
It doesn’t matter the business, your students will be exposed to skills that will help them advance in life. This includes sequencing steps in an activity, fulfilling orders, health and hygiene, reading comprehension, number recognition, money skills, socialization skills, working as a team, and so much more! Below I am going to share with you 10 tips for running a successful classroom business.
1. Decide on A Business
There are many options to choose from when running a classroom business. However, when making the decision, ensure that it’s something you feel comfortable managing. You also want to ensure that it won’t compete with an already developed business. If you choose something food related, you should look into your school rules regarding the sale of food. In our district, we can’t compete with the cafeteria, so any food sales would be made during off hours. Before approaching administration with your idea of a school business, make sure that you have researched all it entails. This is an undertaking in which you don’t want to spend loads of time, effort, and money on, only for it to fall-through. Lack of preparation on your part can be the downfall of any type of business.
That being said, some of the most popular classroom businesses are listed below.
– Coffee Cart
– Snack Cart
– Craft Shop
– Customized T-shirt’s and/or accessories
2. Get Permission
The most important step in this entire process is getting permission to begin and run your classroom business. Anything that is going to bring in money to your classroom has to be pre-approved. Usually it’s not only by your own building administration, but also by your school district. Our district has a fundraising form that we fill out, detailing our business and what we’ll be doing. It’s then sent to our Board of Education and Superintendent, who make the decision to approve (or refuse) our request. When submitting your request, be prepared to answer lots of questions. Some of these may regard possible start-up costs, order fulfillment, and general inquiries on how things will be run. Additionally, I recommend finding out if monetary or physical donations can be accepted. Once parents, teachers, and the community find out about your business, it’s likely they will want to donate to you.
3. Get Started
Just like any business, there are going to be start-up costs. When we started our class business, we were able to cover these costs via Donors Choose and through a local grant I had applied for the previous semester. We were then able to purchases all of the necessary materials to begin creating and selling our crafts. Not knowing what to expect, we started small. We knew we were going to make Christmas ornaments, and literally just stuck to one type – glitter! As a class we came up with a simple design which incorporated our school colors.
4. Advertise Successfully
Depending on what your classroom business is, you will have to determine what type and how much advertising is necessary. When we first started our crafting business, we only advertised within our school. It wasn’t until we felt more comfortable in creating our products that we began to publicize to the entire school district, and eventually our community.
Flyers & Posters
Our students LOVE to create posters and flyers. I’ll normally draw a rough draft on the white board, with all the information I’d like them to include in their design. For students who require more individualized help with writing and drawing, you can prepare pre-made posters which they can trace and color – with or without assistance. Depending on the audience you’re trying to attract, you can post your flyers in the halls, teacher workrooms and/or front office. If you’re really stepping out there and wanting to advertise to your entire district or community, you can even post flyers at your school district’s Central Office, local coffee shops, community centers, etc. Don’t forget to get permission before posting your signs!
Websites
Creating a website that discusses your business, and displays your product is another great way to advertise. You can even set-up order forms for customers to fill-out that will get sent directly to you. If you get to a point where you are becoming inundated with orders, you can pause any future orders for as long as necessary. Also, if your school allows it, you can even allow customers to pay online through the site.
Social Media
If you’re planning on acquiring business outside of your school walls, social media is a great way to get your product information out there. Just remember FERPA laws if you decide to go this route. You must have signed parental permission to post pictures of any of your students. Just to be safe, if I post anything on social media regarding our class business, I tend to stick with pictures of the products.
5. Know Your Limits
Running a classroom business is time-consuming. It requires a lot of planning and preparation on the teacher’s part. Additionally, once you start to make some money, you may begin to get visions of grandeur in your head. That happened to me, and I learned quickly that all that extra money isn’t worth the additional time and effort required.
Remember earlier when I talked about using social media as business advertisement? I once had the great idea of using my personal account to lure in new customers. That post spread so quickly, before I knew it we literally had hundreds of orders. Eventually we had to turn people away because fulfilling those orders not only overwhelmed me, but my students were over it, too. What started out as fun opportunity turned into a chore very quickly. Yes, the money was great, but the process of completing the orders wasn’t as much fun.
6. Don’t Do All The Work
The whole point of a classroom business is to teach your students life skills. If you’re creating a product that requires a skill set your students aren’t able to perform, why even have a business? Not only are your students not getting anything out of the business, but you’re killing yourself by doing all the prep work. Every child in your class needs to be a part of the process. When planning your business, make a list of every job that will need to be accomplished from creation to accepting payments. Each of your students has a different strength – work with it! Is everything always run smoothly? No. Will everything always be perfect? No. And that’s okay, because the whole point of this business is to help your students learn and grow.
7. Incorporate Visuals
Whatever your business is, there will be a sequence of steps that will always need to be followed. Creating a set of visual instructions or guidelines for your students to adhere to is essential. A couple years ago, I had a couple of students in my classroom who had great dexterity, so we used that to our advantage. We were able to create and sell earrings that year, and their job was to place the jump rings and hooks on the leather. My assistant created an incredibly detailed visual chart for them to follow, and those girls used it the entire year. Incorporating visual instructions and reminders into your business will make your students feel more comfortable and confident with the process.
8. Keep It Simple
Whatever business you choose to launch, be sure that you keep it simple. You don’t want to have too many options – especially when you first start. When we first started selling our glitter ornaments, we stuck to having 3 different styles to choose from, with each of those styles having a choice of 2 colors. You are going to want your students to take on the majority of the creating and business interactions, so you don’t want to inundate them with information overload. We broke down our order forms into simple sections making it easier for our students to follow when taking in-person sales.
9. Take It Further
Once you get into the groove of running your business and depending on what it is, you can begin expanding your focus group. In our case, after selling our crafts solely to our county schools, we decided to branch out.
That opportunity came to us in the form of a craft fair. For that, we sat down and came up with a limited number of crafts we could make as a class. We didn’t have much variety in the types of items we created, so we ensured that each item was unique. For example, we made multiple types of Christmas cards. Some were made using students’ fingerprints, others were hand-drawn by our more artistic students, and many more were created by gluing patterned paper in various shapes.
The craft fair was a success, and it really got our name out into the community. The money we made from the craft fair covered our costs for our weekly life skills field trips. It also got us a permanent spot in the craft fair line-up, with other invitations to various events in town. If given the chance, try to branch out and get your community involved in the action.
10. Have Fun!
Running a school business should be fun. Just wait until you see the joy on your student’s faces once they make their first sale.
If you find that it’s starting to become overwhelming, stop. Take a step back and think about possible changes you can make for everything to run more smoothly. Maybe you need to scale back on your offerings or even the days you choose to run your business.
This school year has been a challenge for everyone so we made the decision to put our business on hold until further notice. I knew that if we tried to get back into business it wouldn’t be enjoyable for me, my TA’s, or our students. However, we’re looking forward to starting it back up next school year with new ideas, new projects, and lots of fun and laughter.
Have you ever thought about starting a classroom business? If so, what’s stopping you?