Kids use Lemonade Day to whet their appetite for branding and selling
What do the kids get for selling the most lemonade?
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The prize question.
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During the day, the children will participate in two contests, one nationally and the other a local venture.
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Nationally, children can vie for the 'Young Entrepreneur of the Year' award, wherein winners are selected based on a number of criteria — their business plan, profits, personal stories and take-aways.
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'Some children have super unique stories and experiences of how their stand came to be,' Romain said.
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The other is a venture initiated by Tiller Digital, in which children can win on their choice of branding.
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'Branding is a super huge part of our work in a day, so it's something we really pay especially close attention to,' Romain said. Children would be judged on the experience, the look and feel of the stands, the choice of colours, design, decorations, naming — 'all the elements that go into branding,' he added.
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They will also be asked to submit answers to questions about their story and how they invested in their brand, and how it affected their lemonade stand.
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What do the kids have to say about it?
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'They love being able to make some money,' he said.
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And their mentors, often parents and caregivers, have echoed similar thoughts, he added, on what it's like to see their children work together, get creative and follow through on a goal.
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Kristin Mason said all four of her children will participate this year for the second time.
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'We're pretty much repeating (the strategy for) last year,' she said, when the children honed their family's business in beekeeping to make a homemade lemonade sweetened with honey and turned into a slushy for customers.
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'Then it could be sponsored by our family business, so we could provide the honey and our logo goes on the stand,' she said. The kids call it the 'McBain Honey Freeze,' as an ode to the family surname.
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Her oldest, Russell, who is 10 years old, tended to spearhead and manage the stand's logistics, she said. Last year, he set up an option for customers to pay electronically, via the Square app — 'It was all him,' she said — and managed the payments while the others, eight-year-old twins Alden and Ethan, and the youngest, six-year-old Lily, talked to customers and ran back-and-forth with fresh supplies to keep the product icy.
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'We're all in the conversations,' she said. 'We all did the recipe, tasting and testing.'
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Last year, the kids did especially well as their stand coincided with a community cleanup event taking place the same day. While the two events don't coincide this year, it has sparked an idea to do two lemonade days — one on Lemonade Day and another on the same day as the community cleanup event.
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