Remember when life was easy? When school let out for the summer, you spent your days catching grasshoppers and trying to build a bridge over the small pond in your neighborhood. And then you realized that your bridge would be much more structurally sound, and most definitely the talk of all your friends, if only you had better building materials rather than settling for your Dad's rusty old nail collection and the brittle twigs you found in your yard. Hmmm, looks like you will be needing some money. Darn.
Then one morning you awaken with a plan so brilliant that it shines brighter than the morning sun shimmering off the glistening dew drops. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but your plan definitely shone as brightly as the dim glow from that poor little firefly in the jar on your nightstand. Yes, you need to make some money so you decide to SELL something. Oh, joy! You are a genius, but what can you possibly sell? Hmmm, your little sister? No, that might upset Mom. Hmm, your comic books? What!? Not on your life. Finally I came up with a solution. I, like every other budding young entrepreneur, opened up my very own lemonade stand.
So, after evaluating my resources (Lemonade? Check. Table? Check. Sign? Check.), and doing some extensive research (or at least reading the Peanuts comic strip to see just how Lucy did it), I put my dream into action. I'll admit that finding the capital for my initial start-up was the hardest part of this venture, as my father's frugality makes Ebeneezer Scrooge look philanthropic. But Mom turned out to be pretty good at "resource development" and was able to convince Dad to float me a loan with a good interest rate.
Then, as my pockets overflowed with ambition and borrowed money, I headed towards the store and bought the goods needed to get my start-up started up. I used the powdered lemonade mix because it was very cheap and then I added a little "sha-zam" with 1 slice of lemon on the side of each cup to make it look like the real deal. (At this point I have to wonder whether that involved questionable business ethics or simply good marketing strategy...)
Eager for the start of business the next morning, I arranged cups in perfect rows in my mind while visions of paying customers danced through my head. And, come 7 am, I sprung from my bed and put the finishing touches on my masterpiece. Our rickety old card table never looked so grand as it did that morning, covered by a red checkered tablecloth and boasting those perfectly lined cups I'd envisioned the night before. A bowl of bright yellow lemons to display and of course, my huge "Lemonade 25 cents" outdoor sign completed this delightful glimpse of nostalgic capitalism. And then I waited.
And I waited.
Several cars passed by, and my neighbors smiled and waved. A few bought "pity" cups of refreshing ice-cold lemonade, but obviously, this was not the instantly gratifying cash cow I had predicted. I needed more traffic, I needed a way to get people to see my lovely refreshment stand in all its glory...because I was going to have to pay my dad back. With more determination than ever, I reviewed my previous research (read the funnies again) and concluded that Lucy's signs were much better than mine. She had interchangeable sign parts for adjusting prices to reflect the highly delicate balance of supply and demand. And she had moveable parts for announcing the open and close of business (I gathered this from the "the doctor is in/out" signs from her secondary psychiatry business).
I knew what had to be done so I got busy right away, measuring and snipping away with Mom's best sewing shears (not knowing they were only for fabric...) until I had transformed that boring old tablecloth into four stunning achievements of advertising wizardry. Each beautiful sign became a replica of my lemonade stand - the bright white upper half of my outdoor signage still boldly announced "lemonade 25 cents" as the bottom half was dressed in the flowing tablecloth to recreate the shape of my table. Two carefully placed metal rods became the table legs as well as the stakes for sticking my signs into the ground on strategic high-traffic intersections of our neighborhood. I cut slits in the bottom of my bright red plastic cups so I could attach them to the top of my custom outdoor signs to look like the inviting drink was sitting right on top of my table/sign. This 3-dimensional component of my sign also featured a huge arrow that pointed viewers right to my refreshing lemonade stand.
And like they always say, "the rest is history." I was able to pay my dad back in no time and I even bought Mom a new pair of sewing shears. The creek, however, never was successfully spanned in a way that could support the weight of anyone heavier than a pitcher of ice-cold lemonade. (I guess it's fortunate that I stuck with marketing and advertising rather than engineering.)
Business trends come and go, but there are some "signs" of success that we can always count on: creativity, innovation, ambition, and ingenuity.
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