More and more people all over the world are now choosing becoming small business owners over finding employment – perhaps in part because of the difficulties in many employment markets in the last ten years or so, and in part because it can now be so much easier to promote your own business thanks to things like social media. It is no surprise, then, that plenty of young people are interested in starting businesses, and would ideally like to be entrepreneurs in the future.
Whether you are a high school age teen yourself who dreams of owning a business, you already have a small business as a teen, or are a parent looking to support an entrepreneurial son or daughter, here are three tips to help young people with a leaning toward business.
Study It!
OK, so there are plenty of successful business owners who never went to business school, and if you have a good business idea at a young age, putting off actually developing it to go to college may not seem like the best move. However, even with talent and good ideas, you’ll need a good grounding in some aspects of a business that are hard to pick up on the fly, like finance and marketing. If you don’t want to delay starting a business or have to balance it with doing a degree full time at college, a good idea could be to look into an online business administration degree. Many great colleges offer online business programs which can help you learn helpful things and become a well-rounded entrepreneur, even if you only want to study part-time.
Get Some Work Experience
Even if you never really plan to have a career as an employee, to be a good employer you need some ‘real world’ experience working for other people. Picking up some part-time work wherever you can, even if it is in fields you don’t expect to have anything to do with your business in future, can teach you a lot and will help you translate some of your ideas and what you learn theoretically about things like managing people or dealing with customers into real life scenarios. Of course, you’ll also make some money, too!
Start Networking Early
While you may not meet a lot of high flying executives in your normal life at high school, starting to build relationships with people in different jobs and businesses can be very helpful, so try to know local business owners whose premises you go to, family friends, friends’ parents and anybody else who might be able to teach you something useful, help you out, or even become a customer or supplier of yours in future. Being interested in other people and staying in touch when you meet someone new is key to networking and it’s never too early to start.
These are just three ways teens can help prepare themselves to become successful business leaders if they hope to become entrepreneurs.
