[music]

Katie Dugdale: 00:00:00.000
I start thinking big and I’m like, “Oh, we’re going to have websites and storefronts. And it’s going to be amazing, and you’re going to pay for my retirement, and it’s going to be fantastic.” But for parents, sometimes we got to reel those expectations back. And so was it a manageable expectation you put on your child, or was it you dreaming? [music]

Gretchen Roe: 00:00:26.169
Welcome to the Demme Learning Show. Our mission here is to help families stay in the learning journey wherever it takes them. This bonus episode was previously recorded as a webinar and was not created with the audio listener in mind. We hope you will find value in today’s episode. Hi, everyone. Welcome. It is my great pleasure to have the opportunity to spend another hour with Katie Dugdale. You all may remember back in the spring, we talked about what to do when you homeschool during adversity. And now we’re going to talk about creating a micro business in your home. And Katie has been very adept at this. We did this with our children when we homeschooled. And it led to careers. It led to opportunities. But Katie’s here to tell you how to make it happen today. And so I’m delighted to welcome her. My name is Gretchen Rowe. I’m the community outreach coordinator here at Demme Learning. And it is my very great pleasure to coordinate these events on a weekly basis. And I’ve been looking forward to this one since we were together the last time. And I’m going to let Katie introduce herself. Katie?

Katie Dugdale: 00:01:39.010
Thank you. I’m Katie Dugdale. And when I speak at conferences, I play kind of like two truths and a lie, where I get the audience or people to guess what I’m lying about myself, but I won’t do that to you. I won’t make you try to guess. So I’ll just give you– I’ll give you guys maybe four random facts about me. So I have four kids. They were all born in different states. I have Elijah was born in South Carolina. Abigail was born in Georgia. Salah was in Florida and Tibby was in North Carolina where we live now. I used to be a cook at Johnny Rockets. Don’t know if you’ve ever been there. It’s a dinner kind of restaurant. I did that in college. Let’s see here. I was an extra in a Civil War movie when I was in high school. Nobody’s ever heard of it. Andersonville, William H. Macy was in it. I was in a tent, so you didn’t see me. And let’s see. We’ve been homeschooling since my oldest was a little bitty, and he’s a senior in high school this year, so. I feel like we’re– I’m almost towards the end of this grand experiment with him. And I feel like I’ll get some street cred once he graduates a little bit, of course.

Gretchen Roe: 00:02:53.594
Well, my husband and I had the opportunity to homeschool six children, 21 years. We graduated four from homeschool high school, and then our fifth and sixth were homeschooled to high school and to middle school, respectively. But like Katie, I have a senior in high school as well. I’m at the tag end of my journey. And she’s still, as my German father would say, in the mitt and of it. So today, the reason I wanted to have Katie come talk to us is because I heard her speak on this subject at the North Carolina Homeschool Conference. And I really loved what she has to say because for Katie, everything is always half full. It’s not what doesn’t work. It’s how can I make it work? And I think that in and of itself is a tremendous attitude to take into your homeschooling experiences. You’re going to have a lot of expectations. They aren’t all going to work out the way you anticipated. And so what I would like Katie to do now is to begin talking a little bit about what constitutes a micro business so we can sort of set expectations for parents. And we’re going to talk both from a parental perspective, how as a parent you might be able to do something to bring extra income, and then we’re also going to talk about creating that entrepreneurial spirit in your children. And I think both of those are very worthy pursuits. So, Katie, take it away.

Katie Dugdale: 00:04:19.985
For sure. So just to define our terms, a micro business is not a small business. A micro business is 10 or fewer employees and it takes little to no startup cost, it’s usually run out of your home, it can be either a good or a service, and really it should be an easy thing. You shouldn’t go into debt over it. It’s easy enough for a child to do. It’s not this high expectation. A small business, you could have hundreds of employees. It would be harder to run it out of your own home, things like that. A micro business might eventually turn into a small business. But a micro business would be more, as far as with homeschooling, kind of generating that extra income that can help when– especially for us, help pay for music lessons or help pay for field trips, things like that. And so there’s been some periods in our life where one of our micro businesses almost was a second income for us. But for the most part, for us, it’s been more supplemental and it’s been an opportunity for my kids to learn how to market, how to talk to adults, what resources do you have. And as a child who doesn’t have social media, how can you convince your parent to be your marketing director and post things for you. So, yeah. I mean, a micro business, that’s the main part of it. It’s small, it’s manageable, you don’t go into debt over it, and it could be a good or a service depending on what your needs are.

Gretchen Roe: 00:05:49.364
Absolutely. And as a parent who did this with her own children, I got the privilege to visit with my now 33-year-old son last weekend, a micro business delivering newspapers, and in four short years was able to fund his hobby which was purchasing a grand piano. That piano still resides in his living room. I got to hear him play it this weekend and it was terrific. And I have to tell you that you’re only limited by what you think your limits are as far as your children. My eldest daughter got a $53,000 business loan at the age of 19 and opened the coffee shop, purchased the coffee shop she’d worked in since she was 15, and ran that successfully and has now gone on to run two more businesses. So I think this is probably one of the most important conversations we’re going to have this year. Katie, can you now begin to give us some insight into the businesses your children run and how you got them up and running. And what I particularly like about the way you set this up is your time is compensated as well, and I think that’s important.

Katie Dugdale: 00:07:09.073
Yeah. Sure. So we kind of– well, I’ll give a little backstory here. So I grew up getting an allowance from my parents, and it wasn’t dependent on me doing chores or anything like that. It was just a set, “Here’s how much you get each month,” and every year it went up by $5. So that’s the way that I grew up, and we were taught to give and to spend and to save. My husband grew up vastly different and a completely different situation than I did, and he never received an allowance. And so I kind of assumed we would just give our kids money, and he was like, “Why would we do that? Why would we just give them money?” And so then we kind of went back and forth for a long time, and I said, “Well, we should give them an allowance so they can learn how to manage money.” And he was like, “Well, they should work for it,” and I said, “But they’re five. How do they, you know? So we went back and forth because chores is part of our family life. We’re not paying you to do chores because that’s just something you should do as part of our family. So it took a little while, a little bit of creativity before we kind of came up with some ideas. I was always entrepreneurial when I was a kid. I would always have a lemonade stand out on the corner. And there was a public transportation bus stop right next to my house. And I would stand there when people were getting off of the bus with my sign, and people would buy lemonade when they got off the bus. And sometimes the bus driver would stop and let me come and ask people if they wanted lemonade. Not sure that that would be kosher today, but you know that’s what he let me do in the ’80s. And so I kind of always had this idea of if I want something, I’m going to go after it and I’m going to make it happen. And so I think I mentioned last time part of our homeschool is a little bit more delight-directed kind of on the unschool side of things. And at the beginning of each year, especially when they were younger, I would ask my kids, what do you want to learn this year? What do you want to do? And my oldest at one point said he wanted to make dim monies. And I said, “Make dim monies.” And he said, “Yup,” and that’s what he wrote on his paper. And this is a kid that’s been reading and writing since he was three. So I know he can spell. He just said, “Make dim monies.” And so we sat down and we brainstormed and we decided to create a homeschool vendor market where we would have other kids who wanted to make dim monies and who were creative could come and sell their wares.

Katie Dugdale: 00:09:33.230
And so this was eight years ago and my youngest was three. So my oldest was 10 at the time. And we tried to think of something that all four kids could do, and we came up with ChapStick. And I’ve got a little– I’ve got an example. I have visual aids for you today. So this is one of our ChapSticks, and they call their business East, because I didn’t mean to, but Elijah, Abigail, Salah, Tibby, it spells East. And so we had to talk about, what’s a clever name? How are we going to name your business and things like that? And what’s a good price point? And you guys are little and you don’t have a lot of money to put forward for this. So what’s something you can make easily that people would want and things like that? So that was kind of what started it. And it’s branched off since then, but they had a lot of success their first year, and they’ve had a lot of repeat customers. I mean, this is eight years later, and we’re still making ChapStick and selling it. And so, but there were a lot of lessons that are taught in that. And the first year we had our market, we did just students. So it was just student vendors. And that was great, but we realized we needed some adults in there too to kind of help students see what an adult can do and maybe a little bit more professional. So the next year, we brought in some adult vendors and it upped the game. The kids looked at it and they said, “Oh, I can decorate my booth in a certain way,” or, “I can have business cards,” or “I should do this or that.” And so just as that’s grown, the kids have really, they’ve come up with some pretty cool stuff.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:11.199
Now, one of the things that we talked about when we planned for this is you talked about not being free labor for your children.

Katie Dugdale: 00:11:18.705
Yes, yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:19.990
And I think that that is a really important point for the parents who are joining us. Let me also say I was so excited to get into the meat of the conversation that I forgot to say I am monitoring the Q&A. So if somebody has a question, please feel free to ask it and we’ll make sure that I ask it of Katie while we’re spending this time together. Can you talk a little bit about how your time is valuable as well?

Katie Dugdale: 00:11:46.396
Yeah, for sure. And yeah, definitely bring me back around because I tend to rabbit trail off on things. So if you ask me a question and you’re like–

Gretchen Roe: 00:11:52.904
This is why we love each other. So that’s fine.

Katie Dugdale: 00:11:56.656
So yes, so okay, I’ll use the ChapStick as an example again. It’s got coconut oil and beeswax and essential oils in it. Depending on the oil, it could be really expensive essential oils. So I had to tell them, “Hey, we’re not going to make super fancy ChapStick. Keep your price point down low.” And I fronted the money. When they’re starting out, I front them the money, and I say, “But you’re paying this back. And then once you have done a market or you have sold some things for a while, I’m no longer paying the upfront cost. You now are putting your money back into your business.” And then things like when I have a child that goes to work, that’s my gas money. And until they have a car and can drive themselves, they have to pay for their transportation. So I get a portion of the gas money, which they don’t like. They don’t think that’s cool. They’re like, “What’s happening?” And I say, “I don’t care. Either I’m paying for the gas or you’re paying for it once you get a car.” So they’re learning these lessons that when you have a business, whether you’re providing a service or a good, there is money that you have to pay towards this. And I think it’s a good lesson. I always feel bad taking it, even on Saturday. It was a very minimal– we had this home– our homeschool market was on Saturday. And it was a very minimal booth fee, $5. So I go to collect the $5 from my kids. And one of them just looked like just heartbroken that I would take $5 from her. And I said, “You just made $150. Give me your $5 booth fee.” But she didn’t want to give it up. But I think it’s really good. I’ve got another example, another visual aid. He did several things. But one thing that he does is he makes candles. And so again, this is coconut oil and beeswax. This is his– sorry, label. He comes up with these clever things. This is his Christmas candle. And it’s burned to make your heart grow three sizes. Well, he–

Gretchen Roe: 00:13:59.984
I love it.

Katie Dugdale: 00:14:00.960
I know. He’s so funny. But he realized the labor and the cost that goes into making one candle is really not worth his time. He sells these for $10. That’s great. But he’s probably only making a $3 profit on each candle. And there are other things that he can do much more easy and at much less of a cost. So at this particular market, he just sold the rest of his candle inventory without making more. So they have these lessons that they have to learn. Yes, you have great and wonderful ideas, but do they make sense? And that’s stuff I’ve had to learn, too.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:34.892
Who was it? Was it Abigail or Tibby who was going to make animals?

Katie Dugdale: 00:14:42.292
It was Tibby. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:14:43.790
It was Tibby. Okay. So can you tell that story because I have thought about that all week as an example of helping a student understand cost of investment of time versus return for that investment of time?

Katie Dugdale: 00:15:03.872
Right. So she decided she wanted to make little stuffed koalas and things like that. So I said, “Okay. She’s not a very skilled seamstress. And she’s not a very patient person.” So I didn’t think this was going to work as well as she thought it was, but I said, “Okay.” So we went to the– we went to the mall. We went to Joanne’s and got some fabric. And she made a couple of them. And it took her a really long time to make each one. And they were fine. But she wanted to charge $15. And I said, “Honey, nobody is going to buy that for $15.” And I tried to explain, “Hey, you’re putting a lot of work and effort into this thing. I just don’t think that people are going to buy it.” And so we kind of went back– we backtracked a few times with her, “What is something that you can produce in a timely manner and get the money that you deserve for it?” And I mean, I told her, too, “When I first started out, I would knit things or I would crochet. And if I priced the things that I knit at the amount of time it took me to take it, I’d be charging $500 a hat because it was so slow. And so teaching her, “Hey, I’m really proud of you for having this idea, but I just don’t think it’s good.” And being gentle with that, not saying, “Hey, your work is sloppy and nobody wants it.” But more saying, “Hey, you spent a long time on this. And I don’t know that you’re going to get what you think you’re going to get for it.” And so she shifted gears, and she did the chapstick, and she also made sock gnomes. And these take five minutes to make, and she sold them for $5 each, and she made about a $3 profit on each one. And so it was a much better return for her money than hand sewing all these little bottles.

Gretchen Roe: 00:16:53.623
Absolutely. And what I like about that portion of the conversation that we had is you were kind and you were gentle, but you were realistic in what they could expect for their return on their investment. And I think that’s huge. As parents, if we are just so gung-ho that what you’re doing is just amazing, then they can’t trust us for our honesty if it doesn’t go the way they anticipate it should.

Katie Dugdale: 00:17:26.407
And then there’s sometimes when you have an amazing idea and people just don’t, they don’t buy it. And it’s nothing that you did wrong. It’s just trial and error. You just don’t know. People are fickle and you don’t know what they’re going to buy one day to the next at a market.

Gretchen Roe: 00:17:40.138
Let’s switch gears a little bit. Let’s step away from talking about the kids and let’s talk about you and some of the things that you’ve done in order to create your homeschool environment and do the kinds of things that you have wanted to be able to provide for your kids. Because I think there’s a lot of moms who are new to the world of homeschooling. And one of the things that is their hesitancies is, how do I give up a salary or how do we make this happen on a financial shoestring?

Katie Dugdale: 00:18:11.964
For sure. And I definitely want to acknowledge that it is homeschooling is a sacrifice. It is. It is hard. And there may be seasons where everything comes easy and that’s great and celebrate when that comes. But generally, there’s sacrifice of your time, of your money, everything. And so I’m not going to sugarcoat it and say, “Hey, it’s always wonderful and you’ll always have everything you need” because you may not. And like you’re saying earlier, sometimes you just have to shift your expectations. It may not be what you thought it was going to be, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. So I just want to put that out there first, because I went in really wide-eyed and I have to have an easel, and I need all of the curriculum, and I need all of the manipulatives, and I’ve got to have it all. Only to realize a few years later, no, I really didn’t need that. The library card was about all I needed in the first few years of homeschooling. And so, but I’ve always been, I’m a doer. I just like to do. I like to learn things. And I started learning early in our homeschool that, hey, I can do things and provide for our schooling. And so just to give you an idea of some of the things I’ve done throughout my kids’ lives, I taught cake decorating at Michael’s for a time. And then the skills I learned there, I was able to take and I made cakes for people for a little while, not wedding cakes, because that’s really intense. But birthday cakes, I could do. And then I taught a cake decorating class at our homeschool co-op. And for every class that I taught, my kids would get a class for free. So I was able to use a skill I already had and receive something for my kids in exchange. So cake decorating I babysat. I babysat a ton, especially when my kids were little. And sometimes that was for money, but usually, it was for bartering. So like music lessons or like, “I’ll babysit your kids today. Can you watch my kids tomorrow?” kind of thing. And then with the cakes too. So in North Carolina, we have to do yearly testing for our homeschool, and that costs money. And I happen to really like a particularly expensive test for my kids. And I don’t have to use that expensive test, but I just like it because I feel like it gives a good overview of where my kids are. And my friend that administers the test just happened to have a daughter getting married one year. So I made her daughter’s wedding cake and she tested my kids. So things like that. When we did the talk at the Thrive conference, I did it with that friend, my friend that tests, and she’s the one that came up with the name of the talk and it was What’s in Your Hand? Meaning, what do you already have? What are you already doing that you could use in a business capability, whether it’s for bartering or for money?

Katie Dugdale: 00:21:09.842
And so, okay, so cake decorating and babysitting, and I’ve got another visual aid. The one that probably was the closest to a second income for us is custom t-shirts. And so this is my Christmas Merry and Bright. I got a– well, a friend of mine actually bought me a Silhouette and I bought a heat press. And I just started making t-shirts for my kids. And people would say, “Oh, where did you get that?” And I’d say, “I made it.” And then, “Oh, can you make me this?” And people just started sending me– people love personalized stuff. So if you can make personalized stuff, people will buy it. And before I knew it, one year, from November to Christmas break– from Thanksgiving to Christmas break, I made 200 shirts. And I was able– yeah, I know. It was crazy because I would have people saying, “Oh, I want shirts for our Christmas family pictures,” or, “I want shirts for our family trip.” And so I’d be making 10 or 15 of the same shirt and that paid for Christmas that year and beyond. And then one year, I made sweatshirts for our co-op–our local co-op that we go to in exchange for my kids to take Spanish there. So there’s been a lot of different things. I’ve done some tutoring, and currently, I teach at a co-op. I direct a co-op. And because I teach and direct, I’m able to put my kids there and not really– with minimal cost or out-of-pocket cost to us.

Gretchen Roe: 00:22:33.099
And I think one of the takeaways for a parent trying to figure out, “Okay, how could I do this?” is to recognize that homeschooling is a lifestyle and there are things you can model for your children alongside– of the 21 years we homeschooled, I worked 15 of those years. I ran my own small business. And I would say that my homeschool day had to be done by 3:15 because I had to have time to invest in my business. And so that was an exercise in learning to create boundaries. And I think that’s one of the things that happens when you begin the homeschooling process. Those boundaries become super important. So can you tell me how did you create boundaries with your entrepreneurial kids? And I know that you have a much more fluid approach to homeschooling.

Katie Dugdale: 00:23:32.653
Sure. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:33.576
To me, it’s very attractive, but there comes a point in time where somebody’s got to get math done. They can’t be making chapstick. So how do you set those kinds of boundaries?

Katie Dugdale: 00:23:44.403
Well, I’ll push back a little bit because there’s math involved in making chapstick.

Gretchen Roe: 00:23:50.694
This is true. This is very true.

Katie Dugdale: 00:23:52.663
Math and entrepreneurship. I think, so for the people that are schedule people, that like to keep a schedule and like to make sure that their kids have certain things done at certain times. Just put in your schedule work for your kids. Like, “This is the block of time where I want you working on your business, whether it’s making product, following up with customers, looking at your account.” My 15-year-old babysits. And because she homeschools, sometimes she gets morning jobs and sometimes she gets afternoon jobs. And so we kind of look at her whole week at a glance and say, “Okay, you have co-op all day on Monday, and you have a babysitting job on Wednesday.” And then she works for me on Thursday. She’s my assistant in my class. So when are you going to do schoolwork? So then we plug in these different times. And like this morning, she had an opportunity to go babysit, and she said, “Mom, I haven’t done any science and I really need to do math. And I just don’t think it’s a good idea.” I said, “You know what? You’re right. Because you’ll babysit and you’ll get home and you’ll be tired and you won’t want to do your work.” And so teaching that self-regulation, which I– that was a huge maturing moment for her because in the past, she would have been like, “Sure, I can get it done. No problem.” But she’s realizing, “No, I’m really not going to do it if I don’t.”

Katie Dugdale: 00:25:13.764
So for her, it may not be the same time every day that she’s doing her schoolwork, but it’s, “Hey, when is your two-hour block of time that you’re going to commit to this?” Or, “How is your work going to fit in?” And she bakes every Friday. That’s her thing. She sold baked goods at our market on Saturday. And because that’s important to her, she prioritizes it. So teaching her, “Okay, great, you prioritize that, and you have your shopping list ready for me on Mondays. All right, how does that translate into the rest of your life?” Kind of thing. And then for those who are a little more flexible or fluid, maybe, I really promote retroactive lesson planning, where kind of you get to the end of your week and you look back and, “Hey, where did we see school happening?” And I’ve got one that makes earrings, and she’ll sit for hours, and she’ll listen to music, and she’ll put her earrings together. And she’s the one I talked about last time, Salah. She’s our cancer survivor, and she just doesn’t learn like the rest of my kids do. And so for her to spend that time making and doing with her hands is so valuable to me. And she is problem solving, and she is thinking critically. And so to me, that is just as valuable as her reading or her math. And sometimes she’ll listen to an audiobook while she’s doing it. And so does that answer? Does that help?

Gretchen Roe: 00:26:45.610
No, I think what that does is it allows for the parents who are watching this and the parents who are going to watch the recorded version of this to recognize that framing academics doesn’t always mean a pen and a piece of paper and sitting down to do something. And I think it’s also important to recognize that the things you ask of your children now may turn into the things they want to do as adults. And you don’t realize that now. So giving them the opportunity to have exposure is enormous. And you and I had a conversation about your eldest and his finding a job and then deciding maybe he doesn’t enjoy that as much. So I think you did a terrific job of walking him through that. And I think this is a wonderful conversation to model for parents. And I recognize it wasn’t one conversation, but could we talk a little bit about that?

Katie Dugdale: 00:27:42.623
Sure. Okay. So I’m trying to remember everything that we said. So if I forget something, just tell me. But he wanted a Nintendo Switch one year. And we talked about this. When your child has a goal beyond just make money and funny, they become a little more motivated. So like for your son, it was the grand piano.

Gretchen Roe: 00:28:05.883
Correct.

Katie Dugdale: 00:28:06.138
For my son, it was a Nintendo Switch when he was 13. And that boy left clues for us. We would have stickers of Nintendo on our windows and he would fit it into the conversation. And I said, “It’s $400. So that’s beyond anything that we’ve ever paid for for Christmas. So how about you start thinking of how you can contribute?” And he asked if I could post on my Facebook and ask if anybody had any odd jobs. So that’s kind of how he– a friend of ours owns one of the gem mines here in town. And so he became their bucket boy where he would go and pick up stones for them. And then a couple of years later, he got his Nintendo Switch by the way, he worked towards it. He got his money. He got his Switch. A couple of years later, he realized his friends were starting to save money for cars. And he thought, “Well, I can do that. I can work towards a car.” And he got a job at a shop downtown. And is this the one? Is this the story? He got a job at a shop downtown. And it did not end up being what we expected it to be. We had him stick with it for a while, but there were a lot of expectations being put on him that I didn’t think should be on a 15-year-old. And he just realized this is really not the job for me. The hours were kind of unpredictable and things like that. And so we talked with him about keeping his commitment and hey, you have a goal here. But then also you’re 15 and if you don’t want to work here, that’s okay too.

Katie Dugdale: 00:29:34.922
And so it was good in communication things with him. But then later, he said to me, after he had quit that job, his sister had a job caretaking at a goat farm. And she literally would get paid $50 to go up and make sure that the dog was fed and the goats had hay. And it took 15 minutes, and she would get paid $50 every time she went to do that. And he was like, “I want a job like that where I don’t have to do anything, but I get paid money.” [laughter] I don’t think those jobs actually exist, but he found a job. He washes the trolley for the trolley company here in town. And it’s been so good for him because he doesn’t have to work very often. And she told him she would pay him per trolley that he washed, not per hour. So she said, “You can take five hours to wash it if you want to, but I’m still going to pay you the same amount.” So he’s learned how to be efficient, thorough, and get it done. And she has given him more and more responsibilities over the last couple of years as he’s done that. And she’s even trying to help him think about like, “Hey, as you’re looking into your career for the future, here’s some backup things you could do based on the skills that I see in you.” And so just helping him kind of walk through and think through, what are the things that you enjoy? What are the things that you need? What are the things that you want? And how are we making this happen for you?

Gretchen Roe: 00:30:54.693
You make a really valid point there about asking other people to observe your children and speak into their lives because sometimes you’re not the prophet in your child’s land. And so for someone else to say, “Oh, you have these talents. This is what I see.” I’m reminded of the local homeschool event that I did last spring. And I had a fantastic conversation with a mom who said she had a daughter who wanted a college experience, but didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do. So they recommended she go to the other adults outside of the family in her life and ask, “What do you see for me? What kind of talents do you see for me?” And I thought that was a brilliant conversation because now that young lady is in college in a major that she loves, and it wasn’t something that was on the radar before those conversations.

Katie Dugdale: 00:31:55.678
Right. Yeah, I think that’s fantastic. I’m a big believer in having other adults in my kids’ lives, even though it’s hard because sometimes I’m like, “I said that. I said that to you over and over again. Why did it not stick?” But [crosstalk]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:32:08.723
You’re not the prophet in their land. [laughter] We had a bunch of good questions asked of us this week. And I wanted to turn my attentions to some of them because I thought they were really important about what are some of the strategies you would recommend for a parent when they sit down and have this conversation with their entrepreneurial children. I think one of the things that took me aback more than anything else, Katie, is you started these conversations with kids who are five and six years old. And so how do you have that conversation?

Katie Dugdale: 00:32:49.801
Well, I think it does depend on the age. And it depends, I think, on your family values, too, a little bit. And when I’m saying that– like social media for your teenagers because that is one big way to market and to connect with people. But do you want your student in that world? Do you want them to have that? So Elijah, my oldest, he’s a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant artist. And that’s another conversation I’ll just real quick rabbit trail to. I’ve been trying to get him for years to think about how he could use that talent and art to create a business. And he’s afraid to be bound to it. He wants to keep loving art. But he did start an Instagram for his art. And that was a whole conversation of internet safety. Who are you letting follow? Because he was like, “Well, it should probably be public if I’m going to be sharing my art and I want to get noticed or I want to build a portfolio.” But I wasn’t ready for him to do public. Anyway, it was a whole thing. And so what are your family values? What are your family boundaries would be part of your conversation. But also, how much ownership is your child willing to take? And if they’re starting this, are they willing to see it through? So Sayla is 13 and she has her own website, but she hasn’t maintained it in a while. And so we had to put a big under-maintenance sign on the homepage. And I said, “I’m not going to maintain this for you. If you want to go through your inventory and take new pictures–” and I’ve shown her how to upload pictures and how to create a listing. So there’s always training, there’s always time it takes from the parents. But at some point, is your child willing to take the responsibility of keeping it going? And for Tibby, my 10-year-old, she’s like, “Hey, I did a market. I made 60 bucks. I’m out of here.” She doesn’t care. [laughter] She’s like, “I’m going to go spend it.” And she’s hilarious. She barters. She went to all the different vendors at our market and she was like, “I’ll give you two chapsticks if you give me a hair bow.” And so she was trading with people. [laughter] So for her, that was it. She doesn’t need anything beyond that.

Gretchen Roe: 00:35:06.642
Remember, this is the child who’s going to plan your retirement, so.

Katie Dugdale: 00:35:09.357
I know. I know. [laughter] I got to keep her close. I got to keep that one close. [laughter] But it depends on what’s your goal for this. Now, I have a friend in town and she really– their whole vision of their homeschool was to create entrepreneurship in their kids. And at grade three– so when their kids were about eight years old, they had to start a business. And so that was their family value. And for them, college wasn’t necessarily the goal. Self-sufficiency was the goal. And she wanted her children to be able to function and be productive citizens and be able to provide for themselves by the time they graduated from high school. So are you doing this because it’s a hobby? Are you doing this because your child has a goal they’re working towards? And how much nagging mom are you going to want to do to this– is this business for you or for them? And so those are the kind of the questions. But there’s a great book– I am not an Osborne consultant, I just like Osborne books, but there’s a great book called Entrepreneur Academy and it’s really neat for young kids to go through. It explains profit and loss. So that’s that whole like, “I put this much money into my business. This is what I’m going to get out of it,” kind of thing, and there is how to make a sales pitch. I mean, this book is fantastic. And so you could do– your first semester, you and your kids go through this book. And then your second semester, you go out and you look for opportunities to put it into practice. So that’s [crosstalk]–

Gretchen Roe: 00:36:44.566
[crosstalk] one of the things that you had said about looking for those opportunities was look for the jobs no one else wants to do.

Katie Dugdale: 00:36:50.865
Yes.

Gretchen Roe: 00:36:51.345
Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

Katie Dugdale: 00:36:52.954
Absolutely. So there’s two things to ask your kids for. What are you already doing that you could make business out of. So like for my son, he’s already drawing, so why not make a business. And at our market this past Saturday, he drew one-minute caricatures. So he would set up his timer and he would do it for a minute. He would have people sit down, he’d study their face for about 10 seconds, and they’d start the timer and draw their picture. It was hilarious. People loved it, he charged $5 a picture, and he made a bunch of money. It was a shtick, a gimmick, and so that’s one thing. What are you already doing? What are you already doing that you can just take it to the next level? The other thing is what are the jobs that nobody else wants to do that you don’t mind doing? And one example that I share about that is dead animal removal. There is a deer outside of my house right now on the street that I would love to not be there, but I’m not going to go remove the deer. So I just keep waiting for the animals to come. Sorry, that’s gross. But there’s crawl spaces, and a lot of times things will crawl up in there and die and nobody wants to go in and get them, and people will pay big money. Especially around our area where there’s a lot of rentals and Airbnbs, nobody wants to go pay for that, but nobody wants that stink. And so if you have a teenager that doesn’t care and is willing to crawl under dirty spaces and get that animal out, they could charge 75 to 100 dollars for an animal removal. No problem. So what are the jobs that nobody wants to do that you don’t mind doing and how could you do that?

Gretchen Roe: 00:38:30.372
Right. I am reminded of a young man that I knew when we were homeschooling in Maryland years ago. His small business was coming to your house and scooping your yard if you didn’t want to scoop your yard. And he used to say, “But there is dough in poo.” So he made enough money that he had a car in high school and he– whoops, I knocked something over under my desk. He had a sufficient amount of money saved from that enterprise that he had wheels, and I think it was thinking outside the box a little bit because I wouldn’t have– that wouldn’t have been the first thing I would have conceived of of, “Oh, here’s a job you could do.” My middle daughter loved everything fuzzy. We raised everything from squirrels to robins to– she brought home a turtle one time. We had pet rats. We had all sorts of entrepreneurial pets that she found. And so when we said to her what is a job you would like to do, she became the neighborhood dog walker.

Katie Dugdale: 00:39:47.243
Yeah. Yeah.

Gretchen Roe: 00:39:48.718
Ironically, now, here she is at 30, she is a dog trainer. That is her avocation, and what she does full-time is she’s a research biologist. And so you don’t know what kind of seeds you’re going to sow with your kids to create an opportunity. So I think keeping your mind open to that makes a tremendous amount of difference.

Katie Dugdale: 00:40:12.140
For sure.

Gretchen Roe: 00:40:13.050
So how do you deal with you’re the parent who has helped a child create a business and then they have not followed through on that? How do you, as the parent, deal with that frustration of, “Hey, I fronted you this money and you didn’t hold up your end of the stick,” because I think that’s an honest piece of the conversation we probably should have.

Katie Dugdale: 00:40:40.737
Oh, for sure, because kids get– I mean, they move on from things quickly, especially if they don’t have the quick return for the money that they think they’re going to get. But I think going back to that conversation that you’re going to have with your kids, maybe having a plan like we have our market that we do every year. And so for Tibby, that’s her goal. Like I said, she’s going to do her market. And so for her, it’s, all right, I’m going to give you the money for the chapstick materials. And then because she’s 10, I help her make it because it’s boiling oil and wax. And so here’s our time and effort and you’re going to work your table at the booth. And so for her, it’s a very short, manageable goal. Now, last year, she would prefer to play. She preferred to play with a friend than run her booth. And so her siblings ran her booth for her and I gave them the money from the sale. And she was actually fine with that. She was like, “Yeah, I wasn’t even at my table. It’s fine.” But kind of a natural consequence, you weren’t willing to finish the work and somebody else did so that person’s going to get the benefit from. And so that kind of a natural consequence but manageable goals. And that’s hard because as parents, well, for me anyway, I start thinking big and I’m like, oh, we’re going to have websites and storefronts and it’s going to be amazing. And you’re going to pay for my retirement and it’s going to be fantastic. But for parents, sometimes we got to reel those expectations back. And so was it a manageable expectation you put on your child or was it you dreaming? So that’s kind of one of the first questions like, are you mad because they really didn’t do what they said they were going to do or did you set the bar too high? And then if they really didn’t do what they were supposed to do, I think they still owe you the money. Whatever the agreement was, they need to pay you back or they need to make good on what they said and whatever the consequence needs to be depending on what your family does kind of thing. I think it’s important. I mean, sometimes things happen and we have to move on from a business venture but we also need to be people who hold commitments. Just like if you have a child that plays sports and two games into it, they don’t want to play anymore. Well, that’s fine, but you’re going to finish the season, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:42:57.676
One of the things that I loved in our conversation is you talked about siblings hiring siblings and getting compensated for the younger sibling’s investment of time. I know we did that in our household. We ended up holding the newspaper roots my son built for about 11 years because he would train the younger sibling to help him. And then when he was done with that, the younger sibling took over the route and we did that through four kids. So it made a lot of difference. But I wonder if you could talk about setting those expectations so that there’s not free labor involved but there’s the understanding of assistance. And I loved the way that you put this when we talked last week.

Katie Dugdale: 00:43:44.710
Yeah, so I think a lesson really for America right now is one way that we can help our economy is by starting small businesses and micro businesses because if you have a successful business, you’re eventually going to have more than you can handle. And then you can start hiring employees and you’re providing jobs. And what a great way to practice that but in your family. And so I think the way that we started our chapstick business was with all four kids doing it and everybody had a job and everybody participated. And the youngest at that time, her job was just to stick the stickers on. The oldest, he designed the stickers. And everybody had a job they had to do. And eventually it trickled down like you were saying. It went through all of these kids. And now it’s with Tibby because everybody else has these other business ventures. But they have been known to hire each other. They have been known to employ. And if Abigail– now, she won’t pay money, but she will pay in cookies. So if somebody helps her bag up cookies, she gives a portion to it. But definitely teaching them value the people that are working for you. And no, don’t just enslave your sibling because they’ll do whatever you say, teaching them how to care for their employees.

Katie Dugdale: 00:45:03.426
So this was one story I don’t think I shared. And it’s not a business part, but my oldest, he loves film and video. He’s in classes at the community college right now for film and video. When he was in eighth grade, he would hire his sisters to come and be in his videos. And my youngest is a little bit of a diva. And she would be all in on day one. She would wear the outfits. She would do the thing. But he would film over a series of days. And he would require them to wear the same outfit because he wanted continuity. And she wouldn’t. She refused. She would dig in her heels, “I’m not doing this.” And I said, “Do you really want her in your movie?” He said, “Well, yeah, she’s really good.” I said, “Then how are you going to woo her? How are you going to bring her back in? What are you going to give her to make this worth her time?” And so they would work out, “I’ll play Minecraft with you for an hour if you come and do this,” or, “We can watch whatever you want to watch on TV.” And so learning people is a huge skill and learning how to get people to work for you and being a kind employer is a huge skill that what a cool way to learn how to do life in your own family. Whether you have 1 child or 10, you have an opportunity for them to practice life under your roof and doing small business. I have one child that seriously, I took her to the gym line and she mined and she got a whole bucket full of the rocks. And then she set up a little stand in our hall and sold those rocks to her siblings for a dollar each. It was hilarious. And they paid for it. They bought them from her.

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:39.434
Well, okay. So you might have created an idea in people’s heads here that all your kids are extroverts.

Katie Dugdale: 00:46:49.106
They’re not.

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:49.106
And we know they’re not.

Katie Dugdale: 00:46:50.433
No, they are not.

Gretchen Roe: 00:46:52.260
So I think it’s important for us to understand that you can do this with a child even if they’re not that extroverted. We make the assumption that if you’re an extrovert, it’s easy to be an entrepreneurial talent. It’s easy to create that pitch. It’s easy to sell yourself. But the playing field is level. So how do you create that with your kids?

Katie Dugdale: 00:47:20.106
Again, it’s going back– for me, it’s going back to asking that child, “What is your goal? What is it that you want out of this?” And if they want it bad enough, they’ll be willing to kind of push themselves outside of their comfort zone and expressing to– like my Selah in particular, she’s very quiet, very soft spoken, and she is in a house full of loud people. And she has this beautiful– but what’s really cool about her is she connects with people and she goes beyond just, “Hey, come in and see what I’ve got.” She had her donations for St. Jude Children’s Hospital sign out with her earrings. And I was talking talking to a guy who had visited her booth and he said, “Yeah, she told me all about being a cancer survivor and why St. Jude is important to her.” And so playing on that strength of hers, hey, you don’t have to be loud, but you do a really great job of just talking to people. But also giving practical tips of when somebody walks up to your table, say, “Hello.” Don’t just stare down at the table, say, “Hello,” and ask them if they’d like something in particular. So it takes a little bit more training and encouragement, maybe, with some kids. Or maybe the first couple of times, they go to walk the dog, if they’re a dog walker, you go with them, and you knock on the door with them, and you help them. And eventually, they gain the confidence and the ability to go, “Oh, this isn’t too scary. I just have to talk to the person for a minute, and then I can have their dog.” And then it’s just me and the dog. [laughter] Or there’s a reward that comes from making a connection with people. And so once they start to see that– Elijah is very introverted. He came home on Saturday and he just hung out in his room for the rest of the day because he had talked to people for four hours. And he was done. He’s very personable, he draws people in. He loves to tell people about himself and what he’s been doing. And he learned the hard way one year because he and his sister, who is very outgoing, shared a booth. And everybody that walked up, she would say, “Look at me. Look at what I made. Buy my stuff,” and they would. And it was like they didn’t even realize he was there. And I said, “Well, you’re sitting behind the table. You have your head down. You’re not really talking. So if you want people to notice you, you have to be noticeable.”

Gretchen Roe: 00:49:47.536
I think those are terrific life lessons and far beyond what a micro business would do for your kids or yourself in your home. And that is all part of the homeschooling entrepreneurial mindset that all of us are trying to cultivate in our kids. You had said something that I think it was really important and I wanted to come back around to this because– actually, there’s two things that I want to talk about, is thinking about maybe materials cost and an hourly rate. So being able to help kids figure out, like you had said, $500 for a knitted hat is not realistic. So how do we have that conversation? And then there’s another question I want to ask as well.

Katie Dugdale: 00:50:37.035
Okay. Sure. And this is really– we talked a lot about this this week. How do you value your product? How do you price it so that you get what you deserve and people feel good about what they just paid for something? So when I was doing cake decorating, the advice given to me was, “Figure out your cost of materials and then give yourself an hourly wage.” And so like let’s say I spent $30 on materials and then I spent four hours making a cake. I would pay myself $10 an hour. So that’s 40 then plus the 30 for materials, $70 for the cake. That’s how I would figure it out. And so teaching the kids that, “You want to make sure that you are getting your money back for the materials.” Because if you make earrings and it costs you $4 to make the pair of earrings, but you’re only charging $3, you’re not going to make any money. Or if you make a little lanyard– you know the plastic cord that they do it? So Tibby makes those, the little lanyards, and she wanted to charge $5 for a key chain that’s that big, made out of plastic string. I said, “No, nobody’s going to buy that.” [laughter] I said, “Charge $1,” because we bought a big bag of the plastic string that she can make literally 1,000 lanyards out of. So charge $1 for it. So teaching them, “Yes, your work is important and and you are valuable, but also people aren’t going to pay a ton of money for this. And so, but it was funny, Abigail made cookies and pumpkin pies, and she was going to charge $1 for three cookies. And Elijah said, “No, you worked hard on those cookies. You charge a dollar per cookie, not a dollar for three cookies.” And so he was helping her figure out how to how to value herself. And it gets trickier when it’s a service. Sometimes it’s a little easier, but when it’s a work of art that you’re putting in your talent to, how do you do that? And that’s kind of different for each person, but you definitely want to cover your cost of materials. And you definitely want to be able to make a profit.

Gretchen Roe: 00:52:44.178
And one of the things that you told me is you’re happy to front that cost of materials, but you expect to be paid back. And I think sometimes that’s where parents who try to create that entrepreneurial mindset in their kids feel like it’s a law of diminishing returns.

Katie Dugdale: 00:53:02.039
Yeah, I think, I mean, I just think it’s a valuable lesson. And it’s a valuable lesson to the parent. If you are, like I said, with the big, big dreams, if you’re fronting all of this cost of material and then your child either just quits, or they don’t actually produce what you said, or they don’t do it for as long as you think, you are going to lose out on money. And so one thing I learned with my t-shirt business was just buy on demand. I didn’t want to keep closets full of blank t-shirts because I would end up– I would have spent more money than what I made if I had done that because people wanted unique t-shirts and they wanted to pick their own colors and they wanted to pick whatever. And so that just goes back to the manageable goals. But I think it’s even valuable to write out a contract with your child. I’m going to give you these materials, and this is how much I spent on coconut oil, and this is how much I spent on beeswax, and this is how much I spent on the chapstick containers. You owe me this back when you’re finished. And then you could write the next thing, how much– they could write in how much they made or how many– anytime they sold something. And then they can write when they pay it back. And I think being able to see that is really important for kids because sometimes it’s just numbers until they actually have to hand over the cash. And one thing to make it a little more tangible too is give them cash to go to the store. I’m giving you $50 to invest in your business. And they have to go figure out how to find things on sale. What’s the most manageable? What’s the best for my business? Is it worth it to put a little bit more into this or can I get away with something else kind of thing, so.

Gretchen Roe: 00:54:43.687
Well, now you had also said something early on, and we kind of circled back around to it about Elijah and his Instagram account. But for the rest of your kids, you’re the marketer for them. So you advertise through social media. And I think that’s something that parents maybe don’t understand. So maybe you could explain in a little bit of detail how a parent could do that effectively for their student.

Katie Dugdale: 00:55:11.582
Yeah. And also, I know one of the questions I think that was sent too was just for how to use social media for marketing. So I’ll try to answer both of those. So I’ll use Sayla as an example. She started making her earrings and she wanted to, and I would just post pictures on my Instagram. Just to my friends, I don’t have a big public Instagram. I have one for my blog, but I have my personal one. And so I would just post pictures and people would say, “Oh, I’d love to buy that. How much”? So I said, “Sayla, people want to buy your earrings.” And so what we ended up doing was I created a Facebook event. It was Sayla’s pop-up market. And she took pictures of all of her earrings and she would sit with me. And I told people, “Okay, from this time to this time, I’m going to upload some different albums. We’ll have hanging earrings and round earrings and clip-on, and comment underneath sold when you want it. And so we uploaded everything. Sayla took all the pictures, and she told me how much to price them. And when somebody would sell it, would say they wanted it, I would say, “Okay. You need to go find this pair and put this person’s name on it.” And I would ask the person, “Do you want her to ship it or do you want her to bring it to you?” It was usually somebody local, so I would say, “Okay. We’re going to bring it at this time.” So I had the level of managing the comments and making sure the pictures were uploaded, and then I would tell her, “Oh, this pair just sold. Go.” And she had little sticky notes, and she would put them in little Ziploc bags and put the person’s name, and she had a little thank you that she would stick in it. And then people would either PayPal me or Venmo or pay in cash, and then I would just give it to her. And so that was one way.

Katie Dugdale: 00:56:52.649
And then one time, she wanted to host a pop-up market at our house, and so she asked me if I would advertise it over social. And she told me specific people she asked me to invite, but also if I could just put it out on Facebook. And so I did, and we probably had about 15 people come through and buy her earrings at our house. And then Abigail, with her baking every Friday– I would tell her, “Okay. I need you to make me a graphic that I can post on Instagram,” because she does digital art. She has an iPad. She’s drawn her own logo. And she would put what she had available and what the cost was, and I would put it on Instagram, and I’d put it on Facebook. And then she would send it out on a group chat to all her friends. And so she would have some orders, and I would get some orders, but helping in that way because she doesn’t want social media and I don’t want her to have it. And same with the younger ones. Sayla does have a website, but I manage that. I’m the one that gets the emails through it. I’m the one that people communicate with. She just does the pictures and the descriptions. And so, again, that’s where that sacrifice comes from with homeschooling. We do things for our kids. And you don’t have to be a big social media person with a ton of followers, and you don’t even have to have social media. You could just send a group text out. “Hey, my kid is doing this. If you’re interested, here’s how you can support them.” And people are either going to do it or they’re not. So that’s one way. I’m kind of their marketing manager. Now, if you’re an adult and you have a small business– with my t-shirts, I quickly realized my t-shirt business was bigger than I realized it was going to be, and I didn’t want to keep clogging up my personal Facebook with it. So I just made a Facebook page, and it was called I Can Make That. And every time I would make a shirt, I would upload it to that, and people could see the things that I made, and they were able to make orders through that. And that’s kind of how I manage that. So it doesn’t have to be hard.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:48.959
Katie, I can’t believe that this hour has gone so quickly because–

Katie Dugdale: 00:58:52.202
I know.

Gretchen Roe: 00:58:52.154
–we’ve had so many things that we’ve talked about, and I think you have provided such a wealth of practical advice woven into your own family story. I don’t know about anybody else who has attended today, but I’m sitting here thinking, “I wish I’d been homeschooled that way because that would have been amazing.” But we’re at the end of the hour. So what would be the advice you would like families to take with them away from this time that we’ve spent together?

Katie Dugdale: 00:59:22.026
I think, first of all, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to just try because if you don’t try, you don’t know. And it’s also okay if you try something and then it doesn’t work because you tried, and maybe it wasn’t the right thing. But you don’t know what’s going to spark an interest in your kids. You really don’t. I mean, I have no idea where this is going to take my kids, but I know that they’ve learned how to talk to adults. I know that they’ve learned how to manage money. They’ve learned the value of giving. They’ve learned how to be social, math. They’ve learned math. So many things. And so it’s worth it to go through the process even if there’s not a huge return. But you also don’t know what that return might look like years down the road, so. I think entrepreneurship is a huge, huge, huge thing that all of our kids can enjoy. Kids are so creative too, so just ask them or watch them. What are they doing? And what are you doing? What are you doing that you enjoy that you could take to the next level? And maybe it’s for a month. Maybe it’s for three years. Who cares? Just give it a try. It’s fun. It can be a lot of fun, not scary.

Gretchen Roe: 01:00:29.746
And those are the best words of wisdom of all that. “Try it. It’s fun. It’s not scary.” I love it. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. I really enjoyed it thoroughly. And thank all of you who attended live. Those of you who will be watching the recording, if you know a family who would benefit from the recording, please feel free to share it. And we do these webinars weekly because we believe there’s value in community, and we want to support you in your journey. So my very great thanks again to Katie for joining me today, and I hope you’ll join us again for another event in the future. Thanks, everybody.

Katie Dugdale: 01:01:08.551
Thank you.

Gretchen Roe: 01:01:09.162
Joyful afternoon. Bye-bye.

Katie Dugdale: 01:01:11.038
Bye-bye. Thank you.

Gretchen Roe: 01:01:13.994
This is Gretchen Roe for the Demme Learning Show. Thanks for joining us. You can access the show notes and watch a recording at demmelearning.com/show, or go on our YouTube channel. Be sure to rate, review, follow, or subscribe wherever you may be hearing this, especially if you really enjoyed it.

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