Starting Your Own Business: Becoming a Business Owner as a Teenager

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

By Joyce Wilson

Have you thought about starting your own business but are unsure if you can because you are a teenager? It’s possible to run a business of your own even if you’re not out of high school.

Working for yourself can come with many benefits, including learning how to manage money and teaching you about investing in your company, and it can give you an idea of what type of career you want to pursue in the future. 

The Benefits of Working for Yourself

Working for yourself can teach you many helpful habits when it comes to money management. You can learn about setting aside money to reinvest in your company and estimating how much you’ll need to get started. Building your own business is easier if you have low overhead, or don’t have to spend a lot of money to get set up and run your company. 

For individuals who are trying to build upon their commerce skills, this can be a useful way to solve problems (such as filling a need for your community), showcase your creativity (creating or designing something that people will buy).

Budgeting and Saving While Running a Business

After you have identified what type of business you want to create, set up a budget for your company, planning on how much you will spend. According to experts, this will help stay within spending limits and help you avoid spending too much money before your company has had a chance to take off.

Saving money is important because you’ll want to reinvest earnings into your company. You’ll want to identify what your profits and losses are, and use this information to tweak changes to your company so that you can ensure you are earning as much as possible. 

Potential Work in Animal Care

Are you wondering what type of business you could set up as a teenager? If you love animals, consider working with them and setting up a company that caters to their needs. You could become a dog walker or offer pet sitting services either in your home or the home of the pet’s owner. 

This business model wouldn’t cost much to get started since you’d only need to focus on marketing efforts, and you could take on as many clients as you felt comfortable managing. If you want to stand out from the competition while marketing, try using an online logo maker so you can make custom logos instantly and easily. Select a style and icon, choose the text you want, and you’ll be able to view different logos in a variety of colors and fonts. 

Working with Children

Babysitting can be fun for individuals who like to work with children. Much like pet sitting, you can set your own hours and work as much or little as you would like. You might take care of children for a few hours or a majority of the day. Your efforts will mostly rely on marketing and word of mouth to help you find customers, thereby keeping your costs low and making this a worthwhile venture. 

Even if you are still a teenager, there are plenty of ways to build a business of your own. This can teach you valuable skills that can help you in college and beyond, no matter what you choose to pursue later in life. 

Joyce Wilson is a retired teacher and enjoys sharing lesson plans, resources, and teaching tips on Teacher Spark. Her website is a compilation of practical resources that will inspire student engagement and instill a love for learning. By tapping into a student’s natural creativity and curiosity, Joyce believes that they can take their education to a new level.

Girlpreneur logo

The Girlpreneur Expo is Back!

Are you a girlpreneur or aspiring young entrepreneur in the Detroit area? If so, join us on Saturday, August 13 for the Girlpreneur Expo, hosted by the T-Rose Foundation. The event is free for attendees. Register via Eventbrite or visit www.t-rose.com/girlpreneur. Empowered Flower Girl will be there with information about our workshops and programs, including how you can get featured in our She’s EmPOWERed column and attend our Be the Impact Summit this fall.

Back to School Series: How to inspire an emPOWERed school year

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

Educators and parents, mentors and coaches all care about the wellbeing and livelihood of young people in our communities.  We are well aware that twenty-first century tweens and teens face unprecedented challenges that many of us may have never imagined, from cyberbullying, drama, trauma and immense societal pressure. 

 But to combat these challenges, I was inspired to do something.

Nearly 15 years ago, I was a mentor and youth advocate who wanted to do something to make a difference for middle and high school students – who like me – were teased, bullied and ostracized by classmates and even relatives.

In 2010, I launched Empowered Flower Girl. Since we started, we’ve been on a mission to transform the way young people relate to one another. Through workshops and programs that address and combat cyberbullying, relational aggression and other social/communications challenges facing youth, we work to empower the next generation of leaders.

So as students prepare for a new school year, we want to remind the adults in their lives of the importance of collaboration aka the Village approach.

It takes parents, educators, community members and youth themselves to truly make a difference.

Let’s work together to ensure that every young person has a successful and safe school year!

Cheers to Stevenson High School!

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl

The Stevenson High School cheer team got a visit from Empowered Flower Girl founder and author Rasheda Kamaria Williams on October 16 during National Bullying Prevention Month.

Mrs. Diana Langlois, a member of Soroptimist International of Grosse Pointe, a volunteer service organization, purchased copies of the book “Be EmPOWERed: How to Live Above & Beyond Life’s Drama” for each girl. Diana’s daughter, Robbie, coaches the team which is made up of 22 ambitious and dedicated cheerleaders.

The girls had been reading the book since the beginning of the semester. To reward the team for their recent successes and to encourage them to keep up the good work, Diana coordinated the visit.

Schedule a “Be EmPOWERed” book talk for your school, organization or house of worship. Empowered Flower Girl offers a special rate for nonprofits that order 20+ books.

Collaboration is key to 100 percent graduation

Posted on by empoweredflowergirl
By now, many of you reading this post probably have received invitations to commencement ceremonies and/or graduation open houses. This is a special time of year for graduates, families and friends. Their hard work throughout the years has paid off.
Statistics show that on average, 80 percent of American high school students graduate. While that number is greater than it’s been in years, that means 20 percent are left behind.
As youth advocates, we are grateful for those who have matriculated, but our work is far from done. In fact, we must move forward more robustly in our collective efforts to ensure that all children – from every background – are supported to reach their full potential. From mentoring and tutoring to extra-curricular programming, our youth benefit tremendously when they have options.
Let’s continue to work together in making sure that no child is left behind. Congratulations to the class of 2016 and beyond.
Looking for gift ideas for the grad in your life? Here is Reader’s Digests list of the best books to give as graduation gifts!