Update/Context: Five years after this article was first published, downtown Independence continues to thrive with a dynamic cycle of business turnover. This 'churn' is a natural part of economic growth and helps foster a strong, resilient community. Let’s embrace this evolution by supporting and exploring the new businesses that emerge, as they are essential to keeping our downtown vibrant.

A few years ago, one of our area Main Street program directors was lamenting the fact that one or two of the fairly recent businesses in the downtown area had closed. “It just seems like some businesses close as fast as others open.” I told her that we should be celebrating the fact that when spaces open up there are people ready and willing to open another retail establishment; we should be celebrating the churn and always inviting people to come and see what is new. This surprised her as she said she’d never thought about it that way. 

In our area of Southeast Kansas, I’ve always thought there were a surprising number of businesses more than 100 years old. It would easily take more than two hands to count those businesses in Montgomery County alone. I’ve not seen any studies on this, comparing the number of 100 year old companies per capita, but it seems like we have a large number for a county of around 35,000 people. 

Unrealistic expectation 

Several of these businesses are in downtown districts and many people long for a stable group of businesses in a downtown area, all successful for 100 years that fill all the empty buildings and available spaces. In today’s world of increasing competition from the vast selection of the Internet and the “box stores” starting businesses that will last for 100 years will be challenging to say the least. We should be celebrating and encouraging business churn in our downtown districts. One definition I found for churn is “To produce something in an abundant and automatic manner.” We should be working to develop and encourage new entrepreneurs, willing to try new businesses in our downtown districts, in an abundant and automatic manner. 

Start small and grow 

The key is for the entrepreneur to start small, growing the business while tweaking the products and services offered to minimize the risk on the way to opening a retail store in a downtown district. Danielle Passauer, dba Platinum Designs, is growing her business in just such a manner. She came to Fab Lab ICC about one and one-half years ago, with a very small, fledgling business. She used our lasers for several months to grow her business into what she calls a “serious part time venture.” Now she has her own laser and other customization equipment at her home and during this last holiday season, she operated a pop-up retail store on certain occasions. She once told me that her goal was to have a full-time retail business in downtown Independence. She is reaching her goal in a measured series of small steps, reducing her financial risk every step of the way. 

We should be replicating Danielle’s story all over Southeast Kansas, encouraging small start-ups that can grow into full-time businesses many even needing to hire employees to help serve customers.

Start with a change in mindset 

This is a different approach than starting big with big financing and it all starts with a change in mindset to that of what we call an entrepreneurial mindset. Before we get to cash flow projections and nuts and bolts business management disciplines, we need to learn to think in terms of solving problems for customers and starting small so corrections in our offerings are easily made as we learn what our customers really want. Watch for future offerings of the Entrepreneurial Mindset class, featuring the Ice House Entrepreneurship program  This is where we learn to think about solving problems in the marketplace and starting out small.

Celebrate the churn 

There will always be a churning of businesses in our downtown areas and indeed in our region with businesses coming and going as the market changes. With the right mindset, we can always have new (or reinvented) entrepreneurial ventures to fill the openings in our buildings and in our marketplace. The churn is what makes an economy vibrant and exciting. Let’s celebrate the churn. 

Update/Context: Since its original publication nearly three years ago, the need for young people to engage in self-exploration has only grown. In response, we have launched the Life Skills Academy (LSA) through the Innovative Business Resource Center (www.ibrcenter.org/About-Us). LSA (www.ibrcenter.org/Life-Skills-Academy) is a learning hub centered around the Entrepreneurial Mindset, offering project-based learning in a maker space environment. This space empowers both young and old to explore new interests, potentially leading to exciting new careers or even business ownership.

Our society dictates that our youth begin to think about and even decide “what they want to be when they grow up” even at the 6

^th or 7^th grade level. This dictate is paired up with the dictate to start working on what college to go to and that the best grades in K – 12, will yield the best college offers. For a small percentage (the tip of an iceberg,) the path of choosing college and career early works well. For the rest, the massive iceberg under the surface, not so much. Fifty percent who do attend and graduate from college don’t find the jobs and careers that were implied to them. Some find they don’t like the chosen career as much as they thought they would. So, they finish college, many saddled with college debt, having to set out to find something to do with their lives that has little to do with their degree. 

Many of these young students, under the surface, don’t do well with textbook learning and don’t want to go to college. They are subtly branded as “not college material” and relegated to being lucky to work for someone else the rest of their lives. Some go to various kinds of trade schools. There is certainly nothing wrong with trade school, but every implication, from the commercials on television to the way the politicians and policy makers speak is all about getting a job working for someone else. It’s never that they could own a trade business. Indeed, the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle message from American society is that if you don’t go to college, you won’t be successful, and you’ll have to settle for some low paying job your whole life. This message is not true, and we need to change it. College can be a valuable tool for those who engage to learn things, but those who think the degree guarantees success have a 50% chance of being very disappointed.

The career guidance counselors present lists of the “top (paying)” careers. The lists change slightly from year to year. Politicians and policy makers make educational funding decisions based on these lists. The only problem is that these lists represent the tip of another iceberg. Under the surface are the thousands of careers, occupations, and businesses that it takes to make the world work. The list below the surface is more fluid than the list above in the tip. New technologies render many on the list obsolete while creating many new ones. No one can make an accurate list of everything. No guidance counselor, no politician, no policy maker. Not only can we not grasp the opportunities under the surface at any given time, but we’re also absolutely no good at predicting, and responding to, the constant churn of obsolescence of certain opportunities while new ones are emerging.

How do we change this messaging and show young people how to self-discover the vast and fast-changing opportunities in the massive iceberg under the surface? First, we need to quit asking kids what they want to do or be when they grow up. Instead, we need to ask what kinds of problems they would like to solve. This changes the whole dynamic of their thinking leaving their mindset open for all the various ways they might be able to work on the solutions for which they are interested. Second, we need to quit pressuring them to figure out their career paths at such an early age. Grades K – 12 should be a time to learn a variety of knowledge that will, perhaps, uncover new interests and change the way they think about the kinds of problems they want to solve. Even for those that choose college, there should be some flexibility in the academic schedule to explore learning that is outside of the “major.” Third, we need to incorporate more project-based learning and entrepreneurial thinking in our children’s education, if not at school at home and at places like a community maker space. Project based learning makes for a better problem solver. Entrepreneurs are the ones that can look at all the problems in the mass of the iceberg and discover for themselves which to leverage into opportunities for solutions in the marketplace, that can also provide for a beneficial and fulfilling way to be successful.

For our restored and continued success in a competitive world marketplace, it is critical that we figure out how to engage and support the youth that are not flourishing in our current educational models. We have to stop showing them limited lists of the “top careers” and show them instead how to look at the world in a new way and discover for themselves what problems they would like to solve.

Update/Context: Since this article was first published in late 2020, the conversation around education and the importance of fostering agency in learners has only intensified. Too often, traditional education limits the ability for self-directed exploration and growth. To address this, the Life Skills Academy (LSA), is creating a model of learning by doing. By integrating an Entrepreneurial Mindset and project-based learning within a maker space, LSA provides an environment where individuals are empowered to take control of their own learning journeys, fostering the skills and independence needed to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

 Youth Not Good At Working With Hand Tools 

There are several characteristics shared by many of the young people we met through various youth camps and activities over the years at Fab Lab ICC. First, most are not very good at working with hand tools and in general, working with their hands. With hands-on shop classes all but gone from many of our nation’s school districts, learning to work with our hands has taken a back seat to standardized testing. Some early adopter school districts are starting to incorporate hands-on, (also known as experiential) learning. Perhaps we are moving in the right direction. 

We also see a fixed mindset in many of these young people. The emphasis has been on final results rather than the learning that takes place during the process. Many have not learned about the great knowledge available by learning from failure. Some students are hesitant to try anything new or try to make anything for fear it might not turn out well. Finally, we see students that when they get stuck on knowing what to do next, they raise their hands and stop working until a teacher or advisor can get to them and give them the answer they need to continue. 

Education Without Agency 

All of this combined can be thought of as education without agency. In this case, “agency” means self-confidence, self-reliance, self-efficacy and initiative all rolled into one. Without agency, many young people enter the work force (afraid to start a business on their own) looking for a job in the one area of study for which they went to school. Many go about their workdays waiting for the next instruction from their bosses or the company instruction manuals. They have a hard time looking around to see what needs to be done, and doing it, rather than waiting for the next instruction. 

We observed this regularly in the work-study students and other young people we used at Fab Lab ICC to help us keep the place in shape; cleaned up and ready for our members’ use. We'd give them a tour and try to point out the things we didn’t want to see; excess dust, clutter, dirty floors, etc. We used cleaning check lists and yet it always took a while for most to learn to take initiative and take care of the items needing attention without waiting for use to tell them. Some were never able to make the transition to a “self-starter” with initiative to do what needed to be done. 

Resuming the Path to Agency 

We believe experiential learning—learning by doing while learning from our mistakes-- at all levels of school would greatly help give these young people agency to go along with their education. In previous youth Boot Camps, we found that the young campers could learn about tools like Google and YouTube to answer their questions when there was not a teacher available. This discovery proved to be very empowering and helped them begin to see that they could figure many things out on their own. During those camps, we aimed to give all young people a taste of this “agency” to help enrich all aspects of their future lives; academic, personal and professional. 

School administrators and teachers have a lot on their plates right now trying to figure out how to bring students back up to speed. Let’s all strive to create a path that includes experiential learning.

My two years of hard time at the now defunct Amazon Fulfillment Center in Coffeyville, 2001 – 2003, were, well, hard, but I did learn a lot. I managed what was called the “Rambo” receive team responsible for receiving and stowing boxes of odd-lot quantities of books, CD’s, and DVD’s; less than case quantities requiring a different methodology than putting away full cases and pallets of like products. The workload varied wildly from day to day. The company forecasts of upcoming workload were worthless, yet one of the things I learned was that I could develop a sixth sense in predicting seemingly unpredictable workload conditions. The workload required a variable crew that could be adjusted from 16 to 45 people with 24 hours’ notice.

My crew was a mix of 16 – 18 full-time employees and up to 22 - 27 part-time employees we called “flexies.” Flexies had agreed to be available to come in on short notice, 12 to 24 hours, at my discretion, in exchange for higher pay than available for most other part-time work in the area.

Several people on my full-time crew were nearing retirement age. Several on my flexy crew were retired people wanting to augment their income. Even in an environment where you could be let go if your productivity numbers weren’t high enough, I learned one thing; even if their speed wasn’t quite up to that of the younger ones, the seniors were among the most reliable, consistent, and productive employees of the whole bunch. They did not possess an old way of thinking “I’m old and I just want to sit around in my retirement.”

Employment Agency for Seniors

If I wasn’t the director of Fab Lab ICC, I think I would consider launching an agency specializing in placements of seniors, those 50 and older, selling potential employers on the reliability and work ethic of this generation.  The agency would also provide equal effort to the idea of starting a business as an option to working for someone else. Finally, such agency would provide support for those who have retired, discovering that sitting around in retirement doing nothing is not what they want. People are not made to sit around and the idea that you work until retirement only to sit in a rocking chair is an old way of thinking.

One of our region’s most prolific serial entrepreneurs, Curtis Lavine, started his first company at age 59 after retiring early because he grew tired of his corporate bosses “breathing down his neck.” He went on to create 8 or 9 businesses after retirement. There are many ways to serve others in retirement, whether working, creating businesses or volunteering.

Old Thinking Doesn’t Have to Come With Age

Mindset, not chronological age, determines young or old thinking. Fixed mindset is the idea that a certain amount of knowledge is “enough,” and that when you retire, you’re through with your contributions to a better community. Growth mindset is a realization that the learning is a continuous, life-long process and that one can always figure out new ways to serve others, whether as an employee in a company, an entrepreneur serving customers or a volunteer serving constituents. The kind of mindset we possess is a matter of choice, not a matter of age.

We should be helping youth choose to have a growth mindset starting at home and continuing through school. This would increase the ratio of curious people, always seeking new knowledge and wisdom to the “know-it-alls” thinking they’ve learned enough needing no further knowledge.

Young People Lack Experience But Can Have Fresh Ideas

I had someone, Richard, on my Amazon crew. He was young and although somewhat immature, he was intelligent and on good days a pretty good employee.  On his 30^th birthday, we had some cupcakes and I said, “At 30, you don’t even know how much you don’t know.” Looking back, I see now how much I didn’t know when I was 30, yet, like Richard, in spite of my lack of knowledge and wisdom, I made some positive contributions when younger whether as an employee or as a business owner.

It Takes All Ages From All Generations

Curtis Lavine told me that it takes people from all generations to make a company or organization be the best it can be. If everyone, young or old, has a growth mindset the inexperienced youth can work beside the older, wise ones, all contributing new ideas to help the organization be better. Curtis said, “I don’t understand the new technology like the younger ones do, but I can look at a deal on paper and tell whether or not it’s a good one.”

Update/Context: Since this article was first published in August 2020, the need to confront and conquer fear has only grown more urgent. Fear can be a major barrier to personal and professional growth, but through initiatives like the Life Skills Academy (LSA), www.ibrcenter.org/Life-Skills-Academy, launched by the Innovative Business Resource Center (www.ibrcenter.org/About-Us), we are creating a space where people of all ages can face their fears head-on. LSA’s maker space environment and project-based learning approach empower individuals to explore new challenges, build confidence, and overcome the fears that hold them back—paving the way for future success.

There is plenty about which to be fearful in 2020 and the pandemic doesn’t seem to be over yet. For many, the fear and uncertainty caused by the pandemic is piled on top of the fear and uncertainty in their personal and professional lives even before the pandemic. Yet, some people seem to cope better than others. How does that work? Have some people conquered all their fears? Not likely. 

No One Conquers All Fears 

Even the most successful people in all facets of society, in candid moments, will tell you they still have fears. A more accurate headline might be “Managing Fear.” The ability to manage fear is like the ability to run a marathon. One doesn’t just wake up one day ready to run the distance. Nor does one wake up one day and all the fear is gone. In both cases, it takes time and training, making gradual progress toward the goal. In the case of fear, it is never gone completely but can be managed in a way that can sometimes lead people to do extraordinary things. 

Living With Fear and Ambiguity 

Gary Schoeniger, founder of the Ice House Entrepreneurship program that I use, often mentions the fact that entrepreneurs—and small business owners—have to learn to live with the ambiguity and fear of not knowing for sure what happens next. Nothing ever turns out as planned so the key to planning is learning to build flexibility into the plan. 

In “Ice House” we also talk about world renowned psychiatrist Albert Bandura. He could help people overcome great fears, such as a fear of snakes, in just a few hours. He helped people whose fears were severe enough to affect all aspects of their lives. Through a process he termed “guided mastery” a client would be told that there was a snake in the adjoining room and that before the session was over, the client would touch the snake. Most clients reacted hysterically to such thought. In the first step, a window curtain was opened so the client could see the snake in the next room. After the terror subsided, the door to the snake room was opened and the client coaxed into standing in the doorway then gradually, one small step at a time, inching closer to the snake. The new terror and anxiety of each step became less and less drastic. The client eventually touched the snake via the protection of a thick welding glove and finally with bare hand. For most people, a life-long fear of snakes vanished at that moment never to be a problem again. 

Bandura discovered something else about his clients who had overcome life-long, unhealthy fears of such things as snakes and spiders. The clients had less fear about other aspects of their lives. He calls this self-efficacy, a special kind of self-confidence, allowing people to better manage the fears in their lives by taking on their challenges one step at a time. Self-efficacy spills over into all aspects of life, personal, professional and academic. 

Making Builds Self-Efficacy 

We see increases in people’s self-efficacy as they learn to do new things in a maker environment. So, the best way is “to increase self-efficacy by people learning to do things they never thought they could do.” For our young people, this sets them up to be life-long learners in all areas from their continued education through their careers as either entrepreneurs or employees. It even translates into the courage and self-confidence to tackle home projects. Think about how much money over a lifetime one might save by being able to self-accomplish 85% of home projects and repairs instead of hiring elusive and expensive contractors for the job.  

Fear will never completely go away for most people but increasing self-efficacy will lead to a more confident approach to facing the fears in our lives, even during a pandemic. 

I would not want anyone to think I frequented pool halls as I was going to high school so I’ll relate this story through a friend that did. The game of snooker is a cue game played on a table larger than a pool table and with smaller pockets, making shots more difficult. In snooker, points are made by sinking the correct balls into the pockets. Besides the larger table and smaller pockets, in snooker you can actually have points deducted if you hit the wrong ball first or if your cue-ball doesn’t hit any other balls at all. When you manage to leave the balls in position where your opponent finds it difficult or impossible to hit the correct ball first, he or she is “snookered” and at a high risk of losing points. Thus, part of the strategy in snooker is to try to “snooker” the other player, forcing the loss of points. We, I mean my friend, had a class-mate named Brad that was a pretty good shot, but would get so involved in trying to snooker the opponent that he often lost the game, not making many points for himself. It’s hard to make your own points when your main focus is causing the opponent to lose points. 

Competition in the marketplace is a good thing and can be responsible for many innovations and improvements in products and services. Like Brad, however, some businesses, are so busy trying to beat their competition and make them lose that they don’t do much good at bringing added value to their customers. 

The phone companies are a good example of this. Their marketing messages are so busy telling us to dislike what the competition is doing; they don’t do such a good job of telling us what benefits we’ll receive by using their own products. 

Some auto dealerships speak of “crushing their competition” and even the auto manufacturers join in the counterproductive message of putting down their competition instead of proclaiming their own benefits. 

Health care institutions, relatively new to the concept of competition, also sometimes get caught up in this game too. They usually don’t overtly call out the other ones’ services or doctors as bad, but there are subtle messages between the lines that put down the competition instead of sticking strictly to a message that “we’re here to take care of you in the best way possible.” 

Besides the fact that many consumers are turned off and tune out the noise of these marketing messages that merely put down the competition, there’s another cost. Within a given market, there often are not many break-through innovations when all the players are down in the weeds slugging each other in their marketing messages. 

Henry Ford could have gone around talking about how poorly the horse-drawn wagons and carriages of the day were, but instead, he developed a break-through innovation and came up with a way to make cars affordable to the average family of the time. 

Competition is the backbone of free enterprise and those with an entrepreneurial mindset are always looking for ways to improve current offerings of products and services. When done right, competition can lead to break-through innovation and better use of our resources. When the players in the market merely engage in trying to “snooker” the completion, no one really gains. 

In the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, there was a news story recently about a family that had been kicked off a United Airlines airplane because their two-year old child refused to keep its mask on. This violated United Airlines’ policy requiring that all passengers wear masks even though I don’t believe you’ll find any studies suggesting that two-year-old toddlers are among the super-spreaders of the virus. The news commentator opined that the supervisor that did the kicking, who also banned the family from United for life, should have used some “common sense.” The incident has become high profile and will likely cause a few headaches for United’s PR people. This is not the first time United has caused a high-profile PR disaster by their lack of sound judgment. Anyone remember the You Tube music video called “United Breaks Guitars” from 2009 Musician David Carroll wrote and posted the song after the airline arrogantly refused to pay him for damages after his Taylor guitar was broken during a United flight. The music video, performed by Carroll, is currently at nearly twenty and one-half million views, depicts United handlers playfully throwing guitars and other luggage back and forth to each other while flight attendants ignore the complaints. The lyrics also speak of how employees told him the claim was going nowhere. If I remember correctly, I think United made good on the claim after the first few million views. 

Defining Common Sense 

One definition of common sense I found is “good sense and sound judgment in practical matters.” United Airlines did not show sound judgment in either matter; eleven years ago, or just the other day. The lack of “good sense” in today’s society is so pervasive, perhaps we should start a movement to change the phrase to “uncommon” instead of common sense. I believe this has come about after about a hundred years of taking the play out of childhood and the schools not really challenging youth to figure out how the world really works; i.e. practical matters. We wait until college to encourage (related to uncommon sense) critical thinking—the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgment—when learning critical thinking at an early age would serve people in a much better way. We now have large numbers of adults in our society that lack uncommon sense and critical thinking skills. This include many of our politicians and policy makers. 

To Mask of Not To Mask 

I am not a no masker. I did not make my decision to wear a mask because of politicians telling me I should. The decision was not because the experts told us all to wear a mask, even though in the beginning they told us all not to wear one. My decision was made as a result of my own uncommon sense and critical thinking. I believe that as we talk, laugh, sing and yell, tiny droplets of liquid come out of our mouths. I can see it in certain kinds of light. I also believe in the idea that coronavirus can spread when saliva from one person contacts another. It makes sense to me that wearing a mask will stop most of the saliva coming from the wearer’s mouth. Therefore, I believe if two people within six feet of each wear a mask, there is little chance the virus will be passed from one to the other. We require masks in the Fab Lab, not only because it is school policy, but also because it seems logical. 

Politicians have told us from the start of the pandemic to “follow the science.” Yet, they come up with policies and rules not really supported by science, but they want us to follow them anyway. The California governor bans outdoor dining when it is illogical that outdoor dining is a big spreader of the virus. Across the street from a closed outdoor restaurant, a massive outdoor, tent-covered dining area provided the NBC network a place to feed the cast and crew of a network show. That was perfectly okay. In New York, politicians arbitrarily draw two amebae-shaped zones on Staten Island. In one zone, bars must close, but in the other zone, one and one-half blocks away, open bars are just fine. This illogical thinking will cause many businesses to go out of business even when they are not big “spreaders.” 

Many of rules and guidelines of this pandemic have been inconsistent, ambiguous and unfairly applied. Few of the experts, scientists and politicians have admitted their mistakes, rather just changing their stories without much explanation, admonishing us to just follow the rules. All has made a case that common sense—good sense and sound judgment in practical matters—is not common. 

How To Make Common Sense Common Again 

It’s probably too late for many politicians and policy makers. Today’s toxic political environment is not conducive to developing “common” sense and critical thinking.  Starting with youth, once we get them back to school after the pandemic, we need to continue to offer more experiential learning that we’re seeing in some schools. In her book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” Dr. Carol Dweck presents an understanding of growth vs fixed mindset. People with a growth mindset will tend to have what we would call common sense and an ability to do critical thinking. 

A couple of times in the past, I’ve talked about the churn that happens with businesses, even in healthy economic times. Markets change, wanting new and innovative solutions to problems; some problems we’ve had for generations and some problems caused by solutions to other problems. Churn occurs as some go out of business, failing to recognize this need for constant and new solutions while new entrepreneurs come along looking for new ways to provide solutions. I talked about the unrealistic expectations by some who long for businesses in downtown and main street districts that never change, none ever going out of business. It would just never be that way, I said, with ever-changing technologies and people always being on the lookout for better solutions. I even said we should celebrate the churn. 

Unnatural Pandemic Churn 

Now, as we come through a year of unprecedented churn, not only up and down main street in rural America, but in all areas, rural and urban and not just in the United States but around the globe. It’s nothing to celebrate as thousands upon thousands of businesses will not survive the shutdowns and general disruption caused by this dreadful pandemic. Business would have been slow enough just because of the pandemic, but in some states, there were ill-conceived and arbitrary forced business shutdowns while the science is not even clear that the shutdowns have done that much good in preventing the spread of the virus. In a strange twist, some businesses have done extremely well during the pandemic. Few of them will say anything because they don’t want to be insensitive to their business neighbors who have suffered so much. 

Shutdowns Continue 

The shutdowns in some states will continue for a while, but no one can predict how long even as some states figure out how to open their economies. The narrative by the experts keeps changing on that. At first, they said there’s no way a vaccine could be ready before spring or summer of 2021 but that once everyone was vaccinated, we could get back to “normal.” Then, the vaccine came out before the end of 2020. Now, they are saying “Whoa, wait a minute. Just because you get vaccinated, you still need to wear the masks and social distance. We may not be back to “normal” until well into 2022.” In the shutdown states, it’s not clear how long the governors will drag them out. The longer the closures, the greater the churn. 

What’s In Store for Entrepreneurship? 

So, where do we go from here regarding business churn, especially those of us in the business of helping with business start-ups and small business growth? With a sad realization that this whole situation is tragic, we’re going to realize that when the dust, or pandemic as it were, settles, there will be people and there will be a marketplace and there will be room for new and innovative solutions in the marketplace and as long as we have a free, market-based economy, there will be opportunities for entrepreneurs and small business owners. 

Update/Context: Published in March 2019, this article discusses the development of soft skills in youth, emphasizing that these skills are often difficult, if not impossible, to "teach" in a traditional sense. Instead, soft skills are best cultivated from within through practical experiences, such as starting a business. As I assert in the final paragraph, "Encouraging all young people to start and run a business before they finish high school would yield significant dividends, equipping them for life, whether as future business owners or as valued employees in competitive organizations."

Critical thinking, problem-solving and leadership skills, are all a sub-set of the elusive “soft skills” our businesses say they want in their employees. In the marketplace of customers these skills are mandatory for competitive business owners to survive. Yet, traditional academia can’t produce a lecture class that yields critical thinkers, problem-solvers or leaders. 

Those traits and qualities can be developed and grown in individuals but have to come from within. Successful entrepreneurs have these qualities. By successful, I don’t necessarily mean the flamboyant entrepreneurs we see in the media nor the entrepreneurs that judge “Shark Tank.” I mean the ones in our own communities, quietly running their businesses from day to day, working to be exceptional to attract customers in a market where customers are constantly being lured away by the Internet and the dreaded box stores. Most of these people started their businesses from nothing without much money, building them up from scratch using each customer encounter to learn how to make their business better at solving the problems of the marketplace. 

We use exposure to these entrepreneurs as a way to instill these entrepreneurial qualities in the youth, and adults, we host at Fab Lab ICC. In the Entrepreneurial Mindset class, we bring in these local entrepreneurs to tell their stories of how they got started. Many don’t realize their stories have value. Some I have had to coax and beg for up to two years to get to agree to come and talk to class. Their stories have immense value. 

This is all part of developing an Entrepreneurial Community. The Entrepreneurial Community has no traditional boundaries such as city limits or county lines. Entrepreneurial thinking transcends all of that. Among entrepreneurial thinkers sharing ideas no one cares about geography, age or gender. 

We are fortunate to be a part of a Network Kansas E-Community initiative locally known as Montgomery County E-Community. Regardless of the name, we are not limited in any way by our county line. 

Within E-Community, there is an activity called the Youth Entrepreneur Challenge, a business contest (note, not business plan contest, but business contest) for individuals or teams to develop business concepts and enter a contest with substantial cash prizes. (i.e $1,000 for first place.) The 2019 Montgomery County Youth Entrepreneur Challenge competition was recently completed on the third attempt after being snowed and iced out twice. Although all the rescheduling took its toll, we had seven young people, ranging from seventh through twelfth grade competing with six business concepts. 

These young people and their business concepts were amazing. Four of the six have already launched and had sales. The other two could be launched within the next few months. All six could likely be viable with one possibly causing disruption in its industry. Nick Slavin, Coffeyville; Morgan Hugo, Cherryvale; Ryan Piper, Independence; Leann and Renee Trout, Independence; Grace Pinkerton, Caney and Alex Rodriquez, Independence made up this group of young entrepreneurs. A team from Fredonia was not able to reschedule but also had a good business idea. 

On one hand, I’m not a big fan of individuals, whether it be judges, coaches or teachers determining that one business idea is better than another. Only the marketplace can do that. But, in America, we like a contest and we like to name winners. In this Challenge, we named a first, second and third place but they were all winners each taking away some form of prize money or scholarship. It wasn’t just because they competed, it was because each was a solid idea and each represented a lot of work to prepare for the trade show display and 4-minute presentation to a panel of judges. 

The very work they each did in preparing for their businesses and this contest is the work that instills critical thinking, problem-solving and leadership skills, the skills that all customers and employers want.  

Inspiring all youth to start and run a business before they finish high school would pay big dividends in preparing them for life whether as a business owner or a valued employee in a competitive business or organization. We will conduct this Youth Entrepreneur Challenge each year, working to attract more and more youth entrepreneurs from our area. 

Update/Context: Business succession remains a significant challenge for communities across the nation. The process of transitioning a business’s ownership—whether due to retirement or an owner stepping away—can be complicated and often leaves communities at risk of losing vital services or businesses if a smooth transfer isn’t achieved.

While many programs focus on the technical details of transferring ownership, little attention has been given to the critical task of finding suitable buyers. In past discussions, I’ve emphasized how current owners should prepare their business for sale before involving professionals like accountants and lawyers. However, it recently occurred to me that communities themselves have an essential role in supporting successful business transitions, and much of this ties back to fostering an entrepreneurial mindset.

The Community’s Role

Here are some top tips that we as a community can do to help create an environment more conducive to business succession.

• Quit telling our youth to leave. If you pay attention, you’ll note that our messaging to our youth continues to be, as it has been for 60 years, that life’s opportunities lie somewhere else. We promote the idea of going off to college and that the great careers are always somewhere else besides home. There are opportunities everywhere and we need to teach our youth how to find them. Besides, as we’ve seen the last couple of years, living in the big cities is not all it’s cracked up to be.

• Quit telling youth to get a job… without also telling them they can be business owners, calling the shots in how to satisfy customers and having total control of their schedules. This messaging continues to be, as it has been for 60 years, that the ultimate goal of college education and even technical schools is to get a job working for someone else. The message almost never suggests the idea of business ownership.

• Learn to observe the marketplace.  When we speak to or counsel our youth on careers, we always look at a list of 50 or 60 careers; all are jobs, by the way, when there’s a whole iceberg of careers, including business ownership under the surface.(See “Tip of the Iceberg” at www.correllcoaching.com/Correll-Articles-Table-of-Contents/) We need to show youth how to observe the marketplace and the world around them and recognize the problems they see as opportunities.

• Don’t be afraid of the unknown. Anyone can learn almost anything they need to know to run just about any kind of business. Want to own a plumbing, electrical or heating/air business? You can enroll in a technical program, learn the trade, and then start your own business instead of going to work for someone else. Many business owners nearing retirement would gladly hire someone and train them to take over the business. Alicia Yates, a serial entrepreneur, bought Twigs Floral even though she didn’t know about flowers. Admittedly, Alicia already knew how to run a business, but she knew she could learn the flower business. Twigs flourishes today.

• Don’t like your job? Save up some money and go out on your own. Include the possibility of taking over an existing business. Admittedly, this is tough, depending on your debt and personal situation. I know people who worked hard at a job and missed the first part of their kids growing up. They quit or were laid off, took over an existing business, and now have full control of their schedules. They still work hard and sometimes long hours, but they’ve figured out how to attend school and athletic functions so they can participate in the remainder of their kids growing up.

• Realize that many of today’s youth want something different. Many of today’s youth don’t want a 9 to 5 job doing what some boss asks them to do. They want to make a difference and they want to do it in their own way. Therefore the “gig” economy of individual contractors is growing. This is especially true of the students who don’t do well in the traditional academic environment. There are many potentially great entrepreneurs and small business owners among the student populations that don’t quite fit in with the crowd of traditional college bound students.

As community members, if we want to increase the chances of our good small businesses transferring to new ownership, we need to change our thinking and our messaging and realize that there are people, young and old, among us who have the potential to take over these businesses as they become available. We must learn to recognize both the opportunities and people that can make this happen.

The Business Owner’s Role

This is an excerpt of my previous article about business secession planning. (See “Business Succession Planning” at www.correllcoaching.com/Correll-Articles-Table-of-Contents/ to see the entire article and Top 10 list referenced below.)

The topic of business succession always comes up in discussions about helping rural American small towns prosper. It came up recently in an entrepreneur’s lunch where one attendee mentioned two well established businesses in our county with aging owners. “What’s going to happen to these businesses when the owners can no longer operate them?” No one likes to see established businesses simply close instead of transitioning to new owners. Here’s a top 10 list of things business owners should do to set up a smooth transition to a new owner. Notice the expensive consultants come at the end. You should work out your strategy to accomplish the first seven before initiating the last three.