Running a business can be daunting. But imagine if you could rope your whole family into it… Great news, we’re going to be talking you through how easy it is to get creating business opportunities by delegating stuff to your kids!
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Episode 102 with Jonathan and Renee Harris from Parent Their Passion
Nervous about going all in without a sneaky peek? Don’t worry – we’re covering your bases with this one!
Watch the promo of the conversation about creating business opportunities on your Apple device or on YouTube
Here’s what’s in this episode about creating business opportunities (using your family)!
(Table of contents)
- Listen now via your favourite app
- Who are Jonathan and Renee and what is “Parent their Passion”? (01m20s)
- Family struggles and avoiding the move (05m29s)
- Working the marketplace (08m30s)
- Nurturing children to win in business (18m28s)
- How do they choose (what to do)? (31m00s)
- Wendywoo’s takeaway
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Who are Jonathan and Renee and what is “Parent their Passion”?
Jonathan and Renee Harris run www.parenttheirpassion.com, a website that teaches parents how they can go about creating business opportunities.
They do this by helping to identify and develop your 12-16 year old’s talents and interests to create something remarkable, and marketable.
They have 9 kids themselves and a selection of them have gone on to run their own businesses.
The proof of the pudding as they say!
Family struggles and avoiding the move
This is another one of our many businesses we’re featuring on “Making Conversations Count” that have been born out of lockdown.
Jonathan started the ball rolling with his own business opportunity after he was given some bad news in his job.
When he came home and shared it, that was when everything changed.
They used their own kids as guinea pigs and figured out a system for creating business opportunities within their family.
Renee – “So our oldest was interested in photography. He had a camera that we got from a relative and he was already using it, taking pictures and joined just taking pictures of things outside or his friends doing funny jumps on their skateboards or whatever. But we also had a problem that we need to solve. And because our product was online, we needed some decent photography product shots of our products that looked better than what I could take. And so since he was already getting good at that, we told him, well, how about if you will get some of the special lighting or equipment that you need, but you come and help us with this? So that was just like I think that’s the first trigger for us to see, like, oh, we can involve the kids in the business.”
Working the marketplace
It wasn’t always so flawless for Renee and Jonathan.
Yep, their son is flying now, having started out with a camera and shooting his mum’s product videos. But as with all stories, this one started somewhere far more humble.
Selling cosmetic products at markets.
And these products hadn’t exactly targeted their ideal customer in the first instance.
Renee – “You would think it’d be okay only women or only moms or only people who wash their hands a lot because it was a dry skin issue. But no, I would have these farmers home, these ranchers and these men, these mechanics, and they came by. They would come to our booth because they thought and my boys were giving samples, they thought it was cheese because it looked like little pieces of cheese. So these men are coming because they think it’s going to be free food.”
Nurturing children to win in business
There’s an explosive conversation buried in this episode around school curriculums and about how sometimes you have to work a little harder to get what you want for your kids.
The narrative doesn’t quite stretch as far as to say the model has become outdated and obsolete, but it does raise the question of is the syllabus now serving students?
As they suggest, if they’re not enjoying what they’re learning, then perhaps it’s time to take things more in house and have a very intentional impact on their futures.
Like, I don’t know.. maybe having them get stuck in with helping the family in creating business opportunities that everyone can benefit from!
Wendy shares how her daughter absolutely benefited from a recent move to Scotland, in terms of her studying options.
If you get nothing else from this episode, you’ll certainly learn how there’s an opportunity to take more hands on control of your child’s future very early on.
Jonathan – “One of the dangers of a formal education is whereas the content might be good in a particular course or in a particular class that you’re taking, that’s not the issue per se, though. That could be another problem, is that when you’re good at something, you take your course. Of course, the next thing is, well, then you need to go to the next level and then the next level because you’re good at it, but there’s no connection to, okay, do I want to actually this is what I want to do for a living. Maybe I’m good at it, but I actually hate the mechanics of what it takes to deliver the value in the real world.”
How do they choose (what to do)?
Wendy has some very real first hand experience of creating business opportunities – with her daughter.
In her case, her daughter Meghan was enduring one career.
And then following some lockdown extra vocational work she undertook for her mother, she totally switched lanes.
Now, she’s running a full time business as a copywriter.
An excerpt from the transcript
Wendy – “I’ve certainly seen the same with my children. My eldest actually came to work for me while she was on furlough in lockdown. It was purely because, who do I trust to do this task for me? She knows who I am, she knows how I work, because she’s grown up with me running a business alongside her growing up, it just worked to the point where it was one project for a couple of days and it turned into about 18 months, one day a week in the end. It was just like, well, where did that come from? She’s gone on to go into a completely different career based on that first project that I gave her. Interestingly, when we were moving, we were digging up all sorts of paperwork from the attic and this sort of thing, and we were finding teacher awards that she was given in assembly for her writing skills, yet she was talented and gifted and talented for maths and art, yet the teachers saw something in her English and now she’s a copywriter. It just goes to show, doesn’t it, that by being involved, the value for her was a bit of extra pocket money, so that she wasn’t just sort of treading water with her time. She put that money into finding out more and learning more and progressing herself more. And I think it comes back around to what you were saying, Jonathan, about value is it’s got to be practical, hasn’t it, for our children. They’re not interested. If you say to them, oh, I’ll give you pocket money, it really doesn’t make any difference to them. But if you say, oh, well, if you want to go to the cinema or if you want to go shopping at the mall for some new clothes, I’ll give you X amount to spend so you can buy that new top. So it’s got to have a real value tagged to it than just the money.”
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Wendywoo’s Takeaway from the conversation about creating business opportunities
“The discussion between Wendy, Renee and Jonathan centres around the idea that children need to find practical value in their studies in order to be motivated to learn.
My own daughter found this in extra vocational work she undertook during the lockdown, for me.
So really, she’s living proof of the value that creating business opportunities within the roost can present!
Because she has since gone into a different career field based on her writing skills.
Jonathan suggests that children need to see how what they’re learning can be applied in the real world in order to be motivated, and Wendy agrees.
Is it time that you sat down with your family and investigated if there’s something you can all do together to take the whole household to new business heights?”
Jonathan and Renee’s links
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