If Mike Storey and his friend Mike Yost, both juniors at Hersey High School, have one thing in common besides their first names, it’s their passion for cars and keeping them spotless.
So when the time came for the friends to craft a business plan for an assignment for their entrepreneurship class, the 17-year-olds brainstormed and realized they could earn money doing something they enjoyed.
With that, B+ Detailing was born. After all, the Arlington Heights school’s parking lot was filled with hundreds of cars, most of which, they figured, were in need of a good cleaning. Their work could be done during lunch hour, after school or during the entrepreneurship class, which was offered for the first time this school year.
“After the first few cars we cleaned, we were shocked at how good we were,” said Yost, who added that within three months, they had cleaned 55 cars, most of them owned by faculty members.
“We really gained a lot of confidence. We had a lot of word-of-mouth customers.”
They also made a $750 profit.
For Kevin Muck, the teacher who brought the class to the school’s business department, the students’ hands-on experience and success in their own businesses is the outcome he wanted.
Previously, the department offered accounting and marketing classes, but there were no courses allowing students to apply their knowledge.
“We wanted a class that would incorporate all of their learning,” Muck said.
“In this class, students spend time doing accounting, marketing, sales and production. … They get exposure to everything.”
About 75 juniors and seniors enrolled in three sections of the class in September. During the first semester, the classes focused on a business idea that involved selling and producing customized calendars.
Students experienced all facets of running a business, from making cold sales calls to local businesses to creating the final product. Sales territories were divided among students who went out to local businesses in pairs offering advertising space on the calendars.
Eric Kane, 18, a senior, discovered he had a knack for sales after selling more that $1,000 in advertising space, earning him the rank of top salesman.
“Going up to people and talking to them at first was not easy,” Kane said. “But now you could send me anywhere and I could do it cold.”
By January, the entrepreneurship students had sold 154 calendars and made a $1,685 profit.
During the second semester, students were divided into teams and asked to get their own business idea started. In doing so, they would be able to compete for a spot at the Institute for Entrepreneurship’s 5th annual Young Entrepreneur Conference and Business Competition conference, a three-day national event that began Wednesday in Milwaukee.
Students wrote a business plan and created a visual presentation describing their product or service. They were required to show a profit.
They presented their business concept to students and faculty, who selected the three teams to attend the conference. The three were B+ Detailing; Personalized Products, an offshoot of the calendar concept; and Shimmer Dezines, shirts with rhinestone messages.
“When you go to school, entrepreneurship doesn’t seem to be an option for a lot of young people,” said Victoria Van Asten, president of the not-for-profit Institute for Entrepreneurship of Appleton, Wis.
More than 50 student-businesses will compete in the conference. Prizes include start-up cash and computers.
“We really encourage young people to do this on their own,” Van Asten said.
