Comment

Starting My Own Small Business

Matthew Johnson and Diane Hansen

Editor's note: This Comment documents the experiences of a high school student who is blind with starting a small business to meet his unique Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals and objectives and for his personal learning and growth. The student, Matthew Johnson, who is a junior in the Plan II program at Muskegon High School in Muskegon, Michigan, chronicled his steps of preparation for setting up a mobile snack service for the staff members of a local, self-contained special education school under the direction of his teacher consultant for the visually impaired and mobility instructor, Diane Hansen, and his braille instructor. Matthew's career goal after high school is to find supported employment in food service. At the end of the school year, this innovative project proved highly successful in many areas of socialization, money handling, community mobility, confidence, and personal profit for the student. Within this article, the reader will find many suggestions for application to other students with similar IEP goals.

My name is Matthew Johnson and I am a junior at Muskegon High School in Muskegon, Michigan; I attend classes in the special resource program. I have been totally blind since birth and was adopted as a young baby from Seoul, South Korea. I have been a braille reader all my life. I knew that I need more practice with daily living skills, so at the beginning of the school year in the fall of 2004, I began thinking of starting my own business to provide me with opportunities to communicate with the public and handle money. My teacher consultant and mobility instructor and my braille instructor thought this plan would help me meet many of my IEP goals, including the following skills: daily math, money handling, socialization, orientation to the community, and mobility. I am writing this Comment to share my experiences with others.

Business model

The very first thing I had to do was decide what kind of business I was going to have. After a lot of thought, I decided selling snacks door to door would be a good moneymaker. Finding the right school that would allow me to sell my snacks was a problem. I finally got permission to sell snacks to the teachers at Wesley School, which is a special education school in Muskegon. Next, I had to decide on a name for my business. I came up with, "Matthew's Snacks on Wheels."

The second step was to get the opinions of the staff members at Wesley on what they would want to buy, so I typed up and printed out a survey with choices of snacks. I went from classroom to classroom and asked the staff members to vote on their choices. After that, I went back to my school and tallied all the votes to find out which were the most popular items. I decided to sell seven items: Cheez-It crackers, Rice Krispies Treats, Nutri-Grain bars, Planters peanuts and honey roasted peanuts, Butter Lite popcorn (popped fresh before I go), and Sunbelt granola bars. I made a shopping list, and compared prices at different wholesale stores. During a mobility lesson, I went to each store and asked for assistance to compare the prices. I had to ask my mother and father for some seed money to start this business. They gave me $60 to buy the products.

Setup and inventory

Now I had to find a way to sell and display the items. With help, I got a box with dividers, a push cart, and a sign in braille and print. Before I started selling, I thought I would use a change apron with pockets for dollar bills and coins. Later on, I found that a cash register would help me keep the money better organized and give change more quickly than an apron. Once I got the cart, sign, and register together, I worked on traveling and navigating my cart through the hallways and learning the room numbers to each classroom, until I felt I was ready to start selling.

Before I left for the first day of selling at Wesley School, I prepared my cash register. I made sure I had enough bills and coins for making change and counted out the starting amount of money. When I returned to my school, I recounted the money and figured out my profit for the day. In the 11 weekly visits I made, I earned between $10 and $15 each time. The profit went toward restocking popular items and trying new products, but I also bought some things for myself, including a talking watch.

Sometimes I got ideas about adding new products from my customers. At the beginning, I started selling all healthy snacks, but some of my customers wanted chocolate. I found that chocolate was a big seller. I got things like Little Debbie cakes, brownies, and Hershey's candy bars. Every time I would run out of chocolate, the customers would become disappointed. Needless to say, I learned to always have some form of chocolate on my cart. In order to keep my customers happy, I also added Sunny Delight juices to my inventory, which I kept cold by storing them in a small cooler in the cart on selling days and storing them in a refrigerator for the rest of the week.

When I ran out of certain items, I had to go and restock them during one of my mobility lessons. I would evaluate the inventory to see which items I needed to restock. Once I knew what I needed, I called the store to see if they had the products and asked for the current prices. Next, I made a list and added the prices together to know how much I needed for shopping. I got the money to purchase new stock from my profit till.

Customer service

Experience taught me how to treat my customers with respect and kindness. On my first day, I learned how to introduce myself to my customers, talk about the products, make change with some confidence, and make conversation with everyone I met. When I went to a classroom, I politely knocked instead of barging in unannounced. I used a special greeting and asked them if they want to purchase any items. I also told them about any new products. I offered to get the items for them or asked them if they wanted to get them for themselves. When they selected their item or items, I added up the total in my head, told them what they owed me, accepted their payment, opened up the register, and gave them the change. I used this time to also visit with my customers and get to know them better.

This has been a good learning experience because I now have a better understanding of the world of small business, and how to handle money and serve customers. This has been a positive opportunity for me, and I hope to conduct my own business again next year. I want to thank Wesley School, all of my customers there, my teachers, and my parents for helping me make this a successful business.

Matthew Johnson and Diane Hansen, Muskegon Public Schools, Muskegon, Michigan; e-mail: <dhansen@mpsk12.net>.

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