The 3 Most Important Lessons To Teach Children About Marketing

Lemonade stands are banned in 34 states.

Make It Stand Out.

Remember the days of neighborhood lemonade stands? You'd set up a card table with some lemony Crystal Light and dixie cups on the corner while neighbors dropped nickels into the till.

It was fun and educational. And now... It's illegal in 34 US states.

While the logic of lemonade stand bans is about food safety and taxes, losing this childhood right of passage comes at a future cost. So, it's time to take things into our own hands.

Here are the three most important lessons kids need to learn about marketing.

#1: Marketing has one goal to make you take action

My daughter is an avid consumer of YouTube content and asks to buy whatever item set influencer is selling.

I've helped her to understand that marketing has one job -- that's to convince you to act. That action is usually buying something.

Marketing is a vehicle to help us match products or services to our personal needs and wants. Sometimes it solves a problem or other times it's for fun. And yes, occasionally there are glossy packages filled with garbage.* (True story)

How to teach your kid about intent? Turn on an ad and ask them to pick out these 4 things:

1. Product: What is the ad selling?

2. Promotion: What are they saying about it?

3. Place: Where can you buy it?

4. Price: How much does it cost?

Kids learn fast. If they understand the building blocks of marketing then it paves the way to be savvy consumers and business leaders.

#2: Not Everything is Meant for You

I talk about this lesson with my clients frequently. Marketing is done best when your product, message, and audience match. You can't be everything to everyone all the time.

I ask my clients to work backward when defining their target customer: "Who do you NOT want as a client?"

First, they say, "We want everyone." Then we deep dive into those parts of a business relationship that can sour fast.

1. Do you want customers who can't afford your product?

2. How about customers outside your geographic range of service?

3. At what point do you break even from a sale? Do you need a certain size or term of a contract to break even? What would you lose money on?

4. Are there attributes of a client profile that would make it hard to do business with them?

We then talk about opportunity cost. Marketing is not free. Spend your time, resources, and dollars wisely by knowing who your would-be buyers are and finding them where they are at.

Kids need to understand this too. They need to know when they ARE and ARE NOT the target audience for a product or service.

When they come to you with a request to buy, follow up with some questions:

1. What is the product?

2. What need does it solve?

3. Is it replacing another product or service you are currently using?

4. What information can you provide me to justify the purchase?

My 8-year-old loses interest in whatever toy or must-have pretty quickly when asked to switch from her 'lizard brain' to her 'judge brain.' It's reverse neuromarketing.

#3: Cost, Price, Value

One of the great things about having a lemonade stand is learning about cost, price, and value. Ingredients cost money. People will only pay 'so much' for a dixie cut of bad lemonade. And, while being cute kids may increase the value of the item, it isn't the only thing that impacts a purchasing decision.

Since real lemonade stands are banned, I did a simulation for my daughter. Not as good as the real thing but it gives a taste of how many factors are involved in a business decision.

We used the classic computer game Lemonade Stand on Cool Math Games. My daughter quickly learned that you should not spend ALL your money on ice as it melts every day. And, that no imaginary or real customer will pay $20 for a Dixie cup.

Once she got into it, she started to make predictions such as 'if it's hot and hazy, then I should add more ice and raise the price." Or, "If I lower the cost, I need to reduce the number of ingredients to put in."

After each 'day' or round, the computer tells you how much you sold - your number, percentage of customers served, customer satisfaction score, and efficiency.

By the end of the game, you quickly realize that if you subtract your costs you only made about $3 over a month.

Try this simulation to teach cost, price, and value. The lessons learned extend far beyond business.