Business buzz

SUTHERLANDS RIVER - The cafeteria at East Pictou Middle School was a marketplace of a different kind Wednesday afternoon.
Usually it's a busy spot at lunchtime, but the lineups weren't limited to the lunch counter. The school's Grade 7 students have been hard at work for the last five weeks; they've put business plans together, acquired loans and developed three unique products for the student population.
The activity was part of a Junior Achievement project dubbed A Business of Our Own. It's a pilot, designed to provide students with the opportunity to learn the entrepreneurial spirit and to gather some fundamental business smarts.
The common experience - Pictou County entrepreneurs may agree - is that nothing in business ever goes 100 per cent according to plan. But that's fine. The unknown variables often provide lessons just as valuable as known variables.
Junior Achievement program manager Liz Langille said the East Pictou project was run with the help of community volunteers. They provide encouragement and guidance, she said, but they don't instruct.
"They don't tell them what to do, there's no instruction - where they may get that in high school. If they make a mistake where they might actually fail, we allow that to happen," she said. "You learn just as much from failure as you do from success."
Normally, Junior Achievement takes in students from grades 9-12. Langille said she's hopeful this exercise will entice some to enter the program in a couple of years.
Nicole Shaw, who guided one class in their efforts to develop, well, a candy-gram stocking delivery service, said her group had to improvise. For example, they intended to put a candy cane inside the stockings, but school policy prevents the distribution of such sugary treats.
Their workaround: sugar-free candy canes.
"That was a good experience for them, because they had a plan and a goal and there was a twist. They had to work around solving that problem," Shaw said.
"It's really a learning experience - and not just for them if they want to have a business on their own. It's more about how life is, even after school."
The exercise also played on the individual strengths of students.
"Where someone might be good at math and wanted to do the bookkeeping, some might be really good with people and want to be in the sales. Some were artistic and wanted to be involved in the promotion. So, it touched a lot of different personalities."
Andre Desjardin, who guided another group in the development of personalized magnets, said the students he worked with had few pre-sale jitters, thanks to a number of pre-orders taken for their product.
"We had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do. My group wasn't worried whatsoever."
He said the students benefit from the exercise, learning some of the terminology involved and the processes that happen in the business world.
"People that pick up their pre-orders - that happens in the real world. You need to get money from somewhere, so you have to borrow - that happens in the real world too," he said.
Student Rycha Levy said her class took a vote to produce and sell custom-made duct-tape wallets.
"We got a loan from the office, which was about $35. We have to pay them back. So whatever money we have, we have to pay back the loan."
And any profits they make count towards a school trip.
"It's really fun once you get out there everybody's hustling and bustling, trying to pick out a wallet," Levy said.