Day 9: Presentations with fun not fear

One of the primary reasons I came up with this idea was to encourage my quiet girl to relax and learn that public speaking can be fun.

Up until now, we've focused on math skills (calculating percentages for donations, etc); more thoughtful writing (vision statements) and even social issues (which causes they wanted to support). 

But now it was time to dig into the pile of bags from the consultant kit and get to presentations.

I was running late making dinner so I thought I'd throw the idea out there and see if the girls would be interested. They were.

We talked about how a company like Thirty-One's success is entirely based on communications. They are relying on the consultants to communicate in person and online to sell the product. Therefore, they've hired talented professionals to put together their print and online media in the most compelling, enticing manner possible.

Out of the consultant kit, I chose the Cinch Sac. I chose it for a couple of reasons because: 1. I thought it was one of the more kid-friendly products and 2. I thought it seemed overpriced and not like such a great item from my experience with cinch sacs put out by other companies.I thought this might give them more of a challenge.

Well first off, I opened the packaging and quickly discovered this wasn't close to similar bags I've seen or the kids have gotten for free as promotions at the State Fair, etc. This is actually a really nice bag with a lot of carefully considered finishes that I bet will keep it lasting for a longtime.

Then I gave the bag to the kids. I told them to get a piece of scrap paper and their thesaurus. Their task was to brainstorm, individually, all the attributes of the bag and some good suggested uses to be used as the basis for a 3 minute presentation that I would film. I encouraged them to look up new and better adjectives and to consider their audience. Were they talking to the moms who would do the buying or the kids who would put it on a wishlist?

Immediately, they began taking turns carefully investigating the bag's features and then scribbling down notes. See the photo above. They were laughing, hiding their ideas from each other and filling their pages with writing - even the 7 year old. Getting the 7 year old to participate was great because she tends to be a perfectionist and if she can't write the entire page without a spelling error, she's not interested. But somehow, she got caught up in the fun and was writing away.

So the plan is that sometime this weekend we will film their first "draft" of their presentation. The older two need to give me their presentations written up also.

Then they'll watch their own. After, I'll show them some of the videos the home office provides for consultants and ask them to compare and contrast. What did they communicate well? What could use improvement? How was their delivery? Did they effectively reach their target audience?

Using their self-critique, they'll get a chance for changes and a second filming. 

My hope is that there is a vast improvement between each one's first and second draft, that they'll feel a little less self-conscious with an item to focus on and they'll ask to do more. 

Could we accomplish this without the actual bags? Of course. We could go to the pantry and pick out any product and pretend to sell it. However, we wouldn't necessarily have the professional marketing material to compare and contrast. You could look at a commercial but that's sort of the final product. What we have access to is more of the how & why to present the item as deemed by the company. And then there's the added fun of raising money for the non-profits they chose and the family goal (which still hasn't been determined).

I'll let you know how it goes. 

I'm so pleased that this project brings out laughter with them. The bad news is that they've made me promise not to post their videos here or on fb. Maybe if they come out really well, the girls will change their minds. 

Oh hey - great news! Thirty-One is running a special for the first two weeks of October. You can now join as a consultant for just $1. With this option, you don't get the kit of goods but you can quickly earn some product with your first sales. 

The way Thirty-One works you pay a $14.50 per month fee to access your online website. But you could sign up for the $1, pay the first $14.50 and then cancel before the second month kicked in if you just wanted to try it for a little bit and see if it's worth it. 

Or who knows, you might get hooked and love to earn the 25% commissions for some extra holiday cash. Plus, you also might just sign-up to get the discount for your own holiday shopping. Send me an email if you have any questions: mylifewithpurls at gmail.com.

Here is a link about the $1 sign-up. We sure would appreciate you signing up under me, Becky Smith, to support Project Toteschooling. 

Oh - if you're interested in the Cinch Sac above, here's a link. They are $20 each and really are nice - grommets at the openings where the cord goes through; the cord is squishy and much softer than that hard cord some on the market have and there's a huge zipper compartment on the front. The fabric is multiple thicknesses with the pocket and really easy to wipe clean. This isn't just a kid's bag by any means. 

One Month in

Project Toteschooling is 1 month down, 9 to go.

As I expected, it was a slower start than the girls thought but, still it was a start.

I don't think there's anything wrong with learning things don't always come easy and perseverance is important. 

While the fundraising aspect might have been slow, the learning and motivation to learn was far off the charts of my expectations. 

From studying non-profits and therefore becoming aware of the different types of need in our world to learning & crafting their own mission & vision statements, this was fun and meaningful work.

I'm really happy I followed my crazy idea and went for it.

There's still today to order to get in on our fundraising efforts for our September npo that supports veterans. 

If you'd like to, here's a link. 

Or, if you want to get in on the fun, Thirty One is offering a kit-free joining special of $1 for two weeks starting tomorrow- October 1st!

You can use it to get the 25% product discount for some holiday shopping; to earn some extra money by having a party or 2 or as homeschool curriculum like we are. 

Here's a link to find out about the consultant special. If you prefer, you can still sign on with the purchase of the consultant kit for $99. The site will have the info about the $1 special starting tomorrow, Saturday, Oct. 1st

So, here's how our first month went:

Hey, it's $25.63 more than we donated last month 😀 

Pillows for Pups

A new month is coming up & Project Toteschooling has chosen The Bend Spay & Neuter Project as our beneficiary in October.

One of next month's hostess specials is their great customizable pillows. They're 70% off for the host of a qualifying party.

The above is one I designed for our family. The Thirty One website walks you through the personalization line by line & then let's you see a mock-up of the finished product before you order. Kind of fun, right?

And next month they will be adding embroidery options to the pillows. 

Here'a link to the Thirty One site. If you'd like to host an online or catalog, email me  at mylifewithpurls at gmail.com. 

If you don't want to host a party you can purchase the pillows at regular prices at the website also. 

Thanks for supporting Project Toteschooling!

Day 6: Learning with a Total Flop

Quincey's Project Toteschooling Mission Statement

When we started this project, I warned the girls that despite the fact that I had no doubts about the learning opportunities they'd have, I was concerned about selling the products to keep the project going.

You see, we are a maker family who make lot of great projects like these bags and we also value supporting small, local business. 

I told them that my fb feed is often inundated with sales promos for "At Home Party" products that I have largely stopped responding to because they seem neverending and I'm trying to instill the "less is more" approach with my kids and material possessions. I have a fb friend who only reaches out to me with invitations to the numerous parties that she hosts and we've discussed if we think this is respectful or not.

For that reason, I was not comfortable with pushing the sales side of this project too much and it showed.... Our first online party was a total and complete flop. Not one person joined our fb group or ordered anything.

Well, the sales side of it may have been a flop but the learning side surely wasn't.

So today's Thirty-One ended up happening over breakfast because the discussion naturally got started as to why didn't people buy anything.

We covered how much we did or didn't promote the party and then quickly got to "perceived value." Did people see these products as being worth their pricetags?

So off to the laptop to do some investigating. We picked the $15 zipper pouch as our product to study - few materials, and a product we have made in the past ourselves made it a more simple cost analysis.

Using Amazon and online fabric retailers we discovered that we probably couldn't find the exact fabric (as it's laminated with a rubber like product on the inside of the Thirty-One bag) but found something comparable. Then there was the zipper, thread, binding tape (the seams inside the bag are covered so it's all completely smooth) and the graphic. 

We had chosen the bag stenciled with the bicycle design. That meant we had to look up the cost of bicycle stencils, paint and stencil brushes. 

But wait, fabric is sold by the yard and we only need two pieces that had finished measurements of 9" x 12." Meaningful use of area calculations coming up! We calculated the area of our needs vs. the area of the yard of fabric and determined we could get 9 per yard.

Then we divided our stencil products by 9 because their quantity could be used for the entire 9 bags vs. zippers that required 1 per bag.

Ultimately, the kids calculated that each zipper pouch would cost them $3.54 in materials for a plain pouch or $5.31 per bag for a stenciled pouch. 

So how does that compare with the $15 the company is charging? Are we missing anything?

Instead of telling, I tried to lead the kids to discover we hadn't included the cost of labor - which in this case would be their time. This lead to a discussion of piecework and how our bag making differs from an industrial company's production line and more importantly, what is their time worth. I'm constantly trying to get them to understand allocation of time - that choosing to do one thing means choosing not to do another. 

But there was still another piece. If we were going to get the prices per bag listed above, we had to be willing to put out the money for 9 bags total as the fabric was only offered by the yard. So in fact, we'd have to put out $35 or more to get the 9 bag price.

And finally, we talked about quality. Would our bag be made to the same level of quality as one made on a professional machine, by a person who has made 100's if not 1000's of them before? Would our little sewing machine be the same quality as their industrial machine? Why or why not? 

After all that, the kids think the bag is a great deal for $15. What do you think?

In the end, it was a productive breakfast and they don't know it yet but when we get back to schoolwork I'm going to ask each one to prepare an opinion or why or why not this bag is a value and present it to the group. Of course, we'll video it too so we can play it back and learn about what makes a great presentation.

Wow - all from the discussion of one little zipper pouch and a flopped party. 

I guess our project isn't a fail after all even if our first party was. 

If you are interested in shopping the online Thirty-One catalog & supporting our project, here's a link.

If you'd like to get the great $99 curriculum, I mean consultant kit and start a similar project, here's a link for that.

Tomorrow will most likely be spent finishing up the presentations, filming and having them self-critique their performances. I'll ask if they will let me post one. Oh and we need to go back and finalize their personal vision and mission statements. I'm trying to think of a great art project or design project to record them on - still searching for ideas.

Have a great day!!

Day 4: Defining a Mission

"Project Toteschooling" is quickly becoming the kids' favorite thing we do. Talk about motivating! Chores done quickly and without fussing is a miracle in our house and it's happening.

Tennis team has started so our lesson about missions got cut short. But they begged to start at 8pm last night and so we did.

We talked about mission and vision statements by talking about some familiar, area non-profits. Then we looked up their websites to find what they actually were.

In our project, we will be donating each of the 9 months between now and June. So, I asked them to research any non-profits they wanted local, state, national or international, and write down the 9 most effective mission statements.

They quickly got on it. I can't wait to see which issues and NPO's they deem as worthy of their 9. Maybe it will give me a bit more insight into their tween/teen minds.

Last night, I found some great lessons on Pinterest about creating mission and vision statements for yourself. It could be really fun to have the kids work on writing those. I think that will be the next step after writing our missions.

Here are a couple of those links. They are both infographics so I think they'll work great with kids:

* How to write a personal mission statement

* How to write a personal vision statement

Can't wait to get the day started. Because it's Friday, I'm thinking of letting them start with it first this morning. The box still hasn't arrived - hopefully today but we've been having issues with our shipper lately. Fingers crossed.

We've started an online party - there's a great sale going on and your items can be shipped to you anywhere. If you want to help us with this project, here's a link.

Here's the link for the consultant kit if you want join us. It's $99.

Day 3: Project Toteschooling

Let's just say the first day was a success that exceeded my expectations and came on the perfect day!!

Yesterday was just tough. I don't know why. It started out great. I successfully dragged myself out of bed, got organized before the kids were up, made coffee for Lled and went for a walk. I should have known that the dog pooper scooper fiasco was an omen. I can't even tell you about it. Just know, I get an A for effort.

So, yesterday afternoon, we needed to hit the restart button. The "we'll only do this if we finish our work" rule was broken - Day 1.

But here's what happened. Everyone grabbed some scratch paper and sat on the couch. I connected the computer to the tv and showed the kids on a big screen a quick tour of what Thirty-One was, it's mission and what it sells.

They liked these 2 videos:
 1. About their mission of empowering women 

 2. About their charitable giving program

Those videos sparked so much discussion and enthusiasm that I could never have predicted. I kept hearing one of the girls saying at different times, "This is AMAZING!", "This is the BEST thing we've done."

We ended up in a discussion about their emotional reaction to the videos - how did they feel after watching them? (excited, motivated); Did they think that was by accident? How much effort would it take to put all that information with such a compelling delivery in 3 short minutes.

Future project inspiration - Each girl will be given one cause to create a 3 minute video with graphics, etc to motivate viewers to action. Maybe the older girls could tie this in with an issue being talked about in the election? And Lilly could make it about something she loves like adopting dogs from the animal shelter.

Looking at the consultant kit on the big screen got squeals of excitement as they "called" who was going to get which bag. Silly girls.

Next, Commissions.
Love this. Math, math and more math and they were racing to get their computations done so they could see how much we could earn!

First, we started with what commission were, other jobs that use them, etc. They said they now understand the incessant local car dealership ads on the radio. We talked about communication - does the high pressure car sales guy make you want to stay and talk or leave? If you don't like that, which communication style would work better?

Second, I used the $500 average per party sales total and the commission rate given to me by our upline leader to get the girls calculating.

We started with the number of parties they thought we could have between October and June. They debated their positions a bit and then both set them (I fear woefully high) but I kept repeating in my mind, it's their project, it's their project. Then divided it to find how many that would be in a month.

Harper's goal - 23 parties total - about 2-3 each month.
Quincey's goal - 36 parties total - 4 parties each month 

Oh wow! This project may become a lesson in dealing with disappointment but I won't tell them that. Sure, 4 parties a month! Let's do it!

The absolute best part of the day was when they then did the math of ...
Total # of parties x commissions = Total Earned /2 = How much they will donate & How much will go to a family "something."

Harper has us donating $1437.50 and Quincey has us donating $2250.00

This session was going long and so we didn't get too detailed in what those donations could mean but they were thrilled, I mean screaming at the idea of donating so much money and the impact it could have thrilled. I think kids sometimes feel so "little." My girls do all have very charitable hearts, they even decided to name our homeschool St. Teresa's Academy after Mother Teresa. So this will be motivating.

Programming Project Idea - I thought I'd see if they could figure out a little widget or program an app that would track our earnings and donations. Their dad could help. That would be a good way to get him in on the fun - I can't see him promoting bags. ha ha!

We ended up having lunch out and talking about naming our project. There were lots of suggestions: Totes of Fun, Smithgirls' Totes and then Harper came out with the keeper, ToteSchooling! I love it! Cheesy, fun and perfect!

So, Project ToteSchooling has officially begun! Maybe the consultant kit will arrive today!

Day 2's Goals will be to:
* Write a Mission Statement for our project. Thirty-One encourages women to share their "Why" for being a consultant. I think we need ours written down so the girls don't get too excited and off track. Focus is on learning communications, writing, computer skills, math, charitable giving, value of a dollar, etc. I may need to write that in bold. :)

* Create a Customer Group on FB. They'll have to write the little blurb description. It's called ToteSchooling. We won't add anyone unless we ask or they do. If you want to be in to see what happens, message me on FB. You don't have to buy anything to be in the group.

* Create a graphic for ToteSchooling

* Set-up our Online Launch Party!!

Ok. So far so good!
Remember, if you want to join us on this adventure, here's the link.