Business Opportunities Weblog

April 2, 2007 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Sheboygan Press:

It all started when Brook Bignell was 9 years old.

Brook, now 11, joined her mother, Joan, in her fudge-making endeavor — Joanie’s Home Fudge & Sweets — fulfilling her own desire to learn about running a business.

“I needed someone to help me with my business and it was a way I could spend time with Brook,” said Joan Bignell. “Slowly it’s getting built and it’s for the future. Something Brooke can do.”

Brook’s main duties include stirring the fudge until it gets too hot and bubbly for her to handle, covering and labeling the plastic containers of fudge, shaking the containers to make sure the fudge levels and sometimes decorating the packages.

Brook serves as sales person alongside her mother. She has her own (sales) pitch. First of all she smiles and talks to people and gets them to stop.

She recently began selling her line of rainbow-sprinkled, chocolate-covered mini-pretzels for $1 per 2-ounce bag. She’s also working on different shaped balloon animals, which she hopes to begin selling in the summer.

As with all of her creations, Brook has to assess on her own how much the supplies cost to make her items, jots them down in a notebook and then she comes up with a price. Figuring out the profit margin is all a lesson in business she hopes to use in the future, because ultimately Brook would like to be a fashion designer.

Photo by Gary C. Klein.

In Entrepreneurial Lifestyle, Kids, Success, Work at Home | 1 Comment