With the economic fallout due to the coronovavirus pandemic, many people are downsizing homes and clearing out their homes of unused items. And this typically means yard sales. As parents, you want your children to be successful as adults. There are valuable lessons in getting your teen involved in the family yard sale. You can let them take the lead under your guidance.
My daughter just graduated high school and will be headed to college. And she's starting her life and will be on her own. As her mom, I want her to be prepared for adulthood because I'm not going to be constantly by her side as I am now. When we cleaned out household items, we talked about a yardsale. And it hit me that she can learn a lot about planning, organizing, customer service, and negotiating all in leading the yard sale. And I'd be there to guide her.
You can do the same with your teen. A yard sale is more than picking a date of when to have the yard sale. You have to figure out how you're going to let people know about the yard sale. You just can't put stuff out and people are going to show up. Your teen can share ideas of how they want to advertise (online, signs around the neighborhood). Considering that we're in the middle of a pandemic, where will you place items to maintain social distancing. What are the methods of payment - just cash or include you accept electronic payment such as Venmo? Your teen will have to think about parking so neighbors driveways are blocked. Help their parent, you can help them think through these decisions.
There are lots of opportunities for customer service. Customers will have questions about items such as brand, age of product and will ask how items work. With electrical items, you want to make sure that the item works before they leave your yard sale. An overlooked concept of customer service is greeting customers. Your teen should be nice, friendly and welcoming. And should stand up to greet customers instead of sitting down while customers browse. Business is about relationships. And your teen can get a head start during a family yard sale.
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