LLCEO Small Business Tradeshow 4.0
Part Two - Guests do a walk about

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[May 07, 2019]   The annual Land of Lincoln CEO Small Business Tradeshow was held Wednesday May 1st at the American Legion in Lincoln.

Thirteen students from a variety of high schools in Logan County make up the Class of 2019. The Small Business Tradeshow is like their final exam. They have worked throughout the year learning the nuisances of business ownership and management, and then then take all those skills and all that knowledge and bundle it into a business of their own.

On Wednesday night each of the thirteen students had a booth set up to talk about and promote their small business. Guests filed in and made their way around the room visiting with each student.

The first booth of the evening featured Land of Lincoln CEO board member April Doolin and CEO Facilitator Britta Langley, both of whom talked about the program in general and also spoke with guests about donating or sponsoring next year’s program.



Emma Aylesworth
Willow’s Wax Works



Emma Aylesworth was the first student booth of the evening. Her business Willow’s Wax Works featured soy-based candles that she manufactures herself. She had several candles on hand in a variety of scents and spoke with guests about her product. She explained the benefits of using a soy-based candle over a regular was product.



At the tradeshow, Emma was making sales. Customers were choosing her candles and paying cash, much to Emma’s delight.

Emma is a junior this year at Mount Pulaski High School.

Parker Kistner
On the Run



Parker Kistner is a junior at Olympia High School and competes in track at the school. As a track competitor he does a lot of training and preparing for his meets. Parker took lessons learned from his own workout experiences and problems, and turned them into a business that offers a product for sale and a service to go along with it.

‘On the run’ couples the well-known name brand Advocare with a workout training program designed age appropriately for any athlete.



Kistner was excited to share his story about how the product he now sells solved issues with muscle aches and pains and also the dreaded illness of nausea and vomiting that sometimes comes after a particularly rigorous workout. He said that the Advocare products are better for a person because they don’t contain the sugars found in regular sports drinks and they do a more complete job of hydrating the body with electrolytes and needed vitamins.

In Kistner’s business, a customer can buy the workout or training program that fits their needs and couple the program with the Advocare products that will help the athlete reach his or her goals.

Hannah Casey
Little Miss Tea



Hannah Casey’s business ‘Little Miss Tea’ takes a fun childhood event and turns it into a party strategy for designed specifically for mothers and daughters. Casey hosts tea parties for a group. She makes all the plans from food and snacks to serve with the tea, to games and other fun activities geared for moms and daughters to play together.

Casey, who is a junior at Olympia High School said that it is a fun little business that offers a party plan that can be catered to the needs of the customer.



Casey said she has held parties since starting her business and noted that most recently she hosted a party of 20 and everyone had a really great time.

Hannah does all the work, and the set up in your home or party location so mom’s can provide a really fun event for their girls without all the stress of being the official hostess.

Autumn Benhart
Dust and Shine



Autumn Benhart is a junior at Mount Pulaski High School and has started an affordable housekeeping cleaning service. For $12 per hour she will come to your home and do the housework, providing you live within a 20 mile radius of Mount Pulaski.

Benharts service she believes is a very good answer for busy families and working parents who want a clean tidy surrounding at home but sometimes don’t have time to get the job done. Coming home to a clean house is good for the family because the downtime spent with children and parents together should be quality time together not hard work time cleaning and shining around the house.

Brody Baker
Brody Baker Builds



Brody Baker said that when he started looking into what type of business he wanted to start he really struggled. He had lots of ideas, too many in fact. He put a lot of thought into settling into one idea and finally did, but found it was the wrong idea for him.

He began with an upcycling business where he took old worn out items and turned them into new useful items. However, he felt he wasn’t very good at it. However along the way he came into refinishing and refurbishing furniture and he really liked doing that. He likes it so much that there are some of the products he is actually building that he thinks he may continue on with after the school year is complete.



Baker said when he signed up for the class he had a very specific goal. He wanted to become a better communicator and he said that the class has taught him so much about proper communication in the business world and how to present himself and his ideas. For him he said that part of the program alone is well worth taking the entire class for. Along the way he learned many other skills and said he would highly recommend CEO to any student who wants to become more career ready.

Lily Escobedo
On Target Media Management



Around the room guests found examples of Lily Escobedo’s work in many places because she is the one who designed a lot of the signage and logos for her fellow students businesses.

 



Escobedo’s business On Target Media Management is a full service business offering creating, design, and upgrading of business websites and social media venues along with logos and other important marketing components needed in today’s digital age.

Escobedo said she got her idea from some of the business visits the class made. As she reviewed the websites and social media sites of some of those businesses she felt that the digital media needed to be upgraded and freshened up to attract a younger audience. She loves to write and she loves design, putting the two together she is producing website information and social posts that are exciting and fresh and fit well with the fresh new looks she is giving to her customers pages.

Escobedo is a junior at Hartsburg-Emden High School. She plans to stay in the business/marketing sector as she moves into higher education in 2020.

Evan Rohlfs
Know How Tutoring Services



Evan Rohlfs started Know How Tutoring Services as a result of his own experiences in the classroom throughout his earlier school years. He said that for him personally classroom learning was sometimes difficult and he found that one-on-one instruction and mentorship with a teacher was much more helpful.

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Now a junior at Hartsburg-Emden High School Rohlfs has started his business in order to help elementary and junior high students work through their learning issues. His program offers multiple levels of one-on-one time with varying prices so that the tutoring experience can be not only good for the student but also fit into the parent’s pocketbook.

Evan said that teaching though is not in his future. He plans to go on to study engineering in college.

Lexie Hoffman
Leashed Animal Photography



Lexie Hoffman, a junior at Olympia High School has a dual goal in her business. She wants to help families capture the special qualities of their pets for prosperity through photos. She also wants to raise awareness for animal adoption and promote adopting shelter animals, giving them a great life with a loving family.



On her table Hoffman had a large number of dog photos and she said that every one of the dogs on the table was available for adoption from a shelter in Bloomington.

In Hoffman’s business she will meet the client at a location of their choice, either home or a public area the pet and family enjoy, and will work to capture the perfect photo that expresses the pet’s energy and personality.

Hoffman said she loves both photography and animals, so putting the two together in one small business was a perfect fit for her.



Molly Schempp
Molly’s Ag in a Box



Molly Schempp is a senior at Midwest Christian Academy and a part time student at Olympia High school. For her small business she has taken her passions and developed them into a curriculum to be used in grade schools to teach youth about the value of agriculture.

Schempp is planning a future in agriculture education and is getting an early start by offering her product that includes a curriculum and learning materials for a 30-student classroom in each box. Boxes include a two-day classroom lesson plan and subscribers receive one box per month during the school year.

Schempp said that the Ag in a Box is inspired by the Ag in the Classroom program used by some local schools. The lesson plans however, are all Molly. She said that she writes the lesson plans and comes up with the accompanying classroom materials herself.

On Wednesday evening Schemmp had a familiar face for a helper in her booth. Chris Weidhunner was present lending a hand. Schempp and Weidhunner competed together in 2018 for Miss Logan County Fair Queen. Weidhunner is also interested in agriculture and is attending Heartland Community College with plans to transfer to a university upon completion.

Schemmp will also continue her studies in agriculture after high school and is still debating her choice of college.

Oliva Shew
Pronto Delivery



Olivia Shew, a senior at Lincoln Community High School is working on a home food delivery concept for smaller communities. She noted that she was inspired by similar delivery services found in the larger metropolitan. Those services pick-up and deliver food from eateries which don’t offer delivery.
 


Shew said services like that don’t come to smaller communities, but at the same time, there are a lot of good places in our smaller towns where people would order delivery if it were offered. Shew is working to establish a website for the service where the orders for pickup and delivery are placed. Shew then picks up the food and delivers it to the customer.

Shew said that the service is available for anything from morning coffee to full meals.

Austin Garriott
Austin’s Auto Wash



Austin Garriott, a senior at Lincoln Community High School took what he already has access to, a large heated garage with water and proper drainage, and turned it into the foundation of his business. At Austin’s Auto Wash he will come to get your vehicle, bring it back to his garage, do a wash, wax, and detail, and deliver it back to you in no time at all.



The convenience of having someone else do all the work is the best selling point for Austin’s business. He noted that he can get the vehicle at any time, while customers are at work for example, or doing other important things. He can do the cleaning and have the vehicle ready to drive clean and fresh when the customer gets finished with whatever they are doing.

Austin has a slogan “Ride in style with every mile!” A clean car makes for a happy driver.

Cavit Schempp
Silicate Designs



Cavit Schempp loves rocks. He is always looking for and picking up interesting ones, many from his grandfather’s farm. In looking to build his business those rocks might have been “tumbling” around in his mind, because what he came up with was Silicate Designs. He takes interesting stones, cleans, polishes and then turns them into really neat looking pieces of jewelry and other stone based products.

Schempp is a junior at Olympia High School and says he enjoys making necklaces from the rocks he finds. It is not a fast process as the polishing takes a number of days, then he designs the pendants and puts everything together.

Schempp had a number of necklaces on display for sale Wednesday night and they were admired by many. Schempp also has a website presence with his products and says he has made some online sales as well.

He was also offering a pendant as his prize for the personal drawings held at the show.

Colby Burt
Time out Training



Colby Burt is a junior at Olympia High School and is extensively involved with sports. She enjoys basketball, softball and volleyball. For her, building a business based on a passion seemed like the most reasonable thing to do. So she opened Time out Training specifically for basketball.

Burt will work with kids of all ages giving personal instruction to help them improve their skills and learn the fundamentals of the game.

She offers training sessions at affordable prices so that young athletes can benefit from her more than eight years on the court experience.

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As guests completed their tour around the room talking with all 13 of the young entrepreneurs they came to the refreshment area where they were encouraged to enjoy a cold drink and a sweet.

All in all the evening was well attended with many people from the community coming in to talk with the students and see the final product of the school year.



For the students, the course is now completed. As they leave the program, they will be leaving with a better awareness of what it involves to build a business from cultivating an idea to creating a business plan, working with a budget, understanding product placement and promotion and much more. For some like Molly Schemmp, the students got a head start on their own future. For others, they perhaps have put something together that will help them earn some extra bucks during their college years. Some came to learn something specific like Brody Baker who is now a better communicator. Regardless of how they came into the program, all the students agree they are leaving with more knowledge and skill, and also with more really good friends, young people from schools all around the county that they have bonded with and built something that will last for years to come.


[Nila Smith]

 

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