0:02
Have you ever thought about hiring your own kids or even someone else's to work inside your business?

0:12
When business owners hire me to help them create their podcasts, to create their repurposing systems or strategy, they're often surprised when I ask them about their kids. Most of them have never thought about hiring their kiddos in their businesses. And often there are three main things they tell me why they haven't hired their kids.

0:36
Now today on the podcast, we're going to dive into three reasons why kids are often the most overlooked assets inside any business and how including your kiddos, or again, someone else's if you don't have kids at home at the moment how helping them and train them is really all about training up and raising the next generation of entrepreneurs.

1:07
Hey there, everyone, and welcome to the Amplify Your Awesome™ podcast. I'm your host Yong Pratt, also known as Dr. content because I help you to cure what ails your content. Whether you're just starting out with content creation in your business, or you're looking to scale your content and repurposing efforts, I can help you by offering up a diagnosis and a customized prescriptive plan to ensure that your content supports your business. Because if your content isn't supporting your business, then you're wasting your time creating it.

1:50
Today we're talking about kids, business, and raising entrepreneurs. This is a topic that I've been passionate about for so long. Ever since I came into the online space three years ago, this idea of empowering kids to help us in our businesses, and maybe inspire them to want to create their own businesses, has been part of the plan.

2:16
I tried to ignore that plan for a little while. But there was always that little nagging sense of, there's something missing. And that something missing was including kids in business. Now, if you are joining me live here on this live recording of the podcast, let me know you're here. Drop any questions you have, and I'll get to them at the very end. And if you are listening on the podcast, thank you for joining me. I am so grateful that you have popped me into your earbuds or push play on your computer to listen to today's podcast because I believe it's one of the most important things as entrepreneurs that we can do. And that is raising the next generation of entrepreneurs.

2:57
Now this idea of including kids in my business, this could stem from my 17 years running my own performing arts school. During that time, it was our passion and our privilege to be able to instill in kids a sense of confidence, a sense of ownership in themselves and the ability to learn skills that they could be proud of.

3:20
It could also come from being a mom. Right? I have two teenagers. Now my oldest Sophie is celebrating her birthday today. She is 17 already today, I cannot believe it. But wanting to include my kids definitely stemed from wanting me, wanting them to have the opportunity to make choices about their future - about creating their own business and, or working for someone else and what that might look like.

3:51
And it's likely a combination of those two things, right? Working with thousands of kids over 17 years and you know, more before that. Before I opened the doors to my studio, plus being a mom that kind of fueled this desire to really want to see kids step in to the special gifts and talents they each possess, help them recognize those talents, and then show them ways that they can use those gifts and talents to serve other people. That is a big deal.

4:25
Now, in case you don't already know the story, I'm going to give you kind of a shorter version of this story. Bringing my kids into my business really began as an experiment. I honestly wasn't sure it could be done, but I wanted to explore the question, "What if?"

4:44
Now, this is a question I've asked myself forever. It drives so much of what I create inside my business and how I work with my one-on-one clients, as well as the students in our classes. By nature, I am a detective. I kind of feel like Nancy Drew some days because I seek out things that sometimes other business owners don't see in their own businesses, mostly because they're too close to their businesses. So as an objective observer, I can come in and find those things that are already happening in their businesses that are awesome, that they could then amplify. And one of those things that is often overlooked, of course, is their content.

5:30
As business owners, we're so busy creating content because we quote unquote, should create content, right? Somebody, some mentor, some Guru has told us that creating content is something that absolutely has to be done. And yes, I will agree that it must be done because it's a way for other people who want to work with us to get to know like and trust us to, learn from us, and to see the transformation we can provide by giving them examples of how we've helped other people in the past.

6:04
Now the question at hand was ,"What if." What if I could train my daughters to take over the tasks that my full time VA was doing for me at the time. A VA, if you don't know stands for virtual assistant. I hired a full time virtual assistant who was based in the Philippines. I hired her at a time when I was publishing my first book, relaunching the podcast and really making some fundamental shifts in my business. So I needed her help because there was no way to do everything that needed to get done by myself. And I finally resigned to the fact that as much as I want to be a superwoman, I was killing myself trying to do all the things. Because not only did she do things like manage my blog and manage my podcast, she also created all of our graphic designs, did a lot of the admin work at my performing arts school remotely, so that I could focus on writing this book and relaunching the podcast. And also, I was crazy enough to move my studio to a brand new location, literally one month before our year and concert. So we were deep in the midst of registering kids for summer session. We had a show coming up in four weeks, and I took on the task of moving to a new location for our school. So there was just a lot going on and I really needed support from somebody full time. And the fact that she could work when I was sleeping, definitely made a huge difference.

7:42
But as I was shifting in my school, I wasn't sure that I wanted to commit to hiring another virtual assistant because we had come to the end of our arrangement. And I just wasn't sure because as I was shifting, having a desire to work with fewer students more often more like a mastermind sort of situation where I could give them more of my time, we could really dive into their physical and spiritual and emotional development as performers and really downsize my school. I wasn't sure that I was committed to going through the process of training someone again, because literally, it took me over a year to get to the place where I had delegated a ton of things to her. And I wasn't really wanting to go through that process again. However, this question of what if, what if I could train my daughters to do these tasks, right?

8:38
I had my business before my girls were born. So from the moment they came into this world, they were at my hip and at by side, at the studio, and at home. So they saw all of the behind the scenes things that happened. And often my girls were asked by my staff where things were or how to do something or how to navigate a certain piece of software when they were older, because they had done it so many times looking over my shoulder. And even when I didn't think they were watching, they absolutely were watching and learning and absorbing like little sponges like kids are, all the things that were happening. So they were learning a ton. And they were really invested in the business. And I tried to include them in my business, even when they were little, as much as possible by giving them some tasks that they could do, that were appropriate for their ages that were really going to contribute. I didn't want them just filing things away and cleaning up because, you know, those are important tasks. Yes, but I really wanted to show them what entrepreneurship looked like for me inside. And again, I think that came from working with kids for so many years. Even before I had mine and thinking even as I was growing up, I wanted to be a teacher someday. And today I am That just in a different manner than I thought, which is totally cool because my girls have been able to watch this progression and watch what happens behind the scenes. You know, the good things that happen in businesses, but struggles, challenges, problems to solve. And I think the idea of problem-solving really was wrapped up in this question of what if.

10:21
So, at the time, my girls were 14 and 11. And my 14 year-old being in ensconced in her teenagerness, you know, she didn't really want to hang out and work with me side by side because that wasn't cool, right? But my 11 year-old was still super snuggly, and we approached it with the idea of being able to snuggle up, spend time together, because that is her love language, quality time. We literally would snuggle up with two computers or two laptops, one on each of our laps and dive into things like creating graphics.

10:57
And I quickly learned that she had a love of creating slide decks of all things. You know when you attend a webinar or a class, and the presenter has those slides. And you know, they're always really cool looking. Well, my 11 year-old loved creating those. So I set her out to create a webinar presentation or a slide deck for a webinar that she was going to co-host with me at the age of 11. And I'll have to admit that it did take a little bit of, of convincing and bolstering up her confidence enough to where she where she felt comfortable being on camera. It still is not her forte to this day, although she's getting better at it right.

11:46
For those of you who have a fear of being on camera or being on video, you understand this right. And as young and impressionable teenager or, or tween, growing up putting yourself out on camera or on video, is not always at the top of your priority list, right. But the power of video definitely speaks for itself. So being able to give her those skills and give her the confidence to know that she could do that. She ran the whole entire presentation that we gave multiple times, to families who were interested in starting a podcast with your kids and really empowering their kids to use their voices, their gifts and their talents, and share that with others via a podcast.

12:30
That was the whole webinar scenario. And, Daphne, at the age of 11, created the slide deck, she even created little costumes to correspond with her slide deck. It turned out differently than I thought, however, and it was better than I expected. So seeing her develop the skills and then gain the confidence to know that she had what it took to do these things. And these tasks are not tasks that are normally assigned to kids, right. So now that you know this story about how my girls kind of came into my business by starting with a question what if, me being an investigator, me sleuthing out the best ways they could help me that were intentional, ]that were] that there is an outcome that helped and contributed to my business, then it was just a matter of giving them the training they needed to empower them to do those things.

13:23
And I, I love tech. I love being able to dive into software (most of the time). And learn how it works and how it can support the business. You know, I had that skill set to be able to train them. I know not all business owners have that and that's okay. And that's why we are here to help you do that. So I do want to say one thing.

13:42
Once my 11 year-old learned these skills, and other business owners started to pay attention to that -dreaming about the day when they could have their own kids and their business -they actually hired her to work in their business. And [they were] Daphne was doing things like managing blogs, you know, going over to YouTube and making sure all the keywords were there. Creating the cover images for blog posts, creating the cover images for YouTube videos, creating Pinterest graphics. She was really doing all those things that, you know most of us consider to be very adult tasks.

14:20
And that brings me to three sort of objections why most business owners never think about or aren't invested in bringing their own kids in to their businesses.

14:34
And the first one is the objection...

14:37
But they're just kids. Now having worked with thousands and thousands of kids over the last couple of decades or so, I've heard this in a lot of different forms from really well-intentioned and well-meaning parents trying to protect their kids from uncertainty. Trying to protect their kids from negative outcomes. Trying to hold their kids back because they don't see the potential in their kids doing this. But what I've learned in this process is that when given the permission from us parents to use digital devices like computers, or smartphones, or iPads to create things that other people outside of our business see, that's a big deal. You know, so my advice here is, you think past the kid stage. And of course, I'm not saying you're going to hire your kids full time by any means. It's really a matter of figuring out what your kids like, the things they resonate with, and the things that you need done in your business. Right? Those things kind of inform how your kids can be involved with you in your business. But if you just think that they're just kids, this idea of them working for you may not resonate with you, right. But I'm here to tell you that if given the opportunity, kids will rise to the challenge every single time.

16:12
Objection number two is this: But my kids don't know enough to help me in my business.

16:19
And I'm gonna counter that with a question for you. Have you always known how to do what you do? If you build websites? Have you always had that skill set? Or did you have to learn it yourself or from someone else? If you teach sales, or podcasting or confidence? How did you learn those skills that you're now teaching? Did you just one day magically wake up and just know everything you needed to run your business and offer the services and products you do?

16:49
Of course not. And it's the same thing with our kids. They're not going to know how to perform all the tasks you need in your business in the very beginning. They'll need to learn and practice the skills just the same way that any employee or any contractor in your business would do. It's kind of the same reason many of us send our kids to school, or maybe we choose to homeschool them. It's to teach them how to be productive members of society and learn certain skill sets to function every day.

17:28
So what is hiring kids...What is the benefit for your business? And how can you get started with that? You know, if you think about the idea of expecting an 11 year old to know how to build a slide deck. Yes, she knew those skills, but I did have to mold those and share with her the expectations that I wanted, and sort of a framework for how to get that done. Right.

17:55 -(17:39 edited for podcast -16 seconds deleted for podcast)
Having that system having a process to follow is super, super important whether you bring your kids or you bring other employees into your business. Right? I can't expect them to know everything from the beginning.

18:09
And then, of course, the third objection that people say to me about bringing their kids into their businesses, even if they really think it's awesome, and they're ready to move forward, they just don't know where to begin. Right? This one I've found is the biggest barrier to entry. It's the reason why most business owners don't pursue this avenue. They're just not sure how to onboard their kiddos. And that's one of the things I love doing most now in business.

18:40
When I look at the work we do with our clients and our one on one clients in our in our group programs, the interesting thing about everything that I've shared when I look back is that all these tasks that my virtual assistant did for me that I trained my kids to do. They were all wrapped up in this idea ofrepurposing content. And it's funny because I never thought about what I was training my kids to do until I was prepping for this episode. But then I started to think...Wow, that's exactly what they were doing.

19:15
They were taking one piece of content and turning it into another form to be shared on a different platform. For example, they were taking my podcast audio and putting it into my podcast host to be distributed on various platforms, right? Repurposing it - one piece of content distributed on different platforms. Right? Trying to get as many people to be able to hear the message as possible. They were taking the podcast, pulling out quotes, creating brand new graphics for each episode. Again, it's a different format, a different way to repurpose my content. They were taking my audio and putting it over on my website. They were putting video on my website and again, repurposing that singular piece of content.

20:04
So last week we dove a lot into, you know...What is content? What is content repurposing and why it's vital for your business. And I'll be sure to link up last week's episode on today's show notes at www.YongPratt.com/285. And at the end of last week's episode, I shared with you an opportunity that I have for you, and you can bring your kiddos along for this adventure together because literally is an adventure. Or consider it an experiment like I did when I first brought my girls into my business.

20:40
If you're looking to repurpose your content, or if you're looking to start creating content with the express intention of repurposing it reach more people, to make a bigger impact, to ensure that your content gets maximum eyeballs on it, then it's time to learn to repurpose it in a workshop that I have coming up for you called The Content Repurposing Quickstart.

21:08
In this workshop, we are going to work side-by-side, hand-in-hand, and we're going to create a system for you to repurpose your content. And we're going to do it in an automated way, which is even better. And the cool thing is, when your kids are involved in this process for you, I'm going to share with you how you can get your kids involved in the process and you get to choose the level at which they are going to help you. Sound good?

21:36
If you're interested in this workshop, put the word WORKSHOP below and I'm going to reach out to you personally with how you can save your seat. Because I know this workshop is something that tons of people have asked me about...How do I start repurposing? Or maybe they have a repurposing system in place. How do I scale it? You know, there are tools out there that I use and recommend that you can create a lot of content, that you can repurpose. But the problem is that, you know, even though you have, you know, dozens and dozens of things you have been repurposed, not everyone knows what to do with those things next. So we're gonna dive into that.

22:19
So here's my promise to you. At the end of the workshop, we're going to take at least one video or at least one audio that you already have created, and turn it into another form - at least one other, and likely a handful or more, depending on how many people are there, and you know how deep we want to dive into it with your questions.

22:43
We're going to turn one thing into another, so at least, you're going to have one piece of content that's going to be doubled. And again, likely more than that. And then we're going to show you how you can take that repurpose content and share it right away because we want to take action on what we are learning. It's not about learning. You know the high level strategy, we are going to talk about that. But the whole intention of this workshop is to get you going FAST.

23:09
It's called Quickstart for a reason. We're going to jump in together. We're going to be quickly setting up some software to help us do that. And your kids can be instrumental in this particular step. Because even though it is not very techie, if tech is something that's held you back in business, your kiddos are digital natives are going to be able to hop into the software and do it quickly for you. And it can be a way that they can impact your business really positively in a very fast way.

23:39
And if your content currently is mostly text based, I'm also going to show you how you can turn that text into video or audio quickly so that you can repurpose it right. So no matter where you are starting with text, audio, or do we are going to turn one form of content. We're going to wave our magic wand and that magic includes a piece of awesome software that I love to death, and we're going to turn it, we're going to transform it into another type of content. Sound good?

24:11
Now, normally my, my clients pay me upwards of $300 for a one-on-one session to help them either set up the software for them, or talk about the strategy behind how to repurpose their content that supports their business and their business goals. Because even though we can repurpose in so many different ways, every business is different. And the way that you repurpose your content may look a little different than how somebody else does it.

24:39
So this workshop is for you if...

24:42
(1) You are starting your content creation journey, and you want to create a repurposing system to maximize your content to its fullest.

24:52
(2) This workshop is also for you if you are currently repurposing maybe a little bit of your content and you're looking to scale that and really go for maximum impact with your content, this workshop is for you.

25:07
Again, to save your seat, all you have to do is type the word WORKSHOP down below. If you are listening to the podcast, you can go to today's show notes at www.YongPratt.com/285 and get all the details right there.

25:26
Okay, my friends, I believe in you. I believe in your kids. I believe in the power of empowering our kids to see the possibilities that exist for them by becoming entrepreneurs. I'm going to raise my glass to you today and say cheers, to raising entrepreneurs. It starts with you and I cannot wait to see what you do with your kiddos. I'll catch you next time. Cheers.