How to be a Homeschool High School Entrepreneur, Interview with Samantha Shank

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How to be a Homeschool High School Entrepreneur, Interview with Samantha Shank.

How to be a Homeschool High School Entrepreneur, Interview with Samantha Shank. Homeschool Highschool Podcast. Help your teens get started in business. #HomeschoolHighSchoolPodcast #SamanthaShank #HomeschoolHighSchool #HighSchoolEntrepreneurship

How to be a Homeschool High School Entrepreneur, Interview with Samantha Shank

Vicki is joined in this episode by our friend, Samantha Shank. You know Samantha from her LearnInColor.com resources website and from her lovely HSHSP interview on helping teens discover their interests.

Samantha is a homeschool graduate who has used her drive and skills to start successful businesses. She now shares these ideas with young people on her podcast: Learn In Color (on Spotify and Apple). She highlights homeschool graduates and moms of homeschool graduates. They discuss what they loved about homeschool and what they wished they had done differently.

Samantha Shank, LearnInColor.com

Samantha Shank, LearnInColor.com. Photo used by permission.

Samantha is truly the go-to person when it comes to the how-to’s of entrepreneurship. She began dabbling in business when she was in fourth grade and kept expanding her resources through college. (She graduated college debt-free!)

So, what advice would Samantha Shank give to homeschool high school entrepreneurs?

Create a business plan.

Samantha got started on her entrepreneurship journey as a homeschool high schooler. She took a business start-up course from her local Chamber of Commerce. (Note: You can also find free how-to business classes through the Small Business Administration.) The business plans she learned included:

  • Planning
  • Marketing
  • Building a website
  • Banking
  • Taxes

Find a business mentor.

Through her Chamber of Commerce course, she found mentors that guided her through the process of planning and starting a business. Samantha learned: Where ever you are you will find some sort of organization to help you learn about business.

Use your youth to your advantage.

When teens show their effort and ambition at high school age, people tend to go out of their ways to help them. Teens can learn a lot from “mentors”, even at a half-hour at a time. It sometimes is necessary for teens to ask for an appointment or a little time. That is good practice for life: Becoming brave enough to ask.

Learn to network.

Samantha points out that she is by nature, an introvert. Vicki remarked that when she met Samantha at 2:1 Conference, Samantha worked the room, networking like a professional business person who loves networking. That is because Samantha uses her skills and self-talk to do the tasks she does not necessarily love to do, but loves the outcome.

Remember: Be willing to go out of your comfort zone. If you end up looking like an idiot, it is okay! Next time try something new.

Smile.

Whenever teens are at a class, training or networking event, as often as possible try smiling! If they smile long enough, someone will come up and talk to them. (You can get more networking for introverts skills from Vicki’s FREEBIE download at VickiTillmanCoaching.com.)

Prepare a “Shark Tank” business presentation.

Samantha had a chance to participate in a business presentation contest after her entrepreneurship class at the Chamber of Commerce. She won and received $1200 in start-up capital and flew to Miami for a regional competition. Teens never know what similar opportunities they may run into, so have that presentation ready!

Samatha’s business at that time was creating reusable paper towels. Later in homeschool high school, she switched to webpages and digital marketing. She also speaks at schools and youth organizations on how to start a business when you are young.

Believe in yourself. Give yourself permission to explore your dreams.

Young people can be successful entrepreneurs. Give it a try!

Young people can be successful entrepreneurs. Give it a try!

Find a need and a target audience.

Once teens find that need and audience, it is easy to start building a business and business plan.

Interview people in your audience so that want and need.

Pivot, change, and tweak your business when necessary.

Sell your products.

Sell on Facebook, live, Pinterest, places where local people hang out who like your products.

Find someone to handle the legal and banking set-ups

Teens cannot do this on their own until they are eighteen years old.

Samantha kept building on her entrepreneurship opportunities. She now has several businesses:

  • LearnInColor.com. Homeschool teaching aids and WONDERFUL blogposts. (Vicki was so excited when she met Samantha and she learned that this was the LearnInColor person that she was always sharing pins from her Pinterest page.)
    • Want a discount? Samantha gave us this coupon code: LOVETOLEARN for 20% off
  • Public Speaking (This year she is speaking at all the Teach Them Diligently homeschool conferences.)
  • Graphic design for homeschool and educational organizations
  • Library
  • She is also in graduate school (using her scholarships from her beauty pageant experiences.)

Samantha Shank is a true inspiration! Join Vicki and Samantha for a helpful and friendly chat! (Also, homeschool high school entrepreneurs can benefit from taking 7SistersHomeschool’s Financial Literacy from a Christian Perspective.)

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How to be a Homeschool High School Entrepreneur, Interview with Samantha Shank

How to Help Teens Explore Interests, Interview with Samantha Shank

A Production of the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network.

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: How to Help Teens Explore Interests.

How to Help Teens Explore Interests. Samantha Shank of LearnInColor.com shares her story of developing her interests and goals in homeschool high school. #HomeschoolHighSchool #CareerExploration #SamanthaShank #LearnInColor #ExploringInterestsForTeens

How to Help Teens Explore Interests

One of the most important tasks for homeschool high schoolers is learning about themselves so that they can fulfill who God created them to be. Vicki is joined by our friend, Samantha Shank of Learn in Color and the Learn in Color Podcast  for a lively discussion about the ways she explored her interests and learned to be an entrepreneur while homeschooling. You don’t want to miss this episode!

Samantha is the oldest of her six siblings, all homeschooled for at least part of their educations. Her parents were working parents who allowed and encouraged Samantha to explore interests. One of her earliest interests was history. As early as fourth grade, Samantha was impacted by the tragedies of the Holocaust. The more she learned about it, the more she wanted to share with others.

She started blogging when she was 14 years old and developed an audience among homeschooling families. She began sharing resources and ideas for teaching World War II, the Holocaust and other history topics.

While still in high school, Samantha started exploring the ideas of entrepreneurship. During her mornings, she would attend community networking meetings and learned about business from business people.

Today, Samantha is a college graduate who is a full-time entrepreneur. She creates curriculum supplements at LearnInColor.com such as:

Make time for teens to explore interests and ideas. It's good education. #HomeschoolHighSchool #CareerExploration #InterestDevelopmentForTeens #HealthyAdolescence

During her homeschool high years, Samantha learned how to explore interests by:

Exploring rabbit trails

When Samantha had a random thought or was curious about something that was inspired by what was learning, her parents encouraged her to stop and explore that idea. This required the courage to set aside curriculum for a while and allow her to research these interests.

*Advice for Homeschool Moms: Try not to be overly bound to the curriculum and syllabus. We all know our homeschool high schoolers must complete their credits for graduation, but we also want to them discover who God made them to be. That often comes in the off-curriculum explorations in life.

Asking questions

Do not be afraid of questions. Take time to research the questions, explore options and idea. This takes time, but finding some answers gave Samantha the ability to take next steps as she explored her interests.

This might take the form of doing interviews. Samantha frequently met with business owners and interviewed them for their entrepreneurial stories.

Sharing what she learned

Samantha shared on her blog. Homeschool high schoolers can share what they learn as they explore their interests on their own blogs or with co-op, family and friends.

*Advice: Trust your trustworthy teens. Samantha’s parents were trusting of Samantha to get her work done.

*Advice: Prepare to be busy. Samantha’s parents were willing to drive Samantha to interviews and experiences. They believed in her and God’s plans for her.

*Advice: Avoided helicopter parenting. Don’t run the show for your homeschool high schoolers. Let them do the exploring. (Check out this HSHSP episode on Heavy Equipment Mothering.)

Finding networks

Samantha found KidBlogger network which also helped her grow her blogging skills and influence.

Learning to set goals

Samantha developed the goal to graduate from college debt free. She realized her blogging business could help with that but that she should diversify her income streams. She looked into college scholarships for her academics (she had good SAT scores) and also found beauty pageants (we’ll talk about that on another podcast interview later).

Showing interests on the transcript

Her advice: Take college choice seriously. Look into college search and majors and spend some time on it. (Download this freebie from Vicki’s Coaching website about choosing college majors and check out our blogpost on starting college search.)

Working hard

Samantha graduated college in two and a half years. She pushed because she wanted to stay debt-free taking 17-24 credits at a time, with some of those online at another college. She kept her goals in mind and worked hard.

In her homeschooling high school years, Samantha also worked hard doing several things:

  • Managed Pinterest accounts for bloggers (Samantha began doing this at 15 years old)
  • Create content for other bloggers (Samantha designed products and wrote for other bloggers from high school and through college)
  • Kept up her blogging and networking

Building relationships

Samantha chose well for her goals with her small college. She was able to communicate with her professors and had good mentoring relationships with them. She was open about her goals and work schedule. Often, they could work with her to help her achieve her goals.

Join Vicki and Samantha Shank for a fun episode on helping teens explore their interests.

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO HSHSP VIA COMPUTER

  1. Follow this link to our iTunes page.
  2. IMPORTANT STEP: Under our Homeschool Highschool Podcast logo, click on View in iTunes
  3. This will take you to iTunes and our own podcast page.
  4. Click SUBSCRIBE.
  5. Click RATINGS AND REVIEW. (Please take a minute and do this. It helps others find us. Thanks!)
  6. Thanks!

PLEASE SUBSCRIBE VIA iPHONE

  1. Tap the purple Podcast icon on your phone
  2. Tap the search icon on the bottom-right of your screen
  3. In the search bar type: Homeschool Highschool Podcast
  4. Tap the Homeschool Highschool Podcast icon
  5. Tap *Subscribe*
  6. Please tap *Ratings and Review*

 

How to Help Teens Explore Interests