For many young teens in school finding a job early on can be near impossible. However, some teens still manage to find ways to make a small income for themselves. For me, that was starting my first business.

Get a good education and get a job. That is the piece of advice many teens get during their time in high school. However, there are some who question this advice and go straight to finding their first job. Many teens are turned away just because they are too young to work. A large portion return to their studies, waiting until they are able to get that first job. A few, on the other hand, take this as a challenge and will find some exciting ways to earn money.

My Experience

When I was 16, I found my niche in landscaping. I knocked on the doors of my neighbors asking if they had any jobs they wanted done. I  posted ads on Nextdoor saying that I was looking for work. I did this for two years, and within my first three months, I made my first thousand dollars. I expanded my operation by hiring friends and family to help.

During those two years, I learned how to hire and fire people. I developed my sales pitches to sell my services in person and online to my clients. I read the No B.S. guides to different aspects of business by Dan S. Kennedy and used that information to improve my marketing and customer service. From those two years, I now have a list as long as my arm of happy clients who recommend me highly to employers and their fellow neighbors. This was my key to getting my first job as a warehouse hand in JCPenney.

Tips On How To Get Started

If you are just starting out in the world and need a way to raising up your credibility among employers I highly recommend building a list of clients who can vouch for you. This can be done as I did by knocking on doors and asking if they need work done. Not only will you be making a small income for yourself but you will be improving your selling and marketing skills.

Check to see if your neighborhood is using a social media platform like Nextdoor or Facebook to communicate. You can create posts saying that you are looking for work. This is a good way to practice your writing and persuasive skills.

Once you start getting jobs, make sure to set up a calendar and a workbook so you can keep track of what projects you need to be focusing on. Plus this helps with your sells pitch because if clients see that you are taking notes they are more likely to trust you and hire you for the job.

Doing this type of work alone can take its toll both physically and mentally. If you choose to hire friends and family for certain jobs make sure that on the work site you are the boss. If you do not separate your friendships from your work it makes it ten times to fire bad employees.