Youth Entrepreneur Success (Y.E.S.) Program

By Gary Jeffress, 1 November 2010

Man, haven’t I had a wonderful time delivering the Y.E.S. Program at John Paul college andLoganlea High school over the past 4 weeks. The kids participating have received some amazing insights into business, life, people and hopefully what they could achieve. They are enthralled when asked to consider what challenges an everyday business experiences, but we also visit the results of what a well-run business could have for them and their family.

The groups are asked to propose a business idea of their own, generally in a group of 3 or 4. We take them through what funds they may be able to raise, what skills they have, what the market might need and the structure of their business. Then we focus on the numbers any business deals with daily like, expenses, sales, profit, turnover, customer base, taxes and others. But we don’t go through the ways to prepare these numbers. This is Entrepreneur training. They will make choices on what skills they will continue to study at UNI but they can’t know everything. So we teach them how to make decisions based on other information.

May I say its inspiring seeing these girls and boys teaming up.  When the idea starts to take some shape in their minds they get that valuable ‘ahaa’ moment! For selfish old me, I get the most reward when a student who has been sitting quietly for a couple of minutes during one of the sessions finally pipes up and says “Hey sir, do you think one of the Business people who come in to see our presentation might like the idea and want to invest the money?”

Both schools complete the program this week when I invite some business colleagues to share some time to evaluate the skills the kids have received over the 5 sessions. Next week we have been lucky enough to secure the 2 directors of New Business Media (NBM) Wez Bryett and Adam Pasfield. Both men have been featured in the Gold Coast bulletin in the last 3 years for the success of their Website business and for their contribution to their various Autism charities which they support generously. I’m delighted to have them on board. Thanks Guys

The YES program has its own identity and Facebook page: