Hot Chocolate At School

First of all, you will need to form a business plan. Do some market research and try to estimate just how much you can sell. Do you live in the north or midwest? Does is snow a lot? Do kids love hot chocolate at your school? Are you the only ones selling warm drinks at your school? If the answer to most of these is yes, then chances are, you will be able to sell a lot of hot chocolate! If perhaps, you live in a warmer environment, and most kids wouldn't pay for hot chocolate, you probably won't make a lot of sales. You need to take this into great consideration.

After you do your market research, start figuring out how much it would cost to buy your supplies. You will need Styrofoam cups, stirrers, hot chocolate, and marshmallows! (These are the individual supplies you will need for each cup of hot chocolate.) However, don't forget to add in the fact that you will need a kettle to keep the milk/water warm for the hot chocolate! If you don't already have one of these, then you will need to invest in them.

Once you have all your costs added up, start figuring out how much to charge. Obviously you will need to charge enough to cover the cost of your supplies, but the question is... How much can you charge over that? Is there a great demand for hot chocolate in your school? You can probably charge quite a bit! Do you have some competition from others selling coffee and/or hot chocolate? Then, you will need to keep your price fairly low. Whatever price you choose, make sure it is reasonable enough so that people will actually buy it!

Keep track of all your expenses and income. Keep up with receipts for everything you buy, and how much time you (and your friends) spend watching the hot chocolate stand. When someone buys some, keep track of it! You can even keep track of where and when you sell the most, then use this information to your advantage! Keeping records is important, because you want to make sure that you are making money, instead of losing money. That is the whole reason of having a business isn't it?

You will need to market your hot chocolate! There are several ways of doing this. Word of mouth is probably the best! Get your friends talking about it at school. Tell your friends, to tell their friends, to tell their friends, and so on. However, don't let this be your only way of advertising if you can help it! Put up signs! Make nice colorful signs with poster-board or on the computer, and put these up in various locations in the school (I.e.- At the door, near classrooms, in the cafeteria, etc). You can make a webpage about it, and promote it when you are not in school. (I.e.- you can send people emails with the links and have them ready to buy hot chocolate the next day!). Make a commercial! This is what I did for my class! You can see the commercial on this page! Making commercials can be so much fun. Come up with a great plot, and then promote your product! If you need some ideas, check out my commercial, or post something on the comments here and I will try to help!

Hot Chocolate Junkie by shsalumni7
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