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Growing up in the sticks, we were surrounded with hills full of wild blueberries. For about a month in the fall, the ground was covered in blue, and we kids knew that anything we picked could be sold to elderly pie baking neighbors quite easily.

Now for those readers that have picked cultivated “tame” blueberries, the wild experience and taste is quite different. Cultivated blueberries are massive in size and can be found on convenient waist high bushes. Wild blueberries are tiny pellets full of taste and can be found on the back breaking ground.

Picking…I mean eating…was a treat on the first day. By the end of the month with us being out in the bush day in, day out, picking, we would chat about our blueberry nightmares (I used to, for some reason, dream about Smokey the Bear…Remember only you can prevent forest fires). Our finger tips were blue for months after.

Learning

Insist on quality the first time. The only thing worse than picking the berries was cleaning them of sticks, bugs, and leaves. My not-so-sweet Grandma (also known as the best chocolate chip cookie baker in the world) told us to pick clean and pick fast or we’d get the bucket (a berry bucket thrown at our heads…told you she wasn’t so sweet). If we picked clean, it saved a lot of work.

There’s always someone bigger and hairier who wants the product more. Often we’d be picking right next to the bears. There were plenty of berries, it didn’t make sense to fight the bears for them. Made more sense to go where they weren’t.

Not all of my odd jobs turned out well. Some turned out disastrously. One of the most infamous ones was when our family tried our luck at painting cottages.

By then we had built ourselves reps as kids that would work at anything. When a neighbor approached us about painting his cherished lakeside cottage, we figured…how hard can it be? The money was good. Why not?

We looked at the job and the six of us. The bulk of the building would be bright yellow, the trim dark green (we didn’t choose the colors). So we figured the painting would go quicker if we split the job with the older kids painting the big sections yellow and the younger kids painting the trim green.

Mistake.

My younger siblings did not have the hand-eye coordination or patience to keep the paint on the trim. When we finally noticed things going horribly wrong (well into the job), we tried to paint over the dark green with the yellow. It took us about fifteen coats to cover the darker color and frankly it never did look nice.

Our paint budget ran over. Our time to finish the painting ran over. Our client dropped by to see how it was going and had a not so minor, yet well deserved freak out.

It was our first and last gig as cottage painters.

Learning

Simple projects are not simple when you don’t know what you’re doing. We should have asked for advice or investigated more before taking on the job.

Testing is important. If we had first tested our technique on a small part of the building, instead of rolling our method out on the complete job, we would have saved a lot of time and hassle. Who knows. Our client might still even have his hair.

Critical jobs go to the higher skilled. First we should have realized that the trim was the most critical task of all those needing to be done. And second, that critical task should have been assigned to the most experienced and careful painter.

My first venture into on-line business was with ebay (true of most people).

I collect little ceramic figurines called Wades. They are found in Red Rose Tea boxes in both the U.S. and Canada. But the thing is, that the figurines are different for each country. Being a crazy collector, I want to have all of them. So I’d got to yard sales on both sides of the border (being a border hugger), buying boxes and boxes of figurines.

As I put together my own master set of figurines, I also collected extras. I’d hide them (from the hubby) in the basement until he started complaining. I had to get rid of them but couldn’t really have a yard sale with just tiny figurines.

So I looked to ebay. I had already some experience buying off of ebay (because, of course, I wanted to collect the U.K. Wades also). I knew which ads caught my eye. I knew what fellow collectors found important.

What I’d do is sell the U.S. Wades to Canadians and sell the Canadian Wades to Americans. I started earning enough money to pay for my nasty collecting habit (and the hubby got his basement back).

Learning

Buying in one market and selling in another can be lucrative. Selling to the Canadians, I got higher prices than I would have if I had sold U.S. Wades to Americans.

Being known for quality meant increased prices. I would only sell perfect pieces. No chips, no paint smudges. And I’d guarantee that. Customers would pay more for my figurines once they knew that.

Giving away a bonus builds repeat customers. As I’d only sell perfect pieces, I’d have chipped or imperfect pieces left over. What I’d do is include a piece as a bonus. I’d only let the buyer know this after they won the bid and then give them a choice of figurines (many gave them to their kids).

During university, I spent a four month stint as a telemarketer. I was already working a full time job during business hours and needed something after hours. Telemarketing fit that time slot.

I worked on behalf of a charity (made me feel a bit better about calling people and yes, I made minimum wage). I’d call and ask for donations. After a month, I was promoted to call-backs. After a telemarketer would make a “sale”, I’d call back and confirm the information.

My co-workers included students like me (trying to keep out of massive school debt), the elderly (trying to supplement sometimes non-existent government pensions), and experienced sales folks volunteering their time training us.

Learning

Rejection happens. I always tell people that if they want to get over the fear of rejection quickly, work as a telemarketer (preferably for a charity). I’d make a hundred calls and get only a few donations. I know how to cuss people out in about 20 different languages. I know that a short, sweet rejection is better than a rambling, feel-to-guilty-to-hang-up-right-away rejection.

Telemarketing works (so does direct mail aka junk mail and of course, spam). Yes, the number of “sales” I made was low as a percent but they more than made up for the rejections. Companies and charities aren’t in the business of losing money. They wouldn’t be using telemarketing if people didn’t buy.

Charities attract some of the best mentors. I learned telemarketing and sales from the best. Generous, experienced salespeople eagerly shared their tips and experience to help both me and the charity. They were patient but tough and they made me a better businesswoman.

Because I spent my days talking to everyone in town (pretty much, it was a small town), rather different jobs fell into my lap, and as I was saving hard for school, I didn’t turn down many of them.

One was a very part-time job as a pollster for The Gallup Poll organization (I believe they call them consultants now). The Mayor (for some reason) was asked if he knew someone willing to conduct surveys in the area. Since I wrote a nice article about him the week before (not intentionally, he merely said some nice things that needed repeating), I got offered the job. I sent in my resume (polished by the high school admin staff) as a formality.

The hourly rate was great for this entrepreneurial girl but the jobs were few and far between (only two jobs in four years). However it was my first taste of marketing research. I would go from door to door, gauging demographics and consumption patterns. Being a smart girl (and easily bored), I started making predictions on what people bought based on how old they were, how much they made, how many kids they had. My results were half decent.

Learning:

People will tell you anything if you simply ask. I, a scrawny little high school student, would ask fairly personal questions (how much money people made, what type of tampons they used) and most people would answer me without hesitating (okay, some had their dogs chase me off their property…I learned to jump fences like an Olympic hurdler).

Information is valuable. The polling company would pay me good money to gather information. They would in turn sell it to other companies for even more money. And they would keep history. They’d ask me to return to certain houses for an update. They wouldn’t keep the information if it lost all value with time.

Individual results may vary but averages are consistent. Not every 30 year old mother of two buys ready to eat cereal but the average 30 year old mother of two certainly does.

When I was going through high school, it wasn’t as cool to be a tech nerd. Not everyone had a personal computer (remember Commodore 64’s ?) and certainly not everyone could program.

Which meant that when my high school was looking for a data entry student to help convert paper records to electronic ones, they didn’t have high standards for applicants. And since I now knew everyone on the admin staff there (being the student reporter), I got the job.

I was also fortunate because the staff members, including the school principal, were very interested in helping their students succeed not just academically but in life. I went through three levels of interviews even though, I found out later, I was the only one being considered. The interviewers not only drilled me on the standard questions (What are your three greatest strengths? Name a weakness and how you’re compensating for it. Etc.) but they gave me valuable feedback afterwards (I should make eye contact. Smiling is important. I should ask at least one question). They nitpicked my resume to pieces.

And then I got my first taste of office life. I’d take lunch (a fresh experience for this usually self employed gal). I learned about office politics (critical for success). I used my freshly learned typing skills (they now call it keyboarding). I got paid.

Learning:

Who you know is often more important than what you know. I wouldn’t have even heard of the position if I hadn’t talked regularly to the office staff. They wouldn’t have considered me if I was merely another faceless student.

Criticism is difficult to take but critical for success. I disliked having every part of my interview, down to the shoes I was wearing, picked apart, but I knew that if I wanted to get ahead in life, I had to listen to the advice of people who knew more than me. At my age then, that was just about everyone.

Doing the job meant more than doing the job. I could have been the fastest, most efficient database manager (my temporary title) out there but if I hadn’t been nice to the right people, I wouldn’t have received a good reference. I learned that playing nice with others was an unwritten job requirement.

Jon's Job Learnings

My grade nine English teacher at the end of class one day announced that the local weekly newspaper was hiring a student reporter. This reporter would be paid by word.

Paid? By word? To write? This was a new concept to me. Instead of cutting lawns or cleaning toilets, I could sit in front of my computer and type.

So I applied. Everyone else sent in their resumes filled with great experiences and jobs. Sure, I sent in mine too but knowing that my ability to shovel snow wouldn’t exactly impress the editor, I added a sample article. I was the only applicant to do so. The article was printed and I got the job.

I had never taken any journalism courses. I wasn’t really a big newspaper reader (I was young and found them boring). Instead, I wrote what I thought were entertaining pieces about school activities, covering more than the facts.

They became such a success that the regional daily paper hired me on also. I covered…hold your breath…town council meetings (sitting in the press box). Again, I didn’t know what exactly I was supposed to write (not having read anyone else’s coverage of politics) so I again made my articles amusing and light.

I developed a cult following, had a head shot by my articles, and was stopped on the street by complete strangers (and once in a pharmacy while this very conscious teenager was purchasing feminine products…I wanted to roll up and die). I was also offered full time jobs from both of the papers upon graduating.

Learning:

Just because I wasn’t “the best” applicant, didn’t mean I wouldn’t get the job. If I offered something extra, something special, that might overcome deficiencies. If I tried harder and learned quickly, I could possibly make up for lack of experience.

Media and press coverage makes a difference. I could write about a person no one knew and all of a sudden he was a local star. I’d mention a restaurant and the next day, it’d be busy. It went the other way too. I unfortunately covered a comment from a councilmember. It was used against him in the next campaign and helped lose him the election. That was a difficult lesson to learn and today, I still regret putting his words into print.

One summer when I was sixteen, I had to get away from my small town and my large family. Some of my well off girlfriends did the hitchhike thing through Europe. Me, I arranged to babysit a motel for a month (sounds like a bad trade off but I came back with better stories than they did).

In exchange for room and board, I handled front desk and cleaned rooms. I checked people in, checked people out, cleaned their rooms, called the maintenance man in for fix ups, that sort of thing.

Basically I was running the business during the month. A normal sixteen year old might have been intimidated but me, I had years of experience with the yard care business. That didn’t mean there was no learning curve. There was (for example, sheets may be washed daily but bed covers only once a month).

Learning

People are careless with their credit. The motel was a seedy little joint at the edge of the highway (think Norman Bates style). I was a sixteen year old kid working there only for the month. Most people paid on credit card and didn’t even blink when handing their cards over (I pay in cash in those types of situations).

Making the most out of the same asset. There were two types of guests. Those that needed a nap during the day and those that slept overnight. If I hustled with the room clean up, I could rent the same room out twice. It didn’t cost the motel any extra and the income doubled.

Solo gigs are not sustainable. I was a one-woman show during that month. Sure I did a bang up job, making more revenue in that month than the motel had made the rest of the year. But at the end of the month, I was bone tired. Since there was only me to do the tasks, I had no downtime. After my stint in the motel business, I always ensured that I had at least one other member on my team.

More odd job learning here…

Being the second eldest of six kids, babysitting was a natural job for me. The lawncare business was run during daylight (we tried cutting grass during the night, the neighbors complained about the noise and the customers complained about us mowing over their garden hose) so I was free to babysit after hours.

I started out babysitting for anyone who would ask me but as my reputation grew, I specialized. I became the baby babysitter (I once babysat a two day old child the day he came out of the hospital, his mom wanted to go out with the girls). With this specialization came an increase in pricing.

I also set up a system for the overflow. I had a few girlfriends that I would toss jobs to when I was too busy (some entrepreneurial kids charge for these referrals, I exchanged them for favors).

Learning:

With specialization comes higher pricing. Babies require special care. Heck, new moms require special care. Being known as someone who could handle both meant people were willing to pay more. How good was I? I could cloth diaper (with safety pins) with one hand.

Referrals are a reflection of the referrer. At first, I would toss clients to friends blindly. After a friend messed up royally (she invited a boyfriend over while she watched the kids), I lost that client for life. It also damaged my reputation. From then on, I screened my friends with dummy assignments first (family placements).

A nice house does not mean the client is financially fit. There was one family living in a gorgeous dream house. I envied them until I babysat for them. At the end of the night, I was asked if I could wait for my $20 until the next week when the executive husband got paid. Yep, they didn’t have the $20 to pay me.

More odd job learning here…

When I was 12, we moved into a one industry town with a booming population of 5,000. Jobs for moody teenagers were in short supply, the pickings for preteens even worse. My five siblings and I decided that if we were going to make money, we had to start up our own business.

We looked around at what we had and our shiny red lawnmower caught our attention. We had a lawn. It needed cutting. The neighbors had a lawn. It needed cutting too.

So our yard care business was born. During the summer, we’d cut lawns. During the spring and autumn, we’d rake leaves. The winter meant snow shoveling.

My learning:

Customers have to be sold to. There was no one knocking on our door asking to be signed up for our yard care service. Nope. We had to knock on their doors. We snagged those first customers because we asked them to be customers. If someone else had asked, they would have received the business.

The cheapie customers are just as high maintenance as the high paying clients. We had a flexible charge out rate, charging based on the size of the lawn and how much we figured the customer could afford. What we noticed was that it didn’t matter what we were charging, the expected service was the same.

Self employment brings more control. I saw friends get jobs and then lose jobs based on the amount of work the business brought in. They didn’t directly influence the business’ success. They were at the mercy of the owner. In the yard care business, we knew how to make more money. Make more sales calls. Money came after completing the work which came after landing the sale which came after approaching prospects.

More Money Lessons From Previous Jobs Here

Jon at Art Of Money came up with the brilliant idea of detailing what he has learned from his different jobs. Since I’ve held the widest assortment of jobs of anyone I know, I figured this would be a fun exercise for my weekend posts.

Before the age of twelve, we lived way out in the country in a small village (of five families). There weren’t many opportunities to earn cash (we did work on a recreational farm which supplied most of our food needs – I even had a few hives of bees that I managed – some kids have kittens as pets, I had bees).

However, one weekend a year, the village hosted a fall fair with attendees coming from up to an hour drive away. My siblings and I worked as garbage clean up (we worked very, very hard all weekend to earn a twenty dollar bill between the four of us, I remember passing that first twenty dollar bill back and forth, it was one of the happiest days of my life).

But the most influential part of the weekend was when we sold excess vegetables at the roadside, mostly to city folks.

What I learned;

Unsold inventory is worthless. We only got paid for the vegetables we sold. Anything left at the end of the weekend went in our stomachs, not in our wallets. Oh, and inventory turns are important. Vegetables spoil.

The customer is always right. One city gal wanted to buy the huge “cucumber” we had for sale. “Sorry ma’am”, I told her, “that’s a zucchini.” “No, little girl,” she insisted in a condescending voice, “that’s a cucumber. I’ll give you $3 for it.” For $3, it’ll be a cucumber. Consider it sold.

Planning is key. In order to have the hot selling vegetables, we had to plant the seeds months in advance.

Be where the customers are. We (actually my youngest siblings) would count cars down different routes, figuring out where the best place was to put our vegetable stand. We could only sell to customers we saw.