Yesterday, I was scheduled for a day shift at my security job. The weather intervened, however, and dumped more than a foot of snow on Denver. So, despite the fact that we were at work, there was nothing to do - everyone was staying home. Management made the decision to close at 2:00, which left me and my friend with the entire afternoon free.

At first, we weren’t sure what to do. Everything was closed: restaurants, movie theaters, and (not surprisingly) mini-golf courses. So, we headed home, and as I ran the snow blower over my walk, inspiration struck: We could start a small business for the afternoon. This was, after all, a lot of snow, and there were likely to be people willing to give us money to remove it from their walks.

We threw my dad’s snow-blower and a snow-shovel into my buddy’s truck, and off we went. We opted for a door-to-door approach, with my friend driving the truck and me giving the sales pitch.

To be honest, I was a little bit nervous about our competition. Especially little kids. Competing with little kids is brutal.

-They’re cute. (Great branding.)
-They can undercut us. (Lower overhead.)
-They offer a better product. (What’s better than getting your walks cleared? Getting them cleared and feeling like you’re helping a little kid!)
-Did I mention they’re cuter than I am?

Fortunately for our little start-up, we didn’t see any little kids out there competing with us. And while that was great for my pocketbook (we made more than enough for dinner and drinks), I think it’s a drag for these kids and the people who will employ them in the future. Just think about all the great lessons one can learn from running his own small business, even for just a day:

-Just how hard customers are to get. (Only about one in every ten doors we knocked on proved to be a customer for us.)
-The role that costs play in a business, particularly labor costs. (Each kid in the gang cuts into the margins pretty brutally.)
-Seeing the difference that efficient, hard-working employees can make to your bottom-line.

There’s probably a whole host of others, too. Those were just the first three I thought of while my jeans froze into funny shapes.

So, what does this mean to you? It’s simple: Ask your applicants if they’ve ever had their own business (snow-shoveling, lawn-mowing, lemonade stand, etc). If they say yes, they’re not just telling you that they have mastered the demanding skill of making lemonade. They’re telling you:

1. They’ve got initiative. If you can get out and start your own business - even if it’s for only one day - you can get yourself going.

2. They understand something about business. They may not have an MBA, and maybe they can’t even put that understanding into words, but they’ll apply those lessons to their practices at your business.

3. They understand that their efforts turn into money. They see that the money isn’t a gift. They see that it isn’t an entitlement. They understand that if they do nothing, they get nothing.

So, ask your young applicants if they’ve ever started their own business. It’s one question, but it tells you so much.