• Have an accountant teach the Post how to review annual reports of several companies. Identify the two major financial statements--the income statement and the balance sheet.
• Create a budget for the post.
• Prepare personal tax returns.
• Learn how to balance a checkbook; Open a savings or checking account and keep the account balanced for a period of 90 days.
• Manage the funds for a post or other community group. Collect and disburse funds, give and receive receipts, keep an accurate accounting balance sheet, and then report to the group on how everyone did.
• Review what it would take to start up a company that makes and sells bicycles.
• Invite a local business owner to the meeting.
• Invite a human resource manager.
• Read and explain the annual report of a company. Write a business plan for a new company and explain the use of the Internet as a business component.
• Review how the stock market works and what makes stocks fluctuate. Have Explorers invest fictitious money in real stocks and track the value of their investments over several weeks.
• Have Explorers investigate the cost of organizing the production of a product. Calculate the cost of production, advertising, distribution, capital, and salaries.
• Lead a game of Monopoly for your post, another post or other community group. Lead a discussion of the game and have each player discuss whether his or her technique produced a net income or loss and the amount of assets they accumulated.
• Find out whether your post or group can legally be made into a corporation and contact an attorney for the necessary legal documents
• Contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and get a copy of the rules related to hiring. Collect applications from local businesses and see whether any of the questions on the applications violate EEOC guidelines.
• Explain a proprietorship, a partnership, and a corporation.
• Review the tax laws on business.
• Design an advertising campaign for a product. Use television, radio, print and point-of purchase advertising. Include product designing and packaging as well as the media advertising.
• Make a presentation of your advertising campaign to the Post.
• Put together a sales presentation for an automobile and decide who the target buying group will be. Decide how to highlight the car's features and how you might overcome the objections of the potential customer.
• Make the sales presentation to an individual or group and ask them to critique how you did.
• Tour a facility with a large computer system. See whether they have a mainframe or local area network system. Determine what kind of software the business uses and what information the business keeps in its database. Have the manager demonstrate as much of the system as possible.
• Set up computer information and data for your post. Put all financial records in a spreadsheet and create a database for your youth participant records. Store all correspondence, meeting minutes, etc. in a word-processing system.
• Learn the requirements for importing automobiles and/or motorcycles for sales in the United States.
• Learn the requirements for selling in Mexico a product made in the United States.
• Pick a product that can be sold to teenagers and find out how much money it costs to purchase the product wholesale. Calculate the cost of creating an organization to sell the product. Include the cost of buying, transporting, storing, advertising and paying the sales force. Set a price for the product that will allow the organization to make a profit.