Kids best understand what work is about when you have your kids at work. At a trade show, my daughter learned lessons school never teaches.

Kids can only learn from their parents what the parents know. Speaking for myself, my kids will never learn from me to sing opera, dance hip hop, or recite Goethe.

But my kids saw their dad building a business from a very young age, and they are learning from this experience every day.

I’ve spent the last years building Yonder, a B2B SaaS company, and my kids have been very close to my daily grind in building the company. 

Now that the kids are a little older, it’s easier to show them the challenges of building a business using more complex examples than just helping to scan paper mail or explaining why jumping on a call during the holidays is a necessity.

Here is an in-depth example.

The Trade Show during School Holidays

One of the recent trade shows was scheduled during the autumn holiday period. As usual in a small company, you can’t say no to attending a tradeshow just because of a clash with the school holidays. Not even if you’re the founder and the CEO.

My 13-year-old daughter wasn’t amused that I would be on the road during the holidays. So I asked her, “Why don’t you come with me to the tradeshow?”

She asked me what she could help with during the tradeshow. My daughter is a very sociable person, so I suggested that she hand out chocolates to the visitors to attract them to our booth.

My daughter was excited, and she immediately agreed to join my co-founder and me for a 3-day trade show in Munich.

It was a three-day learning experience for my daughter. Because there are not just busy periods at a trade show, we had ample time to discuss the learnings. Here are some of the most important learnings my daughter took away from this non-standard holiday experience.

Learning 1: It’s more than handing out chocolates

When I pitched the event to my daughter, it was handing out chocolates to visitors that got her excited.

But she learned that a trade show is much more than just handing out chocolates and brochures: It starts with travelling to the location of the trade show. Once arrived, it continues with setting up the booth and installing all the necessary equipment. And after the tradeshow, you have to pack up everything and travel back home.

During the tradeshow, there are also some administrative tasks to do: Capturing leads in the CRM. Scanning receipts into the expense management tool. Organizing food and coffee for the team at the booth. We introduced my daughter to all these tasks, too.

Learning 2: Not everybody has a true interest

Just like with social media, learning who has a true interest in your person or company is difficult for a teenager. A tradeshow provides an excellent training ground to sharpen this sense.

Some visitors showed genuine interest in our product and seemed to be willing to continue the discussion after the trade show. Some of our partners showed up at our booth, saying hello and managing the relationship.

And then other visitors would rather belong to the categories of spies. They ask awkward questions, don’t disclose the company they work for, and request follow-up information that is none of their business.

In contrast to social media, it was easy to discuss every visitor to our booth straight after they left. This provided a great learning platform for my daughter on how to read people.

Learning 3: It’s not all fun; sometimes it’s boring

Trade shows are exciting. Sometimes. And sometimes they are plain boring. Manning a booth during a quiet period of a few hours requires stamina. You still have to uphold a professional appearance, even though no potential visitor is in sight. This can change at any moment, and when a high-potential lead shows up out of nowhere, you don’t want to be caught chewing gum, farting, chilling in your chair, or eating like a pig.

Maybe there is a reason why Dad always asks the kids to sit straight in their chairs, not to talk with a full mouth, and not to fart at the table.

Conclusion

In Switzerland, we cherish our dual education system. Besides the academic path, young people can choose the apprenticeship option. In contrast to the academic career, young people don’t just learn about the core business during their apprenticeship, but also about the soft skills and the professionalism that is needed to succeed in real life.

Irrespective of which path my kids will choose, it’s the real-life experience I prioritize to teach my children.