Spirit Box Blog
We’re interviewing the top performing Spirit Box schools, DECA teams and advisors to uncover their challenges to offer solutions and ideas that help your school based enterprise (SBE) succeed. Find out what Webster Groves has been doing to profit $750-800 per month with their Spirit Box vending machine.
We’re interviewing the top performing Spirit Box schools, DECA teams and advisors to uncover their challenges to offer solutions and ideas that help your school based enterprise (SBE) succeed. Find out what Webster Groves has been doing to profit $750-800 per month with their Spirit Box vending machine.
In an ongoing effort to help share ideas between Spirit Box schools, we’ve interviewed the top performing schools DECA teams and advisors. We uncover their challenges and offer solutions and ideas to help your school based enterprise (SBE) succeed. Find out what has made Liberal High School so successful.
What better way to set your Spirit Box enterprise up for success then to learn from other Spirit Box teams? We are excited to announce 2 half-day Spirit Box summer workshops to help facilitate just that!
These workshops are available at zero cost to all Spirit Box advisers and students managers. Simply RSVP ASAP by emailing your Sprit Box account manager or hello@spiritboxnation.com with attendee names and T-shirt sizes!
Lunch will be provided, and we will cover important topics like effective marketing tactics, goal setting, managing financials, team roles, top selling products and more!
Where: Olathe East High School
When: Tuesday, July 31
10:00a - 2:30p
Who: SB Advisers and Students
Cost: FREE!
Where: Chantilly High School
When: Friday, August 17
9:30a - 2:00p (lunch-11:30a)
Who: SB Advisers and Students
Cost: FREE!
Space is limited so pick a location and RSVP right away!
A special thank you to Keeley O'Grady at Olathe East High School, and Karyn Jones at Chantilly High School for hosting this year's summer workshops!
Spirit Box Enterprises are Selling Sponsorships to Local Companies...Are You?
The Idea: Your Spirit Box kiosk is like a well lit billboard, usually in a high traffic and very visible area within the school. At the same time, many local businesses are struggling to market their business/products to a very targeted market, being local high school students. So, what if these local businesses could sponsor the Spirit Box at your school, helping your program be more profitable, and helping these businesses communicate their message to the school community? Well, we think they can, with your help!
The Prove It: 5 Spirit Box Enterprises in Missouri secured a sponsorship from the Missouri Department of Transportation ($500 per Spirit Box) to help communicate the danger of texting and driving, as well as the importance of buckling up. What better way for MODOT to communicate this to a very specific audience, then to sponsor a visible program within the walls of the high school? These Spirit Box teams simply attached TVs with strong magnets to the top of the Spirit Box and plugged in a flash drive displaying MODOT's messages along with information about products within the Spirit Box...two birds with one stone.
Make It Happen: What businesses in your school community would benefit from sponsoring your Spirit Box Enterprise? While TVs, super glue and magnets are cheap, there are other ways to showcase your sponsor's messages to the school community, like hanging a banner above the Spirit Box, including your sponsor's coupons or business cards with products being purchased from the Spirit Box, or simply hanging fliers inside the Spirit Box thanking your sponsors.
The possibilities for executing Spirit Box sponsorships are endless. It's up to you to make it happen!
Do you have access to a vinyl printer at the school? If so, customize your blank merchandise.
As you know, Spirit Box offers blank convenience items at wholesale price points. The advantage to ordering blank items is that there is generally no minimum quantities, and the price points tend to be lower then custom branded merch.
That said, customized products might be more appealing to your client base. If so, you can customize blanks...for cheap...using a vinyl or decal printer.
Many of you have access to this type of printer at your school. If not in your classroom, maybe somewhere else within the school. So ask around.
The Spirit Box team at Chanute High School, in Chanute Kansas, has a vinyl printer in their classroom, and have been adding their school logo to blank items like water bottles and bluetooth headphones, which they've had to reorder twice already this year.
Get creative with your team, obtain a pulse on what your target market (students and teachers) want, and offer that to them! It's a sure way to increase sales through your Spirit Box and school store.
As you know, the Spirit Box gives change for purchases in the form of coins. For example, if someone purchases a $12 T-shirt with a $20 bill, they will receive 8 - $1 coins as change.
PROBLEM: It is important that you keep all tubes in your coin cassette at least 1/4 full. If you get low on, or run out of, coins (of any denomination), your customers may not be able to purchase products. It is also not uncommon for Spirit Boxes to act up if coin levels in any of the tubes get lower than 25% full.
Even Nickels! - Yes, even the nickel tube needs to be at least 1/4 full regardless of if you have any products priced in 5 cent increments (you may never need to refill nickels, but make sure it is full out-of-the gate). The Spirit Box needs to know it can make change for any amount, or it will require the customer to pay with exact change which = lost sales!
Summary: Keeping adequate change levels in all tubes of the Spirit Box coin cassette is important to the success of your Spirit Box Enterprise (specifically the customer experience). Make sure this is built into your processes, and let us know if you have any questions.
The Problem - Over the past couple weeks, a few of you have mentioned that the door on your Spirit Box is becoming a bit harder to close and lock. If your Spirit Box has been moved (even just 6 - 12 inches) it could cause the machine to become un-level/un-balanced, and this can create some (or a lot) of resistance when trying to shut and lock your Spirit Box.
Good news - the fix is pretty simple. If your Spirit Box is not level/un-balanced, which you can tell visually by verifying that the top of the glass door aligns (is parallel with) with the frame of the Spirit Box (see pictures below), you simply need to adjust the balance of the machine by twisting the very bottoms of one (or multiple) of the 4 Spirit Box legs (see pictures below).
Hint: this is most likely a two person job (one person will need to push on one of the sides of the Spirit Box (aligning the top of the glass door with the frame of the machine) while someone else twists the bottom of the appropriate leg(s) to level.
Questions? That's why we're here. Email or call anytime!
Are you ready to join the 40 schools (in 9 different states) who have already launched a Spirit Box Enterprise?
Here is a great article posted on DECA Direct that might help you answer that question.
Take 5 minutes to complete an application to reserve a Spirit Box for your school.
