How to Get a Spirit Box in Your School
About Spirit Box
Spirit Box is a Project-Based Learning Program that solves common school store challenges that is paired with a comprehensive CTE Aligned Curriculum. We take the planning out of project-based learning.
What your school and your students receive
Your student team will receive a school-themed automated retail vending machine, initial inventory starter-pack, onsite training at the school, ongoing support and educational materials. By running this real business students will learn problem-solving, finances, marketing, product development, customer service, and teamwork.
Here’s how to get started:
Talk to you school administrator
Do some research on who the best person is to talk to about getting a Spirit Box in your school. Schedule a meeting to discuss the Spirit Box or ask if you can deliver a formal presentation. Give them the Spirit Box Guide review. Often times administrators want a hard copy of everything they need to know about a new program. This step can be the hardest. Within schools there are a lot of people that need to approve new programming or funding for new programs.
Apply for Spirit Box
Fill out our application online to give us more information about you! From there we will schedule a call with you to see if Spirit Box is a good fit for your school.
Get Funding
With any startup business, you need to have some kind of funding, whether it is from your school, a private donor, sponsorships, etc. The great thing about Spirit Box, is if you keep your box consistently stocked and well marketed, you should make back every dollar you spend on it within the 1-3 years. Need help with figuring out how to fund your Spirit Box? Read this blog post “10 Ways to Fund Your Spirit Box”.
Timeline:
It usually takes about 6 weeks to get a Spirit Box in your school after your school joins the program. Here is what this timeline looks like.
Vending Prep
In this stage, you will be sending all of your graphics and school colors. We will make a custom graphic that will personalize your school vending machine with your school colors and logo.
5 Weeks Before
Put together your Spirit Box team (and delegate the rest of this list)!
The more attention you can give to the main areas of responsibilities the better the odds of success. Managing inventory, new product development and sourcing, finances, marketing and advertising and more are going to be needed to run your new business. Check out our article [link] with some tips on team responsibilities.
Establish your product mix.
You’ll get your starter pack of products from Spirit Box, but you will still have about half the box to fill. This machine holds A LOT so start this process as soon as possible so you are ready for opening day. Read this detailed article about planning your Product Mix and download the Plan-o-Gram template that will help you map out all your slots.
4 Weeks Before
Location. Location. Location. Where the Box will go?
Work with the person in charge of the school facilities to finalize where the box will go so, they are ready and can help.
Put it in a high traffic area that’s accessible after school as well as weekends Is there a good delivery path from the loading dock? (see size of the box)
Is it close to a power outlet?
Check cell phone coverage from several different carriers. Spirit Box can use AT&T, Verizon or Sprint radios depending on what has the strongest signal. If none of these have a good signal, consider another location.
Start building some hype!
Start talking to your audience to let them know something is coming. Reach out to fellow students and teachers on social media, locker flyers, posters, or whatever. Schedule a ribbon cutting with the District Superintendent and local media. Be creative! Done right, you’ll have a huge line of customers on Day 1 wanting to see and try out your new Spirit Box. Create your SB social media accounts. See Lakeview Centennial is doing with their twitter account: https://twitter.com/LCSpiritBox.
3 Weeks Before
Talk to your bank about $1 coins. They will likely need to order coins in advance. Create a consistent ordering plan with them so that you will have $1 coins available as you need them.
1 Week Before
Start bagging and labeling your products. See merchandising article on SB blog (need to write this one -- how to bag t-shirts, when to bag other items, what doesn’t fit, etc.). Print price labels and any other signage needed for way finding or promotions
Delivery Week
Notify facilities person the expected delivery date Unboxing and Training. Has Spirit Box coordinated a date and time for unboxing and training on the box with your team? Pick up your $1 coins from the bank
Finally Launch Day!
Once the machine is installed in your school, you are in business! Don’t worry, we don’t drop off the machine and say our goodbyes. We support you continually and whenever you need it. If you have issues or questions about the machine you can call us any time. If you want to brainstorm new ideas for marketing or new product ideas, we are here for you! Our goal is to support you every step of the way.
Do you have questions? Let’s schedule a time to talk! We know this is a big investment into your school’s future and we want to make it as easy as possible. Our main goal? Preparing students for the real world of entrepreneurship and business.