How to Start a Daycare

Articles, news and training on how to start a daycare, open a daycare and starting a home daycare business to help insure your success.

More than a logo

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

A lot of people starting a new company are operating under the illusion that their brand strategy is covered solely by having a great logo and visual identity. The reality however is that your brand should be so much more than a logo. A brand needs to be your core essence, story and promise. A logo should certainly convey the brand but your brand is the actual foundation for all of your marketing efforts as well as informing other aspects of your organization such as hiring, operations and partnerships. Your brand is the place you hold in the imagination of potential customers and the story that you tell with it.

There are target audiences and markets for practically everything but as a marketing leader or business owner it is your job to be completely clear as to the image that you want to project and the way that will influence everything from customer experience to distribution and pricing, not just your visual identity.

How to Become a Caring Daycare Business Manager

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

One of the most important and underrated management tips is to be a daycare manager who actually cares about your staff. In this day and age there seems to be a great deal of pressure to be ruthless and uncaring but being empathetic and caring is much more likely to make you a better manager, not to mention gain the respect, loyalty and trust of those who work for you.

Good management is all about deep personal relationships. Managers should be encouraged to get to know their employees as actual human beings, both in terms of their past; their values, motivations, history – and their future – ambitions, goals, aims – and then use that knowledge to forge a greater connection between them and their work.

Being a caring manager also means giving plain feedback, even if it is negative. There is nothing worse than a manager who wants to avoid offence giving feedback that is wishy-washy and unclear; if there is a real problem that the employee genuinely does not know about, it is far better to deal with it straight on than to fudge the issue with indirect feedback and potentially leave the employee still unclear as to what it is they are supposedly doing wrong.

Be more productive without working longer hours

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

For many of us, the five-day, 40-hour workweek is a distant memory. But you don’t want to risk burning yourself out. One way to avoid longer hours in the office is to prioritize your time and redefine your workplace parameters. Here are some ways to make your workdays shorter and more productive:

Limit phone calls. When under the gun, accept only important calls. Just be sure to return missed calls within 24 hours.
Call at choice times of the day. Initiate phone calls just before lunch, or near the close of the day when the other party is more likely to keep the conversation brief.
Handle a piece of paper only once and act on it immediately. Don’t move it from one pile to another.
Follow an agenda. When a telephone conversation or meeting digresses, bring it back around—promising to discuss the other issues later.
Work from a to-do list. Take 10 minutes each morning and list everything you need to accomplish. Check items off as they’re completed.
Get organized. Maintain clearly marked files, and stop wasting precious time searching for misplaced documents.
Recognize your peak energy times. Do the tough tasks when your energy level is at its highest. Save routine work for low points of the day.

Get inspired at mealtimes

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare, Parenting

Eating should and can be a lot more than just a biological necessity. A dish that has a beautiful appearance becomes a good deal more tempting to the senses and can inspire a love and appreciation for our culinary experiences. Visually appealing food also stimulates the digestive juices and maximizes the absorption of nutrients by our bodies, not to mention just making us enjoy our food more!

Get artistic and be inspired by current trends such as using organic foods. Give a more natural element to food presentation by choosing bowls, plates and spoons made from clay, natural wood and stone which can add a bit of rustic charm to your kitchen table.

You might want to take inspiration from the natural world and present your meal in the style of a garden by arranging different food components on the one plate in a flat and landscaped manner. For a more cutting edge and futuristic look, use lots of glass and sleek metal crockery.

Grow your daycare business by get better at networking with these tips

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

Everyone knows the old saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know.” Networking is a big part of your daycare business success and growing enollments, but it’s more than just collecting business cards and chatting at cocktail parties. Follow these steps to build a network that will support you in the long run:

Help other people. Networking shouldn’t be self-centered. You’ll collect more contacts if you concentrate on what you can do for other people (sharing information, providing introductions, volunteering your services) rather than on what you want out of them.
Start on a modest scale. You don’t need to amass a list of 100 new contacts at a single networking event. Begin with a reasonable goal, like one or two new names. Rely on your current friends and contacts at first, then branch out slowly to gather more.
Use the power of the name. When meeting potential additions to your network, be sure to get their names and use yours. Train yourself to remember names so you don’t fumble and embarrass yourself at a second meeting. When introducing yourself, speak your name clearly so people will pick up on it and remember it later.
Connect people within your network. One of the most powerful ways to network is to put contacts in touch with other people in a position to help them. Always be looking for introductions you could make, proving that you’re genuinely interested in helping the people you meet instead of getting something from them.
Be flexible. Planning out what you want to say to a new contact or what you want to accomplish at a conference is fine. Just don’t lock yourself in. Reciting a canned “elevator speech” to everyone you meet won’t impress many listeners. Adjust to the situation, be warm and genuine, and accept that you’ll have good days and poor ones when networking

Balancing Life and Work While Running a Daycare Business

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

Having a balanced life is the key to cutting down on stress and being happy and the good news is there are plenty of tips to choose from that can help people to achieve a better balance between their personal life and their work. This can be hard to achieve while running a daycare business.

One good tip is to unplug. This can be very difficult but it is absolutely crucial to achieving a healthier work/life balance. Step away from the smartphones and the tablets and enjoy time with your family away from these technological distractions.

Another good tip is to set a schedule. This assists you with knowing what needs to be focused on and what can be put back. If your work takes place during school hours between 8 am to 3 pm, then you know that you have those hours to get the great majority of your work done and should plan accordingly while prioritizing your tasks.

If you work from your home then you need to pick a definite time of the day to stop working and focus on family life, hobbies and interests and so forth. Home workers can easily become overwhelmed by work if they fail to draw the line between it and the rest of their life.

How to Write a Grant for Your Nonprofit

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

Grantwriting is a lengthy process and if you are new to it there are plenty of missteps you can be prepared to make. The more grants you apply for, the more you learn about the process and can avoid the mistakes you’ve made in the past. However, if you are brand new to the process, wouldn’t it be nice to learn from the mistakes of others to help you along? Here are a few tips for new grantwriters to help you make the most of the process:

1. Describe your program more than your philosophy. Grant makers aren’t as interested in your philosophy as they are in the program you’re applying to have funded. They want to know what problem your program will solve and who is going to run the program (and why they are qualified).
2. Be very clear about how your program matches the foundation’s requirements.
3. Be familiar with the foundation and use their own “language” throughout your grant application.
4. Round your budget to the nearest whole dollar – either hundreds or thousands. Foundations aren’t interested in exact dollar/cents amounts.
5. Don’t wait until the last minute to submit your application and its attachments. Your grant is important to your organization. Approach the application process with a sense of urgency.

Teach problem solving for lifelong success

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

Problem solving is a skill that’s applicable to all facets of your children’s lives—from school to relationships to their first job. Here are six steps to teach your children how to tackle any problem they’re facing:

Identify the problem. This is the most important step, and often the most overlooked. Your child can’t solve a problem until he or she can state what it is.
Come up with a list of solutions. Brainstorm on possible solutions, even ones that initially seem far-fetched. Just keep the ideas flowing.
Assess each idea. Now is the time to judge the merit of each idea, weighing the pros and cons of each solution.
Pick one or two of the ideas. Have your child pick the top two solutions and talk about their pros and cons. Before he or she puts the decision into action, talk about possible obstacles and outcomes. What help can you expect? How can you avoid traps?
Put the decision into action. Encourage your child to try his or her best. Don’t interfere, as long as the child is safe. Let him or her learn from mistakes.
Evaluate and learn. How did the solution work? What changes need to be made to make it work better? What would he or she try the next time?

The 6 Reasons Why A Home Daycare Business Is a Great Way to Make Fast and Serious Money

All Articles and News, Daycare Business, How to Start a Daycare

Many working moms are dreaming of a way to stay home with their young children, and still earn a solid 5-figure income but they just don’t know how to make this dream a reality. One excellent solution is to start your own home daycare business in your home. As a daycare business owner, you can use the management skills you learned in your corporate career, and structure your business to fit your lifestyle.Here are 6 reasons why starting a home-based child care business is a GREAT way to make an excellent income, and be able to stay home with your children each day:

Reason 1: The Low Cost of Starting a Daycare. Starting a daycare can be done with very little upfront funding. Many daycares are started with less than $1,500, because you already own many of the supplies you need (since you’re a mom!). If you have a walk-out basement that’s already finished, that’s the perfect space to dedicate to your new daycare business. If not, use a spare room or your family room. Add in toys you already own, yard sale finds, donations from parents, borrowing books from the library, and you’re set to go.

Reason 2: Rapid Payback. Instantly, you can start your business tomorrow and start making cash. Enroll the child and collect the money all in one day.

Reason 3: Work at Home. This speaks for itself: no more fancy clothes, traffic jams, hassles, or angry bosses who don’t respect you. You set your own rules and limits and work out of the comfort of your own home.

Reason 4: Independence. You are now the boss and you make the rules. Do exactly — and I mean exactly — what you want. Give yourself time off when you feel like it. After you get your business up and running, you can hire a student or retiree as your assistant, and have the time you need to manage your business and personal life.

Reason 5: Business Owners Earn More Money Than Employees. That’s a simple fact. The daycare business is a legitimate business, not some pie in the sky idea. It’s not an MLM, networking, or pyramid scheme. The straightforward truth is daycare owners can make more money than many college educated professionals. In fact, recent studies have shown that the average home daycare owner earns nearly $48,000 in revenue per year. Don’t forget to add in to your income the money you used to spend on daycare.

Reason 6: Never Miss a “First Moment” of Your Child’s Development. You can stay home with your children and watch them grow and experience every little milestone that they accomplish, instead of being at work and missing those incredible “firsts”!

Learn more about how to start a successful and profitable Home Daycare Business today:

How to Start a Daycare