Entries Tagged 'Child Care Business' ↓

Last Friday and Saturday, I attended a “Wealth Days” event right here in Cleveland, presented by my favorite business coach Dan Kennedy. The event was terrific and I left with no less than EIGHTEEN power ideas to implement from the weekend. Dan is “the man”!

Here is an excerpt from his new book, “NO B.S. Wealth Attaction in the New Economy”. You can get a copy on Amazon, and I highly recommend you add the book to your summer reading pile.

“When You Meet Money On Its Path, It Means
You’re Walking In The Right Direction”
by Dan S. Kennedy

In the midst of one of his dark periods, when the news was filled with stories of his financial demise, Donald Trump talks about feeling like just staying hidden at home but instead strapping on his tuxedo and going to an important gala – because he knew he could not possibly gain by staying home. At a time, some 30 years or so ago, when I was captain of a company everyone in its industry knew to be in deep and dire financial circumstances, I considered skipping that year’s convention. But I didn’t. It might have been less stressful, less embarrassing, more comfortable to stay home. But I couldn’t possibly gain doing that. I went. I put myself in a place where it was at least possible good, productive, profitable things could happen – and they did.

Hopefully, you aren’t in the upside down financial condition I was, or Donald Trump was, at the above-mentioned times. But regardless of your circumstances, you have to make a point of putting yourself in places where opportunity can occur. My father passed on a pair of cufflinks to me with the letters: YCDBSOYA. They stand for: You Can’t Do Business Sitting On Your Ass.

While this refers to personal movement and placement, such as the meetings and conferences and cocktail parties and community events you attend and make yourself visible at, it also goes far beyond that. As example, consider this book, and the other 14 books I have written and had published. For the more than 18 years, I have been on bookstore shelves without interruption. I have worked hard to make that happen. Why? I can assure you, not for the royalty income paid to me as an author; that represents less than 1% of my income. I want to be on those bookshelves because people discover me there, who might never discover me otherwise, and become newsletter subscribers, attend seminars, become private clients, or bring me other opportunities. Being there, on bookstore shelves, has both directly and indirectly enriched me by millions of dollars. For me, Being Somewhere, and Being In Motion includes being on bookstore shelves, including this book, which is now in your office or home.
That does not mean you must write a book. It is example of the wealth attraction power of being somewhere. Because the most important words in the above paragraph are “discover me” and “sought out.” This is marketing by attraction.

Being Somewhere for the local insurance agent or financial planner, for example, might mean speaking to local groups of dentists, chiropractors, M.D.’s, and other high income professionals; creating and mailing a good, informative, expert position enhancing newsletter on financial matters to a targeted list of such prospects every month; appearing regularly on a local radio show; serving on the board of an important charity. Almost any entrepreneur can be somewhere via speaking, writing, publishing, networking, even serving, with it all carefully chosen to facilitate the right people taking notice and ultimately seeking him out for advice and information or bringing him new opportunities.
This gets us to the subject of “place.”

Enormous wealth — and fame — often comes from re-location, net necessarily in the geographic sense, but in terms of media or market space. Comedienne Joan Rivers, with whom I did some writing and consulting work some years back, created an immensely prosperous business and a career renaissance and new fame by moving from stand-up comedy and regular TV to QVC, the home shopping network. That prominence and reputation as entrepreneur even led to her gig in the 2008 Celebrity Apprentice – which she won.

Several years ago, Harley-Davidson began focusing aggressively on women riders and buyers, and moved that sales activity out of their regular dealerships and showrooms to “garage parties” ala Tupperware.
In place strategy, there are obvious and non-obvious choices, and often the big breakthroughs come from the non-obvious.

One of the things I try to get every entrepreneur, marketer, and professional to think about is being in more places than anyone in their category of expertise or services typically puts himself. Most people are very limited, get comfortable with only a few places, and stay there. My advanced version of the “Be Somewhere Wealth Magnet” is: Be everywhere that’s relevant, everywhere your ideal customer or clients are, and be omnipresent in those environments.

This article excerpted from the new book:
NO B.S. WEALTH ATTRACTION IN THE NEW ECONOMY
by Dan S. Kennedy, available at amazon.com, BN.com and fine booksellers. Information on the entire No B.S. book series at www.NoBSBooks.com.
Article © 2010-Dan Kennedy,
Rights Reserved.

Many child care business owners & directors make decisions in their business based on gut instinct, a willingness to try something new, or desperation to find something that works. Usually, when they try something, they do it once, are unable to clearly measure the results of what they tried, give up, and go on to the next thing.

This is a recipe for disaster in your business. (Or at the very least, a huge waste of money and time!)

The real power of making impactful changes in your business is to test new things and be able to measure exactly what’s working and what isn’t, and beyond that, to know the return on investment on every single marketing or business decision you make. That’s a data-driven child care business.

This is where metrics enter the picture. The term “metrics” describes the numbers you track in your business, which indicate how the business is performing. It’s how you keep score of your child care program’s financial and marketing performance, over time.

To get started with this fact-based approach, you must set a baseline for where you are right now. After all, how are you going to know which direction to take your business in, if you can’t determine the starting point based on real numbers (rather than guesses or hunches)?

If you are not achieving what you want in your business, it’s probably because your specific goals are not clearly-enough defined. But you also must keep score of your progress toward those goals in a timely, consistent, and accurate way, over time. In all my work with child care clients, setting up metrics is where we always begin. This is the foundation for success for not only every child care business, but every business.

I want you to think about your business and make a list of things you are keeping score of on a consistent basis, and write down how often you are keeping score. You may be tracking your total enrollments, and probably your gross sales revenue and profits, on a monthly basis. But just looking at enrollments, revenue, and profit-loss are not enough to tell you the full story of the financial health of your center or school.

On a sheet of paper or an Excel spreadsheet, make a list of every business metric you are currently tracking in your child care program, and how often you are doing so (i.e. weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually).

To be honest, I’ve never met a child care leader who was keeping score of all the important stuff on a consistent basis over time. Again, this is the key to maximizing your enrollment and creating a waiting list, and remaining full over time. And once your program is fully enrolled, by using these metrics you’ll be able to make continuous improvements to your program that will boost productivity, efficiency, and profitability.

It may seem daunting, but once you have the tracking systems in place, you’ll find it’s pretty easy (and very enlightening). After you’ve been keeping score for a couple months, and you gain valuable insights about your business, you’ll wonder how you ever ran your program without this information!

For more information on how to properly set up a data-driven early childhood program, please sign up for my free email training course (and learn more about how to order my free audio CD) by entering your name and email address in the form on the right-hand side of this page. Talk soon!

Today is the 3-year anniversary of the day I started my business as a coach and consultant to child
care centers and startups.

It’s the day I staked out my claim as an independent business owner in this country, a budding entrepreneur.

I want to take a moment today to thank you for reading my blog, and if you’ve invested any time or money in me, thanks for that too. I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

And in the last three years, I’ve grown the business from about $9,000 per YEAR in revenue to about that much per MONTH.

So I’ve grown it by a factor of 12. I look forward to helping you do the same with your business.

In 3 days, we will share another meaningful day – of course, our country’s day of Independence.

Here is a sweet quote from Erma Bombeck regarding our nation’s celebration in three days:

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle,
but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies dies of happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”

While you enjoy your holiday this year with a picnic and fireworks, please remember those who are fighting for our country TODAY…right now, as you read this, they are wiping the sweat and tears from their brow and digging in even harder to wipe out any threats to your freedom.

Don’t forget. Freedom is not free.

My family and I wish you and yours a safe and joyous Fourth.

I’ve got to admit, up till now I’ve been a social media skeptic. Yes, I’ve got a Facebook and Twitter account, but other than keeping in touch with friends every so often, I haven’t been keeping my accounts updated very well. Until now, I wasn’t a believer in putting alot of time into social media for business purposes.

Well, I’ve been wrong. Dead wrong. Social media is growing by huge numbers, and many Fortune 500 businesses have been shifting their traditional media budgets into social media by millions of dollars. Recently, INC Magazine reported that 91% of businesses are using social media (or plan to soon) and 85% of businesses are INCREASING their social media presence. Many are hiring Social Media Managers on staff, or outsourcing to Social Media firms.

What does this mean for you? Well, your child care center should at the very minimum have a Facebook “Fan Page” set up, and you should start posting photos and events from your program to your fan page. You should also strongly consider getting a Twitter account and asking your friends and families to “follow” you. These two social media platforms are sizzling hot, and will help generate new leads for your child care program, as well as build relationships with current client families.

If you need help with Social Media, you can contact us here at Child Care Marketing Solutions and we’ll help you get started. We can even build a complete “done for you” social media plan and handle the set-up and updates for you. If you’re interested in learning more, please contact us at info@childcare-marketing.com. The time is NOW to get started and build that presence.

The other day, I treated myself and my sister to a spa pedicure at the local salon. The gal doing my toes told me she was SO happy to work at that salon because the owner was constantly doing “little things” that made her day special.

On her very first day of working there, the owner gave her a huge HUG at the end of the day. She said “Who does that? I’ve never received a hug from a boss before, especially on my first day!”

It got me thinking…what special “little things” have you done lately for your staff, or your customers? Is an attitude of gratitude and appreciation ingrained into the culture of your child care program? If not, try doing a little thing for one staffer and one customer every single day.

It could be as simple as a hug, a yummy treat, a break, a thank-you note, or a cup of coffee. If you start showing appreciation to customers and staff on a regular basis, you’ll build a base of “raving fans” who sing your praises to others in your community!

Have you heard of Crazy Crayons?

It’s a crayon recycling program. Children bring in any old, broken, or unwanted crayons from home. The crayons are donated to the Crazy Crayons program, which recycles them into fresh, new crayons. This program teaches children students the importance of recycling and taking care of our planet, and what could be a greater cause for kids to understand than Crayons! In the past, this community service program has made it possible to stop more than 52,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills.

Earth Day is Thursday April 22nd, 2010. Are you doing something special in your child care program or at home to celebrate Earth Day?

If so, please comment on this blog post and share your creative ideas!

Thanks, and “think green”!

If you’re a childcare provider, here are some tips to get ready for summertime play:

1) Ask parents to bring cool clothing to keep on hand

2) Keep the children out of the sun during the hottest time of the day. Good times to play outside in summer are from 9-11 a.m. and 3-6 p.m.

3) Check all outside toys and play structures for loose or missing parts. Do regular cleanings of toys & play structures with eco-friendly cleaner, a scrubby sponge, & a spray hose.

4) Walk your fence line and check for loose or missing boards or nails

5) Check trees with low large limbs for splits which could fall if pulled on

6) Fill water bottles ¾ full the night before and freeze. Have the children make a name label put to on their bottles. Place the bottles in a box or on a tray outside and encourage the kids to drink 2-4 bottles of water each day.

7) If having trouble getting the kids to drink water, add some lemon or orange slices or make kool-aid or juice ice cubes to add to drinking water

Serve fruit smoothies, milkshakes or POPSICLES!

9) Coat everyone well with Sunscreen (Have a signed authorization form prior to application)

10) Fire up the sprinkler (if allowed by your licensing agency)

11) Keep a small first aid kit outdoors

12) Encourage bathroom use before going outdoors to prevent children being unsupervised.

13) Create a separate list of outdoor rules i.e. No one leaves the yard, no climbing on the fence, no throwing except for balls, shoes off before reentering the house, etc. Go over the rules the first few days of outdoor play.

14) Do not apply bug repellent to the children unless authorized in writing and requested by parents.

15) If you have your home sprayed for pests, check to make sure that it is safe for children and pets and confirm what precautions you need to take when the children go outdoors after being sprayed.

16) Do not fertilize your plants or lawn during the week, do this on the weekend to allow time for the fertilizer to dissolve.

17) Encourage indoors toys to stay in and outdoor toys to stay out.

18) Offer fun yet messy activities such as sidewalk chalk, finger-painting and play dough.

19) Provide safe outdoor activities such as a child friendly play structure, sand box; ride on toys and balls. Set up sporting stations with a mini basketball hoop or cones for mini soccer games.

20) Keep a cellular or cordless phone outdoors so you can be available to parents as needed, while being able to supervise outdoor play at all times.

The Week of the Young Child (WOYC) is an annual week of celebration of early education programs and events, sponsored by NAEYC. This year, WOYC is April 11-17. Has your center or school planned out yet what you’ll be doing to celebrate WOYC?

If you need some ideas and/or inspiration on how to celebrate WOYC, check out NAEYC’s website. They also have a guide that gives you tips on how to publicize whatever events or activities you have planned. Here’s the link:

http://www.naeyc.org/woyc

Good luck, and have fun!