How to Start a Cooperative Daycare

Cooperative daycare is a group of families in a community that decide to share the tasks of handling children by swapping with their extra time with each other than spending money for someone to babysit your child or children. With this, the members of the cooperative have the access to child care services so they do not have to get a paid babysitter for their child.

There are lots of benefits to a cooperative daycare. For beginners, this one is easier and more affordable than babysitting, than relying on about 1 or 2 carers that at times are not available. But having access for about 10 to 20 families, it would be easier to find someone quickly. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting a Home Daycare – Marketing Part 1 of 4

One of the biggest challenges I faced when I started my home daycare was marketing. This came as a really big surprise to me as I never thought I would need to do any marketing at all. After all I was well known in our community, had a ton of friends with kids, had a nice little house, I’m out going, etc. And most importantly I had several moms encourage me to start a daycare with the promise that they would enroll their children with me.

When the dust settled (and I had quit my job), got my license in place, organized the house, etc none of them actually enrolled! It dawned on me then and there that I would have to get more serious about getting the word out. Read the rest of this entry »

You Need A Day Care Business Plan To Open A Profitable Daycare

Any business that is just starting out needs to develop a business plan, however, when you are opening a daycare center it is especially important. Because there are so many different laws and regulations regarding child daycare, it is critical that your daycare business plan covers everything.

Your daycare business plan should incorporate the all state and federal guidelines as well as any licensing requirements for teachers and employees of your daycare. This area has the toughest laws of any business because it deals with children, and each state has their own laws and regulation regarding daycare. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting a Home Daycare – Marketing 4 of 4

In the other 3 articles I discussed mailers, door hangers, car signs, etc. In this last segment of marketing you home daycare (4 of 4) I discuss more general topics of focus, urgency consistency.

In general there are a few common marketing themes that you want to keep in mind in order to start a daycare. Number one is you want to keep all efforts very focused in a three to five mile radius of your home. Most of your kids are going to be coming from your neighborhood. Also, you want to show your location on all of your advertisements via a simple and easy-to-read map. The most important thing here is to point out your daycare’s location relative to the parent’s home or job. The more convenient/close it appears the better. Read the rest of this entry »

Running a Daycare – Marketing 2 of 4

Door Hangers to Promote your Home Daycare

In part one I discussed how I used print ads and mailers to promote my home daycare. These activities where marginal, though the mailers showed much more promise than print ads.

In this section I talk about marketing your home daycare specifically with door hangers. Door hangers are those annoying little flyers that are shaped specifically so that they fit around door handles. You’ve probably had pizza companies or painters etc. put these on your front door and there’s a reason – it works. Read the rest of this entry »

Home Daycare Advertising – Here’s Five Proven Ways to Generate Business For Your Daycare Business

A nice home daycare advertising means more customers. To gain business clientele you need to advertise your home daycare. And to do that, you need know how and where to advertise it. So, here are 5 proven ways to gain new business today.

Advertising Strategy # 1

You can easily advertise your home daycare business by simply creating flyers in the comfort of your own home. By using your own computer and colored printer you can customize your flyers however you want. Using striking colors on the flyers will draw attention to your soon to be clients. Put down the name of your home daycare, your name, and your address and phone number. Read the rest of this entry »

Starting A Day Care – Where To Advertise Your New Daycare Center

So you decided to start a daycare center. Congratulations. Women all over the country are becoming financially independent and make a great income by starting daycare centers. If done correctly, a daycare can become a hugely profitable business. It can also be a lot of fun.

But a daycare center, as any business, needs customers. And in order to get these customers you need to advertise your business. But how to advertise and where?

Most parents choose a daycare center which is close to their home. No one wants to commute too much to take the kid to the daycare center before going to work. Read the rest of this entry »

What it’s Really Like to Start a Daycare

Starting a daycare has its ups and downs. One of my biggest challenges was dealing with parents on a day to day basis. Some can be just down right rude and totally off based.

For example, one of the girls I cared in my daycare had 2 parents that where both attorneys. The child, who was really a sweet girl, had a couple of concerning habits. The main one being that she was very picky with her food and developed the habit of only eating green beans. Period. Green Beans…. She would eat 4 to 5 servings of beans a day. The first couple of weeks it didn’t seem to be a big deal but a month into it I was getting concerned. It doesn’t take a doctor to figure out how unhealthy it is for a 20 month old to only beans day after day. Read the rest of this entry »