Many times people who want to start a new business chaff at the idea of having to write a business plan.  The idea of going through a tedious process of documenting the business aspects of something that is really your dream that you want to make come true seems tedious and unnecessary.  After all, you know at a gut level what you want to do so the thought that you have to get that all on paper at a fairly detailed level seems to be a nuisance. 

This may have been your reaction when you begin to plan your new daycare that you want to open and perhaps your banker or someone at the small business association told you that creating a business plan was crucial to getting your daycare out of the dream phase and into the realm of reality.  But there are some very good reasons why you should give the process of creating a business plan for your future daycare some serious effort and some patient tender loving care because it really is a major key to your future success in running your daycare. 

The timing that most people who want to start a daycare business encounter the need for a business plan is in seeking funding.  It takes money to start a daycare.  You will need to secure a facility, remodel it to become your dream of a daycare center, purchase the playground equipment, cribs, bedding, toys, medical supplies, office equipment, computers and software and the supplies to run your daycare until the tuition from parents begins to roll in.  So, like any new business start up, you will probably need to seek out a small business loan from a bank or some other financial institution. 

Lenders are generally very open to funding a well thought out new business venture.  But the key is you have to show them that your plans to open a daycare are well thought out.  And it is the structure of your business plan that is the backbone of any effort you will organize to go and talk to lenders about backing you on your new daycare business.  This is also true even if you are seeking funding from private individuals such as family members, friends or an institution who is your sponsor such as a church or school.  Any of those entities will need to see your plan for starting the daycare and be able to appreciate that you have done your research, thought through the issues and have a solid plan to make this new business profitable so you can pay back the loans you need to get started. 

The good news is there is plenty of help available to you on what you need to include in your daycare business plan and how it should look when you present it to lenders.  There are volunteers at your local small business administration who are experts in writing business plans and they can help you a great deal.  Also there are a huge amount of web sites, kits and books that you can buy to help you with the process.  So don’t feel abandoned and alone in what you need to do.  Give it a good amount of attention and you will find yourself writing a business plan that will be a big value not only in getting funding but in running your daycare over time.

We hope you all had as much fun reading this series of articles as we had in working on them.  Please leave any comments you have on this series below.

• Each child’s profile data including birthday, allergies, medications, nap issues as well as the basic data such as name, address, parents, emergency contact and how long the child has been in your daycare.
• The payment history of each child including when the parents were invoiced and if the child’s account is up to date. 
• Parent information such as place of work, home, work and cell phone numbers, email addresses and family history information such as whether the child is from a single parent home, if the child has lost a parent to death or the result of a divorce. Its not meddling to learn this information because it is part of the child’s emotional profile.
• Alternative pick up information so if the child is going to be dropped off at daycare by her older brother every Tuesday and Thursday but picked up by Aunt Helen Wednesdays and Friday’s, you know all of that information and have those person’s profile information so you only turn over the children to recognized and trusted adults.

The problem is that when you are running a daycare, keeping up on the many details that you have to know about to run a daycare is one thing that very easily falls through the cracks.  Then one day you walk into the office to mountains of disorganized papers and it seems impossible that you could ever get it straightened out.

This is where your computer can be the most important daycare worker you have.  There are several daycare scheduling software packages that are designed specifically to organize the unique details that you must know to run a daycare and to integrate that information with your accounting software and other packages that must tap that data base from time to time.  The investment you make in the computer and the scheduling software is definitely a necessary part of your budget and not a place to cut corners. 

In addition to the important details about each child, that scheduling software can be a huge lifesaver in managing your daycare workers.  When I think of “scheduling software” the first thing that comes to mind is how to create and maintain the work schedules of each employee you have so you always have adequate staff on hand to manage the kids.

This can be a real juggling act in light of the fact that you may not have the same number of kids each day.  As you have some children there 5 days a week, others Tuesday and Thursday, others Monday Wednesday and Friday and others once a month, knowing how many children to expect and how many workers to have on hand could drive you crazy just keeping up on it.  But this kind of balancing is a perfect task for a computer program like childcare scheduling software because it can do the math on your expected child population each day and then take the worker schedules and match things up so you know what to expect.  It can also alert you when you will have holes in your schedule so  you can get out ahead of such problems and it can help you maintain a list of backup workers to call upon when a worker calls in sick so you are not caught short staffed which is hard on the rest of the staff and not good for the kids.

On the business side of things, daycare software can help you track supplies and maintain your budget  so you have a tool to watch the costs of running a daycare and know in advance if you have any issues with money and what it is costing you to run your facility.  These are just a few of the benefits a good computer and good software can offer you to take a huge amount of stress and worry off of you the owner and administrator of your daycare.  And when that worry is lifted, you can focus on what is important which is taking care of those little ones who are in your charge.

The objective you are looking to achieve in doing all the hard work of starting a daycare center will be a big factor in when or if you consider your hard work to be a success.  In any big operation whether it is starting a business, going on a diet, invading a country or learning a skill, you have to know in advance what your definition of “winning” is so you know when you have arrived and when you can call yourself a success.  And what winning looks like to you when you build your own daycare center will be determined by your reasons for starting one.  

There are a wide diversity of reasons people launch out and create their own daycare center rather than just accept that the daycare centers already in existence are enough.  Some reasons for taking this step might include… 

• Because the daycares you have had your own children in have not done the job so why not just do it yourself?
• To do for a living something you love to do anyway which is to take care of children.
• To own your own business and be the boss.
• Because you know there is a need for a daycare in your community and you feel you can provide that service.
• To make a lot of money.
• To provide a safe place for children while their parents do their jobs and to provide a place where they can learn social skills in a nurturing setting. 

It is not for this article or anyone else to judge why you set out to start a daycare center.  But the simple process of putting down in a sentence or two as we did here exactly what your reasons are for wanting to start a daycare center is a process that could be crucial to your success.  

For one thing, starting your own business is hard work.  In addition, there is always a risk in doing something new like this.  Statistics tell us that a big percentage of new businesses fail within the first year.  There will be long hours getting the daycare built and ready to open.   There will be struggles and frustrations getting and keeping good people, building relationships with suppliers and building your customer base.  There will be set backs such as licensing problems, issues with your physical space or emergencies such as a hurt or sick child that can come up at a moment’s notice. 

We don’t mention these things to discourage you.  Rather its good to know the dangers and the challenges going in so they don’t broadside you when the going gets tough.  But moreover, if you have a firm grasp on your motivations for starting your own daycare center and you can “keep your eye on the prize” despite the problems and challenges, your chances of success go through the roof.  So you are wise to spend some time in reflection and understand exactly why you want to own your own day carecenter.  Then when you know what the  prize is that you are going for, go for it with all your might so you can know great success.

One way of putting some organization around your planning is to use the old four Ws and an H system wherein you just ask yourself five basic questions about what it will take to start and operate your own daycare.  And those five questions are who, what, when, where and how. 

1. Who will be your customers? 

In “Field of Dreams”, the Voice told Kevin Costner, “If you build it, they will come.”  But you need more specifics before starting your daycare.  So you have to understand where you are going to get your first customers and then how you will continue to build your daycare by getting new families.  Start at your “dream” of a daycare and in that vision of taking care of children for a living.  Where did the kids come from in that vision?  You should have this question answered and have a identifiable target market pinpointed before you buy the first crib or swing set for your daycare.  You need to know there is a real need for what you do.  Moreover, the people who are going to finance your dream must know this or they wont give you the money.

2. What will your daycare look like when it is a reality?

This is more than just day dreaming because you need to have a feel for the size of the daycare center, for the types of things that will happen in your daycare all day and for the way it is decorated and equipped.  Before you develop your budget of how much money to ask the bank for before you actually start changing your daycare from a dream into a reality, you must have a detailed list of the things you will need, the remolding steps you must take on a new facility to transform it into a daycare and how much each of those things will cost. 

 3. When will you open the daycare?

Along with putting some real detail to what will be in your daycare, the schedule of events between now and when the doors open is important.  A schedule is more than just a time frame with deadlines to hit.  It is also a way of laying out in enough detail that you can get started, the work that must be done and the order it must be done in before you can move forward with your development plan.  Building your plan from the general milestones to the specific tasks is how you go about creating a time frame for success that is realistic and complete.

4. Where will you locate your daycare? 

You may be able to see the building where your daycare will exist in your mind’s eye but you need more than that to actually get your plan off the ground.  You will need to know first what you need in terms of a physical facility and second, what facilities are available in your market area and what are their costs.  The first part  you can hammer out in your office with a pen and paper designing the layout and size of your future daycare.  The second part means getting out there and looking at buildings and talking to leasing agents.  This is the footwork of starting your daycare and it is important footwork for sure.

 5. How do you get started?

Guess what?  You have already started.  By taking these general questions, now just start adding the detail to each question.  Before you know it you will have a budget, a schedule and a project plan for getting from the dream stage to that day you cut the ribbon and invite the first group of daycare children in to enjoy what you have to offer.  And that day will make all this hard work worth the effort.

Welcome back to another edition of Starting Your Own Daycare.  Today we talk about something that is common is all daycare settings, from big daycare facilities to at home daycare facilities.  As parents of daycare age children ourselves, we’ve gone through this ourselves.  Read on to learn some great ideas to deal with Seperation Anxiety.

It’s easy to get caught up in the business side of running your own daycare.  But it’s a good idea to remember the core component of any daycare and that is a population of very young children.  You do all you can to prepare your daycare so you can provide for the medical, nutritional, educational and social needs of the kids while they are in your care. But the fact remains that young children are emotional creatures and dealing with emotional issues is part of taking care of them. 

Separation anxiety is a common event that you will face when dealing with a new child entering your daycare community.  There are actually two sides of separation anxiety.  There is of course the home sickness the child will exhibit when he or she is trying to adapt to the new situation.  But there is also a separation anxiety in the parent that surfaces in a lot of ways.  You may see emotional outbursts from a mom at drop off or it might surface in frequent phone calls to check up on the child or to even talk to their youngster. 

One way to reduce the impact of how the parents of your daycare kids are hit by separation anxiety is early counseling and dialog about the problem.  Many parents will deny that they will have those emotions when dropping their kids off.  But if this is a first time experience of using daycare for a parent, it will be an emotion that mom or dad will experience, even if nothing is said.  

There are a number of ways you can help the parent feel more at ease about leaving their child at daycare.  You might suggest that the parents consider using the daycare for a day for free and that mom or dad or both take a day off to hang around, watch how the day is organized, witness their little one enjoying time with the other kids and see the professionalism, warmth and caring of the staff.  That one day may be worth the day off to help the parents get to a comfort level about where they are leaving their child. 

That free day may also help the child get accustomed to being in this new environment which could help reduce the separation anxiety that child will inevitably feel during the first few weeks as he or she is getting used to daycare.  But there are other steps to take before the first day to help the child ease into daycare with reduced stress including… 

• Have mom and dad talk about daycare with the child so the little one is not taken by surprise.
• If there is a little friend the child already knows at daycare, make sure that connection is understood and even that the child is greeted at the car by the friend and escorted to the playground.
• Allow mom or dad to “pop in” every so often for the first week or two to increase the comfort level.
• Make sure the child sees the daycare workers talking to mom and dad so the child knows these are trusted adults.
• Encourage the daycare workers to bond with specific children so when anxiety hits, that special worker can be a comfort to that child. 

When separation anxiety hits hard at the daycare facility when mom or dad are not there, its good to not overlook or belittle the child.  It could be the result of anxiety over a game or a conflict with another child.  And when the anxious child wants mom or dad to help with the difficulty, not seeing that parent can cause anxiety or even panic.  

Above all the workers should remain calm.  Be comforting, understanding and accommodating.  If the child needs to be away from the group for a little while, make that possible so he or she can be in a smaller setting with trusted adults and children the child feels at ease with until the anxiety passes.  Just remember that fear and anxiety will grow when the child senses it in others but if he or she senses calm, warmth and acceptance, that goes a long way to reducing separation anxiety in any child just getting used to the big new scary world of daycare.

Can you think of any other ideas to deal with seperation anxiety in your daycare setting?  Maybe you have a story to share?  Let us know in the comment section below.

Side by side, the work and expense of starting a daycare at home compared to setting up a dedicated facility are dramatically different.  Owning and running a full scale retail daycare is not everybody’s ambition or calling whereas operating a smaller scale daycare right out of your home is much easier to take on and maintain.   But there are some preparations you must do and things to think about when starting your home based daycare so when those cars start to pull up to drop of the children for the day, you feel prepared, relaxed and ready to take on this new challenge and career. 

As with any new business and particularly with one that is centered around young children, you have to think about the legalities and licensing issues of running a daycare out of your home.  While in many ways using a daycare as your home based business may seem like a slightly more organized version of professional babysitting, to the state and medical authorities, they have to monitor all daycares to assure that you are able to care for the children and that you are running a clean, sanitary and safe operation to caring for those children. 

You may find that you don’t have to get a license when you are only going to keep  2-4 children for profit. But even if that is true, you have to be prepared for success.  And if success does sneak up on you, if you have done your home work about what you need to do to stay on the up and up with the local authorities, that growth can occur naturally and easily.  You can find out more about what is required of you by networking with other home based or small daycare operations or by contacting your local Office of Child Care Licensing. 

When you make the decision or are considering using your home as a daycare, take a look at your facility.  If you are going to have anywhere from a couple to a dozen children who are not your own in your home, you will need to contain them to specific areas of the home.  If you have a large play room that can be adapted to handle all of the needs of a daycare, that may call for a little remodeling to add a sink, some cabinets and padded carpeting on the floor and walls and some decorating to make it a fun room that is dedicated to child care. 

Also think in advance the age and the age spans of the children you plan to accept.  If you are going to accept infants, toddlers and young children, you are going to be stretched thin to care for them all yourself.  The infants need someone in the room with them all the time and if the kids who can run, play and get into mischief pull you away from the care of those babies, that is a dangerous situation.  So if you are going to care for all daycare aged children, you may need additional staff to make sure you can do so efficiently and safely. 

Also think about how to equip the facility to contain the children as well. You don’t want the children to have full run of the house so you must block them off from the bedrooms, the living room and the kitchen.  But you do want them to have controlled access to the back yard as letting them run and play is a big part of the day for any child in daycare.  So inventory your playground equipment as it needs to be safe for all ages of children as well as sufficient for many children to play on at the same time. 

You should also spend some time reviewing your stock of toys, bedding materials, stuffed animals and similar items.  Its tempting to use the same toys and children’s supplies that were good for your own children.  But used items may not be in the best of shape.  So look at the items you will provide to your daycare children through the eyes of their parents and if there is a need to replace or expand on what you already have, consider that part of the cost of setting up your own business.

As always, if you have anything to add, please feel free to add your comments below.

For anyone who enjoys working with children, starting a daycare can be a fulfilling and rewarding career.  Not only will you be doing what you love to do which is caring for the very young, you are making a good living at it.  The size of the daycare you start can be as small as hosting a half dozen kids in your home to running a big institution with dozens of kids.  The size of the daycare is something you have to decide based on what your objectives are as a small business owner will.

But notice that we used that phrase, “Small business owner”.  A daycare is a business.  And as long as you see that and don’t think of your new enterprise as a glorified babysitting service, you will take the right steps from the first moment you get the idea to open your own daycare all the way along the line until you are a big success in your new business. 

To start your own business of any type requires planning, knowledge of how a successful business of your type runs as well as a firm grasp on who your customers are, how you will bring them to your business and how you will keep them.  You also have to know how to respond to problems that will come up as you develop your daycare business. 

In the case of your daycare, you are offering a service and not a product.  But you have one huge issue that dominates much of how you set up the business.  You are going to be given charge over a significant number of children whom you must care for and keep them safe, fed and relatively entertained all day long.  On top of that, you must live up to parents expectations and that can be tough.

At the very least that means you are going to have to invest in facilities that come child proof and are highly durable.  Also insurance and compliance with the legalities over daycares is critical to your success.  You must not only know how to take good care of children, you have to be prepared for just about anything that can happen to a child.  From nausea to injury to fights to good old fashioned home sickness, if you are going to be a success, you must be ready to respond to the crisis that will happen every day to some extent and to respond calmly and professionally.

There are going to be a lot of “hoops to jump through” from a legal and administrative point of view before you can be licensed to open a daycare facility.  Don’t resent this process, even though it will be demanding and tedious for you to complete it.  The parents who come to you to take care of their children want to know you are trained, that your facilities live up to established standards and that you are accountable to the state and medical requirements to be able to operate this kind of facility.  The license you get when you open that daycare center mean a lot to those parents. And those parents are your customers.  So pass all of the preparation requirements with flying colors so you can open your doors with pride.

Even though a daycare is oriented toward children, it is grown up work to prepare to open and then operate the facility.  Learn all you can before you open by talking to people with experience or even working at a daycare center before starting your own.  With that knowledge, you will know what is expected of you when its your turn to be the boss of your own daycare center.

Hopefully all of this wasn’t too scary for you and you are still ready to start your own daycare.  Leave us comments below if you can think of anything else that we missed out on.

Whether it’s going on vacation or building a new business, before you start on any of life’s adventures, you have to know what you must have.  And starting your own daycare is a great adventure because there is risk, there is excitement and there is opportunity for great success and victory.    So the very first thing you will set about learning are the “must haves” of starting your own daycare center.  Once you have that list underway, you can fill in the blanks as you go and before long your daycare business will be becoming a reality before your eyes. 

The list of “must haves” to get your daycare started may become quite long and complicated.  But to get the process started, below are five “must haves” that will make your top ten categories list to start looking into right away. 

1. You must have a space. 

The physical location of your future daycare is going to have a big impact not only on how successful you will be but on how many children you are going to be able to care for and on how life will go on in the facility each day.  Its possible to start your daycare in your home.  But if you want to separate the idea of a daycare from a babysitting service and if you want a facility that is professional and allows you a lot of options, finding your own space is crucial. 

2. You must have the money.

Unless you are using your inheritance, you will need to seek out funding to get your new business going.  Now this path is well worn by many a small business start up before you.  You can get guidance from the small business association in town on how to write a business plan, how to project your market share, how to estimate expenses and forecast your earnings and profitability and how to approach a lender to secure the funds you need.  All of this is not nearly as fun as taking care of children but the money will make it possible to have that fun and make a nice living while you do so.  So give this part of your start up planning plenty of attention. 

3. You must have your paperwork done.

Health and legal issues must be addressed before you can get licensed to run your own daycare center.  You can get the protocol for how to become licensed to legally take care of children from other daycare owners who can help you understand the process.  This is really a step you should take even before you plan your space or develop your budget because what is required of you by state and local authorities will drive many of the facilities and budget decisions.  The first step is to get educated in what it is going to take to get the green light from the authorities to open your daycare.  And the second step is to get to a level of compliance that you can actually launch your new daycare business. 

4. You must have customers.

Market research, advertising and promotion are going to become much more meaningful terms to you now that you are a small business owner.  The more you can do before you open your doors to recruit your first customers, the more successful you will be.  But finding and keeping customers does not stop with just developing a contact list of parents who are waiting to become part of your daycare community. It will be an ongoing quest to build references, network through your parent community to build your business and to use conventional promotion to keep a healthy and growing customer base for your daycare coming in. 

5. You must have love for children.

Between the time you start learning how to make your dream of owning your own daycare and the moment that dream becomes a reality, you will transform from a dreamer into a well educated small business owner.  But at the heart of why you do this at all is your love of children and your desire to make your living caring for them.  Hold on to that ethic and your daycare business will stay on track to fulfill that dream for you and for your employees.

We hope this list was helpful on starting up your very own daycare.  As always, if you have any input, or any tips of your own, feel free to add them in the comments below.

Starting your own daycare business is a good way of scratching several “itches” all at once.  It can fulfill your need not just for a job but for a career that is really a calling in a lot of ways.  All of us want to do for a living something that is really meaningful and that utilizes the best of our skills and temperaments for the betterment of others.  This is a basic need of all adults to find meaning in full employment that not only pays the bills but is something you love to go to do every day of the week. 

The other “itch” that owning and running your own daycare can scratch is your deeply rooted desire to work with children for a living.  Many of us have that calling in our lives.  But not all of the careers that involve children are right for everyone.  You may have wonderful skills in caring for little ones but you are not called to teach nor do you have the education or the skills to work with special needs children or to go into pediatrics.  A daycare career gives you the chance to use that love of children and your talent for mentoring and caring for them with your career.  Its a perfect match. 

Probably the first basic question you should ask about starting a daycare is the same one any new business must ask and that is, “is there a need for my new daycare?”  In any formal documentation about how to open a business, this question is called the “market analysis.”  To put in terms we can relate to, if you build it, will they come?  Sometimes this leads to some hard questions you should face down long before you take event he first step toward organizing your own daycare facility. Questions like…

• How do you know that your community needs a new daycare?
• Do you know specifically who your first customers will be?
• Are you serving a niche market?
• Will your daycare accept handicapped kids?
• What will be your age limits for your daycare? 

These and dozens of other questions must be dealt with during the earliest phases of your decision making process.  A niche market might be that you are going to offer daycare for just kids of families from your church or to only children whose families live in a specified area around your facility.  These questions are all about understanding your customers and knowing in advance that they are there, that they need you and that they will be lining up at your door when you are ready to start business. 

Along with the market need, the daily functioning of the daycare is something that deserves some thought up front as well.  For example, discipline of the children must be thought through both in terms of policy and the “contract” that you come to with the parents who are your “bosses” but in terms of your employees and what everybody expects to happen.  Next to discipline, emergency preparedness is a high priority as well as compliance with health and legal requirements for any daycare. 

These are just some of the nitty gritty “basics” level issues for you to think through as you prepare to open your daycare.  There will be more and your patience for dealing with them must be enduring.  But if you keep that core motivation to create a place where you can care for children for a living and a place where the children you care for are happy and safe, then you will get through all the questions and eventually find yourself running a very successful day care.

When you think of a daycare facility, the image of a dedicated building with a hundred or more children frolicking on the playground comes to mind.  But while those kinds of facilities are fine, every daycare doesn’t have to fit that mold.  If you have a vision of running our own daycare, it is entirely possible to do so out of your home and run a very successful daycare in that setting as well.  There are some issues for you to take into consideration and some preparations to do but it is a fine alternative to launching your daycare with a full scale dedicated building with all of that overhead right off the bat.

The primary advantage of starting your daycare in your home is that it is a setting you may already be used to caring for children in. If you already have children daycare age there, much of the child proofing and many of the supplies are on hand.  You must have to expand what you are prepared for by a factor of the number of children you will be taking in.  Now, you should not look to start out with a large amount of children in a home setting.  But that too is a good thing because starting out with 4-10 children gives you the opportunity to develop your skills, work up activities and programs for the kids and learn to juggle that many children before you take on a larger challenge. 

The other advantage of starting out with a home based daycare is the expense.  By using your own home, you eliminate the need for a separate facility and you can use a lot of your existing space and equipment for your daycare.  You no doubt already have playground equipment in the back yard.  You can start with that and when the money allows you to, you can add to your equipment and your supplies.  Since a home based daycare is ordinarily geared toward small groups of children, you may be able to manage it yourself and eliminate the expense of employees which is a huge overhead.  It makes things a lot simpler. 

Many people who want to work at home find ways to make a home based daycare work and it never goes any further than that.  But another strategy that an at home daycare fits nicely is to use it as your starting place with the goal of eventually expanding your business to full daycare facility with its own building and dedicated grounds and equipment.  You can use the time while you are operating at home to build your business plan and lay the groundwork for that kind of expansion.  So when you do open the doors of your dedicated daycare operation, you already have a resume of experience caring for children in your home. 

There will be some preparations to make to care for children at home and you must prepare your family to accept that these other children are your job, not additional siblings.  But your children may love having lots of other kids around as well and the excitement of all of that activity may actually be a lot of fun for the whole family who are joining you in this new adventure. 

Running a home based daycare maintains the goal that you may have of finding a way to make a living at home.  There will be challenges as is true of any new business venture and a lot to learn.  But if you can make it work, you can generate a nice revenue while enjoying the company of more children and perhaps even learning the ropes to expand your daycare business to a larger facility down the road.

So, starting up a daycare at home is a big step, but with patience and some planning, it is definately a great solution compared to starting  up an outside daycare space.  Some stay at home mom’s are just looking for that little bit of extra money each month that a home based business like this brings in, and building your daycare at home is a great way to do this.

Join us tomorrow for another great article about Starting Your Own Daycare!  See you then!