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Archive for the ‘parent communication’ Category

How to Get Your Parents and Staff to Buy Into your Vision

One of the toughest task of a leader is to get the people who follows him or her to catch their vision. Have you ever tried to implement changes in your childcare business and they were rejected by parents or staff?

Those changes could have included: tuition increase, new curriculum, your goals for the year, fundraiser changes, classroom changes,etc.

Whatever your vision or plans may be, I know how disheartening it is to have your vision rejected. If your vision has been rejected, I must let you in on a little secret; people must buy-in to the Leader before they buy into the vision.

If your Vision is often rejected by parents or staff, it’s simply because they have not bought into you. I remember when I decided to move my home daycare to a center. Out of 7 children only one child came with me. I asked the families that decided not to come with me, what inspired them not to come with me and their answer was; because we wanted our children in a home daycare not a center.

In other words, the parents wanted me to care for their children, not someone else. In fact, the one parent that came with me, she really trusted me with her son and I was her son’s first caregiver. Eventually, another one of my long time families, decided to come along, after visiting the center. The family realized that I was still a big part of their child’s care and they were compelled to enroll their child into the center.

Have you ever had an employee to reject your vision or plans? I have and the secret to winning that staff member’s vote is by finding out why he or she rejects the vision. Also, work on creating a win-win relationship or making a decision on if the employee is right for your team.

Like the good book (The Bible) tells us; How can two walk together unless they agree. Today I am going to share with you six ways to get parents and staff members to buy into your vision:

1. Work on building relationships. With parents, start discussions at pick-up or drop-off time to show them that you care. Make an effort to talk with staff members daily to see how they are doing and strive to learn something about them.

2. Be honest and authentic and develop the trust of parents and staff members. People tend to have more respect for someone who is open and honest with them at all times.

3. Hold yourself to high standards. If you believe in being professional at all time, be professional. Also, if your goal is to offer the highest quality of care, demand that those practices be honored at all times.

4. Give parents tools to be better parents. Equip your staff members to do a better job.

5. Help them to achieve their goals. For example, my assistant director is a girl scout leader. Every year I support her girl scouts by allowing her to set-up a cookies booth at the center. I also get free cookies every year! For my staff, I find out about their personal goals and strive to assist as much as I can.

6. Everyone is a leader. In fact, parents are leading their children and teachers are leading kids or other teachers. Moreover, this is why it is vital that you also promote leadership development or simply helping them to grow as leaders as you grow.

In summary, if you want others to buy into your vision, follow the 6 -steps above and they will buy into you!

Shiketa Morgan

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Source: 21 Laws of Leadership

Category:

Administration, Child Care Center, Family Child Care, Leadership, parent communication, Program Planning, Quality Care

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A Key Part of Building Enrollment Is In the Follow-Up Process

I arrive at my center on August 22, 2011 and I checked my telephone message log.  As I scanned the message log, I noticed that several parents called the center to inquire about  enrolling their children.

After checking the message log, I went to the talk with the  Assistant Director about the enrollment inquiries. As we began to discuss the telephone message, she also informed me that a mother of a School-age child had stopped by the center shortly before I arrived to pick-up enrollment information.

I was thinking to myself…Wow! I love it when parents inquire about enrollment.  After our conversation, I immediately wrote down the mother’s phone number that stopped by the center and went to my office to call her.  

When the mother answered the phone, I introduced myself and  thanked her for visiting my center.  I asked her if she had any questions in regards to enrolling her child. She said, ” I would like to schedule a tour to get started on the process of enrolling my child and what is your registration fee?

After my phone call with the mother, I realized the importance of follow-up with parents. When parents are visiting your program, they may forget to ask you something, however,  if you follow-up with them, they may have more questions.

Several days, prior to writing this blog post, I decided to contact all the families that had recently visited my center, to see if they were still interested in enrolling their children.

I was quite surprise to discover that many of the parents that recently stopped by center, had already enrolled their children in the program. 

One of the parents on the visitor log had already found a center for her two-year old child. She seemed so excited when I called her and she thanked me for following up with her. In addition to me calling her, she assured me that if her current baby sitter did not work out, that she will keep my center in mind.

Here are six ways to follow-up with parents and help to build enrollment :

  1. Create a visitor log that ask for the parent’s name, phone number and email address
  2. Collect contact information from parents when they call your home or center.
  3. Follow-up within parent 24-48 hours of calling or visiting your program
  4. Send an email  or e-newsletter to potential customers every week so that they won’t forget you.
  5. Invite parents to follow your program on social media. This allows the parent to check our your program.
  6. Send a post card in the mail to the family and consider offering a “Free Day”

With Your Child Care Business in Mind,

Shiketa

Category:

Enrollment Building, parent communication

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