Inspirational and Empowering Child Care Business Owners To Build Successful Child Care Businesses

Archive for the ‘Program Planning’ 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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How to Create The Child Care Business Of Your Dreams

At the beginning of this year, I wrote down my vision for my child care center. I had a desire to transform the center into a state of the art facility by upgrading the entire center. In fact, my goal for 2011 is to create the wow factor in my center.

Now…. don’t misunderstand me, parents love the environment, however, I just want more of a jaw opening wow factor. After nine years of owning the center, I realized that I still had items from my home daycare in my center and I knew it was time to throw out the old items and bring in new items.

When you go to shop for a car and you walk pass the car of your dreams, you just might say ” Wow! I love that car and I must buy it! This is the wow factor that I want for my center. Moreover, I want parents to be at awe at what they see in my center.

In 2010, as I was conducting tours of my center, parents would visit the center and they would say, Oh! you have a nice center. I really appreciated the “nice” compliments, however, I really wanted more parents to think that we were more than just a nice center, I wanted to see that car of your dreams look their face, lol!

I knew that if I wanted a better response from parents, such as wow! or I just love your school!; that I must do something different in my center. This is when I decided to go ahead and really work on the environment in the center.

Changes I’ve made

  • Painted the walls
  • Threw away old shelving units and purchased new ones
  • Ordered new wooden kitchen sets that I’ve always wanted
  • Spent $100 on plants to create a warm home like environment and placed them all over the building
  • My state of the art digital recording camera system has already been installed by ADT.  Now I can monitor childcare from home and link the video to my website!

I share my story with you to paint a picture that you can create the childcare business of your dreams with much focus, determination and one step at a time. My dream is coming to pass one week at a time and as I make changes, I can hardly believe the transformation.

It may take longer than a year to create the childcare business of your dreams, but the key factor is…To Start Working Your Plan Today!

In this blog post, I am going to share with you seven ways to create the childcare business of your dreams:

  1. Write down your plans for your business (post them in your office)
  2. Create an action plan to accomplish the goals (raise funds with a fundraiser,etc)
  3. Start activating your faith by looking at childcare magazines and create a vision board for your business
  4. Every month focus on an area of your childcare business to upgrade and work at it until it is done
  5. Go visit a state of the art center. This will give you some ideas for your business
  6. Upgrade how you look. I am not saying where a suit and tie, however, simply step it up a notch. I know we can get dirty working with kids, however, we represent our business. Jeans, a nice shirt and flat shoes will do. * No sweat suits. (too casual) Wear a smock if you work with the kids.
  7. Share your dream with your parents and staff members. Also post a banner of your goals to build the business of your dreams.

Your dream may be to update the playground, be an accredited program or to buy a new van; what ever your goals may be for your business, I want to inspire you to never stop dreaming for your childcare business.

It’s time to turn your dream into a reality, share your dream for your childcare business in the comment box below.

To Your Success,

Shiketa Morgan

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Category:

Child Care Center, Family Child Care, Program Planning

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