By starting your own daycare, you have the opportunity to not only make some extra money, but you’ll be able to stay home and spend time with your own kids. Both benefits are very important–who doesn’t need to make extra money?–and your kids will only be young once.
But starting a daycare isn’t as easy as buying a sandbox and handing out flyers with your name, phone number and address. There are things that you’ll need to do before you actually start minding other people’s children.
First, do you actually like being with children? Do you like playing with them? Does it bother you having to run after unruly children (and they’re all unruly sometime or another)? Will you be able to feel affection for the children of strangers? Children need affection from their caregivers–parents and daycare providers alike. Some people can be very loving to their own children, but can’t seem to feel the same affection and love for the children of others. If you can’t provide that loving, patient affection, then running a daycare is not for you.
Personal suitability is obviously the first requirement to starting and running your own daycare service. Just like any business endeavor, you have to love the work you’ll be doing, and you’ll have to want to do it. But if you love kids in general, and you have more patience than your friends and family can comprehend, you ought to do well.
The market for daycare services is booming. More and more, families are finding that they need two incomes to support their lifestyles, and are turning to home-based daycares to look after their children. Plus, single-parent homes are more prevalent than ever before. Single moms have to go out to work everyday, and need a safe, nuturing place to send their children. But, while there are many opportunities, please keep in mind that you won’t make your fortune minding the children of others. However, it’ll provide a much-needed second income for you, and will allow you to stay home and care for your own kids.
If you’ve passed the personal suitability “test”, the next thing you need to do is to find out are what laws and regulations apply to home-based daycares. There are usually limits on the number of children that a daycare can take in, and requirements on the ratio between adult caregivers and children. You must find out all the laws and regulations that apply before you can prepare to open a daycare service. Other legal obligations might include first aid requirements, the provision of meals and snacks, and even planned curricula for the children. Know the details before you start up!
Next, you need to work out a budget, so you can determine how much you’ll charge for minding the children. Keep in mind that a small home-based daycare will never be a source of instant riches and easy money. In fact, if you don’t watch your finances closely and plan in advance, you may actually find yourself money instead of making it. There are start-up costs that have to be taken into account. Child-proofing your home, setting up an appropriate (and fenced in) play area in the yard, first aid kits, as well as the promotional material that you’ll need in order to market your daycare services.
Next, you’ll need to come up with written contracts that both you and the parents will sign spelling out in detail how much they’ll pay, the drop off and pick up hours, and just what you’ll be providing. There’ll also be forms to create that will record the details of each child’s week–drop off and pick up times each day, how the child was, what he did or learnt, the food he ate, etc.
Those of us who have chosen the path of self-employment have made a startling discovery. We’ve traded one boss for another, and our new “boss” is the most demanding, unforgiving taskmaster we’ve ever known. That boss is ourselves!
If you’re currently working for someone else, it isn’t likely that you are called in to work on every day off or at 10 o’clock at night. Yet, that’s what your new boss will do. When you own your own business, the line between work time and free time tends to blur. Sure, you can take the kids to school, go out to lunch with a friend, shop in the middle of the day—even take an afternoon nap, if you want to. But, Task Master Work is always there waiting for you to return and reminding you that you haven’t really gotten out of anything.
Are you ready to take on that responsibility?
Here are two more questions to ask yourself before you open your own bridal consulting business.
Do I have the will and stamina to keep going when things get tough?
And, they will get tough! It’s almost certain that somewhere along the line in starting a business, difficulties will arise. These may be financial, but often they are unforeseen glitches that slow down progress or seem like complete obstacles. Are you the type of person who gets easily discouraged, or one who seems to thrive on problems? Since you are enrolled in a Bridal Consultant Program, you are most likely someone who likes to work with people and are highly organized. So much the better, you’ll be doing your fair share of these activities in setting up a business. Recall the expression, “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Does that describe you?
If you want to open and run your own business, you should realize at the outset that it would never be a “nine-to-five” job. Especially in the beginning, you will need to be very highly motivated, with tons of drive, determination, and concentration to get ahead and succeed. You need the energy of a sprinter, the stamina of a marathon runner, plus the toughness to play hardball when you enter the business world. In short, you’ll need a relentless, all-consuming drive to get your business off the ground.
Am I willing to listen to the opinion of others?
This is an essential ingredient in starting a business. That’s not to say that everything everyone says is necessarily valid. You’ll probably get some advice that’ll be best ignored altogether. What I’m really talking about here is paying attention to what those in the know have to say about the various aspects of starting and running a business. Sound advice from people who have been there and are today successful is an important ingredient in determining whether you should even take the first step. Should you decide to take the plunge, guidance and suggestions from others can be a big help in making the right moves and avoiding the snake pits.
Salespeople are calling me on a daily basis. They are trying to sell advertisement space and various products that will help our college to attract more students. Some of them call me once or twice, and never again. some of them call me several times a month, even though I am still not interested in their products. Some of them are really friendly and cool, others are plain annoying.
Yesterday, a got a call from one of the most annoying salespeople around. During the conversation, I didn’t really listen to what he had to say, instead, I was thinking about why I thought this guy was annoying. Was is because of what he said, or was it the way he said it?
It’s not easy to understand why someone causes irritation. Sometimes people is plain annoying because of the way they talk, sometimes they are annoying for not talking. Sometimes people can be annoying by the way they look, sometimes by the way they sound or how they smell.
Finally, I got the answer.
The guy is actually both a lot of fun and friendly, and there’s nothing annoying about him other than that he calls me several times a month. And he tries to sell the same products over and over again, and I am still not interested. I have actually never been interested.
So, the only reason he is annoying, is because he is taking up too much of my time.
The only way to make him stop being annoying is to tell him not to call me anymore. I know all about the product by now, I’ll call him if I want the product.
I told him this yesterday, and hopefully he’ll respect the decision. The only way to deal with annoying salespeople is to be explicit, and tell them clearly and in detail what they should be doing. If you are not explisit, some will never stop.
*The Ashworth College Business community is proud to welcome Jens P. Berget as a member of our contributing bloggers network. Through his well researched and often ingenious blog, SLYMARKETING, he has built a reputation for providing marketing professionals with comprehensive resources, provocative analyses, and timely recommendations. We’re honored to share the knowledge and experience of Mr. Berget with our students. Thanks Jens!
What is a TLD and why should you care? If you have anything to do with the Internet or are a businessperson, you should know what it is.
TLD stands for “top-level domain” and is the last part of a domain name. For example, in the domain name thehotiron.com, the TLD is “com.” Where those who register and manage domain names use the acronym frequently, many others do not. As I plan on using it in many future blog posts on domain names, I wanted to define it ahead of time.
The acronym is sometimes used by itself or it can be prefixed by other letters to further quality a type of TLD. A gTLD is a “generic” top-level domain, and generic means anyone can register a domain name with a gTLD. Examples are .com, .net and .org. A ccTLD is a “country-code” TLD, and are ideally for entities which reside in a specific country. Examples are .us, .au (for Australia) and .dk (for Denmark). An sTLD is a “sponsored” TLD and they are only available to certain groups or classifications. Examples are .aero (for the air transport industry), .coop (for cooperative associations) and .museum (for museums). For a complete list of TLDs, view the list from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for all global TLDs.
Knowing about other TLDs is helpful in choosing domain names to register or in analysis of a URL with a TLD you may not be familiar with. Each TLD is managed by an organization which sets the rules for registrations. For example, some ccTLDs require the registrant to be based in that country, and others do not. If you are a business and have operations or sales in a country, it may be of interest to register the name of your business or brand with a specific ccTLD or sTLD as appropriate. Read the rest of this entry »
With a Tax Code that rivals Fermat’s Theorem in complexity; the American people are certainly at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to defending their finances against an agency that operates with impunity. When playing in a fixed game, it helps to be informed as possible, particularly when the rules of the games are designed to confuse rather than clarify any strategy one might use to compete. In the spirit of gamesmanship, I invite you to check out “10 Things The IRS Won’t Tell You.” Good Luck…
On April 1st, Ashworth College hosted a “Live” Working Moms Videochat in conjunction with our ongoing “Moms Challenge” event. Our distinguished guest was Jane Seibel, CEO/Founder of Employmoms. Employmoms is a professional staffing firm and employment website focused on helping candidates identify flexible work options.
Our student Moms took advantage of this opportunity to discuss and learn from an industry expert about employment challenges, opportunities and trends impacting todays working moms. To learn more about the Ashworth College Moms Challenge, please visit our official home Ashworth Moms home page.
Naked has organized some amazing, creative, guerrilla marketing events with impressive results. They also have a really fun website that does an excellent job of showing process.
By its definition, a URL – or uniform resource locator – directs you to the exact location of content on a Web site. Depending on the domain name, structure and naming standards of a Web site, a Web page URL can be short or extremely long. Maybe even too long to be useful?
Where I normally would feel bad for calling out something for a non-profit organization, it appears to be well-funded and founded by tennis legend Billie Jean King, so I feel it is my duty to talk about it.
Now close your eyes and see if you remember the Web site. Well? Did you get it verbatim? Now imagine bouncing around on an Orange Line car on the way to Midway airport, and see if you can remember it any easier!
This is a perfect example of acquiring an additional domain name and use it on the advertising, where it would point directly to the desired page. Now close your eyes and see if you can think of some short, catchy and easy-to-remember domain names? Probably a little easier than remembering the printed URL, whether you’re on the Orange Line or not.
Where your main Web site URL can be whatever you choose, keep in mind how you will be using it, and if it doesn’t work well in a certain medium – whether printed in the newspaper or a poster or spoken on the radio or TV – the small cost of an additional domain name can do wonders for driving traffic from the offline world.
*We consider it a great privilege to share the business-tech perspectives of entrepreneur Mike Maddaloni with the Ashworth College Business Community. Mike’s Internet consulting firm, Dunkirk Systems, is based out of Chicago and has steadily built a reputation for providing superior service to their growing list of satisfied clients. Visit The Hot Iron blog to gain additional insights into Mike’s business life. Thanks Mike!
There’s no question that we’re currently in the midst of an economic recession, but it’s very difficult to measure the relative impact of this crisis within the context of past recessions. The 24/7 news cycle is filled with pundits and talking heads that are pushing their own agendas, thus the average person who’s more concerned with paying their bills than exploiting the derivative bubble is generally unable to draw historical parallels with any confidence.
The Minneapolis Fed has created an interactive web page that helps you compare this recession with recessions of the past. It’s a great tool for providing context without hype and can only benefit the concerned citizen desperate for clarity. Check it out…
Ryan Rode
Interactive Services Manager
Ashworth College
Facebook events is another great free way to promote yourself and your company. So far, I have written in details about how you should use Facebook groups and why Facebook groups are important. Today I will focus on how to use Facebook events, and why it’s important that you start using it today.
You can use it to promote almost anything, it only needs to be something related to a specific date and a location. It doesn’t have to be a traditional event though. You can use it to promote a product launch, or you can use it to promote an existing product by offering a certain days of discount, you can use it to promote a gathering, or your corporate milestones (for instance, your company will be 10 years old on a certain date - tell people about it). An event can be almost anything.
When it comes to location, it doesn’t have to be a specific location. Don’t think that it has to be a standard location like a building. You could create an event, like Earth Hour (which my college will be attending on the 28 of March), where the location is “everywhere”. You just have to turn off the lights for one hour between 8.30 and 9.30 pm whereever you are.
It’s fairly easy to be creative when it comes to Facebook events. You can even use it to promote yourself. For instance, 100 days of diet. Set a specific date for when you should have lost 30 pounds. The location will be “whereever”. By using your diet as an event, all your friends can follow your progress.
All Facebook events will include by default, a wall, discussion board, links, photos, and videos. You can remove them, if you don’t like them included. But by having them, it’s a lot easier to communicate with people attending your event.
Why use Facebook events?
The best thing about Facebook events, other than the fact that it’s free to use, is that they are very easy to use for marketing purposes. You can invite all your friends to join the event, just by the push of a button. If you add more admins to your event, they can invite all their friends as well. And you can add new friends whenever you feel like it. This only takes a few seconds, and your event will be read by hundreds or even thousands of people.
If you add the event to your profile, it will be added to the newsfeed of all of your friends (well, most of your friends, some might have added a few restrictions in their newsfeed). By adding the event to your profile, a lot of people will see it.
Facebook events is an easy way to manage a guest list, and an easy way to get an overview regarding how many people will show up at your event. It could be a birthday party, a concert, or whatever you’d like to promote. By using it, you’ll know how many to expect.
It’s very easy to spread the word and it’s very easy to communicate with the members of the event. This is the power of networking (the same goes for Facebook groups). Read the rest of this entry »
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