subject: Planning Your At-home Daycare [print this page] Before delving into a vocation, however, prepare a business plan. Business plans are an essential piece of any company as they provide a road map to guide business owners through challenging times and help them reach their goals as quickly as possible.
Business plans help define the path a company will take and are required if you hope to obtain outside funding. Even if you aren't looking for funding, a solid business plan can help you stay on track and keep your business moving forward.
A business plan can be as simple or as complex as you need it to be. Many home-based daycare centers can get by with a basic, one- or two-page business plan as long as you don't need to present the plan for funding.
The key is to get something down on paper, and don't let the process overwhelm you. Write a general description of your daycare center.
Answer important questions like "what hours will you be open?" and "What are your strengths that will set you apart from the competition?" You should also ask "What experience and skills do you have to offer?"
Your daycare can offer a pet-free environment or a non-smoking policy. You can put down your strengths like if you were a former schoolteacher or otherwise formally trained to work with children.
Describe your services in greater detail and know what your pricing schedule will be. Figure out if you want to charge by the hour, day, week, or month.
Decide if you will provide meals and if so how many. Determine what age limits you will be able to care for.
Do your homework. You'll want to look into important things like the amount of potential clients in your area.
Seek out your competition and determine whether there is room in the market for another service like the one you're offering. If other centers are struggling to find clients, the demand might not be high enough in your locale, but if there are a lot of families in your area and few to no daycare centers, you may be filling a strong need as some parents prefer daycare centers close to their homes.
Know the market trends; if you live in a neighborhood with a lot of newly married, young couples, chances are good that there will be a high demand in the years to come for a nearby daycare center. Also determine how you will set your daycare center apart from your competitor and draw in new clients.
Create your operational plan. You need to be educated such topics as legal, personnel and credit policies.
Legal includes any discussion of insurance, licensing, zoning or permit requirements to operate a home-based childcare center. Personnel includes any employees you might need to hire in your home-based childcare center, how much and how often you will pay them, and a description of their jobs.
Credit policies includes how you will bill your customers. Figure out what time period they will pay in and what method they should use to pay.
Lay out your finances. You'll need to include a personal financial statement that shows your current finances, along with an accounting of your startup expenses and any funds you expect to receive to help with those initial expenses.
You will also need a 12-month profit and loss projection, which is basically your best estimate of your company's income and expenses over the next year. This will be based largely on your market research and known expenses.
Include a marketing plan as well. Although most daycare centers report enrollment rates of 90 percent of their capacity within the first six months of opening their doors, you can have even greater--and quicker--success if you market your new business.
A few marketing techniques you might highlight in the marketing section of your business plan are newsletter advertising, door-to-door distribution of flyers or signs placed in high-traffic areas. In order to drive profits you need clients, so market well.
