Working in one of the most heartfelt industries, whether you intentionally do so or not, you are constantly spinning your wheels thinking for and caring about others – it’s just a part of who you are and what led you to get into this industry to begin with. Often times you forget to channel some of that energy that you put into others into yourself and your business. After all, your business is your livelihood, how you support you and your family, and should be your path to wealth one day.
However, finding yourself on the path to wealth isn’t something that just happens overnight; it is a journey that takes hard work, perseverance, and patience. Being fully enrolled, owning multiple centers, bringing in eight figures in revenue a year, and having an exit plan to retire are all realistic goals that can be achieved for yourself if you put the right pieces into place along your journey. In the video below, I share with you the story of a Child Care Success Academy member who was able to scale her business from three to nine centers last year and the steps she took to get there, and what best business practices you need to start implementing in your school to get on your path to expansion.
Here Are the Key Takeaways From This Video:
- The path to wealth in early childhood as an owner is having multiple centers; it has become a trend in our industry to have private equity and large schools.
- Most owners who want to put an exit plan in place for retirement should set out to have at least 5-10 schools that they could potentially sell to one of the large, emerging chains. A deal made with 5-10 schools could potentially be an eight-figure sale.
- Found in Episode 35 of Rock Star Stories (also on Episode 35 of Child Care Rockstar Radio), Child Care Success Academy member Jennifer Slavin, the executive director of Magic Memories in Pennslyvania, shares how her and her owner Neydary were able to scale their business from three to nine schools all in one deal last year.
- Before you focus energy on creating an expansion plan, you need to put your focus on making sure your current schools are fully enrolled (with at least 90-95 percent FTE), have great marketing systems in place, with a great brand maintained, and a culture of excellence in place.
- To do their best to hire according to their schools’ culture and values, one of the interview tactics Jennifer uses in her schools is a brief teacher interview. They allow the teacher that would be working with the potential new hire to ask them a couple of questions, 2-5 depending on time. Jennifer does this because she wants the hiring process to be a collaboration between the admin team and the teachers since the teachers are the ones who will be affected daily with their hiring decisions and know the heartbeat of the school.
- To scale and grow The Child Care Success Company, Kris has implemented the EOS model found within the book Traction by Gino Wickman. Following this model, the CCSC has grown almost 40% in the past year and has had over 50% of growth in the Child Care Success Academy.
- The EOS implementor that Kris and the CCSC leadership team work with, Stuart Robertson, is featured in Episode 30 of Child Care Rockstar Radio, where he and Kris discuss how the EOS model makes businesses more scalable, profitable and effective, and the Six Components of it.
- According to the EOS model, the Six Components that you need to have in place to scale your company are…
1. Vision
2. Data
3. Process
4. Traction
5. Issues
6. People
- In order to not be the glue of your business, you need a second in command that can juggle the same daily tasks and responsibilities as you, such as your executive director. Your second in command should be somebody who has your back, shares in your vision, works hard to accomplish the same goals as you, and is in lock key step with you. If you don’t currently have a second in command, you should examine your current staff and see who might be a good candidate to groom from within.
