We want to CONGRATULATE Judy Bradby who was voted the 2019 Child Care Rockstar at the Child Care Success Summit last month. Judy owns LeaRN Lily Child Development Center in Williamsburg, VA – a center whose mission is to serve children with special medical needs.
Judy has increased her monthly revenue by over 45% since working with Kris Murray and the Child Care Success team in the past 10 months! How did she do it? “I treated Kris’s course like the Bible and immediately went back into ‘learn mode’.”
Coach Ben Poswalk, former Child Care Rockstar Winner, assists Kris Murray in presenting this year’s Child Care Rockstar Award to Judy Bradby of Virginia. Judy received a $5,000 cash prize and will get to enjoy an all expense paid trip to Aspen, CO for a Private Mastermind Day with Kris working on her business.
She says she started by digging into Enrollment Boot Camp and paying attention to every detail suggested. Once she completed the entire course, she just started again in case she missed something. She went through Enrollment Boot Camp FOUR times back to back, each time implementing everything she learned along the way.
She ordered all the books and started to read- focusing on The Slight Edge, The Ultimate Child Care Marketing Guide and Child Care Millionaire. She wrote down every nugget and made lists of what to do to achieve each one – then did those things. Judy says, “That’s the key, you can have all the tools for success right in front of you, but you have to use them – again and again.”
Judy has also made changes that have improved her staffing processes. She stopped hiring out of panic. She said “I have stopped being desperate- I kept toxic people for many reasons- they were toxic but they were qualified, they were toxic but the kids loved them, they were toxic but good with crazy parents. The toxicity lead to the decline of my health and I knew I had to handle it.”
Pictured above (Left to right): Lori Semke – 2019 Director of the Year, Judy Bradby – 2019 Child Care Rockstar Winner, Neydary Zambrano – 2019 Owner of the Year
When she found herself in the situation of needing to remove a few toxic employees, she contemplated reaching out to the FB Growth group for advice, but “I knew what Kris would say and I could almost hear her. I started a paper trail and wrote them up for all the wrongs and hired their replacements while I did that.”
She shared that she had to take a long hard look at herself, “I was stressed, anxious and I didn’t sleep- which made me unpleasant to be around. I felt like I couldn’t control things which were happening in my center so I tried harder, and micromanaged and became obsessed with details. I had to step back and look at my actions, and words, and tone. I stopped trying to complete teacher training hours at naptime and made a formal training schedule, giving parents plenty of notice. Mostly, I had to switch my mindset and the negative internal dialogue which played over and over.”
Judy has taken the time and made efforts to improve her company culture as well. Respect is at the core of a good culture, and while she feels she truly respected her team, she was so caught up in misery and stress, so she didn’t convey it to them very well. Judy began working on being positive, smiling, saying thank you, and above all, making a huge effort to be nice all the time no matter what. Instead of being defensive with difficult parents she had to learn to be gracious no matter what and help them deal with whatever was going on.
She’s also been working hard to improve the operations at her school. She started by writing down every part of her business and the steps it took to make each part function. Then she looked at how to automate each thing and effectively delegate using her newly documented systems.
One of the biggest wins Judy has had since implementing Kris Murray strategies has been drastically improved revenue. It’s up by 45%. She said, “Prior to Kris, we were robbing Peter to pay Paul. Rent was behind, we were at the point where we owed Diamond Springs so much they came to pick up our water dispensers. Payroll took us $8k overdrawn and it took us two weeks to recover. Now, our bills are paid, rent is paid on time and ⅔ of payroll is in the bank before payroll hits. We have an accountant, overtime is banned, and every penny is accounted for. We have become totally accountable.”
When asked how she found the time to do all this, she offered, “You have to find the time- make time or you’ll stay doing the same things. ’The Slight Edge’ and ‘77 Best Strategies’ were fundamental to helping us get a hold of systems which would work. ….Don’t get dragged down by minutia and baggage which isn’t yours. I stuck with what was important- kids first, customer service, value your staff.
When you’re in the deepest, darkest, baddest place – pray to whomever your God is. Gather the people who love you. Remember your why. Take care of yourself – get some rest……. then grab this thing by the cojones and get it moving!”
Judy has big plans and dreams for the future. Ultimately, she’d love to open center number two. She wants to open another center for medically compromised children. Then number three, then four, then possibly franchise. She has a vision to eventually partner with children’s hospitals. She says that kids with medical issues all over need day care, parents need to work. She wants to be a part of meeting this need.
Judy shared this story, along with the facts and figures of her results, at last month’s Child Care Success Summit. Her emotional video and oral presentation won over the hearts of the audience, earning her the title, Child Care Rockstar! Congratulations, Judy!
