How to Compete Against Child Care Centers
Translate by Fernando Olmedo, focalerta@yahoo.es
You start to feel desperate, wondering if you’ll ever be able to fill your two openings. “How can I compete?” you ask yourself.
In some ways child care centers have an advantage over family child care. They are easier to find, they have a full staff, their buildings are easily accessible to the public, and they can spend money on advertising.
Some parents are afraid to use family child care providers because providers are along in their home, and parents worry about what goes on behind closed doors.
For these reasons, providers need to work hard to counteract parents’ fears. Here are some suggestions for how to compete:
§ Visit your local child care center(s) and get copies of all written materials given out to prospective clients (rate schedules, special services, discounts, etc.). See what additional information you can see on their website and watch for any ads they may be running in local newspapers or online. Prospective clients contacting you may be comparing what you offer with what this center offers, so you need to be informed.
§ Look over the materials you have collected. Think about how your program is different from the center. What do you offer that the center does not? Your answer might include some of these benefits:
o Small group size which allows for more individual attention to help children learn
o Home environment where children can play in familiar, comfortable surroundings
o Home-cooked, individually prepared meals
o Healthy environment for children because fewer illnesses are spread in a small group
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o Longer or more flexible hours
o Consistent caregiver (staff turnover at centers is usually high)
o Mixed age groups, allowing siblings to be together. Does the center cares for children still don´t go to the bathroom? Most centers do not
o Accreditation or child care credentials
- High scores in kindergarten and schoolof the children who have been in your care. You can give names and phone after taking permission from the families.
- No additional fees are charged. (Most centers charge a fee in addition to the fee that puts the state to parents. They do that because they say what the state don´t pays enough for cover the cost of the care center.
- Significant experience caring for children.
Remember, your program may never have everything a center offers, but you will always have some benefits that a center does not have.
The center has an advantage, it can place ads in his building, and their city would normally it will ban you. But you can make "indirect advertising", for example, crafts for children placed in the window, a games area visible from the street. And above all, remember that the best advertising is going from mouth to mouth, that yours customers say about you to your neighbors.
§ Promote your program by highlighting your benefits. Distribute door hangers or flyers in your neighborhood. Offer a discount on the first week of care.
§ Offer your current clients a finder’s fee if they refer a parent who enrolls with you.
§ Introduce yourself to the director of the center. Suggest ways you might cooperate. If the center doesn’t offer infant care and you do, ask if the center will refer parents with infants to you. Offer to provide backup care for the center for mildly ill children. Offer to provider drop-in care for center clients who need care after the center closes.
You need not fear the competition from a child care center if you can effective communicate the benefits of your program.
I personally found myself in a similar situation with my kindergarten when they opened another center that received a state grant; in the mine, the parents had to pay for all without subsidies.
But I didn´t lose any customers. I actually received from the subsidized center, customers who switched to mine. These are the reasons:
Visibility: I removed the curtains, and what we did in the house they can see outside. Parent saw happy and active children playing or getting ready for school. All days, even in winter we went out to play at a community playground. People saw children playing freely, or run games smoothly.
Quarterly reports to parents. Besides giving a daily report to each parent on the day's activities, food, and any incident, every three months or dates such as Mother's Day, the families received an album with all the works of their children and special crafts .
Birthday parties and celebrations. If it was a birthday, the family brought the cake and arrangements, the brothers could come to the party. If it was a celebration, Mother's Day, Christmas, families come to the day care.
Good learning. While other centers wasted his time teaching letters to the chuidrens, we taught them to read by recognizing the important words. Some children beginning to read simple books alone in 3 months. When they can read, we helped them to break down words for knew them the letters. Other things we taught actively, the child learned all PLAYING.-
Our Best Chino Hills Montessori faculty, observe and meet the wants of every kid in our care, enabling him or her to develop the habits, attitudes, skills and ideas that result in a lifespan of creative thinking and learning.
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