Doing everything wrong?!?

[Momof4]

I had a few thoughts while reading your original post. You mentioned that you have modeled your home daycare after a centre but have you considered that people choose home daycares for the intimate setting and atmosphere? If they want a centre, they will go to a centre. Are you stressing the reasons you want to take care of fewer children and what you want to offer the families that set you apart from others in your area? Pointing out that you will run the daycare somewhat like a centre but also pointing out the benefits of what you will offer in your home might be the ticket.

Read the websites and ads of the people near you, find your niche and stress it. We are all different with pros and cons in the eyes of the parents, so they look for the things that appeal to them and their vision for their child. Are you a fantastic crafter, intend to teach lessons, themes, or run a play based daycare, etc?

If you reduce your rate a dollar or two a day for now to get the first families and put your rates up in a year, would that be an option for you? Sometimes it will get you off the ground with great references after all the families find out how fantastic you and your daycare are for them. Wishing you good luck.

[Lee-Bee]

[QUOTE=Momof4;64773]I had a few thoughts while reading your original post. You mentioned that you have modeled your home daycare after a centre but have you considered that people choose home daycares for the intimate setting and atmosphere? If they want a centre, they will go to a centre. Are you stressing the reasons you want to take care of fewer children and what you want to offer the families that set you apart from others in your area? Pointing out that you will run the daycare somewhat like a centre but also pointing out the benefits of what you will offer in your home might be the ticket.

My daycare is completely separate from the rest of my house (aside from nap rooms) and the daycare is set up exactly like a daycare centre. My families all made note of really liking this. Many families won't like it sure...but from what I found in my interviews is that the families that are able and willing to pay more are looking for home daycare that is a small group but still centre like.

So this could very well work for you...BUT it may limit the amount of families that want to sign on...meaning it takes more time!

I do believe the website is key. All my families read mine thoroughly, all commented on it and knew that this was a good contender before they came. My website was done by myself but with a paid domain name and took a TON of time. I wrote it very detailed yet slightly vague so it sounded like I was up and running when I wasn't. When they came the first thing I told them was that I was coming off mat leave with my daughter (who was in my arms) this helped ease the 'shock' of arriving at a daycare that wasn't yet opened. When they asked if I did daycare before having my daughter I simply said that we just moved a year ago, our last place was a condo that was too small to have 5 children in all day but that I did x,x,x,x which directly related to childcare. It again was enough to ease their minds.