Alice tells us why she bought a Baby Squids franchise

Do you have little snippets of memories you can remember from your early childhood?

You know the ones where you can’t tell the entire story, but they definitely happened and you can remember exactly how you felt in that moment. For me, most of those mini memories involve the water.

From my favourite swim teacher Ann, who taught me at 2-years-old to paddling in sea at home and then all the holidays I spent gliding underwater in the pool because I thought I was a real life mermaid. Water has always homed such positive memories for me, and I put it all down to my parents making sure I was familiar with the aquatic environment before I could even walk.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and I found myself enabling my two sons to respect and feel confident in the water too, all in the hope they too get to experience those micro magical memories from their early childhood when they grow up. In fact, I believe that baby/toddler swimming lessons are even more rewarding for both parent and child in this decade, simply because it’s a rare opportunity for you and your children to bond without any technology to distract either of you.

And I guess they’re the first pieces to my puzzle, that led me to starting my Baby Squids journey.

The other pieces are a concoction of multiple factors. Because until now, digital marketing was my bread and butter. Since I graduated with a BA Hons in Fashion Journalism in 2016, I’ve worked in the corporate world building multiple brand’s social media communities, multi-media campaigns and brand identity.

And then I became a mum, and life just took on this whole new meaning. I was still career driven, but my ambitions, goals and values just shifted. My 30s became within reach and I asked myself how I wanted to spend the next 10 years of my life.

I still had a desire to do the digital marketing, but I wanted to use it in a way that will enable me to have a positive impact on people’s lives. So here we are, 3 months in to 2023, and I’ve totally transformed the next chapter of my life. Now a qualified baby and pre-school swim teacher with my own swimming franchise aka Baby Squids Colchester, and very nearly a qualified PT specialising in pre and postnatal fitness. Two awesome businesses in the making, but most importantly a career that allows me to champion physical activity and mental wellbeing to two under supported groups in society (more so the parents).

But let’s not forget the ultimate puzzle piece, this flexible career path I have chosen, means I’ll be around to be the mum I’ve always wanted to be.

So why Baby Squids? Well, I explored lots of franchise opportunities with different swim schools before I spoke to Laura.

Most were on the larger side in the sense that they currently exist in more territories, and come with start-up costs which were double Baby Squids. But in all the initial meetings, I just didn’t seem to ‘click’ or relate to them in anyway. I just felt like they portrayed these big corporate firms I was trying to escape, and therefore they weren’t the right fit for my next chapter. But nearly when all hope of finding a swimming franchise was lost, I come across Baby Squids. The first person I spoke to was Laura, the franchisor finder. This instantly demonstrated to me this was a franchisor that really cared about their brand and the people who encounter it. In fact, after our initial chat I felt like we did in fact have a lot of things in common, and the more I learnt about the Baby Squids ethos, the more I wanted to jump at the opportunity.

And well then, I did exactly that. I think there was about 2 weeks between our first call and me signing the contract, and all the pressure was led by me. The Easter holidays were just short of 2 months away, and I wanted to launch the term after. So, here I was accelerating the process, and I don’t think I’d have it any other way. The dedication and support from Laura and the rest of the team, has been amazing especially given the short turn around and my classes have now launched with a great start of 40 children in the first half term. I am loving it 🙂

If you are looking for baby swimming in Colchester or swimming lessons in Colchester then please visit us over here.