Nicky Jackson, franchise owner of Baby Squids Wiltshire gives her top tips
1. Throw yourself into it
You have made the decision to build a business out of something you will love doing. Now’s the time for hard work and positivity. The Baby Squids team are really nurturing and supportive so maximise the effort and energy you feel. You will be provided with plenty of tools to support your business, from setting up logistics to how to run your social media, take the time every day/week to review what you need to do next and what you have already completed. Book weekly time with Laura and I to ensure that you can run through for a few minutes to help you gather your thoughts!
2. Plan and research social media
Social media can be so much fun but also quite daunting if you haven’t used this for business before. Ensure you do lots of research on local businesses and other Baby Squids franchisees to see what everyone is doing. You’ll be provided with a great array of templates to use and brand guidelines so familarise yourself with these and start to have a play around and come up with ideas. Planning is super important as this takes away the pressure of thinking on the spot. You can use various tools to plan ahead and you’ll be given advice on this during training. Baby Squids also provide exceptional training from https://sociablesuzy.com/ who support our social media platforms.
3. Understand your financials
Yes I know this is a scary subject as most of us are here for the fun of running a business working with children. Laura will give you lots of time and support during the process of buying the business to help you understand what you can expect in the first year. They provide excellent tools for planning your future profit levels and what you can expect to earn depending on pool hours/customers and if you take on teachers, etc. Keeping on top of this is key for motivation and is essential to understanding where your business is headed and where it will thrive.
4. Ask for help
Everyone has a different experience due to differing circumstances but there is not much we haven’t experienced. The support structure created across the franchise network is exceptional and will ensure that you can always access some level of support or advice. If you are busy working early in the morning or later in the evening you can ping a question out and we all have options to access the support group. This means if there are other people beavering away then you have immediate responses and if not then you will wake up to refreshed help and ideas to solve whatever problem you had concerns about. All easing you into less impact on your sleep!!
5. Enjoy the ride
Lastly it’s so important to enjoy your new business, it’s an amazing opportunity to create a flexible balance to your working career around your commitments and ensuring you still have time for yourself. So enjoy it, spend time that you might have been stuck in the office out walking just to clear your mind and think about all the exciting things you want to do next. Take some time out to read about running your own business or researching what others are up to on social media. Especially important is enjoy getting to know your local area, your business will be successful as the local parenting community will know they are safe in your hands. It’s your chance to meet other like minded people in your community who may not only be able to support your business but also make it more fun. The reason franchising works is people buy from people and keeping it local can really work and has been a huge success for many of our franchisees. Nicky runs our Salisbury franchise and has doubled her numbers since taken over in April 2021, she is also our HQ expert and there is not much she doesn’t know! Her teachers always speak very highly of the team work culture she has created, all whilst running a profitable and successful business.