Zarina ivanter official. How to open a children's development center? Interview with an expert
Kids club business plan
- How much money do I need to open a kids club?
- How long will it take for me to get back the investment in my kids club?
- How much net income per month will my kids club bring me?
In addition to numbers, the business plan contains a lot of practically valuable and accurate information on the development of the children's center.
What will the Kids Club Business Plan give you?
By ordering this product, you will receive:
- A ready-made business plan for a children's club for 3 years, designed for the Moscow market and a 90-meter room (2 classrooms and a waiting room). You can use it as a template: by substituting your numbers - the price of classes, the salary of teachers, the number of classrooms, you will be able to calculate the amount of initial costs, the time to reach self-sufficiency, the return on investment and profit
- Information “without water”, useful, concentrated, presented in an understandable language
- Information that will allow you to open a children's club in the shortest possible time and make it successful and profitable
- Two hours of audio commentary, which will make it very easy for you to understand the business plan
Document #1. "Estimated cost before the opening of the children's club"
This is an Excel spreadsheet with four columns: Spending Name, Price of Each Unit, Number of Units, Total Amount. For example, a sofa in the waiting room, 8,000 rubles apiece, 2 pieces, 16,000 rubles.
Thus, you will receive not only the amount of expenses, but also a complete list of furniture, appliances and all sorts of "little things" up to rugs.
Prices are indicated with the expectation of a children's center with a class slightly above average, not luxury. He does not scare away parents with an average salary with his luxury. At the same time, many owners of country houses do not consider it shameful to send their kids here in jeeps with security.
Naturally, you will be able to adjust the values in the tables for your kids club (more democratic or more elite) and get your initial cost values. You may decide that it is wise to forego some items of expenditure at the first stage - for example, replacing sofas with chairs.
The list of furniture and equipment is compiled for the optimal, in my opinion, type of room: 80-100 sq. meters, two training rooms and a waiting room. Again, you can adjust the values for your space.
Document #2. "Planned occupancy of the children's club"
This is also a table in which we will consider what we will strive for.
And we will strive to ensure that every day of the week, every hour, all our groups are staffed to the maximum. It is difficult to achieve complete perfection in this matter, but it is possible to get as close as possible.
We will consider such a Successful Week, which for someone, perhaps, will come after six months of the club's operation. But, as my experience shows, the club is at its peak in two or two and a half years.
In this document, we will see how much money the club earns every hour, every day of the week and every month, and how much money goes to the salaries of teachers.
This table has columns: “Price of 1 lesson for 1 child”, “Maximum number of children in a group”, “Maximum how much a group can pay for this lesson”, “Revenue per lesson - adjusted estimate” (since 100 percent occupancy never happens), "Teacher's salary". At the bottom of the table, we will see how much the kids club earns from classes and spends on salaries every day.
Document #3. "Kids club budget for 3 years"
In this document, you will see how in terms of revenue the kids club is approaching the planned revenue, that is, to the Successful Week that we reviewed in the previous document. This movement is not uniform, here it is necessary to take into account seasonal bursts and drops in attendance, absences and illnesses. These fluctuations are based on statistics collected during the operation of our clubs.
The budget also indicates the cost of salaries for teachers, administrators, an accountant, a methodologist, and a cleaner. They also vary over time (since I highly recommend tying teachers' salaries to group size, reducing the workload and salaries of all employees in the summer, etc.).
Of course, this document takes into account taxes on salaries, office expenses (utilities, electricity, water for a cooler, cups, toilet paper, paper towels, tea, dryers, etc.), consumables for classes (paper, plasticine, glue , paints, etc.), a single tax is also taken into account (15% of the amount of "revenue minus expenses" under the simplified taxation system).
In this document, you will see how every month a kids club spends and earns money, when it reaches operating break-even (work "to zero"), when it starts to work "in plus", when it pays off investments in itself and begins to generate income.
Audio commentary on all documents 47, 36 and 33 minutes long
What is audio commentary for?
Firstly, many people simply get dizzy when they see long tapes of tables with numbers. It seems that they are simply impossible to understand. In this case, an audio commentary is a must!
I recommend that you print out all the tables, put them on the table in front of you and start listening to the audio file. We will go through all the tables, through all its columns. You will see that actually studying a business plan is an interesting and even exciting activity, similar to reading a good detective story!
Secondly, the audio commentary contains a lot of additional useful information that cannot be put into a table with numbers.
In addition, you receive the following documents.
Document #1. "12 working ways to speed up the filling of groups"
Document #2. "10 Ways to Get Free Customers to Kids Club"
These documents contain really working ways to attract and retain customers. No children's club will share this information with you. This is not surprising - 99% of the children's clubs I know do not use these methods. And those developments that they have are jealously guarded.
The information presented in these documents was very highly appreciated not only by newcomers, but by children's clubs that have been operating for more than a year. And thanks to the techniques described in these documents, some clubs recorded a 30 percent increase in revenue in the first three months of this school year, compared to the same period last year.
Delicious bonuses
- Recording of the webinar "Method of 6 steps on how to write a business plan for a kids club on your own."
- How to make summer profitable? Webinar about the system of actions that will lead to the occupancy of the children's center in the off season.
This book is a continuation of the previously published book "Children's Club. How to open and make profitable." If you already have a business and want to take it to new heights, Zarina Ivanter will tell you how to proceed. But for those who are just going to try their hand, studying both books will be a great help and save you from many mistakes.
The main goal is to help the owners of the children's club to ensure full occupancy throughout the year, including during holidays and vacations. But to achieve it, many important steps will be required, each of which the author has covered in detail and honestly.
And of course, a good, profitable business should bring pleasure - and the book will also tell about this.
A book for owners of a kids club, for those who plan to open a kids club and for parents who want to learn more about kids clubs from the inside, in order to know what to look for and whether this club can be trusted with their child.
Excerpt from a book:
Introduction
According to the statistics of maternity hospitals, every year in October there is a surge in the birth rate - apparently, this is a consequence of the New Year holidays. Therefore, in the middle of autumn, many parents turn to the children's club who want to celebrate their child's birthday.
And according to our statistics, if at the beginning of November the club did not have time to find Santa Claus for the New Year tree, they will have to tie pillows around a malnourished student for the holiday. By this time, not only a very professional, but simply a well-fed animator, free in the twentieth of December, is quite difficult to find.
It is better to place an ad for a teacher's vacancy in June or August. In July, everyone rests, and in September it’s too late to fuss: high-class teachers have already made up their schedule, and even if you make them an attractive offer, they won’t come to you this year - after all, good teachers don’t abandon their students in the middle of the year.
Children starting from four or five years old are brought to classes, as a rule, in September, but we see a surge in activity among parents of one-year-old and two-year-old babies in October (they returned from warm seas), January (parents “start a new life”) and even sometimes in June (when other kids clubs close for holidays).
Each month of the club has its own characteristics. In the first and sometimes even the second year of its existence, they are not very noticeable: there is still a lot of turmoil in the work of the company, the system is only being built, and the head of the club is not yet up to seasonal nuances.
In general, there are two stages in the development of the club. The goal of the first is to make the club breathe, become alive. At this time, we do not think much about whether our costs and efforts are optimal. The main thing is to make the company work, at almost any cost, to start good classes in the club and have children. About this period of development, the book "Children's Club: How to Open and Make Profitable" was written, created on the basis of the experience of my first club "Classics".
The second stage is to make the running club truly successful, and this is what the book you are holding in your hands tells about.
Now I am already involved in three children's clubs. They are all different. "Klassiki" is a small studio where author's courses are held. Las Mamas is a larger and more democratic club, it has four classrooms, each with its own color and purpose. "Ugolok" operates in the premium segment, its distinguishing features are a good mini-garden, a strong theater studio and luxurious holidays.
Despite the different format and target audience, all children's centers develop according to the same rules. Success comes when a strong team of teachers works, all business processes are thought out and observed, administrators work clearly and smoothly, costs are planned in advance and optimized if possible, club services are actively promoted throughout the year.
This book will tell you about the many features and secrets of a thriving kids club. To apply the information from it more effectively, I would advise not to take on everything at once, but to focus on three or four key projects every month based on the seasonal nuances of work.
For convenience, there is a small planner at the end of the book, it already lists important areas of work for each month. You can add whatever you want, and your breakthrough plan is ready. And at the bottom of the page, you can record the results of the month, and in a year you will have a documentary record of the success story.
Chapter 1
How to build the perfect teaching team
What do a kids club and a mall have in common?
Almost all women go not to the first hairdresser they come across, but to their master. Not to any manicurist, but to your beloved. My mom is a very good doctor. When she changes jobs, patients follow her from one clinic to another.
In the same way, parents and children very often go not so much to the club as to their teacher.
The good news is that you understand the secret of the success of the kids club: if it has professional and charming teachers, then sooner or later there will be children.
The bad news is that this kind of attachment of clients to educators carries great risks. If a rival club opens next door and poachs your wonderful employee, many of his students will leave with him.
But this happens infrequently. Most of the teachers are decent and devoted to their club people. However, milder situations can put you in a difficult position.
The teacher fell ill, and the clients do not agree to a replacement, they demand to reschedule the lesson or return the money, because they only recognize their teacher. The teacher moved - and the group "crumbles", as the children (and, to a greater extent, mothers) do not want to accept the one who came to take his place.
Some teachers, feeling their influence, begin to "be capricious", demand higher salaries and other privileges.
“How do you build a control system? - the owner of one children's club asked me. - This is a hot topic. How to show that you are the boss? After all, everyone goes only to the teacher!
For the owners of the club, this is a very unpleasant situation: they have invested money and labor in the creation of the club, they bear all the risks, and the teachers become the masters of the situation. There are teachers - there are clients, teachers left - clients left.
How to attract good teachers, but not depend on them?
To answer these questions, let's look at how shopping malls work.
Shopping centers rent space to stores for a portion of their revenue. The more the store earned, the more the mall earned.
Would a tenant want to move from here to a newly opened shopping complex, even if the rents there are very attractive? Will he hint to the administration of the shopping center, they say, if anything, I will leave you? Hardly.
The latter is very important. People come to the shopping center, knowing that they can buy good shoes here, and at the same time they buy mittens for their daughter, skis for their son, a book for their grandmother, and they will also go to a restaurant for lunch. Clients who have heard from acquaintances that there is a good English teacher here can come to the club, and they can also stay for art, modeling and dancing.
Let's continue to explore shopping centers. There is such a thing as an anchor tenant. This is a well-known store that attracts customers like a magnet. Powerful “anchors” are, for example, Auchan chain stores, where not only those who want to save money come from afar, but also gourmets who know that there is a good selection of fresh fish.
To make it easier for other courses and teachers to “get on the flow”, you need to correctly schedule. If, for example, your anchor is English with an Oxford graduate or chess with a grandmaster, make sure that before or after there are classes for children of the same age and parents can leave them for two courses at once.
Experts also argue that for survivability, each shopping center must be unique. If a shopping complex has been built somewhere on the Moscow Ring Road, in which the conditional M.Video, Zara, Mango, Sportmaster, L’Etoile operate, then only those who live very close will go there. After all, all these brands can be found at almost every step. Therefore, competent developers try to distinguish their properties from competitors by opening, for example, a skating rink (like in Mega), or something like a wind tunnel, or by recruiting a unique tenant mix (like Crocus City Mall, which represents a wide range of luxury brands, which are not available in other Russian shopping centers).
Approximately the same period will be needed for children to tread the path to your club.
Forms of interaction with teachers: author's program, "voice acting", rent
Just as a shopping center builds relationships with tenants in different ways, relationships with teachers in a kids club can be different.
In principle, the organization of classes in the children's club includes:
- drawing up a curriculum;
- conducting classes;
- recruiting students.
The more these functions fall on the teacher, the higher his material reward should be.
It happens that a good teacher comes to the club and says that he has an author's program and solid experience in working with it. It turns out that he is charged with two responsibilities at once - drawing up a program of classes and conducting them. The club needs to attract customers. In this case, the salary of the teacher is, as a rule, about 30 percent of the amount that you receive from your parents. There are advantages to working with such “star” teachers. They really work great, a lot of children stay with them after a trial lesson. However, there are many risks: everything rests on the personality, charisma and knowledge of the teacher, clients stay in the club only as long as their favorite teacher works in it.
There is another scheme of cooperation with a teacher - work on a ready-made program, which is available in the club. If the club has notes - minute-by-minute plans for each lesson, it has the opportunity to attract a less experienced employee. With this scheme, the teacher performs, one might say, the role of an actor: he just needs to voice and perform what is written on paper, he is assigned one function - conducting a lesson, and drawing up a program and attracting customers remains with the club. In this case, his compensation should, of course, be less.
The third option for interaction between the teacher and the club is renting a room. For example, a yoga instructor comes to you: he has a group with which he has nowhere to work now, and he asks for a room. It turns out that the program, and conducting classes, and attracting clients are all on the teacher. Of course, the income from such an occupation is small - it's just rent for one hour. But if your room is still empty at this time, why not? Especially since the women who come to yoga may have children. It is possible that, having got to know the club better, they will bring them to your classes.
How can the impact of educators on business sustainability be reduced?
First, don't put all your eggs in one basket. For example, in your club, five days a week, two teachers work from morning to night. If one of them leaves, you will lose half of your customers. If you have ten teachers, then with the departure of one of them you risk only ten percent of the students. Therefore, in our clubs, we try not to give teachers a five-day week. The maximum load is three times a week for half a day.
Secondly, the influence of teachers can be reduced by such programs as a mini-kindergarten, when children are brought not to one, but to three or four classes at once. In this case, several teachers work with the child, with whom the parents do not communicate very much: in the morning they brought the child and ran away, in the afternoon they took it and left. If the teacher leaves, this, most likely, will not affect kindergarten attendance in any way.
And, thirdly, the club has obvious advantages if it has its own notes. It is no secret that the labor market lacks early childhood education teachers. And having a program, you can attract beginners, the level of payment of which will be lower than that of the "stars" who have their own program of teachers.
When there are notes in the club, two teachers in one group can teach them at once. For example, on Tuesdays - Masha, on Thursdays - Tanya. If one of them leaves, the second one will remain, and with it - part of the children or all. Some clubs that have a program intentionally arrange a turnover so that children and parents do not have time to become attached to one of the teachers.
Finally, if your teacher has stopped working with you, you can assign a colleague to teach the program. With the author's program, such a trick is more difficult: even if a new teacher is found who suits old clients, it is difficult to restore information about what they passed and what they did not. If the training goes according to notes, we take the next one in order and continue the process. What ready-made notes can be, you can see on our website www.BestBabyClub.ru/start.
Of course, if you hire an employee with no experience or with little experience, an adaptation period will be required during which the newcomer will be able to attend classes with more experienced colleagues, work with them in pairs, and then independently. You may want to send him to special courses.
To avoid a situation where you pay an employee for training, and he immediately after that moves to another job, do not forget to conclude an agreement with him, according to which he undertakes to work for you for a certain time. If he wants to quit early, he will have to reimburse the cost of training. An example of such an agreement can be downloaded for free on our website www.BestBabyClub.ru/start.
team building
Good teachers are emotional and subtle people, the atmosphere in the team is very important for them. Therefore, in addition to the objective factors that we talked about earlier, employees will be attracted to your club by such a subjective substance as the atmosphere in the team - the ability to communicate, make friends, feel like part of the team. Our small corporate parties have a great effect on the atmosphere in the club. Here's how they go.
Of course, in ordinary life you can be an arbitrarily subtle connoisseur of literature, a fan of Maupassant and Dostoevsky, but when you go to a karaoke club, you need to forget about it, and remember the most groovy pop trash, and then the evening will be a success. I made such a conclusion when we held a corporate karaoke for the first time. Having entered the hall and received thick books with thousands of song titles, we, frowning our brows, leafed through them for a long time in search of something familiar. In the end, they found some kind of romance, sang it. Fifteen minutes later, a children's song was discovered, which we also somehow mastered.
When I already had doubts that we did the right thing by choosing this format of the meeting, Verka Serduchka’s song “I’m going all in Dolce Gabbana” caught my eye. As soon as we began to sing the chorus together, it became clear that we had come here for a reason. For some reason, Vladimirsky Central became the second hit of that evening. I wonder what the parents of our children would say when they saw their refined teachers singing Russian chanson with rapture? And not only. We also liked the song "Kaifuem" by Arsen Petrosov.
The following year, I decided in advance, with the help of colleagues, to start selecting a repertoire so as not to waste time looking for the “right” songs. The shortlist included (after Dolce-Gabbana, of course) such works as “Oh my God, what a man”, “Yellow Tulips”, “Stole You, Stole”, “Lelik, the Sun” and a few more similar imperishable .
In fact, the purpose of the event was not only to rally the team (to introduce some people - some of our employees never have the same working days), but also to sum up the preliminary results of a very important year for us, and also to announce plans for the next.
I wanted to show our team that we have a strong, well-developed company in which each employee has prospects for professional growth.
In order for us to have the opportunity to talk at least in relative silence, we rented a separate small room, but after the official part we decided to move to a general karaoke party.
Our relocation was perhaps the most spectacular moment of the evening. Here's how it was: the song “Oh, what a woman” sounds, twelve women with glasses in their hands come out of the VIP room in single file and, passing between the tables and choking with laughter, head to the common karaoke room. "Women, where are you going?" one of the guests of the restaurant said in a tragic voice, following our procession with his eyes.
In my opinion, the event was a success. It was nice when two employees who come to the club only once a week, and spend most of their working time in another, large and well-known children's center, said: “It's good that we can at least somewhere feel like part of a team” - and treated everyone to champagne.
Our first “teambuildings” four years ago went with a minus: both the employees did not gather very willingly, and there was no special spirit of unity or something like that. Probably, then my club was still too weak, the teachers were not optimistic, so they considered it unnecessary to spend their free time on some kind of leftist meetings. Yes, and it was organized completely wrong.
Although I still do not consider myself an experienced HR manager, I still learned a few simple rules:
— corporate meetings are definitely needed;
- it is difficult to conduct a good team building in a weak company;
- it is necessary to inform about the meeting two or three weeks in advance and remind several times - the turnout will be higher;
- an entertainment part is needed - something like karaoke, bowling, barbecue, or at least a board game;
- the official or semi-official part, which talks about the company, its achievements and goals, is an integral part of the meeting, without it all meaning is lost;
- you need to focus not so much on the company, but on what opportunities it gives the team - it's so interesting to hear about yourself.
So, an ideal team can develop if three important conditions are met:
1. The club has "anchor" teachers and less experienced, interchangeable teachers.
2. Own program that allows you to minimize the burden on teachers and optimize salary costs.
3. Thanks to a healthy atmosphere in the team, employees communicate, make friends and go to work with pleasure.
Chapter 2
Recipes for "delicious" activities
How to achieve the perfect workout every day?
American entrepreneur and investor Robert Kiyosaki, author of the book Rich Dad Poor Dad, says that he is often approached with an offer to invest in certain "brilliant" projects. Typically, Kiyosaki asks these people the question: can they make a better burger than at McDonalds? All answer in the affirmative. The second question is: will they be able to build a second McDonalds?
And just the second question makes aspiring entrepreneurs think that the ability to make a good product is the very beginning of the journey. You must first learn how to cook yourself so that the sandwich is always of the same high quality. Then teach cooks how to cook as tasty as you do. Work out the technology so that the employees always get a hamburger of the same high quality and taste, make sure that restaurants have fresh products every day and new visitors appear.
Unlike Kiyosaki, who likens his business to a fast food chain, I associate a good club with an exclusive patisserie or candy boutique. Pastry baskets with whipped cream and fresh berries... Fragrant gingerbread in the form of clowns with hand-painted yellow caps. Cherry strudel with vanilla ice cream, mint leaf and powdered sugar. Three-story cakes with angels and chocolate lace.
How to make classes “tasty” and useful?
Take, for example, classes with children from one to three years old. We will cook from the required ingredients. Here they are:
- greeting (for example, a song repeated in each lesson);
- familiarity with the outside world;
- logorhythmics (an exercise that combines speech and movement, often with music);
- reading (we play with Zaitsev's cubes);
- mathematics (the basics of mathematical concepts, for example, familiarity with the concepts of "many - few", "big - small");
- work with objects (string berries on a string, drop with a pipette, remove pebbles from cereals, etc.);
– motor path (passage without shoes along massage bumps and paths, stepping over the crossbar, crawling in the tunnel to energetic music);
- finger gymnastics;
- setting the hand (draw vertical, horizontal, wavy lines);
– massage (to the relaxing music we roll massage “hedgehogs” on the arms and legs of the child);
— development of attention/memory/thinking (find identical objects, discover what is missing, etc.);
- color perception;
- creativity (a small craft, the manufacture of which does not require more than five to seven minutes);
- farewell (repeating song).
To make the lesson interesting, it is necessary to have three components: “tasty”, academic and repetitive.
What is the "tasty" part? First of all, it is not paper. There are clubs and teachers who like to teach everything by cards. We remember the names of fruits from a photocopy from a textbook, vegetables from printouts, dishes from pictures from a book, etc.
We work differently. The topic “Bathroom” can also be studied from the pictures, but if the child “washes” the socks in soapy water, hangs them on a rope and fastens them with a clothespin, sniffs the shampoo, beats the foam with a whisk and blows bubbles through a straw, the lesson will be remembered for a long time - which means it will be efficient.
What makes an exercise memorable? Experiments with water (pouring, tinting, comparing warm and cold water, tasting salty, wetting something in it, washing, melting snow and ice), cereals (pouring, looking for something in it). Another great helpers are a wooden theater or glove puppets (the puppets are asked to complete some task), dough, something edible.
An important nuance in this type of exercise is to let the child clean up after himself. If you spilled cereal - get a broom and a scoop and collect it. Spilled water - can be wiped with a rag. The goal is not to clean up, but to instill self-organization skills and just give the child pleasure.
However, without the academic part, the classes seem too superficial and playful. As a rule, the academic, or "paper" part includes exercises for setting the hand, memory/attention/thinking, and sometimes tasks in mathematics. The same exercise can be presented in different ways. For example, an exercise with color can be performed on paper (plant - connect with a line - a blue butterfly on a blue flower, a yellow butterfly on a yellow flower), or you can pour water into three bowls, tint it with watercolors, give colored mosaic molds and ask to let the yellow boat along the yellow river, and blue - along the blue. Only the second option will take you more time, because children give sheets of paper quite calmly, but it’s more difficult to part with a boat on the river.
"Paper" exercises are divided into two types. We print and laminate some of the worksheets so that they can be used repeatedly. Children draw on them with a felt-tip pen, and these lines can then be erased. We do not laminate the other part (as a rule, these are hand positioning exercises, they need to be performed on ordinary rough paper that does not slip) - and the children take these sheets with them.
We build the lesson so that the child takes away two or three results of his work - for example, completed worksheets and crafts. Here we pursue two goals at once. Firstly, we regularly demonstrate to parents how well we work - this is especially true when a child is brought to classes by a nanny. And secondly, the child once again receives a portion of praise from dad, grandparents, which increases his motivation to go to his favorite club and try there.
And the third type of exercise is repetitive. As a rule, these are physical minutes, mini-dances with songs, musical pauses. They are valuable in themselves - they develop general motor skills, coordination of movements, a sense of rhythm. More importantly, the child gets used to them, and these habitual moments set him up for the lesson.
Maria Montessori also noticed that children of two to four years old really appreciate everything familiar. As a rule, these musical repetitive exercises are the first thing a child begins to do in a club. And, by the way, experts in personal effectiveness and time management advise including habitual, routine activities in the working day - they set you up for work. It's the same with children.
Examples of ready-made abstracts with illustrations and sound can be downloaded for free at www.BestBabyclub.ru/start.
Process or result? Features of classes with children of different ages
Parents' requests vary depending on the age of the children. Let's take as an example the basic course of children's clubs - integrated development. It is aimed at the intellectual development of the child, but may contain musical, moving, creative exercises.
The youngest students - from one to three years old - are brought in primarily for a pleasant pastime. Mom, bored on maternity leave, wants to get some air and chat. Another mother, who went to work early and is a little complex because of this, wants her child to play not only with the nanny, but also with other children, while under the supervision of qualified specialists. That is, the expectation of the result is not in the first place.
Parents are attracted by the fact that there is a lot of music in the classroom, games with musical instruments (tambourines, bells, castanets, etc.), sand and cereals, that children bring home beautiful crafts.
The very trip of a little person “to school” becomes an event for parents. They dress up their "baby doll" and constantly take pictures of him. They love all sorts of holidays and tea parties, prefer to come early and don’t leave for a long time, especially if there is a place to play. They really appreciate it when the club takes photographs during classes (albeit unprofessional).
The expectation of the result appears in the parents of children older than three years. Of course, no one - with rare exceptions - wants to "deprive a child of childhood", put him at a desk and force him to cram. It is important for parents that the classes are a joy for the child, that he communicates, participates in games and holidays.
And at the same time, they expect the child to be able to read individual syllables or short words, or at least name letters and count. That is, for parents of children from three to five years old, both the process and the result are important. Therefore, in working with children of this age, we pay serious attention to their education - reading, the basics of arithmetic, preparing their hands for writing. At the same time, we do not forget about creativity - after all, children love to mess with dough, paints, and shred paper. Collective games, dramatization of fairy tales, simple experiments - all this remains in the classroom.
But for parents of children from five to seven years old, the result definitely comes out on top. I remember how the father of the boy who went to us in English asked to enroll his son also in preparation for school. “Valera doesn’t know letters or numbers,” he complained. - We take him to a private kindergarten and pay more than two thousand dollars a month, and they are only “kissed in the ass” there.
So, if complex development is important, then we remove almost all entertainment moments from the training program (with the exception of a few physical minutes) and focus on preparing for school: reading, mathematics and writing. First up is reading. Firstly, it is given to children more difficult than mathematics, and secondly, both parents and teachers at school attach more importance to it.
Our program is structured like this. One class per week is devoted entirely to reading and writing. The second is math, but for the last ten minutes of the lesson, the children also read. On the days when these classes are held, we also offer hand exercises - coloring, writing letters and numbers. Since the classes are very intense, we are 100 percent immersed in preparation for school, parents see the result quickly and appreciate it.
On the other hand, if the child lacks creativity, he can go to specialized courses. Indeed, in many clubs for children from three years old, in addition to intellectual development, there are other areas. These are creative courses (art, modeling, decoupage, sand painting, various crafts, knitting, embroidery, soap making), foreign languages, fitness areas (dance, choreography, children's yoga, capoeira), courses such as Lego design, Galileo ”(we set up experiments), regional studies.
Harmonious schedule
In order for all these courses to be as popular as possible, it is necessary to draw up the schedule correctly - it should be convenient for parents to leave the child for the second lesson. Many clubs make mistakes. For example, preparation for school for children of five to seven years old takes place at the same time as drawing for five-, seven-year-olds. Or preparation - at 17:00, and drawing - at 19:00 (there is an hour break between classes). You have to choose. And if drawing went right after school preparation, many parents would leave the child for two classes. Mom will get two hours of free time, and the club will receive additional income.
Another common mistake is to put in two difficult courses on the same day, for example, preparation for school and English. Perhaps some students will want (even definitely want) to go to both classes at once. But not every child can master two such complex subjects in one day. It is better to combine an intellectual course with dancing or other creativity, and spend a foreign language on other days.
And a few more tips for those who make the schedule. We are guided by the following principles.
The principle of "unbroken" schedule. It is divided into two subsections. First, in most cases, I would not advise to schedule "Monday and Thursday" and "Tuesday and Friday", especially for children over four years old.
It is clear that “Monday and Thursday” is better than “Tuesday and Thursday” for the effectiveness of classes. The breaks between classes are almost the same, the workload and homework, if any, are more evenly distributed.
However, in most circles and children's sections, classes are held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday or Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Many children combine, for example, classes in the sports section and a foreign language. So, if English classes are held on Monday and Thursday, and the child goes to the sports section (not to you) on odd days, these two classes will conflict with each other. And not the fact that the choice will be made in your favor.
It turns out that the schedule "Monday, Wednesday, Friday" and "Tuesday, Thursday" is easier to fit into the schedule of children and parents, which means you will have more customers.
The second component of this principle is the same start time for all days. If classes start, for example, on one day of the week at 16:00, and on the second day at 19:00, parents will get confused, forget and skip. Not a disaster, but good enough. The exception is those cases when you create a group of children already involved in your club. For example, they study music, but they also want to dance with the same teacher. Here you, of course, are looking for "windows" and put the lesson where there is free time.
The principle of unloaded waiting room. If you have two or more study rooms, and the waiting area is very small, separate the beginning of classes in these two rooms by 10-20 minutes. For example, in one room, classes begin at five minutes to any hour, and in the second - at ten minutes of the next hour. This will help reduce the hustle.
The principle of convenience for the teacher. Once I was asked to "inspect" the schedule of the upcoming premium kids club. It looked something like this (there are two classrooms in the club): 10:00 in the first room - children's yoga, in the second - preparation for school; 11:00 - music and English; 12:00 - classes with one-year-olds and dancing.
I explained to the leaders of the future center that it would be difficult for them to find a good teacher, say, in English, who would agree to come to one lesson a day. Or he will need to offer an inflated fee.
Of course, you can try to find (or prepare) a more or less universal teacher who will work with both toddlers and older children, teach a foreign language and dance. But being a good specialist in many areas at once is impossible or at least difficult. In addition, in this case, in one day, the teacher will need to prepare for two or three completely different academic disciplines. And it is still unknown how the parents will react to the fact that he is such a “multi-stationer”.
Everyone understands how much the club's success depends on a good teacher. To attract such a person, you need to create conditions for this. Motivation to work in your center will increase if you offer to come not for one, but for three, and preferably four or five classes at once. Therefore, I suggested the following option: 10:00, 11:00 and 12:00 - classes with kids of one, two and three years, respectively. And in another room - children's yoga (or other physical exercises) and dances for two age groups, because all these three classes can be taught by one teacher.
So, in order for the club to have a full-fledged educational “menu”:
Hello dear readers! Our guest today is Zarina Ivanter, co-founder and head of three children's centers, author of two books and Happy Mom's Diary, creator of the website How to open a children's club and make it profitable. From the interview you will learn:
- how to decide to open a kids club while on maternity leave;
- what results in the development of this business can be achieved in just a few years;
- what path had to be traveled during this time;
- is it profitable to open a children's club in the face of great competition that currently exists in this market;
- what are the main income items of the children's club;
- what amounts can a novice entrepreneur expect;
- where to get money to open a children's club, if they are not;
- advice to mothers who want to open a children's center.
How to decide to open a kids club while on maternity leave
Olga: Hello Zarina! I am glad to welcome you as a guest at the "Mom's Career" project. In my experience, many mothers, especially during maternity leave, come up with the idea of opening a child development center, some even dare to do it, but only a few succeed. You opened several centers, created a website about this type of business and wrote 2 books. Please tell us what happened in your life when the thought came to your mind: "I want to open a children's center"? How did you decide on this? 
Sarina: The idea of my own business came to me when I was sitting at home with my two-year-old son. I was very bored. Almost every mother of a small child knows what I'm talking about: you take care of the baby and the housework all day, and nothing meaningful happens in life. The brain turns off, you begin to live on autopilot and gradually degrade.
That's when I got the idea to open my own business, namely a small children's club - a nice, cozy and well-equipped place where professional teachers will conduct classes with children from 1 year old to school. And I will be able to spend time at my future job and with the baby, and I will not have a rigid schedule, as in a hired job.
What results in the development of this business can be achieved in just a few years. What path did you have to go during this time
Olga: To what heights has your business grown over the years?
Sarina: Now I have three clubs (“Classics”, “Las Mamas”, “Ugolok”), which I manage together with co-founder Yulia, as well as the BestBabyClub.ru training center - we help those who want to open their own children's club or raise already working to new heights.
Olga: What has been done during this time? What path did you have to take?
Sarina: In my first year of work, I, like many aspiring entrepreneurs, was in my company both a director, and an administrator, and a sales manager, and a cleaner, and a driver, and a flyer, and an English teacher, and a site administrator. I returned home at 10 pm.
Then there was a conflict with partners, after which I had to start a business from scratch. There were mistakes in accounting, in pricing, in marketing, which cost me more than two million rubles, two nervous breakdowns and a large box of antidepressants.
It was not easy for me to open a kids club and get it on its feet. But this is only from the lack of a small amount of knowledge. Now I can say with confidence that the kids club is not so difficult.
Is it profitable to open a children's club in a highly competitive environment
Olga: Now there are quite a lot of proposals for the development of children, clubs, circles, centers. Tell me, please, in your opinion, is it profitable to open a children's center in the current conditions with fairly high competition?
Sarina: There are more and more kids clubs every day. But they are still few and a very large part of them are completely artisanal! Many parents like the very idea of classes, but are not satisfied with the implementation. They don't go to classes, not because they don't want to, but because they can't find a good kids club for them. And there is also huge potential for growth.
Financial aspects of opening a children's development center
Olga: What are the main sources of income for the children's club? What amounts can a novice entrepreneur expect? Where can I get money to open a children's club if there is none?
Sarina: The main source of income is the parental fee for group classes. Additional sources of income are children's birthday parties, individual consultations with a psychologist and a speech therapist. If there is no money to open a club, try looking among your acquaintances for people who will be ready to invest in your business for a share in the company.
The scheme is as follows: you invest your knowledge of organizing a children's club and efforts (“intellectual contribution”), your partners are money. Usually in such cases, shares in the company are divided as follows: 20-30% to the one who makes an intellectual contribution, 70-80% to the one who invests money.
Of course, here it must be borne in mind that partnership in business is a very delicate matter, which can mortally quarrel not only acquaintances, but also close friends, and even relatives. And keep in mind that you will become a minority shareholder in the company you create, and your partners will legally have full control.
You can also try to contact the city business support centers. Such centers, for example, exist in every district of Moscow (www.mbm.ru), they are organized by the Moscow mayor's office. I think there is something similar in other cities. Theoretically, they can get a subsidy for business development.
If all these options do not “shoot” for you, there is always the possibility organize a home children's club b. You can register yourself as a self-employed tutor and give lessons for toddlers to start at home. When you gain a base of devoted students, you can first expand to a rented apartment (the rental rate for residential premises is lower than for non-residential premises), and then open a full-fledged kids club.
Olga: What advice would you give to moms who decide to repeat your success? What is the action plan? What must be done, what is desirable?
Sarina: I advise you to set aside at least six months for information gathering and training. And it is also desirable from the very beginning to assemble a team that will build a children's club together with you.
