Once you have decided childminding is the business for you, you need to think about the business side of this project and see if it is worth the financial investment you will have to make.
In order to make this decision you will need to write a business plan.
The purpose of a business plan is to structure your thoughts and ideas and work out which of your ideas will work and which won’t.
The business plan will also allow you to think about practical things, like finance and how much things will cost. What you need to do, who you need help from and to think about things you may not have thought about initially.
In short a business plan is:
- A working document – it will be reviewed and amended as your investigations progress and you learn more about the business you are interested in setting up.
- It should also be written by someone who has some knowledge of the industry
Its purpose is to describe:
- The business
- The objectives – the aims
- The market
- The strategies to meet the aims
- The financial projections
Let’s look at these in turn.
The business: You can get more information about childminding and what is involved from the following links:
From this you can work out what your objectives are. If you need clarity also read:
Once you have crystalised your thoughts in these areas, you need to think about your market. To do this you need to carry out your own market research, this will help you understand why customers will want your product. You can also use market research to work out how to stand out from your competitors.
To find out how to investigate your market and do market research read:
Once you have carried out your market research you need to work out what to charge and think about how much you could potentially make. Childminders can legally look after up to 6 children, 3 under the age of 5 and a further three up to the age of 8, who will obviously be at school during the day, unless it is holiday time or before and after school.
To help you work out how much you could charge and help you calculate your finances read the following:
All this information will help you work out the viability of your business and get you to think about strategies you can employ to make it a success if you decide to proceed with your plans.
You can then use the information you have gathered to predict, how much money you could potentially make, each week, month and year.
But you will need to take into account seasonal changes and the impact of taking on children part-time as well as full-time.
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