Taking Care of Business

Family child care providers start their business because they love children and want to care for them.

Many providers quit their business because they can't make enough money.

Taking care of children is half your job. The other half is taking care of your business.

The most important thing you do is to provide quality care for children. With a good business foundation you'll be able to continue doing this work for a longer period of time. It will enable you to support your family, perhaps retire earlier or be able to spend more time with children.

When you think about the business side of family child care, start by asking yourself this question: "What do you want from your work this year?"

Your answers might be:

• More money, more paid or unpaid time off
• Recruit more children
• Terminate some children
• Save for retirement
• Reduce your stress
• Have less conflict with parents
• Other?

To get what you want you first have to identify what you want.

It's not selfish to focus on what you want as a business. You care for your your spouse, your own children, your daycare children and maybe even your parents.

It's time to care for yourself.

Are you sacrificing too much for others? Maybe. If you are giving all your time and money for others and not saving for yourself, then it's time to rethink this. If you think there is no money to save for yourself, maybe it's time to rethink how you run your business. If you haven't raised your rates in three years, it may be time to do so now. If you don't think you can make more money at what you are doing, maybe it's time to think about taking on another job.

Set Goals

To start thinking about your business, set goals each year. What aspects of your business do you want to improve this year? Create a list. Your list might include: Raise rates, reduce expenses, enforce my late pick up fees, implement two marketing strategies, get business liability insurance, and so on. Pick one or two priorities and measure how well you did at the end of the year. Reset new goals each year. It's never too late in the year to set goals.

You Can Do It

There is nothing about the business side of family child care that you can't manage. You may need some help - tax preparer, insurance agent, or advice from other providers. But you were smart enough to start your own business. You manage multiple tasks: chef, activity manager, conflict manager, finance officer, shopper, and so on.

In the end, how you run your business is up to you. There are no strict rules about this. In my opinion, however, the stress associated with being a family child care provider is often the lack of attention paid to the business side of what you do.

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com

Image credit: https://www.realsimple.com/health/mind-mood/setting-goals-benefits