January 2024 Parenta magazine_website

Improving the
business of
Dr. Allan Presland
childcare: part 1
In 2017, I published the book, “Improving
the Business of Childcare” which went
to number 1 on the Amazon chart in two
categories, Nursery & Pre-school and
Coaching & Mentoring. I wrote the book
having visited over 1,000 settings during
my career, which enabled me to see the
patterns between settings which were
successful (profitable) and those who were
not. The response to the book has been
far more than I could ever have conceived,
and I am both humbled and thrilled.
But it wasn’t until a recent webinar that
Parenta held in November of last year
that I truly understood the impact. The
webinar, Financial Solutions for Early
Years Settings, featured both myself and
an incredible lady, called Ann Speight, a
setting owner, who gave a presentation
which encompassed her journey to
make her setting successful, including
her recognition of the importance of
profitability.
After both presentations, as always, we
opened the floor for Q&A, and this is
where I realised the true value of the book
to someone like Ann. Now, I don’t know
Ann. In fact, I had never met her before the
webinar. And yet here was a lady talking
about me as if she knew me, and telling
story after story about her learnings from
my book and explaining how she made
all her staff read it too! And then to top it
all, in front of everyone on the webinar,
she pulled out a very dog-eared copy, with
little sticky labels poking from loads of
pages, and explained that every time they
got stuck, and whenever they were at a
loss, they turned back to the book.
The most staggering part of all though,
was Ann’s closing words. She explained
that, whilst she always knew that she ran
an independent business on a commercial
basis, the book gave her ‘permission’ to
be open about the need to be profitable,
and for her, this acknowledgement to
herself was the game-changer.
Thank you, Ann. Your kind words have
inspired me to commit to writing this
monthly column, and I hope I can add
value and ideas to many, many more
nursery operators to help them to become
more successful.
So let me start this month by talking about
the first item I always ask any business
owner when I’m looking to support them.
That first question is “How much is a lead
worth to you?” And the reason I ask the
question is because most businesses are
constrained by sales in some way, and
those who understand the answer to this
question usually have the rest of their
business sorted out.
And so, let’s work through that question in
the context of childcare. To keep the maths
super simple, we’ll assume a full-time
place at our make-believe setting is £1,000
per month. Of course, you can adapt the
maths to your own set of circumstances.
Let’s assume that a lead comes in from the
parents of a baby who is 6 months old. In
this case, the child is likely to be with you
for around 4 years. So, the value of that
lead is:-
4 years, 12 months @ £1,000 a month =
£48,000 in total.
Let’s just round this up to £50,000 to
account for any extras you charge.
Now, let’s just stop for a moment and take
stock. Did you realise that a lead is worth
£50,000 to you? And now you do know,
are your systems for generating new leads
sufficiently robust to ensure you are 100%
full? Is your website genuinely generating
enough leads to ensure you are 100%
full? Have you refined your show-rounds
to ensure they are optimal and clearly
explain why your setting is unique? Do you
compare the success rates of those who
conduct show-rounds? (Hint: Ann does).
And most importantly of all, do you ask
for the business and try to close the sale
during the show-round?
I know already that there are many of you
who will be saying: “I can’t do that” or “this
is not how we operate”. I don’t know if it’s
a British thing, or it just doesn’t feel right
for a sector full of kind and caring people.
Irrespective, if you are not 100% full, this is
what you need to be doing. If your website
is not generating the leads you need,
replace it with one that will. Create ‘scripts’
for those who do show-rounds so that
your messaging is consistent, and most
important of all, measure the success of
each person who does a show-round to
identify those who have the highest close
rate. This is not to ‘beat up’ those who are
not so good. The opposite is true, you ALL
need to be learning from the best so that
you can bring everyone up to their level.
The point here though, is the most
successful settings are full. And I mean full,
full. No gaps, - with a waiting list. I have
lost count of the number of setting owners
I have argued with who say that 72-75%
occupancy (as the industry average) is
full. It is not. This is false logic. Again,
those settings that are truly successful
have sold 100% of their capacity. And
again, some will ask, “Why is he using the
word capacity?” The answer, is that those
setting owners who think this way, tend to
be more successful.
In conclusion, the most important thing
you can do to move the dial on the success
of your setting is to get full. If you aren’t,
there are numerous further explanations
of how to solve this in my book, but make
sure you start by getting a good lead
generator at the start of your business
processes. That means a website that
generates enough leads to ensure you are
truly and absolutely, full.
Allan will continue this series each
month for the rest of the year, so keep
an eye open for next month’s article.
Want to know more? Allan Presland’s
book is on Amazon: “Improving the
Business of Childcare”, by Allan
Presland.
(amazon.co.uk)
Or, take our quiz to see how successful
your setting is compared to others we
work with: https://scorecard.parenta.
com/parenta
6 January 2024 | parenta.com
parenta.com | January 2024 7