Want A Thriving Childcare Business? Planning Goals Will Help You Be Successful

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This post is all about planning goals. 

Do you run a daycare or thinking about opening one? First, you need a vision of what you want your business to look like. Is your vision to start a home daycare but eventually be a center? Do you dream of having employees that manage your daycare, allowing you to take a more hands-off approach? Or maybe it's to have a full enrollment and a waiting list.  

No matter what your dreams and vision are for your childcare business, planning goals will help you reach that vision. Planning goals isn't enough, though; you need to take action towards those plans. 

With these simple steps and the goal tracking worksheet, you'll be on your way to creating solid goals to achieve your dreams.

PLANNING GOALS

Why Is Setting Goals Important

Setting goals isn't new information. Therefore, we all know the importance of why we should plan goals. However, there are great benefits to setting goals and research to back these benefits up. 

Planning goals improves our performance, focus, and persistence. We are more likely to work harder and improve our skills when focused on achieving goals. 

Goals that we truly care about increase our intrinsic motivation and enjoy completing the tasks more. We have a greater interest in achieving the goal if it's what we want, equalling a greater motivation to work harder at achieving it.

There is science that shows our dopamine increases when we achieve goals, even small goals. Andrew Huberman talks more about this in his video The Dopamine Power of Setting Little Goals.

Planning goals encourages us to take on new challenges, increasing our self-esteem as we achieve them. 

These are only a few benefits of setting goals. 

How To Set Goals And Achieve Them

Planning goals is simply identifying what you want to accomplish and then creating steps to achieve them. Once you have your vision for your childcare business, it's time to create an action plan. 

First, your goals need to be SMART. Specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. 

There is research backing this theory. Write down your goals! Put them where you will see them every day. When the going gets tough, revisit them to remember why you're doing what you're doing. There is a goal tracking worksheet below that you can grab for free!

Work backwards from your goals. Take your long-term goals and break them into smaller goals that can be achieved monthly, weekly, and daily. For example, if your goal is to increase your business revenue by 35% by the end of the year. Then what steps do you need to take monthly to achieve that? Most likely, you'd need to increase your marketing by placing advertisements out monthly. Weekly tasks would be to utilize social media pages to showcase what you're doing in your childcare business. Incentivize parents to leave reviews on your social media and website. Daily tasks would be to take the photos of the children playing, storytime, and activities for your social media. 

James Clear states in Atomic Habits, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." Have systems put in place that make you actively work towards your goals. Create a daily to-do list with actionable steps to take that are working towards your short-term goals. 

Identify potential obstacles that will occur while working towards your goals. Then create a plan or system of how to navigate the obstacles so you stay the course. 

Reflect and adjust as needed. 

Childcare Business Goals Examples

Here are some examples of planning goals that are SMART and long-term goals for your childcare business.

1. Increase revenue: Increase business revenue by 35% by quarter 4.
2. Staff retention: Increase staff retention rate by 25% by quarter 4.
3. Client retention: Increase client retention rate by 45% by quarter 4.
4. Increase training and knowledge: Increase staff training to a total of 10 courses per staff by quarter 4.
5. Stronger policies and procedures: By the end of quarter 4, I will review, revise, and implement a complete set of clear, consistent, and legal policies and procedures.

Here are examples of taking the long-term goals and breaking them down into short-term goals. 

1. Increase revenue: By the end of quarter one, my business revenue will increase by 9%. 
2. Staff retention: By the end of quarter one, my staff retention rate will increase by 6%
3. Client retention: By the end of quarter one, my client retention rate will increase by 11%.
4. Increase training and knowledge: By the end of quarter one, each staff member will have completed 2 courses.
5. Stronger policies and procedures: By the end of quarter one, I will review, revise, and update the staff policies

This is how you'd take these short-term goals and break them into monthly systems that are actionable steps towards your goals.

1. Increase revenue: Create a social media advertisement. Research other avenues for making revenue. Such as digital products or family date night.
2. Staff retention: Monthly gift card drawing for staff who have shown up every day to work for a month. 
3. Client retention: Increase communication through a monthly newsletter, tips for what parents can do at home for each age group, and look what we're doing section.
4. Increase training and knowledge: Create training around the topic that your childcare business needs the most. Or find one and sign up employees for it. 
5. Stronger policies and procedures: Focus on the main staff policy area that needs fixing and rewrite it. 

By now, I'm sure you can see how you take your big goals and break them down. The last step in planning goals is taking the monthly actions into weekly and daily actions. 

1. Increase revenue: Work on creating digital products to sell to other childcare businesses.
2. Staff retention: Step in and cover their class, unexpectedly giving them an extra break. Pop in and compliment them, and write them thank you notes. 
3. Client retention: Utilize social media and a childcare app to communicate and show off the amazing things their children are learning. Share funny stories about their children. 
4. Increase training and knowledge: During weekly staff meetings, cover a mini topic and show how it works in action. 
5. Stronger policies and procedures: Take notes during staff meetings. Complete pop-in visits to the class, take note of what you like and don't. Focus on the changes you want to make.