Are you feeling lost on how you can grow your baby and toddler business?
We get it: words like ‘business growth’ and ‘expansion’ can be daunting, and might remind you of a corporate world you gladly left behind when you became a baby or toddler class provider! But the truth is, one of the best things about being a small business owner is that you get permission to grow your way.
Whether it’s venturing into a new area, trying out an afternoon spot where there’s no competition, or even just opening up the age range in an existing class – having one or two growth-related goals per term is a great way to stay motivated, and remind yourself to keep experimenting.
Read on for some things you can try.
1. Understand Your Data
Wherever your classes are listed, you should have access to some key bits of data. For example, numbers of search results, page views and bookings. (If you’re listed on Happity see this guide to find them)
Understanding this information will really help you make decisions about how to grow. You might notice that your classes are appearing a lot in search results, for example, but aren’t getting many bookings. In this case, you’d want to polish your class description or make sure there isn’t a class that’s really similar to yours at the exact same time.
Or perhaps you see that your classes do get a few regular bookings, but aren’t appearing very much in search results. In this case, experimenting with time, day, or venue could really help boost those numbers up, and make your lovely class more profitable.
Data and statistics can seem overwhelming, but they don’t have to be. This term, make a habit of checking your numbers once a month. You don’t necessarily need to do anything with the information, just start getting a feel for what ‘good’ and ‘not so good’ looks like for you.
2. Diversify Your Business
Ever wondered if giving classes in nurseries, offering birthday parties, or even taking your work into elderly care homes could help bring in new streams of revenue, and be a fun new challenge at the same time? Well, why not make this the term when you find out?!
Sometimes it’s useful to imagine new projects as little experiments. This takes the pressure off and allows you to take smaller steps towards your goal. Rather than approaching all the nurseries in your local area, for example, you could ask around and see if you can get a great contact at one. Testing the water in one nursery (and finding out how you might fit into the day) will help you develop a watertight plan for having two, three or ten nurseries on your client list, further down the line.
Similarly, rather than launching birthday parties on your website, why not start by offering parties for a couple of friends or fans of your classes for a discounted price?
Running small experiments like these allows you to learn and get feedback much more quickly. Which, in turn, will help you figure out the details of new projects by actually doing them. Getting out there and trying things will also build your confidence and motivate you to keep experimenting!
3. Explore New Venues
If your classes are popular and you’re looking to add a few more to your timetable, don’t forget to consider a new venue as part of your strategy. Even venues which are close together might have whole different communities of parents who use them. A space attached to a popular cafe, for example, might get many more visitors than one nearby which isn’t.
If you’re a Happity user, you can access our useful Venue Finder tool, which will show you all the venues in whichever postcode you search for, and also show you their timetables, so you can spot if there are any obvious gaps where a new class might work well. (Check out this help article for more info)
Just head to Venue Finder in your Dashboard to get started.
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