Preschool Business Trades

If you have an empty spot in your preschool, and you haven’t been able to fill it, every month that spot is costing you money, so you should consider doing preschool business trades. If it’s $200/mo. spot, then after 9 months, you’ve lost $1,800 of potential profit.

Granted, sometimes it’s just difficult to fill a spot (or a few
spots). But what if I could show you a way to get $1,850 of VALUE for that spot for a service you would have already paid money out of your pocket for?

For instance, let’s say I really needed the outside of my home repainted, but I’ve been putting it off forever because I just can’t bear to part with $1,850. If I had a spot open in
my preschool that I was having trouble filling, I could reach out to a local painter (who I knew had a preschool-age kiddo) and ask if he wanted to do a business trade, dollar for dollar.

If his going rate was $1,850 to paint my house, and my going rate for a 3-day class was $1,800 (plus a $50 registration fee), then I could let his child go to my
preschool for 9 months in that 3-day spot in exchange for him painting my house.

It’s a win-win for both of us, because I didn’t REALLY want to (or couldn’t) pay full price for his painting services, and he didn’t REALLY want to (or couldn’t) pay full price for my
preschool services…

The actual out of pocket for his painting service was much lower than $1,800… so he feels like he’s getting a great deal, and I feel like I’m getting a great deal because I was losing money on that spot every month because I couldn’t fill it. We exchanged a service, but what we received was VALUE.

You could effectively do a business trade with any business owner or self-employed person in your community. Think of any services that you’ve always thought about getting, but have never gotten yet.

• Do you want monthly home cleaning?
• Do you need new carpet?
• Do you need your house painted?
• Do you need your lawn mowed and snow shoveled?
• Do you need piano lessons?
• Do you need swimming lessons?

If it was a one-time service like house painting, I would have him paint my house first, then his child could attend my preschool for 9 months. Or, if it wasn’t a perfect dollar for dollar trade, I or he would pay whatever the remaining amount owed was.

For instance, if his going rate to paint my house was actually $2,000. I wouldn’t ask him to lower his prices; I would just subtract the cost of my tuition and registration fee ($1,850) and then pay him the remaining $150 out of my pocket. The only money exchanged in this scenario would be $150 to him.

But, if it was an ongoing service, we would just start the contract and whoever started first (based on when the services would occur) would be fine to start first. For instance, if we decided in May that we would start his child in August in preschool, but we were trading for landscaping services, he could start his landscaping services in May or June and we would just keep a rolling tally of all the charges accrued on both sides.

At the end of the school year, we would “settle up” and the person who owed more than the other person would pay the remaining balance off. For instance, if I accrued only a
$950 landscaping balance but he owed me $1,850 for preschool, he would need to pay me $900 to settle up.

In situations like these, where the prices would be significantly different, I prefer to have the other party pay me a monthly lowered tuition. For instance, if we knew beforehand that there would be a large chunk on his side due, I would ask him to pay me $100/mo. for 9 months (instead of the $200/mo. regular tuition).

That way, we wouldn’t have such a chunk to settle up with (and it wouldn’t be so hard for him to come up with all of that in one month.)

As you can see in the scenarios above, it’s important to have an understanding beforehand of exactly what preschool business trades are worth (and what amount will generally be accrued in a school year’s time period) so no one gets left unawares.