Before we go any further with starting your preschool, let’s just clear the air for a quick second… I’m sure you have some objections to starting a preschool. We wanted to make sure that we debunked a few of the myths that might hold you back from starting your preschool.
After all, we much prefer TRUTH to FICTION, don’t you? So if you’re thinking any of these things below, we wanted to make sure we showed you how a preschool WILL work for you!
1. My town has a free preschool, so no one will pay for mine.
Free preschools aren’t your competition. You can actually disregard them just as you disregard daycares. Daycares aren’t your competition because working parents need 12-hrs and you don’t do 12 hrs. Working parents aren’t your target market, so therefore daycares aren’t your competition.
Similarly, people who want free preschool aren’t your target market either. They can already get free preschool if they qualify for it with either low income or their child needing special assistance. People who would attend a preschool for free would never pay money for your preschool in the first place, so they’re not your target market. Therefore, free preschools aren’t your competition.
You can be the PREMIUM preschool in your area by offering massive value, giving them a family to belong to, and helping raise their children in the preschool community with all the support of children, parents, and teachers. We have never once tried to compete against free preschools, and never will.
Put your blinders on to daycares and free preschools, and get back to work. YOUR target market are the people who want the BEST for their children, and they’ll pay a premium price for it, too! THEY could care less about free preschool. They don’t want to enroll their children in free preschool.
And we want to point out one more thing: Most states already HAVE free preschool. This is nothing new. And just because we have it, doesn’t mean it’s GOOD. Just because there’s going to be MORE sub-par free preschool out there that will be available to ALL doesn’t mean it will get any better.
It just means it’s free. The government cannot produce a 100% HIGH QUALITY free preschool for all… it just is not possible and it will never happen.
We have been talking about free preschool and Head Start since the very beginning – all you have to do is search in Google “Head Start losing funding” and you’ll see program after program losing their funding because they can’t keep up with the quality. FREE DOES NOT EQUAL QUALITY!
2. Why would someone pay for my online preschool when they can just use Hooked on Phonics or ABC Mouse?
The people that use Hooked on Phonics, ABC Mouse, or any other “educational” video games are not your target market. Your target market feels guilty for letting their kids waste their minds away on apps.
They know these “educational” video games don’t deliver a true preschool experience to their child to prepare their whole child for kindergarten socially, emotionally, physically, linguistically, and cognitively.
That’s why they choose local preschools in the first place, because they place a high value in having a teacher teach their child, prepare them for kindergarten with a play-based, developmentally appropriate curriculum, and help their child make friends with children their own age. Those apps don’t do any of those 3 things… but your online preschool will!
3. We’re in a recession. No one will pay for my preschool.
There are plenty of people who are financially stable right now. Even if the people in your circles are struggling financially, trust me, there are plenty of other circles that are doing just fine financially and are looking for a premium preschool for their child.
Not to mention, there’s plenty of people who will pay to get a break from their preschoolers every day so they can work part-time from home or have time to themselves. And with online preschool, you can offer less expensive classes than a local preschool, so you help families who need a different option for their child’s preschool experience.
4. Everyone works and needs daycare; no one needs just preschool.
You’re not trying to get full-time workers to come to your preschool. You’re right… THOSE people need daycare. And, if you’ve worked in a daycare, ran a daycare, or put your kids in daycare, you probably believe that EVERYBODY needs daycare. I get it.
That’s just your perspective. You have blinders on. But when you take your blinders off, you’ll see there’s a whole world out there that you’ve been immune to. All of a sudden you’ll see there are PLENTY of stay-at-home parents or part-time working parents who don’t want daycare but DO want their children to: Make friends, Get ready for kindergarten, and Have fun.
And guess what? They’ll pay for someone else to do that for their child! THAT’S where you come in. You provide the part-time preschool classes, and they’ll love you because you’re NOT a daycare… you’re “strictly a preschool.”
5. I will lose money converting my daycare into a preschool.
You won’t lose money when you convert your daycare into a preschool! One month, you’ll wrap up your daycare, and the next month, you’ll start your preschool! Your income will be safe as you make the switch from daycare owner to preschool owner. Less hours and more money!
6. I already have a preschool.
You can make your preschool better! We can almost guarantee there is room for improvement in your preschool. If you’re not the #1 preschool in your area, with full classes and a huge waiting list, having grown as large as you want to (while safeguarding YOUR time and ensuring you’re not burning out), then we can guarantee there is room for improvement.
Sometimes you have to go “back to the beginning” to realize you missed some crucial foundational concepts that will help your preschool be the very best it can be!
7. I still have kids at home.
Your kids can go to preschool with you! And if you have a baby or toddler, you can teach during their nap time! Or, if that won’t work, you can trade with a preschool mom for her to watch your baby and you to teach her preschooler. -Or- you could even hire a teacher to teach your preschool class so you can spend all the time with your kiddos!
And to prepare for emergencies, You can build into your policies that you take off 2 “family days” per class every year (without refunding tuition) in case anyone gets sick, or you have an emergency, or an unexpected travel need came up. And if you take off more than 2 days per class, then just refund tuition at a prorated rate for the days you miss.
8. How will this fit into my schedule? I’m not sure if I can teach live (or even at all).
You create the schedule that works best for you! We get it. You have a busy life already. You can schedule it around your family’s schedule (think baby’s nap time or after homeschool) and you can either teach live or pre-recorded.
And if you don’t want to teach at all, then you can simply run this as a business, pocket most of the cash, and pay a mom to teach the preschool classes for you in the comfort of her own home!
9. Preschoolers can’t stay engaged during an online class. They’ll be antsy and cause a disruption.
They won’t disrupt anyone because they’ll be highly engaged and their audio will be muted during the class. In the Teaching Time lesson, you’ll record yourself teaching a fun class full of stories, music, movement, arts and crafts, and science projects in a whole group instruction manner to help the preschoolers learn through play.
10. Preschoolers can’t socialize online.
They can socialize any time they are around peers their own age face to face, including online. In your afternoon Preschool Pals class, you’ll meet with your preschoolers in small groups of just 10 students for 30 minutes each.
They’ll log into a virtual classroom so they can see and talk to each other and you. You can offer several “prompts” which we provide and call on the children to answer. Preschool Pals is all about helping children to socialize, so a lot of these prompts get the children talking to each other and not just you.
They can see each other on the computer screen and get super excited to go to Preschool Pals and see their friends! The afternoon classes will be held at the same time each day that class is in session. You can even do Breakout Rooms so the children can talk openly to each other!
11. You can’t recreate a local preschool experience online.
With your Teaching Time lesson and Preschool Pals class, your preschoolers will be able to do many of the same things they do in a local preschool, including following directions from a teacher; building their social, emotional, physical, language, and cognitive skills through play; and making friends! Parents can choose between a T_TH, M_W_F, or M-F class schedule that you create.
12. I don’t want to get sued.
You can protect yourself! Liability insurance is about $40/mo.
13. I don’t know what my licensing requirements are.
There are no licensing requirements for online preschool. As for local, you can start a preschool without getting licensed! (Every state has a certain # of children you can teach at one time without being licensed; for instance, in Idaho, you can teach up to 6 children without being licensed.) And if you want to get licensed, you can!
14. I’m scared I will spend money and then fail.
If you do it on your own, you’re almost guaranteed to fail because there are 5,000 steps and you don’t have enough time (or energy or money) to do them all. You need a proven, step-by-step system where you won’t waste time or money.
15. I don’t have a teaching degree.
With online preschool, you don’t need any degree because there’s no governing agency over online preschool. With local preschool, you don’t need a teaching degree to start a preschool! In most states, you don’t even need a college degree.
Most preschool owners have some college background, having taken classes in child development, early childhood education, elementary education, or even music, theater, and art. All of that will absolutely add to your credentials, but it’s not required. Every bit of knowledge helps, but it’s not the only knowledge that matters.
You can learn anything out of college that you would learn in college. For real, and it’s much cheaper! We personally think it’s even more beneficial to learn it in real-time because that’s the time you’re most hungry for it, and the time you’re going to immediately put your knowledge into practice. We teach you how to find and implement the best teaching practices for preschoolers!
16. I’ve never taught preschool before.
You don’t need experience teaching preschool! Most of our preschool owners have never taught preschool before. Remember how we said the #1 requirement was you had to be loving to children? That plays in perfectly here.
You can’t teach a mean woman how to be loving to children, but you can teach a loving woman how to teach children. Just as you can learn best practice in or out of college, you can also learn how to teach preschool in or out of college. So many of the college courses prepare students to work in a daycare setting from all ages with infants up to school-age children.
A good curriculum helps you know exactly what preschoolers need to know, and how to teach it to them. In fact, you can use a good curriculum and then differentiate it (which means to change it based on each child’s development) for each child! It should cover all of the social, emotional, physical, and cognitive skills children need to know before kindergarten!
17. I don’t know how to start or run a business.
You don’t need business experience! If you’re totally clueless about the difference between an LLC or a sole proprietor, that’s okay! With our training, we literally walk you through every step you need to take, why you need to do it, and how to do it.
(We even show examples of women who didn’t follow it step by step and some of the headaches that can go into trying to figure it out on your own.) All you have to do is follow a proven system. It’s like building a piece of furniture. If you want to build a bookshelf, you buy the kit, you read the directions, and then you start assembling the bookshelf starting with Step 1. By the end of Step 20, you have a finished bookshelf just like the picture said you would.
That’s exactly how our training works also. Just follow it step by step, and at the end, you have a preschool business! No headaches and no wrong turns; and you certainly saved time and money by doing everything in order (and only the things you had to do).
18. I don’t know how to show I’m qualified.
We help you discover all your talents & strengths! For so many of our preschool owners, they didn’t think they were qualified to run a preschool. But once we started asking them about all of their experiences in lots of different areas, they realized they had tons of strengths that could help them with their preschool. Then we focus on all of their strengths (not everything they don’t have)!
19. My preschool won’t be as good as the other preschools.
Your preschool will be better than the other preschools! Model what’s working in your area, and then put a completely unique spin on it so parents will come flocking to you like bees to a flower!
Some preschool owners even focus their preschool around one specific subject and make a nature preschool, or a Christian preschool, or a music preschool, or an art preschool, or even a Spanish preschool. Find your own unique spin on your preschool.
20. My friend & I want to start a preschool together but don’t know how.
Becki & Jamie wanted to start their preschool together, so they each went in 50/50 as partners. They each paid half of whatever was required, and they each took half of the profits. One had a talent for business and the other for teaching. Together, they created a very successful preschool.
21. I’m not techy at all. It seems complicated. I don’t think I can figure out how to teach online.
If you can watch a video and click a mouse, you can do this! Also, we’re using the easiest software on the planet for online preschool classes, ZOOM! (Best of all? The software is free!) No tech experience needed, although of course you do need a computer and internet.
22. I’m not a salesman; I can’t sign up students.
Your marketing will do all the selling, not you! We teach all our preschool owners to include “The Top 10” key facts about their preschool on every marketing piece they send out. That way, every parent can weigh all the pros/cons before they ever contact you.
For local preschool, we even teach you the exact script to say when they’re on the phone and on a tour that results in 90% of my prospective parents signing up after they call me! You can get the same results using our exact script!
And for online preschool, we teach you the exact process to take someone from a social media post, to your website, to put in their email to request a free video, to signing up with your preschool!
23. I’m scared of the IRS… What if I mess something up?
The IRS is the easiest step of all! When you follow our directions and fill out one form, you’re done! Then, at the end of the year, all you have to do is tell your CPA how much you made and give him your spreadsheet. He’ll do the hard stuff and make sure you’re all good.
Also, your taxes won’t be a lot because you can actually write off ALL your preschool expenses (including curriculum, furniture, materials, supplies, i.e. anything you use for your preschool) AND a lot of your home expenses (as you’re doing a home business). You can write off portions of your mortgage interest, insurance, utilities, internet, and even cell phone bills!
24. I don’t want to teach; I want to hire a teacher or director instead.
You don’t have to teach! In fact, after one of our preschool owners had her fourth baby, she didn’t want to teach either; she wanted to snuggle her baby girl all day long! So she converted her garage, hired a teacher, and was able to stay in her home without bothering the preschool classes (and still made a lot of money just running the business!)
25. I don’t know if I can keep going through the ups and downs.
There’s a lot of UPS and hardly any downs, and we help you through it! With our training, you know exactly what steps to take (and which ones to avoid) so you don’t struggle through painful wrong steps. We also have a preschool community where we all support each other and offer encouragement.
26. I’m nervous about changing careers.
If you’re not happy with your career, you owe it to yourself to make that change! If you’re watching this, then you’re frustrated with some part of your current path. Either you have a career that doesn’t bring you as much happiness as it used to, or you have a career you dread every morning.
You can’t afford NOT to make a change. Who needs you right now? Yourself, your kids, your family? Don’t they need the happiest version of you? If your career is bringing you down, you owe it to everyone to make the change for a better life.
27. My home isn’t big enough to hold a preschool in it.
You can hold a preschool in just your living room and at your kitchen table! You don’t have a separate “classroom” space. When we first started, we held preschool in our living room and at our kitchen table. We can comfortably say everyone probably has at least that, right?
In your living room, you can do circle time, story time, and center time. In your kitchen, you can do snack time, table time, and arts and crafts. Of course, you can also use your outdoor area for recess.
You only need 35 sq. ft. of space for each child (per fire safety guidelines). We bet if you measured your living room and kitchen, you’d easily be able to hold a preschool of between 6-12 children. You just need to think outside the box then. If your home simply absolutely won’t work, then find someone’s home that will work. Buddy up with a friend or ask another relative in town to do it in their home (Melissa/HOA).
They don’t even have to do it with you; you could pay them a little money for using their home. You can even convert your garage! Or, you can rent out of a church building (most churches have a “preschool” room not used during the day) and are happy to rent it out inexpensively. Lastly, you could always rent a building.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way! (All of our strategies work for starting a preschool, regardless if it’s in a home, a church, or even a building!) And if you’re doing online preschool, all you need is a computer and internet access. You can even create a “preschool wall” behind you for color (or you can build a portable wall too!)
28. I rent an apartment or a home.
You can still have a preschool even if you rent! If you rent an apartment or home, you just have to inform your landlord. In some states like California, your landlord can’t even prevent you from running a home preschool. Some women tell their landlord before they move in, and others tell them after the fact. And if you’re doing online preschool, you don’t even have to tell your landlord or HOA!
29. My home is too close to another preschool.
It doesn’t matter if another preschool is next door to you! Whoever can make their preschool the best, and market the best, wins! There will always be people in your town who don’t know about any preschools or who are looking for a better preschool.
So it doesn’t matter if your competitor is across town or literally your next-door neighbor, because as long as you find them, and show them how your preschool is the best, you’ll still be successful.
30. My family won’t want the preschool in our home.
Our family appreciated the blessings of having the preschool in our home. We didn’t have to put our kids in daycare; we didn’t have to spend money on commuting; we were dressed and had makeup on every morning; and our home had never been cleaner! (Your kids and the preschoolers make great cleaning buddies when it’s time to clean up after preschool.)
31. I can’t advertise because my “space” isn’t finished.
You can advertise before your space is finished! As long as you have a warm, inviting space to meet your potential preschool parents (aka your living room), you can do your tour there just like every other home preschool owner does her tour in her living room.
If you are working on remodeling a space or getting a facility, tell the parents how lucky they are to get signed up before your space is finished (because obviously, once your amazing space is finished, you’ll fill up super fast!) Sign them up, and then keep them posted on all the exciting updates for the space.
Send them weekly or monthly emails (depending on how quickly things progress) with before and after pictures to help them join in your excitement all leading up to the big day! When it is finally complete, hold a Meet ‘n Greet there to celebrate the accomplishment with everyone! It will help them “buy in” and keep their excitement high through the process!
32. My home doesn’t get enough traffic for advertising.
You don’t need traffic to fill your preschool! In fact, most homeowners can’t advertise with signage because of their HOA requirements. You could even live on a dead-end street where no one knows where you live yet still fill up your preschool, because our laser-targeted marketing techniques give you all the eyeballs you need.
33. I live in an HOA.
Most HOAs are excited to have a premium quality preschool in their subdivision available for your community! It’s a “value add” to the community! We teach you how to get their approval in our training.
34. Having a job is the only way to get benefits.
You can get benefits without a job! You can get health insurance through your state’s health insurance marketplace, or, if you’re Christian, you can look into healthshare plans like Samaritan Ministries. It’s only about $500/mo. for a family.
35. I need a 401K matching retirement plan from an employer.
You can get better returns on investing in yourself and in your business. When you up-level your skills so you can increase your income earning potential, you’ll change your mindset from “my 401K provides my retirement” to “I will create multiple streams of income” to provide for my retirement.
I also invest in my businesses to grow assets that can pay you passive income or that you can sell one day, too. You can also invest in real estate and cryptocurrency to get higher rates of return than you ever could in a 401K match situation. And of course, you can still put money into a 401K without an employer.
36. I don’t have money to pay for start-up costs.
You get paid to start your preschool! Just like every other extracurricular activity (soccer, dance, Taekwondo, etc.), you can charge a registration fee every year and get $500-2,000+ to pay for start-up costs. Each year, you can use that money to keep reinvesting in better materials for your preschool.
“It’s great that I can get the money once they register, but how will I pay for everything before they register?” You could put those costs on our credit card, because you would be starting your preschool within a month or two and you could pay those costs right off with the registration fees. That way, when you actually started your preschool, all tuition would go right into your bank account!
37. It costs a lot of money to start a business.
It doesn’t cost a lot of money to start a preschool! It actually only costs $500-$2,000 to start a preschool, depending on if you need to get licensed or not. We already had most of the materials and furniture we needed, and those we didn’t have, we were able to get inexpensively at second-hand stores. And if you’re doing online preschool, it’s even less expensive!)
38. I will have to spend lots of money on snacks and supplies.
You don’t spend any money on snacks, and you can get your supplies for free! You sign the parents up on a snack schedule, and each parent brings in enough snacks for his/her child’s class for a 2- or 3-week period each school year.
We only spent $50-$100/mo. on supplies each month, meaning the rest of the tuition was all for us. Also, we asked parents to donate any arts & craft materials they didn’t want or need. You’d be surprised how fun “random parts” are when making art!
39. It costs a lot of money to advertise.
It doesn’t cost a lot of money to advertise! When we started my preschool, we assumed that the more money you spent in advertising, the more students would sign up! Boy how wrong we were!
On the contrary, the more we spent on advertising… the less students that signed up! In fact, we got 0 signups from 4 very expensive ad campaigns. It wasn’t until we discovered our #1 advertising method that our phone started ringing non-stop! That method is called “Straight in the Face!”
You actually walk door to door and tape a flyer with big PRESCHOOL letters to everyone’s door at eye level! It’s the cheapest method we’ve found and it produces the greatest results! Talk about a win-win!
In fact, most of our preschool owners have filled up their preschools using this 1 method alone! And if you’re doing online preschool, we show you how to DOCUMENT YOUR JOURNEY on social media so you can get signups for FREE!
40. I won’t have time to homeschool my kids.
You’ll have more time to homeschool your kids! Because you’ll be teaching your own preschool-aged children during preschool, they get tons of time with you!
Your older kids can do their independent work during preschool time, and once preschool is over, you can focus your time on helping any other children who have questions. Because your little ones got so much time with you during preschool, they’re usually good to go play on their own, which frees up your time even more.
41. I’m starting at the wrong time.
You can start your preschool any time of year! Sure, there’s 2 great times to start your preschool (August and January), but the truth is, you can be successful any month you start because you’re going to enroll all the students who either couldn’t go to preschool earlier (but can now) or who forgot to enroll (and now all the preschools in the area are full).
Then, as the year progresses, you’ll be in the perfect position to enroll for August with testimonials and some preschoolers returning for their second year!
42. I don’t have a lot of time to start a business.
It doesn’t take a lot of time! We’ve shortened all of the steps for you so you know exactly what to do and when to do it. No need to go out and research and try to figure it out on your own. (We remember one time we were trying to figure out how to create our own website.
We got stuck on this one stupid thing and it took us 2 days to get someone to help us through something that literally took 10 seconds to fix.) Because we’ve made it so simple, almost all of the steps can even be done at night when your kids are asleep!
43. I’ll do it on my own.
Unless you want to give up along the way, NEVER do anything alone. Your preschool won’t be as successful as it could be with our help, and most likely you’ll give up before you get it going because it’s too hard to do all the steps on your own (not to mention you won’t even know all the steps!)
44. I’ll start my preschool when I’m ready or when it’s the right time.
There’s no such thing as “ready” or the “right time.” Were you “ready” for COVID to come? Was it the “right time” when your husband lost his job? No friend, time doesn’t wait for no man… and there is no right time to be ready for anything.
If you wait for the right time or when you’re ready, it will NEVER happen… just like it hasn’t happened up until this point! You just JUMP and figure it out as you go. Take the FIRST STEP, and then the next one will be given! Feel the fear and do it anyway!
45. I’ll do it when I have the money.
How long do you want to keep saying to yourself, “I don’t have the money…” Unless you make a change NOW, you’ll NEVER have the money. You must sacrifice NOW for a better FUTURE where you DO have the money, and the time, and the resources… But it’s through a successful preschool that those will come to pass, so you have to start NOW.
As you can see, there’s no problem or roadblock that we can’t overcome… you can start a preschool too!
Preschool Licensing, Zoning, and HOA Requirements
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