BABY COLLEGE FRANCHISE

Discover more about opportunities with this rewarding baby sensory franchise

A FUN AND INSIGHTFUL, DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME FROM THE AWARD WINNING AND HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL SENSORY FRANCHISE BRAND BABY COLLEGE

ABOUT

Baby College franchise logo with the wording Play Move Learn

โ€œI never thought that I would be running a business of my own, earning a decent salary, whilst being so well supported, and loving every second of it. It was the best decision I ever made! I love my job!!!โ€

Kate, Oxford Franchisee

Are you looking for a business that INSPIRES you every day? An incredible diversity of roles comes with being a Baby College franchisee. A teacher, a friend, a CEO, a social media guru, a child development expert, a parent who is presentโ€ฆ every day there is something new! Have the flexibility to run baby development classes whenever suits you within your own exclusive territory. Full training and extensive kit are included with every franchise.

Benefit from access to the award-winning Baby College parent and child programme, which has been designed by child development experts, parents and teachers. Enjoy support from the founders and the amazing #babycollegefamily of franchisees.

Franchisee Case Study

A photograph of Emma who is a franchisee with Baby College franchise. She poses with her two young children

Name: EMMA

Territory: WEST OXFORDSHIRE

Start Date: MAY 2016

Meet Emma who was working as a secondary school teacher and found herself wanting a better work/life balance after having children. Discover her journey to franchising and find out her top tips and insights about buying a franchise business.

After 10 years of working as a qualified Secondary School Teacher of Modern Foreign Languages, I had returned to work part-time during that time after having both my children. I knew I wanted to continue to work in education and use my teaching skills, but I found the demands and heavy workload of secondary teaching difficult to combine with having a young family and a work/life balance.

Baby College appealed to me as it offered the opportunity to have a good work/life balance and have more control over my time, my teaching hours, and to be able to be present and available for my young children during their early school years.

I was very interested in the unique development insights the classes offered and also keen to be involved in a role that supported new parents and helped to alleviate the isolation and anxiety that can come with becoming a parent for the first time. It meant I could work around school hours and school holidays, but also use my skills and experience to run a successful business working with parents and young children and supporting new parents in their first steps on their parenting journeys, something which appealed to me and interested me.

I made the final decision to go for it after contacting two existing franchisees, and meeting the Directors of Baby College in person for an informal interview and chat.

I knew I had found the right franchise after a year or so into running the business โ€“ I was enjoying the day to day teaching of classes but also was steadily growing my class numbers and my reputation and word of mouth was steadily increasing to the point that I began to actually earn a reasonable income from it, and was also managing to maintain a good work/life balance. I looked forward to going to work every day and found it very rewarding working with young families but also being able to be in control of my own working pattern.

I used private savings to purchase the franchise.

I sought out some legal advice from a friend when looking at the contract and also discussed it in detail with my husband, who had been running his own business for a few years and had some experience with the legal side of things.

For me, the benefits of running a franchise compared to starting your own business are that you have a network of support around you and you are not entirely alone โ€“ this appealed to me as it can be a rather lonely/daunting experience initially and it can be very helpful to be able to have support in the areas that you perhaps feel less confident in when first starting, for example technology, social media, the financial side of running a business. As I had come from a teaching background, running a business was a huge learning curve for me initially, and I found it very helpful to have colleagues to be able to share good practice and ideas with.

I find running a franchise fits in very well with my lifestyle, as it has enabled me to be present for my children and to organise my time and my working hours in a way that suits me and my family. I would definitely recommend it to someone with young children, looking to maintain a good work/life balance and wanting to take on a new challenge. There is a certain level of risk involved of course, and you need to be prepared for that, and also to be prepared for the fact that you will have to put a lot of work in initially to get your business off the ground and begin making an income. If you are prepared to see the long-term benefits and realise that it will probably take a year to 18 months to establish your Franchise business, then you will have the resilience and stamina to survive the difficult early months!

In terms of the financial rewards, after 6 years of running the Baby College West Oxfordshire Franchise, I am turning over between ยฃ35,000 and ยฃ38,000 in class sales per year, resulting in a profit (after deduction of business expenses and Franchise Licence Fees) of about ยฃ28,000 โ€“ ยฃ32,000 per year for 3 mornings a week of teaching (9.30am- 12.30pm) and about 4-6 hours per week of admin and preparation, which compares very favourably to any other part time job in a similar field or sector.

Franchisor Interview

A photograph of Bea, the franchisor behind the successful Baby College franchise brand

Name: BEA WATERFIELD

Role: FRANCHISOR

We interviewed Bea who first joined Baby College as a franchisee. She had so much belief in the brand that when the opportunity came up, she stepped into the role of Franchisor. Read how the business has gone from strength to strength and what being part of Baby College is all about.

We relaunched as a franchise in 2015 and have grown in the UK and internationally since then to 30 franchisees, many with teachers too. Over 3000 families attend classes each week. We have franchisees in Canada, Oman, Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia alongside our UK franchises.

We have been featured by The Independent as the Best Baby and Toddler class for Parents, on the BBC and ITV and won multiple awards over the years.

Our proudest collaboration though is our current work with Goldsmiths, UCL and Middlesex Universities in a 5 year research project. We are very committed to following and also now taking part in scientific research in the early years.

No specific qualifications or experience is required but a passion for baby and child development is needed and it suits people who are resilient, sociable, outgoing and enjoy spending time with parents and children.

A desire to make the business a success and strong personal drive is what we look for plus good organisational ability. Singing nursery rhymes is part of the job but you donโ€™t need to be a west end star or opera singer.

Our initial fee is ยฃ6450 and then ongoing licence fees cover everything you need to launch and run your business with our support. Your earnings will depend on you, how many classes you want to run and the amount of time you want to invest in growing your business. What you make will depend on the effort you put in as with any business. On average though our franchisees turn over about 25K for 3 days a week 36 weeks of the year working part time around their families but several more established areas now have an income over 40 or 50K and earnings of over 25 or 30K (and still all the school holidays off with their kids!).

A typical franchisee with school age children working part-time might run 9 classes (45 minutes per class) on 3 mornings a week (term-time only). Their day starts after dropping off their children at school.

Teaching is often in the morning between 9.30am and 12.30pm which leaves time for marketing and admin before school pickup.

Most franchisees run classes between 36 and 40 weeks of the year allowing school holidays off with their own children.

This is a very flexible business however with generous territories that are large enough to support a full time business model in the future if you want to grow your business either on your own or by taking on a teacher or two.

You can add additional Summer classes, Baby Massage classes or from later in 2024 our new Nursery Training Programme to grow your business further.

Baby College provides well-planned and structured training (initial training is a minimum of 18 hours with our experienced training team as a mix of online and face-to-face to suit) to cover class teaching, insight knowledge, finance and software, marketing, safeguarding and social media training.

We also have ongoing mentoring and workshops with additional on-going training. We offer a high level of support with a professional internal forum, fun annual conference and workshops throughout the year.

Franchise Video

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