How can I run a successful children’s wellbeing business?
What do I need to start my own business running classes for children?
How easy is it to start my own business?
What do I need to know to run classes for children?
So, you want to start running classes for children. You know children face increasing pressures from various fronts—school, social media, and extracurricular activities—and prioritising their wellbeing has become more crucial than ever.
You want to start a business that offers classes focused on helping support their mind and body and positively impacts their lives.
Running your own business and teaching children is rewarding, but many don’t know where to start, so don’t take the first step.
Here are some tips on how to start.
- Your Speciality and Experience
Before launching your business, it’s important to know your speciality. To be successful, you need to focus on exactly where you want to help and know how you can help.
To do this, take a piece of paper and track your life, your jobs, and what you have enjoyed doing. What are your interests, and what books do you have most of?
In the 90s, I looked at my book shelf, and there were 3 categories: meditation, fairytales, and entertaining children. I combined all my interests and wrote my first book, Aladdin’s Magic Carpet, which was a fairytale meditation for children.
Being clear on your skills and specialities will help establish yourself as an expert when you start to share your knowledge.
Here are some ideas:
Do you want to focus on physical wellness and run activities that promote physical health, such as yoga, fitness, or dance?
Are you interested in the creative arts and have experience in art, music, and drama?
Are you drawn to emotional intelligence and have experience working with the mind and helping people express their emotions?
Do you want to run meditation and mindfulness classes and teach children tools to manage stress and anxiety?
Or do you want to do a combination of all of them?
What type of classes do you want to run?
2 . Your Target Audience
Once you know what type of classes you want to run, you need to ensure there is an audience willing to pay for your classes.
Who is your audience?
What age group are they, and do you want to run classes for children, their parents, or families?
Conduct surveys and chat with parents in your area. Get an insight into their problems and what they need.
This will help you come up with classes that can be the solution to their problems.
3. Your Offering
Once you know your niche and target audience, it’s time to create a curriculum.
Make sure your classes are engaging, age-appropriate, and most importantly, bring you joy.
Do you want to run any of these or a combination of them?
Interactive Activities: Games, crafts, and group discussions to keep children engaged.
Mindfulness Techniques: breathing exercises, guided imagery, or yoga to help children relax.
Life Skills: Teach children how to manage emotions, resolve conflicts, and set goals.
4. Your own business or franchise?
As you work on your offering, you may need to consider which is the best option for you.
Do you want to start your own brand of classes and do something new or work with an existing franchise?
Get a piece of paper and work out the pros and cons for both. (See our article on this.)
Consider the following:
If you start your own brand, you will have to think about creating your own class lessons and marketing materials.
Do you have lesson plans and a class structure, or will you have to start from scratch?
How long will it take you to create your own materials?
Do you work best alone or in a community?
Do you want to try something new and unique or go with a tried and tested brand?
5. Your documents
Before you start running sessions, you will need to get various documents.
Police Check
In most countries, you can’t work with children without an enhanced police check.
It can be very difficult to get one without one, so you will have to contact an umbrella body or be part of a local charity or organisation and get one through them.
If you join a franchise, they can be more straight-forward, as most can do this for you.
Insurance
Even if you run free sessions, you must have public liability insurance.
This is to protect you in case anything happens in your classes.
Contact insurance companies and do a price comparison to see which is the best for you.
If you join a franchise, they will often have a recommended insurance company.
First Aid
In most cases, this is not compulsory but a recommended addition to your skill set, as it is always good to know what to do in an emergency.
Safeguarding Course
This is not compulsory but highly recommended.
6. Your Business
Once you have your classes and your documents, you may want to take a simple business course or join a local networking group so you can get information on tax, accounting, and marketing on social media.
If you join a franchise, you will be given more guidance on this to help you as you start out.
7. Marketing your business
Create a marketing strategy to reach your target audience effectively.
Online Presence: Create a professional website and/or social media platforms and share engaging and valuable content related to your wellbeing business.
Community Engagement: Work with local schools and community centres to promote your classes.
Word of Mouth: Encourage satisfied parents to refer friends and family by offering incentives or discounts.
We hope this has given you an insight into the steps you need to take to start your own children’s wellbeing business.
Please do read through other articles on this subject to help you make the right decision for you.
Before you go…
You might like to read this.
