Starting a baby class franchise - scared of taking the leap

[Mamamia1992]

Hi all,

I'm considering purchasing a baby class franchise. I have always wanted to have my own baby business and the idea of a franchise both scares me and assures me...scares me in the sense that financially it's a lot up front and assures me in the sense that a lot is taken care of for you and support is there should you need it.

I wonder if anyone could please share any franchise success or failure stories (particularly baby class franchise stories)

Online I can only find very rose-tinted testimonials about how it's the best job in the world (which I'm sure it can be for some). But I am particularly interested in hearing from people who have done it when they're not being quoted for an advert!

Thanks

Do research on the demographics in your area. Where I live there is little spare money, ex mining area. My MIL ran a very successful business as a self employed Yoga teacher but she was in Woking , land of commuter belt and lots of ladies that lunch. She wanted to relocate near to us but there just isn’t the disposable income near where I live. It’s not that people wouldn’t like it’s just how much spare cash is there in your area. A really nice organic natural goods shop opened in my town, it’s failing. It’s just too expensive for the area.

Just be aware of lots of hidden costs.. You lose a lot of autonomy about how the business is run .

if it’s a well known franchise I would definitely ask for options on that one .

i know a few people who ran franchises 2 sold them as the pressure and expectations weren’t the same .

Think about where you are going to host and the costs, what else is in the area already? Also we find that the group La all seem to want the same time slot ... meaning we are full at that time

Good advice from the previous posters!

Good luck!

I ran one. It was so much work. I loved running the classes and the actual days of work but all the work at home to prepare for each day was too much. Cleaning all the equipment, setting up the car to take it to each venue etc. The social media advertising was a lot of work and the answering questions constantly from people who are cheeky and/or rude. I made about 1k profit over 18 months working 2 days a week running classes and goodness knows how many hours at home organising and preparing for those two day. In some ways I loved it but certainly wouldn't do it again. I thought it'd be extremely flexible to fit around my infant school aged children but having to contact everyone to cancel if my dd's school gave us less than a terms notice for a play or if I was poorly or my child was poorly I'd have to contact everyone and then refund them for that class or rearrange. If rearranged I'd have to pay for another day at the venue. Overall it was an awful lot of work and it wasn't what I was expecting it to be.

I know someone who didn't do a franchise but ran her own messy play sessions and made ok money from it. It worked well because it was her own thing she could stop doing it for a few weeks/ months if life got in the way and just pick it up again when she wanted to do it again.