Executive Summary

Due to the growing number of families in which both parents work and the rise in single-parent

homes, the demand is high for day care facilities with a high standard of trained child

professionals. Busy Bees' Day Care Center offers a series of world class, innovative programs

that every parent would be delighted to have their kids be a part of. Our facilities are equipped

with the necessary skills to develop methods of learning guidance, and discipline for children

ages, six month to ten years based upon their levels of emotional, intellectual, and social

development.

Busy Bees' Day Care Center offers a series of world class, innovative programs that every parent

would be delighted to have their kids be a part of. We offer pick up and drop off services which

are second to none because of our state of the art safety seating and safety inputs. We have

activities that are designed to improve balance, coordination and other sensory stimuli while

reinforcing good social skills in a group play environment. We offer eight different weekly

classes for children three months through ten years. Busy Bees' also offers music classes.

Children 16 months through ten years will enjoy singing and dancing while getting their first

taste of different musical beats and rhythms. Each week, new musical styles will be introduced,

such as jazz, contemporary, and classical tunes. Activities such as instrument exploration, songs

and movement to music are designed to provide a positive musical experience for young

children.

Mission

The mission of the Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is to provide safe, affordable, high quality child

care for children. Our focus is to deliver a stimulating early care and education experience which

promotes each child’s social, emotional, physical and cognitive development. In doing so, we
support families in their efforts to reach their goals. The Busy Bees’ Day Care Center provides a

cognitively based program for children ages three months to ten years. We provide a home like

environment where children are encouraged to develop at their own pace. We are committed to

the families we serve, providing support and encouragement.

Company Description

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a start-up managed by two partners. Both have extensive
experience in the child care industry, and have maintained excellent reputations in this same
industry. In addition, these two partners are capable of handling the sales/management and
finance/administration areas, respectively.

Company Ownership

This business will start out as a limited liability company, owned by its founders. As the
operation grows, the owners will consider re-registering as a corporation, whichever will
best suit the future business needs.

The Management Team

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center will be led by two child care industry veterans, Kerry-Kay
Stoddart and Paige Thompson. Kerry-Kay has a sales, marketing, and management
background within the industry, having spent seven years at Rainbow Land Pre-School.
During her tenure at Rainbow Land, Kerry-Kay helped grow the business from $980,000
in yearly revenue to over $4.6 million.

Kerry-Kay's partner is Paige Thompson who has a finance and administration

background. Previous to Busy Bees’ Day Care Center, Paige worked for Kids World, the
largest child care facility in the Kingston metropolitan district. While Paige was at Kids
World as CFO, she was able to increase operating profits by 12%, an increase that is
generally unheard of in this industry.
Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is an exciting opportunity that provides safe and secure
child care to the Kingston and St. Andrew neighborhoods. Busy Bees’ will reach
sustainable profitability by month seven and generate $89,000 in profits by year five.
This will be a 13.21% margin off of $674,000 in sales.

Through a combination of well-priced services, outstanding customer service, and a

well-seasoned management team, Busy Bees’ will quickly gain market share and a
reputation as a premier child care provider.

Service Offering

The Busy Bees’ Day Care Center offers Kingston and St. Andrew upper-end child care
for children aged three months to ten. The Busy Bees Day Care offers a pick up and
drop off service, a low teacher to student ratio, custom made facilities, and innovative
learning programs. Busy Bees Day Care hours will be a wider range than normal
business hours to accommodate parents who have to work longer hours, the target
customer.

The two income families have children, yet both parents work. The Busy Bees Day
Care Center is an innovative solution that acts as virtual parents, broadening the
children's skills during the day. This is no baby sitter facility. The children are engaged
throughout the day, learning new skills and reinforcing already acquired ones.

Long Term Aim of the Business

Three additional facilities are planned in rural area marketplace over the next 5 years
with the intention to offer franchise start-ups.

Objectives:

• Retain at least 75% of children moving from one class level to the next.

• Maintaining a reputable and untarnished reputation in the community.

• Quality care.

• Competitive pricing.
 • Flexible opening hours.

• Increase the numbers of families participating in pick up and drop off services by
15% during the second year of operation.

• Fill classes to 60% capacity by end of first year of operation.

SWOT Analysis
The marketing environment for Busy Bees’ represents overwhelming opportunities. It also

contains some challenges that the firm believes it can meet successfully. The following SWOT

analysis captures the key strengths and weaknesses within the company, and describes

the opportunities and threats facing The Toddler Warehouse.

Strengths
 A sophisticated and effective learning system.
 Excellent training programs that all employees must participate in.
 An educated customer base who recognize the benefits that Busy Bees’ offers.

Weaknesses
 A lack of visibility due to the newness of the operations.
 The ability to attract and keep well trained employees.
 The inability to perfectly forecast demand of services relative to the number of
employees on staff at any one time.

Opportunities
 A growing market with a large percentage of target customers not yet aware of The
Toddler Warehouse.
 Increased revenue as more and more people are working, thereby unable to care for their
children during the day.
 As the number of children served grows, fixed costs are spread thinner over a larger
customer base.

Threats
 Competition from already established facilities that improve their service offerings to be
more competitive to the Busy Bees’ Day Care Center.
 Unfounded "public scares" regarding child care.
 Legal liability issues, either one large suit against Busy Bees Day Care, or significant
increases in premiums due to changes within the operating environment of the industry.

Market Analysis Summary

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a business that has become necessary in today's fast-paced

world. There are an increasing amount of families who have become dependent on two

incomes, which has created the necessity of the child care industry. Indeed, it has. There

are over 10 facilities in the area that provide similar services to Busy Bees’ Day Care

Center, each of these has a large client base, and a lucrative business. There is no doubt

that there is room in the market for a high-quality child care facility.

Over the years, there has been tremendous stress on parents especially mothers to take care of the

household and nurture a new born. With this pick up and drop off service, mothers will be better

able to take care of themselves and the household and make it early for work with one less drop

off to make. Currently, there are no other day care centers that offer pick up and drop off service

in Jamaica. It is anticipated that this service will be used by more than 3000 household.
Market Segmentation

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center has a focus on meeting the local need for child care services

within the 20mile radius of Kingston and St. Andrew. Children are taken in flexibly on

either a full-time or part-time basis.

Busy Bees’ Day Care will focus on the following target customers:

 Professional Single Parents: these most times need assistance in caring for their child

while they go back to school to further their education.

 Full Time Working Couple: moms most times have more than one child as well as

husband to care for. They also have jobs that are most times demanding.

Full-Time Working Couples

The company wants to establish a significantly large full-time regular client base in order to
establish a healthy, consistent revenue base to ensure stability of the business. Customer
relations are extremely important, as it is imperative to keep the parents pleased in order to
keep their children in the daycare center.

Part-Time Workers / Drop-Ins

Part-time clienteles and drop-ins comprise approximately 20% of revenues. While this market is
not the primary focus, sufficient flexibility to handle this secondary market is important to
producing supplemental revenues.

Market Trends
Currently there are more family caregivers than licensed child care facilities nationwide.
The market trend in child care has an increased in utilization of child care by parents. 
This is fueled by the parents’ desire/need to go back to work generating income for the
family.  While this trend fuels the need for more general child care facilities, it also
generates demand for facilities that offer not only child development but also pick up
and drop off services.  As the parents are required to spend more time at work and less
 time with the children, they have less time to help them develop.  The trend is moving
demand away from solely babysitting child care to child development care. This will
benefit Busy Bees’ because they offer state of the art learning systems and a diligent
pick up and drop off services.

Competition
There are many different competitors in the child care space.  Busy Bees will only detail
the direct, or reasonably direct competitors, and will not detail the myriad of other
service providers that offer some sort of child care option.  The direct competitors are:

1. Established, often franchised, child care centers. These are typically larger facilities
that offer care to a wide range of ages.  The number of children serviced is usually quite
large.  The child care is adequate, although somewhat impersonal by virtue of its large size.
2. Small, home-based child care. These competitors are people that have a child care
facility based out of their house.  The quality of these ranges considerably, some are great, some
are sub par.
3. Medium-sized companies. These are typically independently owned facilities.  Some
will handle a wide range of ages, others will specialize with a specific age group.

Competitive Edge

Busy Bees’ Child Care Center competitive edge is the facility's efforts in obtaining all proper

licensing and certifications. Additionally, thorough pre-hire background screenings are

performed on all individuals before hired for employment. We also offer the longest opening

hours which is from 5:30 am to 8:00 pm Monday to Friday and offer pick up and drop off

service. The pricing structure for Busy Bees’ Day Care Center will be priced at 5%-10% less

than leading competitors.

 Marketing Strategy and Implementation

Busy Bees' Day Care Center will start by issuing flyers and attach it to companies’ notice boards

as well as social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. The flyer will

announce an open house invitation to visit the facility to get an insight of the programs offer. In

addition, Busy Bees' Day Care will offer a 15% discount on its activity and a further 10% for

those who use the pickup and drop off service. Busy Bees' Day Care Center will also offer a

discounted rate (10%) to parents who have more than one child attending.

Marketing Strategy
The Busy Bees’ Day Care Center marketing strategy will be based on an advertising
effort as well as strategic alliances with organizations related to the care of children. 

 Advertisements: Busy Bees’ will run advertisements in the Yellow Pages, social media,
the newspaper and electronic media.  These advertisements will be used to raise visibility
regarding its services to potential customers who are otherwise unaware of it.
 Strategic Alliances: The goal of this initiative is to create an alliance or perceived
partnership between Busy Bees and a number of organizations that are a resource base for
information regarding raising children. Two of the main organization is the Child Development
Agency. This organization is well respected and is a wonderful source of information. Busy Bee
will be tapping into this organization’s customer base. The alliances will create a sense of
legitimacy for Busy Bee.  One way the alliance will be created is by co-sponsoring parent
education seminars. By sharing insight, research, and systems that Busy Bee uses, it will have a
good source of information that will be attractive to parents, as well as to the organization
themselves. While networking can be effective, Busy Bee recognizes that it must offer
something of value to the organizations to create an incentive for them to form an alliance and
the co-sponsoring of educational events is just one method.
 Marketing Mix
Busy Bee Day Care Center marketing mix is assembled from the following approaches
to pricing, distribution, advertising and promotion, and customer service.

 Pricing: The pricing structure is based on an hourly rate and number of kids each child
have attending.
 Distribution: All services will be offered at the Kingston Metropolitan facility.
 Advertising and Promotion: Two different campaigns will be used.  The first will be a
multifaceted advertising campaign; the second will be the formation of strategic alliances.
 Customer Service: Customers will be pleasantly surprised at how attentive Busy Bee is
in regards to their needs.  The business operates on the assumption that it will do whatever is
reasonably necessary to keep the customer happy.  This reflects the notions that if the customer
is kept happy, long-term profits are ensured.

Positioning
The Busy Bees’ Day Care will position itself as an advanced day care service that offers
unique learning and developmental programs for toddlers.  The positioning will be
achieved in part by leveraging The Busy Bee competitive edge:

1. Specialized training: The facility can only be as good as the teacher/assistants.  With

this in mind, Busy Bees’ has a specialized training program that all teachers and
assistants are put through so they are proficient at teaching the specific programs
that Busy Bees’ has developed for toddlers age three to five.
2. Innovative learning programs: Typical learning programs for toddlers this age focus on
specific traits and only work on one trait/skill at once.  While this is successful in reinforcing the
skill, it is often very difficult for the child to appreciate the interrelationships of the different
skills.  Consequently, the child can learn the skill, but has difficulty applying the skill when
faced with multiple stimuli. Matt's Master's thesis was based on Intertwined Learning Systems
that teaches skills not in isolation of each other, but taught together.  Matt's research strongly
supports the assertion that when the skills are taught together, just as you would expect to
encounter them in real life, children are able to assimilate the new task into their skill set much
quicker.

Sales Strategy
The sales strategy of Bees' Circus will be to build from a base of satisfied customers.  The Busy

Bees' Day Care Center will offer a 20% discount on class fees for each successful referral. We

will also offer one free session for any parent and child interested in exploring our program as

well as a 1 day free pickup and drop off of children for these parents. We expect an increase in

enrollment of students after the first month which will be an increase in profit.

Sale Forecast

Activities Price
3 months -1 year Music, Day Care, Pickup $3500 per week

&Drop off
1 year – 3 years Music, Dancing, Day Care, $5000 per week

Pick up& Drop off

3 years -6 years Music, Dancing, Day Care, $6500 per week

Pick up & Drop off

6 years – 10 years Music, Dancing, After Care, $5000 per week

Pick up & Drop off, Hot Meal

Marketing Research
During the initial stages of the writing of the business plan, several focus groups were
held to gain insight into preferences and decision making processes of the target
customers.  These focus groups were an indispensable source of information. 
Keys to Success

Keys to success for the company will include:

1. Maintaining a reputable and untarnished reputation in the community.

2. Quality care.

3. Competitive pricing.

4. Flexible hours.

Company Summary

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a start-up managed by two partners. Both have
extensive experience in the child care industry, and have maintained excellent
reputations in this same industry. In addition, these two partners are capable of handling
the sales/management and finance/administration areas, respectively.

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a full-service child care/development facility that cares
for toddlers from age three to five. Busy Bees’ Day Care Center will be concentrating on
the upper end of the market, two income professional parents.  These personally
ambitious parents are typically eager in terms of their children's development and are
willing to pay to have their children attend the best facilities.

Through specialized training of the support staff and innovative learning systems, Busy
Bees’ Day Care Center is cutting edge in terms of child development.  This curriculum,
coupled with a custom designed facility and a low teacher/student ratio ensures a top-
shelf service for the children and the parents.

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center expects to become profitable by month 11, and has
projected $43,000 as the revenue for year three.
Company Locations and Facilities

Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a newly constructed 4000 square foot facility located the
Kingston Metropolitan area. The facility will originally consist of a house in a quiet, residential
neighborhood. The yard will be fully fenced in, to ensure no one can either come in or wander
away. The yard will be furnished with safe, entertaining toys, as well as a sandbox.

Start-up Summary

The company founders, Ms. Stoddart and Ms. Thompson, will handle day-to-day operations of
the business and will work collaboratively to ensure that this business venture is a success.

It is estimated that the start-up costs will be $3,000 (including legal costs, advertising, and
related expenses). An additional amount of $67,000 will be required as start-up assets. The
start-up costs are to be financed in equal portions by the owners' personal funds and by a
$30,000 5-year loan.

Safe Kids Child Care

Table: Start-up

Start-up

Requirements

Start-up Expenses

Legal $1,000

Brochures $350

Stationery etc. $100

Activity Supplies $250

Food Preparation Supplies $300

First Aid Supplies $200

Cleaning Supplies $150

Nap Time Bedding $250

Other $400

Total Start-up Expenses $3,000

Start-up Assets Needed

Cash Balance on Starting Date

Other Current Assets

$67,000

$0

Total Current Assets $67,000

Long-term Assets

Total Assets

$0

$67,000

Total Requirements $70,000

Funding

Investment

Owner -Child $20,000

Onwer -Freelander $20,000

Other $0
Total Investment $40,000

Current Liabilities

Accounts Payable

Current Borrowing

Other Current Liabilities

$0

$0

$0

Current Liabilities $0

Long-term Liabilities

Total Liabilities

$30,000

$30,000

Loss at Start-up

Total Capital

Total Capital and Liabilities

($3,000)

$37,000

$67,000

Situation Analysis
The Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is a start-up business.  A comprehensive marketing
plan and effort will be instrumental in developing visibility and generating sales. 
The Busy Bees’ Day Care offers Kingston a full-service child care, a child development
facility for toddlers and pick up and drop off service.  These services will be
differentiated from the competition through advanced training and learning systems.
Market Summary
Through a lot of research, Busy Bees’ Day Care has collected good information
regarding the market and is aware of many common attributes of key customers.  Busy
Bees’ will leverage this information to continue to study who is served, their needs, and
how best they can communicate with them.

Market Analysis

Market Analysis

    Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5  

Potential Customers Growth           CAGR

Two income professional 18,25

15% 12,000 13,800 15,870 20,988 15.00%
families 0

Professional single mothers 3% 3,000 3,090 3,182 3,278 3,376 3.00%

Other 0% 0 0 0 0 0 0.00%

18.00
Total 21,52
% 15,000 16,890 19,052 24,364 18.00%
8

Market Needs
With inflation continuing to increase every year, it has become necessary for more families to
rely on two incomes to survive. In turn, this increases the demand for child care facilities. We
do not foresee this trend turning in the near future, and intend to capture a share of this
market.
 Busy Bees’ Day Care Center is providing Kingston parents with a full-time child care
service that utilizes a sophisticated learning development system and an excellent pick
up and drop off service. Busy Bees’ will fulfill the following benefits that are important to
their customers:

 Selection: A complete service offering of child care and learning development for
children three months to ten.
 Accessibility: The facility is centrally located and is open from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.
 Customer service: Treating the customer like they are the most important customer that
Busy Bees’ has is reinforced in all employee training programs.
 Competitive pricing: The pricing is reasonable relative to the services offered.

Market Growth
In 2012, the national child care industry had $11 billion in revenues.  The industry is
estimated to grow at 9% for the next several years.  This growth can be primarily
attributed to parents going back to work, creating two income households.  These
parents need a service provider to care for their children, and more parents are turning
to child care services as opposed to a babysitter or live in nanny.

t
 Keys to Success
 Superior customer attention.
 Immaculate care of the children.
 Professionalism.
 Safety.

Mission
Busy Bee Day care Center mission is to provide top-level child care.  We exist to attract
and maintain customers.  When we adhere to this maxim, everything else will fall into
place.  Our services will exceed the expectations of our customers.  

Marketing Objectives
 Grow the number of customers by 12% annually.
 Build customer loyalty through superior service and educational/development systems.
 Build Busy Bees’ brand to the point where it becomes a household brand synonymous
with superior child care/development in the Kingston Metropolitan area.
 Increase the referral rate by 15% per quarter.

Financial Objectives
 A double digit growth rate for each future year.
 Reduce the employee training costs while increasing the skill of the employees.
 Increase the per child profit margin by a percent per quarter.

Target Marketing
The target market for The Busy Bees Day Care Center is full-time working couples. Referral
marketing is the key type of marketing strategy utilized. Maintaining and further enhancing its
reputation in the community is crucial to gaining additional market share of this target market.

The Busy Bees Day Care Center is targeting two specific customer groups, the middle
to upper class two income professional families and professional single mother.  The
two income professional families are groups of families have both parents working, not
allowing them time to raise their child during the day while the professional single
mother don’t have anyone to assist and attends evening school.  These groups has the
money for child care and are willing to spend a little extra to get a higher level of care.

This customer segment has already begun teaching their child advanced concepts like
reading, singing, socialization, etc. Busy Bees will continue to develop the children's
skills. 

The customer group is typically made up of two professional parents.  This would
explain why the parents 1) have the money for more sophisticated child care, and 2) are
ambitious in terms of their children's learning and development.

The Busy Bee Day Care Center intends to concentrate on the two income working
professional families because they are the segment that can most readily afford day
care, need day care because of their work obligations, appreciate the advanced
learning and development Busy Bee has to offer, and lastly are a growing segment of
our society.

With both parents working, this segment needs provisions for care of their child.  While
the Child Development Agency indicates that over 60% of children are cared by
relatives compared to 20% for a commercial day care center, our targeted group prefers
a more structured learning environment.  Relatives are great for nights out or weekends,
but they do not compare to a structured program when it comes to the learning and
development that occurs at Busy Bee.  Having both parents as professionals, they are
ambitious with the development of their child and willing to pay to get the best program
for their prodigy. 

Strategy Pyramids
The single objective is to position Busy Bee as the premier child care facility in Salem. 
The marketing strategy will seek to first create customer awareness regarding the
services offered, develop the customer base, and work toward building customer loyalty
and referrals.

The message that Busy Bee will communicate is that they offer the most primitive and
practical child care/development facility in Kingston.  This message will be
communicated various ways.  The first method will be advertisements in the Yellow
Pages.  Other sources of advertisements are social media, newspaper and flyers.

Lastly, The Busy Bee Day Care Center message will be communicated through the
formation of strategic alliances with two well respected organizations.  The alliances will
provide Busy Bee with a large customer base as well as legitimacy.

Financials, Budgets, and Forecasts

This section will offer a financial overview of The Toddler Warehouse as it relates to the
marketing activities.  The Toddler Warehouse will address break-even analysis, sales forecasts,
expenses forecasts, and how those link to the marketing strategy.

Break-even Analysis
The Break-even Analysis indicates $22,449 will be need in monthly revenue to break-
even.

Break-even Analysis

Break-even Analysis
   

Monthly Revenue Break-even $22,000

   

Assumptions:  

Average Percent Variable Cost 2%

Estimated Monthly Fixed Cost $22,000

Sales Forecast
The first two months will be spent renovating the house and bringing it up to
specifications, both for the state health and license codes, as well as Matt's
specifications.  During this time Matt will be finishing up the training program and
manuals.  Although Matt had designed an entire training program as part of his Master's
in Education, he is reworking it so it is custom designed for his new facility.

The first week of the third month will be used for training of the staff.  By the middle of
the third month The Toddler Warehouse will begin accepting children for care.  It is
anticipated that the facility will be underutilized until eighth month.  By then word
will have spread and the classes will be filling up quite nicely.

From month seven on, there will be a steady, incremental increase in sales.
Sales Forecast

Sales Forecast

  2001 2002 2003

Sales      

Two income professional families $174,425 $335,458 $351,254

Other $0 $0 $0

Total Sales $174,425 $335,458 $351,254

       

Direct Cost of Sales 2001 2002 2003

Two income professional families $3,489 $6,709 $7,025

Other $0 $0 $0
Subtotal Direct Cost of Sales $3,489 $6,709 $7,025

Expense Forecast
Marketing expenses are budgeted so that they are increased during the months when
parents are most likely to enter their children into child care.  This occurs to a larger
degree between August through November and March through May.

Marketing Expense Budget

Marketing Expense Budget

  2001 2002 2003

Yellow Pages $600 $1,000 $1,200

Marion County Resource

$1,150 $1,500 $1,500
Newsletter

Other $1,450 $2,000 $2,500

  ------------ ------------ ------------

Total Sales and Marketing

$3,200 $4,500 $5,200
Expenses

Percent of Sales 1.83% 1.34% 1.48%