Did you enjoy the first insert to Miss Charlotte’s journal 10 years ago?
As we promised, check out the second insert below, all about the first day, growing excitement whilst working through some tough times.
This journal insert is in memory of Miss Charlotte’s great gran, her GG!
“All was ready and now it was time to get started. At this point it was October and I had decided I needed a few months to get ready and the New Year would be my year. My family helped me with my first days advertising where we pounded the streets for a mass leaflet distribution, door to door. This seemed to be a great hit and by 11pm that very night enquiries started flooding in, Facebook was becoming overloaded by friend requests and Twitter was busy tweeting.
The main stress and worry seemed not to be the numbers but the venue. Everywhere was expensive or didn’t want to know. When all avenues were exhausted I looked through my business plan for some last minute inspiration. That is when I came across Fitness@the Boathouse. I had contacted them when I was gathering information and they sounded great! Straight away I got to work and went out to visit them. The staff were friendly and the studio was perfect for me and babyballet. He offered it to me whenever I needed, and we signed on the dotted line. With my venue sorted and the enquiries coming in, it was just a countdown to the New Year.
New Year had come and the excitement was just getting started. Classes weren’t far from starting and everything fell into place. I was ready for my plan to come to life.
2013 was going to be my year but unfortunately my family started with an upsetting beginning with the bereavement of two family members. This made plans hard and the excitement I had felt put to one side. Whilst handling this I tried to concentrate on my business, to try and take my mind off things, but it wasn’t till my first class arrived that the excitement came back with a great buzz.
On the 26th January 2013 I was ready. The car was packed; I had all the equipment and my wonderful friend, Jade, came along to show support. Mr David, the person who supported me from day one, stood by my side and with his babyballet head on he welcomed the students through the door.
With two classes and thirty dancers, classes were great! As we all danced together, everyone was so excited and on that day I felt something very important to me. My family had gone through an upsetting time but I wanted to make them proud.
With my first class under my belt word of mouth seemed to be our best friend, but I hadn’t finished my advertising campaign just yet. I contacted Joann Shaw within Asda Motherwell looking for her help. Joann, like everyone else so far, loved the sound of babyballet and was very enthusiastic. We had planned for a great day advertising the school within Asda.
On the 23rd February 2013 we had our music at the ready along with free face painting and of course the magical Flutterstar Fairy (known as Flutterby way back then), balloons and a great big smile. Everyone stopped to say hello and to find out more about what we had in store, the children certainly enjoyed their food shopping that day!
It was a very tiring but successful day with lots of excited children ready to start their babyballet journey. I went home and thought about my journey so far and how much I had enjoyed myself and came to one conclusion;
I am a girly girl who loves sparkle, dance, babyballet but most importantly I want to be a successful babyballet franchisee”.