240: Finding Joy as a Childcare Director With Heather White

In this heartwarming episode, co-hosts Kate and Carrie sit down with Heather White, a seasoned director and franchisor in the childcare industry. Heather shares her journey, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and joy in her role. She discusses the innovative practices at her franchise, including advanced security measures and preparing children for larger educational settings. 

Heather also highlights the supportive structure for new directors and the significance of building strong community relationships. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone looking for joy and balance in childcare. 

Thanks for Listening 🎧

• Want to learn more? Check out our book; "From Overwhelmed to I Got This: Guaranteed Success Route to Directing Your Childcare Center" 📖
• Join our Facebook Group for Childcare professionals!
• Join our Podcast Newsletter!
• Want to be a guest on our podcast? Go to our website to learn more.
• Are you looking for director training in Texas? Check out our Texas Director Website for our training and additional resources!

Transcript

Marie 00:00:01  Welcome to child care conversations with Kate and Carrie.

Carrie 00:00:05  Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Child care conversations with Kate and Carrie. And this is one of our episodes where we've got a special guest. And today's guest is Heather white, who we have known for more than a couple of days. And we're really excited for her to come on and talk to you guys a little bit about her journey, and maybe impart 1 or 2 pearls of wisdom. So Heather has programs here in Texas, and she's also a franchisor, so she's got two different hats. So we'll touch on those a little bit. What else should everybody know about you Heather. Oh my gosh. Well first of all.

Heather 00:00:46  Thank you so much for inviting me to this because I you're right. I mean, we've known each other for really since I took this role, which was 2011. So back, you know, and in the early months of 2011 and really deciding, okay, I'm getting back into this field and and who, who, who am I going to take my training with.

Heather 00:01:11  And it's always I mean, even now I, I plugged y'all I mean, y'all are our people, you know, I mean, we just we I so I appreciate you inviting me and what what to know about me so. Well thank you for, you know, just sharing a little about me. I have such a passion for this industry. I, I just know you can't fake it, you know, I mean, this is something where, you know, they say animals and, you know, children can smell fear. And they, they, they can also they can sense authenticity. Right? So I think that what's super important is to know that my heart is so in what I do. And I take such pride and I have such love for what we've created at the prep. So yeah, I mean, you you can I hope that you can see that and feel that after talking with me. Absolutely. Well, I'm so.

Kate 00:02:10  Excited because it does not feel like 14 years.

Kate 00:02:14  I was like when you said that, I was like, yeah, it probably has been 14 years. And for those who've listened to Carrie and I do other episodes, you know that we are coming on 25 years of doing business together. And so it's always fun to come back and say hi. And now bring on guests who we've had very long relationships with. And so, Heather, I just have to ask this question, why do you love what you do as a director, and why would anybody want to be a director?

Heather 00:02:46  Oh my gosh. I mean, I love it because I'm a people person and I feel like, you know, people need people and parents. My goodness, these little babies do not come with a user manual and they just don't know what to do most of the time, right? So I feel like as a licensed director and over the years I've, I've really kind of fine tuned my style of being a director. And that's really I love partnering with parents. I love I love the relationship piece where I get to tell them, like, okay, it takes a village, we're in this together, you know, this is this is how we do things and this is how I do things as a director and as an owner.

Heather 00:03:33  And and I, you know, does this sound like, you know, what we provide is what you want for your family. And, you know, because there's a bazillion choices. People have choices in every community. I mean, at my schools, I've got schools across the street, you know, that are quote, competitors. But I always feel like there's enough children to go round. And so, you know, I just I respect the fact that parents do have a choice. And they've chosen us. And I want them to see the authenticity behind, you know, our directors and our management teams, that they really are here for your child. So that's my answer.

Kate 00:04:14  Yeah.

Carrie 00:04:15  I think that having that heart for children is hard. You know, you can train people with the skills, but training them to have that heart for children, you can't train that. People either do or they don't.

Heather 00:04:27  That is so true. I mean, there are there are times, you know, where because I manage large management teams, you know, I want to be a mentor and I want to to be a trainer.

Heather 00:04:39  You know, for them that kind of I want to I want them to carry on my vision and my mission, you know, as an owner, as a director. And that's one reason I keep my license up every single year. It's important for me to to be able to say, like, I'm in this to I, I'm doing the same trainings you're doing and I'm, you know, making sure that I'm at the forefront of of learning all that a director needs to learn because I always crack up. I'm like, okay, so one of the most important things for a director, and I'm like, well, one of the most important things, that's like 100,000 most important things that have the same, you know, level of importance with a director. But, I mean, you know, I, I want people to see the love and the excitement directing can be because it is a hard job. There's no way around that. It's a very hard job.

Kate 00:05:33  So if you have a director who is within your management team, who seems to be having kind of a rough time, like it's just not clicking what might be something you might say to them to kind of help them remind them about that heart piece.

Heather 00:05:50  Oh gosh, it really does turn into like a heart to heart, honestly, for me, my style, because I think it's always important for someone to remember why they're here. Why did you choose, you know, go back to the basics sometimes. A lot of times we overthink things and and, you know, one thing can turn into 14 other things, but when you really just focus on the heart of the matter and from from their answer, then kind of look at all the different facets of where you can help them, kind of maybe sometimes see what you can't see the forest through the tree sometimes. So sometimes I just kind of manage a director with the style of let me just bring to light maybe some things to remind you of, or to just maybe give you a lens or a different way of thinking about it that, you know, sometimes, you know, directors can make things a little harder than it needs to be based on, like, especially if there's, you know, several negative situations kind of in a row, a director can feel bombarded and just kind of bogged down and stressed out and burned out and just trying to help that person remember all of the positive things about how important their job is and their role is to a family.

Heather 00:07:19  Of course, to the child, the most important and to our staff, you know, and and that sometimes it does feel like all you're doing is air as a director and that there's so much more that being a director is then just those days or those, you know, it's ebbs and flows, those those little the peaks and valleys of when, you know, the not fun things of being a director seem to kind of overtake all the fun things and just remembering the positive.

Kate 00:07:53  Well, I know Kerry has a philosophy about being a director. And, Kerry, how would your philosophy about being a director correlate with Heathers.

Carrie 00:08:03  If you're not finding joy in it? Go work for chick fil A. So.

Heather 00:08:09  Amen. Hallelujah.

Carrie 00:08:11  You know, the love for the children. Sometimes people have the love for the kids. And then that allows. Then they become overwhelmed because they're trying to do absolutely everything for every child and every staff person. And then you're not feeling the joy. So, yeah, the love is important.

Carrie 00:08:29  But to me, we have to model joy for our staff and for our kids. And what you're what, you don't find joy in some you still have to do. Because I don't find joy in firing people. But I've still had to fire people. But there's not a huge amount that I have to do as a director that I don't find joy in. Because if there's things that I'm not good at, I find ways to automate it or delegate it as much as possible. I can't do that with firing people, like we said. And there's other things that maybe the director doesn't feel like they can automate or delegate. But as much as possible, have the director stay in their zone of genius, because otherwise they're just going to mess up or they're going to burn out one or the other. Neither of which is good for us as the owners or, you know, the members of the board of directors or whatever. If they burn out, then I have to go into that program, and if they mess up, I have to go in and I have to be wearing my firefighter outfit and put all those fires.

Kate 00:09:40  Up on all.

Heather 00:09:40  Nine.

Carrie 00:09:41  Yeah. So, you know, I want them to have the love, but I also want to give them permission to find joy in this job. Because yes, we get to change the way the world is going to be in 20 years and we get to blow bubbles, play with Play-Doh and go down the slide. I don't know of any other job that allows you those kinds of options.

Heather 00:10:03  You know what, Kerry? What you just said, I think is kind of the secret sauce of the role and remembering that you get to do all the fun things. And if you look at these tasks and these these learning opportunities through a child's eyes, they're thrilled. And the joy, it's like it exudes from them. Like, if we could bottle that up. So I think that's a great remembrance like tip for directors to think about that you get to do. But I think it's a choice. Do you choose to do that? You know, you can choose joy.

Heather 00:10:43  And I say this to my adult children, if you get to do something in your life that you get to be paid for it also, that brings you joy as a human being that that you want to find that within yourself of what is it. And it's so funny. Always working with children has been the one thing that brings me joy. I mean, my, my grandchildren, I love them more than anybody in the family. And they everybody knows, like, they're my whole life, like, everything. So it's it's the same, you know, but not everybody is that way. So remembering the joyful parts of being a director is, oh my gosh, it's priceless.

Kate 00:11:30  Absolutely. Well, how are you going to know I have it?

Carrie 00:11:33  I have a thing. So part of what Heather gets to do is she's working with new directors at the franchisee, at with the franchisees and with their corporate stores. So you've got some of those directors who are still in their first 90 days, and they've got their eyes really big and they're like, I'm working 87 hours a week.

Carrie 00:11:54  How am I ever going to get my hands on those kinds of things? So how do you get them from the their eyes are bugging out of their head point to the I can find joy every day.

Heather 00:12:06  Oh, first breathe. Breathe. Like, you know, I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day. And that that's saying I my my thing. I always want new directors to kind of hone in on and focus in on is not everything has to be perfect. Everybody makes mistakes. And that's how you learn through situations. I, I always love for a director to kind of take how they've learned to handle a situation and apply that same outcome to different things in the future. So they don't always feel like they're reinventing the wheel and having to, you know, come up with, you know, another solution, another process, another set of how to's. Right. And I mean, honestly, it's prioritizing and time management that is so much of a successful director. Because guess what? When it comes to teaching staff there, there can easily be a disconnect where there's like the the bridge hasn't connected from the classroom to that office.

Heather 00:13:16  Right. And they feel like you don't know how hard they're working in their classroom all day. And directors can feel like teachers have no idea that I'm I want to be in the classroom, but I can't because I'm stuck in this office doing all the administrative stuff, the the not so fun things that don't bring joy. So I think, you know, really helping a new director understand prioritizing each day. And, there's some things that can't really make it to the next day's to do list, like communicating with a parent if need be, and some things that really kind of make or break you when you're trying to, like, have people learn how you're going to, what type of leader you're going to be and how you're going to run a school you know so well.

Kate 00:14:05  I also think it's really great because you not only have those two lenses. I want you to tell us more about why you have embraced what are two very distinct hats. but really tell us a little bit more about the franchise opportunity, maybe what makes your franchise a little different than some of the others? We have worked with franchise companies, and we remember before you were a franchise, so we remember when.

Kate 00:14:33  And I mean, I'm not even sure if you broke ground on the first location. Yet when you and I had our first conversation, I remember the Coming Soon sign. so. Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about kind of what makes your franchise a little bit different than either other franchises or just the awesomeness of your school?

Heather 00:14:55  Oh, well, thank you for that. I will take we love compliments and and, what makes us different is, is so many things. I mean, starting with. So my two business partners are the franchisors. They own the franchise company. They brought me in about a year and a half before we even opened our first location. So I got to be a part of, you know, just the early days of developing, you know, programming and, and and the nuts and bolts were, were in place. But the thing that sets us apart and makes us so different than, I would say other franchise companies is that we are directly involved like a text, a phone call away, a video chat, or we are physically there.

Heather 00:15:44  And I think that, yes, you know, being a younger franchise, but our growth has been exponential, you know, in the since since we opened our first franchise location in 2013, in McKinney, the Dallas area. And I think that what makes us so different is the level of support and the level of clear communication and immediate answers and immediate help and the immediate training and immediate support. And I think that that is just if you don't have answers and you you know, I can think of a million different scenarios as a director if I just let it simmer and didn't address it or just kind of left it floundering. I mean, 17 other disasters can happen from that, honestly. So I mean, one of the things that we take pride in on our website is talking about, you know, what makes the prep different. And, from our campus, when you drive up, you can tell it's not the typical mom and pop daycare looking something. It's it's very modern and it's very, unique.

Heather 00:16:54  You walk inside and, well, first of all, you can't even get in because, you know, at all of our locations, we have a biometric fingerprint system. And and now with our new locations, we're switching over to an iris, a scan, and I scan and and facial recognition. So it's, you know, we pride ourselves on we want to be innovators in our industry. We want to have, you know, set, set the the path on fire for what what we know that other competitors have picked up on. You know, our campus is amazing. We believe in moving children all around our campus to prepare for elementary School prep that's you know, the name to to prep them. because when a child enters a 60,000 square foot plus school for kindergarten and they've never left the four walls of a classroom or a playground, like that's really all that they've gone to. There's so many statistics that say that, you know, behavioral issues and just all sorts of anxieties. You know, that a child has sensory overload from being in a cafeteria where it's like, like a bazillion decibels loud.

Heather 00:18:05  And they're used to like just, you know, their little bubble of a classroom. So, so many things that make us different. but it really starts with, with us, you know, on the franchise team that we really do stand behind everything. We promise a potential franchise owner. And we love when potential franchisees call and speak to our existing franchisees and, you know, ask them the the real questions, you know, and not just hear it from us.

Carrie 00:18:36  So the real real.

Kate 00:18:38  The real real I don't know, Heather, but I think there's a book in somewhere in what you were just talking about. I was like going, I, I, we need that in a book. But we can get back to that later. so with all of that said, how would you like the conversation to go next? How do you want to make sure that people go, oh, I want to know more about the prep or about Heather, because you shared things with us that I was like us taking notes, even though I've known almost 14 years, so.

Heather 00:19:09  Oh, wow. well, I will tell you, we are we're another organization that is led by very, very strong individuals. We all have our own lane. There's not a ton of crossover, within our franchise organization. And that's really how I mentor and train our corporate management teams, you know, from directors with assistant directors to really hone in on what each person's skill set is and what they're naturally talented at, what they're naturally great at. I mean, you give me a microphone and a stage and I'm I'm there, you know, but there's not many people on our team that have that same passion and have that same, you know, just natural ability to, to, to do things like that. I think what sets us apart and makes us different, for sure, is that we're going to walk a potential franchisee through every single step. We don't pass them off to, you know, this broker, this guy. Like it's it's really all of us doing, you know, all of these things.

Heather 00:20:20  And and we're excited that our franchise team has grown exponentially over the past few years. So it's not just, you know, Aaron and myself. It's we have a whole team and she leads that team. So as a founder and she's the CEO, she really focuses on developing all things educational, developing the programs and the protocols and the processes that the teachers will follow. Because here's the here's the reality. If teachers can't do the things that we want them to do or that make our brand specific, if they're unable to really have an attainable goal, then they're not going to do it. And then it turns into like a dog and pony show of like directors or promising parents all of these things during a tour. But that's not really ever connecting. They're not even they're not seeing that through their child's growth or they're not feeling it when they walk into the classroom. They walk into our school. So really just helping, you know, people really connect and understand And that what we're about, we're going to walk with you through it.

Kate 00:21:27  Love that. Kerry, what else would you like to find out from Heather today?

Carrie 00:21:31  Well, I would like for Heather to tell everybody if somebody wanted to, find out about the franchise opportunities, how would they do that? And if they wanted to connect with you, what is the best way for them to connect with you specifically? Yes.

Heather 00:21:49  Okay. Awesome. So our website is super, super easy. W-what? I just said a lot of W's, but yeah, the world wide web, the prep schools, and that's plural. Com and there's a whole section on franchise opportunities. There's a whole area. we just fill out a quick contact form, and, a member of our team reaches out with. It's the same process as we have our directors do at our schools. When someone inquires, we want to send them information, and we want to follow up with a phone call. We want to follow up with a personalized email that's not, you know, a template, that it just makes people understand that, like, hey, if you're interested in talking to us, we're interested in talking to you.

Heather 00:22:38  So, that's, that's how to reach us and to reach me. I mean, oh, gosh. I'm I'm in all places. all the ways I'm on LinkedIn. I'm, email me at Heather w at the prep schools.com. yeah. I mean, you can, you can search for me, through a website and, and request to have a conversation for sure.

Kate 00:23:04  Well, we will share that in the.

Carrie 00:23:08  I was going to say you gave us some great writer downers there in, in all of this conversation.

Heather 00:23:14  Oh, I love that.

Kate 00:23:15  Well, absolutely.

Heather 00:23:17  What you said, Carrie, I think that you have to have joy. If I, if I could say any bit of advice to a director, is that the authenticity of the joy of working with children, you can't fake that. And, you know, just like we literally tell our teachers, you know, if someone's here just for a paycheck, that veteran teacher can sniff that out from a mile away. And they just are like, nope.

Heather 00:23:46  Not not going to work in my classroom because, you know, here we're making a difference and we're working hard. And it's it's the same, same, same exact thing. I would say with, you know, what I get to do each day and, and mentor directors and, and and remind them during the tough days and the tough moments that, hey, you're really great at this. And it takes self-confidence and it takes really taking care of yourself so that you can take care of others. I could I mean, we could talk 99 years on. Yeah. Director. Self-care. And, you know, ending burnout.

Carrie 00:24:25  Empty cup. Yeah.

Kate 00:24:27  Yeah, absolutely. Carrie. What do we want people to do now?

Carrie 00:24:31  If you learn something from the share, from the share. If you learn something from the show, you share the show with someone who needs to know what we had to say today. And if you think that you would love to share a little bit of your journey like Heather did today.

Carrie 00:24:47  Go over to childcare conversations and fill out the application to be on the podcast, but definitely share the show and write a review. That's what we want folks to do and we'll talk to you next week.

Marie 00:25:01  Thank you for listening to Child Care Conversations with Kate and Carrie. Want to learn more? Check out our website at Texas Director. Org and if you've learned anything today, leave us a comment below and share the show.