Nursery World - Business Development - Dizzy Ducks grows in three directions

One nursery chain is expanding into the babysitting and wedding
sectors as well as launching a franchise arm - all within six months.
Hannah Crown reports.

Dizzy Ducks is currently a mid-sized nursery chain with five settings in Essex and Suffolk. Owner-manager Sian Nisbett, who has recently won the top prize at the National Entrepreneur Awards, is in talks with four nurseries interested in becoming franchisees and she plans to start franchising the Dizzy Ducks name from February.

Ms Nisbett says, 'There is a real need for lone local nurseries to get some support from a business perspective. So many nurseries are doing a fantastic job but don't necessarily have marketing skills.'

There needs to be a balance, she believes, between running a nursery as an excellent childcare organisation and running it as a business. 'Nurseries feel profit is a dirty word,' she says, 'but it isn't. You can feed it back into the business to help children.'

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