Finding an experienced nanny with good recommendations is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. Of course, young parents can try to find a suitable candidate through advertisements posted in local media and the Internet.
However, in practice it often turns out that the declared experience and salary requirements do not correspond to what was previously stated.
Where to start organizing a nanny recruitment agency
You can organize a good business by providing nanny selection services.
The advantage of such a business idea for starting your own business is that its implementation will require minimal start-up capital.
You just need to find suitable staff and advertise your business.
Setting up a recruitment agency
It is advisable to register your business in accordance with legal regulations. To do this you need to open an IP.
At the initial stage, a nanny selection service can be located in an ordinary apartment.
When the business begins to generate significant income, it will be possible to rent office space.
What is required for implementation
There are several options. First of all, if you are going to babysit very young children, then you need special experience and handling skills. Without pedagogical education and certain knowledge, you also cannot be a nanny for an hour for schoolchildren. First you need to decide what kind of nanny you will be:
- for babies;
- for schoolchildren, with the opportunity to do homework;
- a nanny for an hour - the duties simply include driving, picking up from school, looking after and feeding the child.
All these methods do not require a large investment of money, but you don’t have to expect fantastic profits either. If things go well in the nanny selection service and you manage to collect a large sum, then your next step on the career ladder may be to open an agency providing nanny services.
Recruitment of personnel for work as a nanny
The most difficult stage in organizing such a business is finding candidates who could work as nannies.
It is advisable to look for women with completed preschool education and experience working in nursery groups of kindergartens.
Experience working in private child care institutions will be an additional advantage.
To start working with experienced and qualified nannies, you need to interest them with good pay. It should be hourly. Work on weekends and holidays must be paid at double the rate.
To make it easier to work with existing resumes, it is necessary to create a database of nannies. This will allow you to find a worker who will fully meet the parents’ requirements in the shortest possible time.
A separate group should include those nannies who have experience working with disabled children. The services of nannies who speak foreign languages are in high demand. They will be able not only to look after the child, but also to teach him in a playful way.
It is worth updating the database regularly because some applicants will find permanent work and stop working with the nanny service.
To make it easier to find personnel and quickly fulfill orders, it makes sense to create an interactive website on the Internet or a group on social networks.
Business concept
Working parents have little opportunity and time to look after their children themselves. Good nannies don't grow on trees in the nearest park for an hour. This great business idea, with the proper level of organization, can bring good profits with a minimum investment. How can this undoubtedly useful service be organized?
A nanny for an hour is especially in demand in the evenings and on weekends, when parents want to go somewhere. There is also an option when parents are present at home, but are busy with guests or business. The nanny can also only drop off and pick up the child from school for his safety.
How much can you earn by providing nanny selection services?
Business profitability is 35%. Full payback occurs in the first 8 months. The main incomes are:
- Payment of the applicant's registration fee;
- Payment by the employer when selecting a nanny;
- Monthly payment for applicants.
As a rule, applicants pay a monthly payment in the form of a fixed amount (about 25% of earnings).
You can additionally earn money by conducting advanced training courses, trainings and master classes.
In the footsteps of Mary Poppins: how a domestic staff recruitment agency works
At the age of 19, Yulia Klyueva got married, at the age of 22 she gave birth to a son, at 23 she opened her first business, and at the age of 25 she gave birth again - this time to twins. Now branches and franchises of her domestic staff recruitment agency operate in seven cities of Russia, and the base of nannies, caregivers and housekeepers includes tens of thousands of carefully selected specialists. The founder of the Lady Mary agency, Yulia Klyueva, told the Biz360.ru portal about how to successfully develop a business while being a mother of many children.
Dossier
Yulia Klyueva
, 28 years old, entrepreneur from Barnaul, founder
.
Graduated from the philological department of Barnaul Pedagogical University. At the age of 23, she created the Lady Mary domestic staff recruitment agency, which now has branches in Krasnodar, Sochi and Sevastopol, and agency franchises operate in Gorno-Altaisk, Novosibirsk and Simferopol. Yulia is married, her husband works for a large energy company; The family has three sons: the eldest is six years old, and the younger twins are three years old. Finding myself
Yulia Klyueva was born and raised in Barnaul. My mother is a teacher, my father was engaged in business in the 90s, but then he quit the business and went to work for hire. Yulia did not think about entrepreneurship - she dreamed of becoming a journalist. I entered the philology department of the Pedagogical University (at the journalism department there were budget places where the cat cried, and Yulia did not want “to be dragged by my parents”), and immediately went to work for a newspaper. But it turned out to be the newspaper “Life”.
“At first it was interesting. I wrote about the stars who came to Barnaul. But the management demanded that we write about who drank where, who was spotted with whom, who got into a scandal, etc. It was mentally difficult, so it didn’t last long for me. This type of journalism is not for me,” says Yulia.
Later she decided that she would go to school and work as a teacher. But I went to a pedagogical internship and realized that school was not for her either. However, life is also a school. The main thing in it is to learn lessons.
“I worked as a bowling alley manager, and my boss told me: “If you were smarter than me, then I would work for you.” That’s when I thought: “Well, I’m smarter than you! Why am I working for you then?” I began to understand that I did not want to work for hire. At the same time, there was no such thing as “I want to be an entrepreneur!” But I liked it when people take responsibility. When a person can solve something, he can provide decent work for other people. This is what I liked about business,” says Yulia.
My own manager
At the age of 19 she got married. My husband is an energy engineer and works for a large, reputable company. She graduated from high school, went on maternity leave, and at the age of 22 gave birth to her son Kirill. It turned out that Kirill gave her a business idea.
There was another event that pushed Yulia to start her own business. “Once I met a friend of mine, the director of the Alpha business school, she told me that the company had won a training tender and suggested: “Come to us and take the test.” I think - why not? She has arrived. Answered one hundred questions to identify entrepreneurial abilities. And suddenly it turned out that I had a high score!” – Yulia recalls.
They taught at business school for free - it’s a sin to refuse. Young and promising people were recruited into two groups of twenty people. In the evenings and on Sundays we studied accounting, psychology, jurisprudence, and met with existing entrepreneurs. The training lasted about a year. At the end, a business plan had to be written and defended. By this time, the idea with which Yulia came to business school—selling sporting goods under a franchise—no longer seemed interesting to her. But there were no other ideas.
“I really wanted to open my own business. But I didn't have an idea. And I needed to understand who my child would stay with. My son is less than a year old; my husband stayed with him while I was in business school. We have grandparents, they are all very good, but I can’t put a grandmother and grandson from 8 to 18 and deprive her of any personal life,” says Yulia.
“I started looking for a nanny. What the agencies provided me was not satisfactory. The girls came incompetent, I understood that the person at the interview was lying to me. No one had any certificates, even basic ones - from a narcologist, a psychiatrist, fluorography, blood. But you are going to the child! Why do teachers at school or kindergarten teachers get tested, but nannies don’t?! I also looked for a nanny through Internet resources - there the situation turned out to be even worse. I began to understand that this niche in Barnaul had not been developed. And in the end I wrote a business plan for launching such an agency.”
“After graduating from business school, we were all sent to the employment center for employment. A girl specialist asks: “Will you be looking for vacancies?” I answer: “I have a business plan, whether they give me money for it or not, I will still open.” We did a great job with her. I received a subsidy for starting a business - 60 thousand rubles. I used them to buy a computer, some furniture, and pay for the rent of an office – tiny, seven or eight square meters.”
“I was alone - I was my own manager, as a matter of principle - I needed to understand how everything works. She advertised. At that time I already had about twenty staff. And I employed them all very quickly. It turned out that the need is great. In the first month I earned about 60 thousand. We can say that the investment has paid off,” says Yulia.
By the way, at the same time she resolved the issue of a nanny for her son - she hired a woman who literally raised Kirill until he went to kindergarten.
"It's a very tough business"
Life immediately began to make adjustments to the business model - it turned out that in Barnaul there was a demand not only for nannies, but in large numbers there was also a need for caregivers!
“When I opened the agency, I thought that the main demand would be for nannies and housekeepers, and nurses were just for the assortment. But, unfortunately, a lot of caregivers are needed. There are at least three applications per week for caregivers for seriously ill people. Here was a man who was more or less healthy - and then he fell ill. Social workers come only twice a week to wash the floor, even if the person has a disability and is bedridden. That's why they hire a nurse. And now we have a lot of caregivers,” says Yulia.
She hired her first manager six months later, when she realized that she couldn’t cope alone. Over the course of six years, Lady Mary’s staff has not grown much: in the agency’s Barnaul office there is Yulia Klyueva herself and three managers. Accountant, security service (it happens that candidates, under the guise of a previous employer, give a friend’s phone number or use some other trick), Internet promotion - under contracts. If we talk about domestic staff, in Barnaul the agency cooperates with nannies (745 in the database, 412 of them work), caregivers (365 in the database, 290 working), housekeepers (398 in the database, 210 working), drivers (42 in the database, 210 working), 7 are working). They all work under a patent, which costs 5-7 thousand rubles per year.
Legally, Yulia Klyueva’s company is a limited liability company; this legal form allows you to open branches and sell franchises. “A lot of recruitment agencies are opening. Everyone thinks it's easy. And this is a very difficult business. And as a result, there are enough normal agencies in every big city to count the fingers of one hand. There are three large recruitment agencies in Barnaul. We have a common blacklist of nannies and housekeepers. We meet once a year. I believe we are the market leader."
“Both in Moscow and in the regions, the best agencies are run by women. It happens that men buy the agency, but it’s still a women’s business - and they put women in charge of it. This is how a woman will come and tell a man what needs to be done with her house, things, linen? These are intimate things. As far as I know, only in Rostov is a man running an agency, on his own, for seven years now,” says Yulia Klyueva.
Not every mother can be a nanny
Nannies, caregivers, drivers, gardeners come to Lady Mary as a recruitment agency. To get into the agency's database, they must provide a certain set of documents and certificates and pass a psychological test. After this, they are already invited to interviews with clients.
If the client and the employee match each other, then the agency receives its commission: the client pays 25 percent of the contract amount, the employee pays a percentage of the first salary. The contract can be for a month, three months, six months, or a year. According to Yulia, now most often they sign a contract for a year.
If the contract is renewed, the agency again receives its percentage. The nanny's salary is paid by the client. The minimum payment for an hour of work of a nanny is one hundred rubles.
The average salary of nannies employed through Lady Mary is about 25 thousand rubles, nurses - about 20 thousand, drivers - from 20 thousand
“It happens more,” says Yulia. — For example, an application was received for a nanny with knowledge of English, Italian and Spanish (the family often travels abroad), the schedule is from eight in the morning to six in the evening, a five-day work week. Salary - 50 thousand rubles per month. For Barnaul this is very, very good. And we found such a nanny, we have such people.”
“Our personnel reserve consists of schools, kindergartens, including private ones. In Barnaul, a salary of 50 thousand rubles can pull a person out of almost anywhere. There are people who need a certain income, and I know that they will come to me if I have a decent offer,” explains Yulia.
In the mass consciousness, a nanny can be any woman who raised a child herself - she probably knows what and how. But the mass consciousness is wrong. “We don’t take people who say: “I raised my own two, and I can handle strangers!” Having your own child is one thing, being able to get along with someone else’s child is quite another,” says the head of Lady Mary.
Through analysis and experience, the agency calculated an image of a nanny that was close to ideal. “The vast majority of our nannies are women over thirty years old. And this is not a whim. If the nanny is younger, then these are always small children, and she will be there with her head, with her children. If there are no children, then she will arrange her personal life all the time - again, there is no time for work. Therefore, we work with women who have an established family situation. Yes, we have unmarried nannies. There are those who are 25 years old. It happens that clients ask for a young nanny - someone’s child is attracted to young people. But these are still girls with work experience, with pedagogical education, and without children of their own.”
Two more fundamental requirements from “Lady Mary”: either extensive experience as a nanny, or a pedagogical education with experience working in a kindergarten; so that a woman understands what working with children is.
Who orders nannies
To paraphrase an old poem, we can say: “All kinds of nannies are needed, all kinds of nannies are important!” There are families who ask for a gentle and kind nanny for their children. But more often – strict. The agency is called “Lady Mary” for a reason - surprisingly, the image of the strict Mary Poppins, who taught not only children, but the whole family to walk to the line, is very much in demand.
“Many people ask for such nannies. Because if there are boys in the family, then there must be Mary Poppins. Or, for example, there are three boys in a family, and if they are also the same age, then they definitely need a strict nanny,” says Yulia Klyueva.
But maybe a man, a “mustachioed nanny,” would have handled the three boys better? “I am sure that a woman can cope better with children, even three. A man will do worse. It’s easier for a man to exert physical influence, but this is not possible. Moreover, if the employer is a nursing mother, how will she tell the man some subtleties? No one has yet asked us for a male nanny. Governors, mentors for relatively adult children - in Moscow this is quite developed in wealthy families, among stars. But for now this is not for Barnaul,” Yulia is convinced.
The agency's clientele is mainly representatives of the middle class and above. Some people need to go to work, others don’t want to drop out of society. “Tomorrow a client will come - their child was born ten days ago, and she is already looking for a nanny, she doesn’t want to sit at home. Like Ksenia Sobchak – many of our mothers do this.”
Interestingly, economic crises hardly affect Lady Mary. Only in the first two months of 2020 there was a decline in applications, but even then the agency did not go into the red. “And in March they didn’t give tickets to kindergartens - and everyone went after nannies,” recalls Yulia.
The agency promotes its services through its own website; SEO tools and Yandex.Direct are actively used. Of the social networks, only Odnoklassniki is involved - as Yulia Klyueva says: “Our people are there.” And, of course, word of mouth.
Share of healthy idealism
According to Yulia, human attitude towards the client is very important in this business. “Yesterday a client called with whom we have worked for two years. He has elderly parents here, and he is in London. It is impossible to transport them. We started collaborating when they were still walking - we hired live-in caregivers for them, then they fell ill, and we looked after them, and so on until the end. They were nearly 90 years old. He called and said, “I don’t know what I would do without you.” His parents cared for him until the last minutes; they were loved and protected. This is important. The fact that he brought us a certain amount of money is also, of course, important. But the human attitude outweighs. If we didn’t treat our customers this way, we wouldn’t make any money,” says Lady Mary’s owner.
In general, Julia believes that in a successful business a share of healthy idealism is mandatory. “Yes, the financial issue is important. But this shouldn't come first. Initially, the work should be interesting to you. If there is no pleasure from work, if you only count money and wait for the working day to end, then this is the psychology of an employee. You need to understand what you want, who you are doing it for, and why. You must understand that you are benefiting people. Only then will you be able to earn money. For me, the mission definitely comes first. There should be a share of healthy idealism in business. As soon as you put making money first, everything immediately falls apart.”
“I really love it when clients thank us, when the staff thanks me, when nannies bring chocolates to my managers and say: “Girls, thank you so much, I now have such a great job!” You get a thrill from this – from the fact that you have done good for people.”
However, in order to be “good”, someone has to do something bad. “I always parted with everyone normally,” says Yulia. “But one day I fired a manager unpleasantly, with a scandal. They announced a tender for the provision of nurses for a large amount - only we were supposed to receive a million from this tender. She was involved in this tender - and simply did not go through with the last procedure. And then she disappeared for another ten days. I arranged my personal life - what kind of tenders are there? They began to look into it - she believed that she was right in everything, and blamed it on other managers. I didn’t fire her under the article, I just gave her the work certificate. This is also my fault as a leader. I didn't check it. But I controlled until a certain moment, then she says: “I understood everything.” If I continue to control, then why do I need a manager?” says Yulia.
In another situation, the client demanded a refund of the advance payment. “She suggested that the nanny work without a contract so as not to pay us a percentage. The nanny refused and left. Then the client demanded an advance payment. I said: “Through the court.” The money was small, the contract was not signed, so we had no chance. But she had to run after this money... I can be a gentle person. I won't go over my head. You just have to live according to your conscience. Everything will come back. But it is necessary to punish for offenses and deeds that I consider unfair.”
Roots and crown
A successful business must grow. And one day the time has come for “Lady Mary” to go beyond Barnaul. "In 2012, people came and said, 'Sell us the franchise.' But we didn’t have it yet. But if there is demand, then we pretty quickly, in two months, arranged everything - and in 2013 we sold the first franchise in Gorno-Altaisk. Then we opened a branch. I immediately understood that there would be more work with the branch, but I wanted it. This is probably purely female logic. I saw how much my franchisees were making.”
“A branch is everything from scratch, in a foreign city... I had to fly a lot, for me the plane was like a taxi, I lived on planes. We opened a branch, then sold the franchise again, then opened a branch again. Now we have three branches across the country, three franchises sold and another one in the process of registration.”
The cost of a franchise from Lady Mary is 100 thousand rubles plus royalties, the size of which depends on the city: the larger the city, the higher the royalties
“Our franchise is one of the most inexpensive. Because I don’t have a goal to make money from a franchise, I have a goal to scale. Under a franchise, a person receives documents, programs and a website. We provide all the tools and constantly advise. But even with such support, not everyone can work. The problem lies in the entrepreneurial qualities of the leader, and in the fact that in our business there are people on all sides: dad, mom, child, nanny... The nanny may not have the same personality as the child, the mother, the grandmother... You can’t automate anything here. The time frame for turning a profit is different for everyone: some make it in the first month, others cannot even do it in three months,” says Yulia.
Just as a tree grows not only with its crown, but also with its roots, so Yulia Klyueva’s business grew not only in breadth, but also in depth. After all, many people need qualified care and supervision.
“From the very beginning, parents of children with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and visually impaired children contacted us. To practice with them - to develop motor skills, tactile sensations, and to train the visually impaired - special equipment is needed. This is how the “Social Respite” project was born, for the implementation of which in 2020 we received a grant of 300 thousand rubles. With this money we bought an electronic manual video magnifier “Visor”, with the help of which visually impaired children will be able to read e-books, a set of teaching materials “Sensorics”, a special correction keyboard for children with impaired motor skills.”
“Our other direction is “Life Line”, GPS trackers that allow you to track where a person is. The software developed to our order determines the location of a person with an accuracy of ten meters. Children buy such trackers for their parents, who may leave home and forget how to return. Parents buy it for their children - just in case, because people are now very afraid for their children. The tracker has an emergency call button,” explains Yulia Klyueva.
Know the limits
Three years ago, twins were born into the Klyuev family - Danil and Denis. When asked how pregnancy was combined with business, Yulia replies: “Easy!”
“I worked until the last minute. And when I gave birth, I asked the doctors to discharge me from the maternity hospital early - I had to be at a meeting following the results of the “Altai - Points of Growth” forum. I was released from the maternity hospital a day early,” Yulia laughs.
The only “weakness” that our heroine allowed and allows herself is a vacation at sea. “When we got married, my husband took me to Sochi. And when I started my business, I dreamed that I would go to the sea every two or three months. The first thing I did, as soon as finances allowed, was to immediately fly off to swim and sunbathe! And then she constantly flew to the sea. Now, it’s true, less often, but still, we go twice a year.”
However, for a year now, Yulia has been setting her priorities a little differently and freeing up time not only for the sea once every six months. “I came up with a business in order to be free. And then it turned out that the business was not for me, but I was for the business. I want to see my husband and go on vacation with him. For me, family is primary. I want children to see me. I want to go to my elder’s karate performances. I want to do something at home myself - this is my home. “I am first and foremost a woman,” says Yulia.
As a result of partial optimization, the Life Line project was outsourced, and Yulia decided to focus only on Lady Mary, of which Social Respite is a part.
“The Main Mary Poppins of Barnaul” says that she is not planning new projects yet. Now she devotes more time to her family, herself (she has lost 24 kilograms), and yoga. Although he admits that business is still in his head. “Physically, I’m at work until five or six o’clock in the evening. And with your head - around the clock. I even dream about work.”
Expenses
I have a family of three: me, a 15-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son. He doesn’t work yet, he studies at the institute on a budget. We bought two neighboring apartments and turned them into one five-room apartment. I spend at least 15 thousand rubles on utilities. I pay another 600 rubles for the garage, which I own. On average, at least 10 thousand rubles are spent on a car. A full tank of gasoline costs about 1,600 rubles. I try to keep an eye on the car. Recently it underwent maintenance, changed brake discs, and did a wheel alignment.
I don’t skimp on food: I buy meat, fish, and delicacies. I go to a large supermarket and can leave 3-5 thousand rubles there at a time. I believe that there should be enough supplies at home to survive a small nuclear war. I also bring products from my trips to Europe: sanctioned cheeses and sausages, local chocolate. I spend at least 20–25 thousand rubles a month on groceries. And to save money, I often buy what I need on the Internet. I recently purchased a new refrigerator. In the store it cost 46 thousand, but on the Internet I found it for 41.
In addition to my salary, I have another source of income: I receive alimony from my ex-husband for two children. He works for a Western company and earns good money, so we don’t have to save. Children need to be given pocket money, paid for travel and communications, meals at school and college. Our daughter is studying English; we spend 6 thousand rubles a month on individual lessons. In addition, she studies at an art school, and there she needs to buy a lot of things - both what to draw and what to draw on. Here I don’t even try to count, but just go and buy everything I need.
I have many friends all over the world, and they often invite me to visit. Recently I visited Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, and now I am invited to Israel and Cyprus. I have cards from many airlines, I accumulate miles on them and get discounts. Tickets usually cost 10–12 thousand rubles, but you can save on many other things. I live with friends, they feed me for free, but I take gifts and some pocket money with me. I usually bring clothes for myself and my children from Germany. Over the course of a few years, she turned into a clothes maker. When I lived with my husband, we only spent money on his expensive business suits. And now I started buying a lot of beautiful clothes and fell in love with myself.
Illustrations: Panina Anastasia
A triumph of technology
Recently, there has been a clear trend when companies offering car nanny services are following the path of taxi aggregators. If previously such services worked mainly through a call center, now the most advanced companies, such as Kidsway, offer to download an application on Android or iOS. The child’s movement around the city, handing him over to a responsible adult at the end of the trip - all stages can be tracked by parents on the screen of their gadget.
True, if the commission of the same Yandex.Taxi or Uber is about 20 percent of the order, then the margin on the car nanny service is twice as high - on average, companies take about 40 percent of the order. Actually, the second secret ingredient of your future company after responsible autoladies is good IT specialists. And not just professional, but also having a conscience. The thing is that some companies that position themselves as software developers mercilessly inflate prices for the provision of their services. At the other extreme of programmers are private freelancers who, due to their experience, will not always be able to handle a complex specific project. Therefore, look for the “golden mean”; it is important that the contractor, on the one hand, makes high-quality software, and on the other hand, does not go too far with development prices.
On average, we will set a budget for software development of about 500,000 rubles. For this amount, you should not only create a beautiful and modern application, but also debug all technical processes.
