Welcome everyone. We are about to get started with today’s webinar. Excited to have everyone join us, and we’re going to allow a minute for folks to, get into the webinar. Thank you for spending your day with us and, very excited to get into today’s topic. Our webinar today is Finish Strong, Start Ready, the Year End Planning Workshop for Child Care Leaders. And I just wanna welcome everybody, give you a minute to join in. As you do so, I just wanted to bring your attention to the QR code that’s on the screen. That is for a survey that just helps us here at ProCare Solutions kind of make sure that we are bringing you topics that are relevant, that are engaging, that you guys are excited to learn more about. And as a bonus for filling out the survey that’s on there, you will be automatically entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. So please be sure to check that out, and that will be available throughout the webinar, and at the end we’ll have a reminder too for folks who might be coming in a little bit later. All right, well let’s go ahead and I’ll just again make sure that we’re clear on a few housekeeping items, so some things to note. Don’t worry, we can’t see or hear you during this presentation, so audience members who are joining us, there’s no video or sound for you for us to hear or see things from. We’ll just be presenting. However, if you do have any questions at all during the webinar, there is a q and a box. And if you have questions for our guest, please be sure to submit your questions through that so that we can see them. And then at the very end, as long as time is available, then we will do our best to make sure that we can answer your questions live for you. Also, we do have a chat room for attendees. So again, if you prefer to just talk to any of the peers or audience members that are there who can see all that, then you can use that. But it is easy to lose questions for the presenter if they’re put in the attendee chat sometimes, so that’s why we recommend using the Q and A box. If you run into any technical difficulties during this time, if you start noticing that the Internet might be freezing or, audio is not coming through or anything of that nature, best thing to do is probably just exit out of the browser and come back, and it’ll pull you right back in. But if that happens, just quick and easy fix is usually doing that. And then lastly, because I know we will get asked, there will be a recording for this webinar available afterwards. We’ll send it out usually within a few days from the webinar date. So just take note if you are looking to, if you have to drop at any point and you need to catch up on things later, a recording will be available, or if you wanna share this with other teammates, then a recording will be available. Alright. Now with all that said, I am very excited to welcome today’s guest, Alida Mechtold, who is the founder and CEO of the Teachers for Tomorrow. Alida, thank you so much for joining us, and without further ado, I’m gonna go ahead and let you take it away. Sounds good. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here and talk about the end of the year and what we can do to start 2027, I can’t believe it, really strong. So I usually do this training a month ago, but we still have about ten weeks left of the quarter, so we get to spend some time on finishing strong so we can start ready. So let’s get started. A little introduction about myself: I am the founder and CEO of Teachers for Tomorrow. It’s a substitute teacher placement company located in Minneapolis that solely puts early educator subs into our child care centers across the Greater Minneapolis area. I also created TFTOF. It’s a complete business building system for child care owners that want to follow what I’m doing and open their own substitute teacher placement company in their own area. I have over twenty nine years in the early childhood industry. I owned my four child care centers for twenty one years, had about 500 children, 123 staff, and I absolutely loved that. I sold in 2021. I’ve been a teacher, so I’ve been in those shoes. I’ve been that director. I’ve been the multi site owner and have also been coaching small businesses, not just childcare, but small businesses and childcare owners nationwide. And I help owners and leaders strategize best business practices for a successful company. So enough about me, let’s get started. So every year, I speak to business owners at the beginning of the year, sometimes beginning of January, end of January, and they tell me they have not planned for their year yet, and they’re getting to it. And I hear over and over and over that they just didn’t get to it because they were too busy. Well, think about it, November is the start of a busy holiday season. December is absolutely a busy season for child care owners. We’ve got sickness, we’ve got vacations, PTO, we’ve got holidays, all the things happen in December. I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. January comes, and think about how tired you are. You’ve just had a chaotic month and a half or two months. Maybe your kids at home are still on their holiday break, and maybe you had an illness and you just are exhausted, I want you to know that that is too late, to be planning for a successful 2027. You can’t decide your annual goals already a step into the year. You’re already behind. Looking at your numbers, evaluating what happened in the previous year are so important to do before the year starts because how do you even know where you want to be if you don’t look at it, evaluate, create a plan? You end up trying to create a plan in January. February, you have a team meeting, and you talk to them. Then you figure out, in March maybe, what your marketing plan should be. Now you’re three months behind. So I do not want you guys to be in that time frame. I want you to preplan. And so that’s what today is for. I want you to take a look at where you are right now so we can move forward and have a successful start to our year. So the real problem, like most childcare leaders, are not struggling because they don’t work hard enough. You guys know how many hats you wear every single day, every single minute. You actually are struggling because you’re trying to lead while responding to everything all over that’s going on. I call that little game of whack a mole. You’ve got staffing challenges. You’ve got enrollment. You’ve got families that you are attending to and want to have the best customer experience possible. You’re trying to follow all the state laws, and let me tell you, how can we keep up with all of that? It keeps changing over and over and over. We’ve got budgets we need to hold to. We’ve got classrooms that may be short staffed and maybe the curriculum is off, maybe we’ve got a classroom full of, our capacity is twenty five and nineteen of those are boys that are growing and very active, so we’re trying to put behavior plans in. You know, there’s interruptions, overflowing toilets you know the problems. What I would love to know in the chat, what are you facing right now? What is your biggest challenge? Is it staffing? Is it enrollment? Is it family retention? If you could take a minute and go ahead and put that in the chat just so I can see where your biggest challenges are. So in your environments, I want to make sure that when you are operating, things are being planned for. I don’t want you guys pushing planning to later. Okay? Okay, let me see. Some of the things that are coming in, staff struggling to run programs, social media enrollment, okay? All right. Good to know, good to know. Thank you. All right. So, I truly want something different for you heading into 2027, so you develop this plan and you stick to it based on what we’re finding out, what’s happening currently in your centers. So today, we get to have two questions that we get to answer. So grab a pen and paper if you don’t have one in front of you. This is really important to be taking notes right now. The first question I ask you that I want you to write down is, if you were successful on December 31, what needs to happen? Okay? What does success look like on December 31 in your center? Some of the things that came up in the chat is enrollment and then hiring new staff. So one thing, what needs to happen before December 31 so you can look back and say, this was a successful year? Maybe it’s enroll 20 children. Maybe it’s hire one preschool teacher. Be as specific as you can. And then what needs to be decided before January begins? What needs to be decided before January begins? That’s a big one. Okay? Think about that. Please write it down. This is your time to build this plan. Alright. Let’s look back with strong honesty of what’s happening in your centers. We can’t build a successful upcoming year without really being honest about where you are currently and where you’ve been because we want to strengthen your company. So before we talk about 2027, we have to close 2026 with honest thoughts about where your business is. So let’s take a look at your company where it is. Think through each area honestly. What is actually happening in your centers? Not what you wish were true, but what’s actually happening. Are you on track with enrollment? Do you have enough staff? How is your family retention? Maybe you aren’t profitable and you’re working really hard and you’re just at your wit’s end with you’re trying everything to just hit your profit numbers. What about operations? Are those running smooth? Do you have your policies and procedures in place? Is your leadership on par? And most of all, your own energy. How are you? Are you feeling burnt out? Are you feeling like you’re on your last string? What’s happening in your company right now? Maybe you’re not marketing. That’s not on here. But take a look at your company right now and what is going on in your company that can help you uncover what we need to strengthen in 2027. Now, three honest questions. This is what I want you to answer on your paper is, looking back at 2026 so far, where are you stronger than you were a year ago? What are you excited about? What was a big win? So many times, we hang out in our companies, and we are trying to just survive, and we look at our to do list, and we don’t see all the amazing things that have happened. So right now, I want you to at least have three things where you were stronger than you were a year ago. Okay, write those down. Celebrate those. We should be very excited about that. And the second question that I want you to be honest with is, where are you still stuck? Where have you not completed what you thought you were going to do? So do you have enough staff? Do you have enough enrollment? Have you built that website? Do you have a marketing plan? Are you looking at your budget every month? Are you stuck somewhere that you swore you wouldn’t get to the end of this year at the same place where you started? What is that? And this is a big one, we all do it. What have you been tolerating that you know needs to change? Okay? Very important. A lot of times, as owners, here I’m speaking from experience because it’s hard for me to do this too, but I always… It’s just easier for me to do it. I don’t wanna explain it to somebody it’s gonna take too long. But you guys need to hand it off and delegate because if we continue to tolerate, things are not going to change. So really dig deep into what have you been tolerating that you know needs to change. We all have it. We all know it. In this experiment, I want you to think down deep inside about what’s going on, and through this honest audit, here are your filters. You can draw two lines on your paper and have a stop column, a start column, and a continue column. So right now in your role, whatever that may be, what is costing you time, money, or energy that you keep saying yes to, just out of habit? I got this. I can do it. Don’t worry. Even though it’s in the job description of someone you hired to do, you’re still doing these things. Those items need to stop. Okay? Start what you already know needs to happen. It just hasn’t happened yet. You’ve got this list of to do things. You know it needs to get done. Let’s just pick the top one, two, or three items that absolutely has to get started right now. We have to start and knock it out of the park to finish strong and know that we feel successful. And continue what’s working that you’re doing right now that deserves your protection and your investment so nothing can get in its way? What is the thing that you are going to continue to do? And you may bring it into the next year, right? So think about all the things that you end up bringing to goodwill or you’re donating, and you keep the items because you know it works. Maybe it’s a piece of clothing. Maybe it’s furniture. Maybe it’s whatever. You’re going to continue to have that and hold on to it and get rid of everything else because you know this works. So I’m going to give you a few seconds here to really think about your company, your position, what you’re doing, what you’re going to stop, what you’re going to start, and what you’re going to continue doing. What’s coming up for you? I would love to hear in the chat. What was one big that you’re thinking? Go ahead and throw it in the chat. Awesome. Finishing strong. Let’s talk about 2026. What is your finish line? Where do you want to be? You’ve been honest about where you are, but where are you going to go, and how are you going to get there? Again, we’ve got about ten weeks left, so revisit what I asked you before. When December 31 arrives, what does success look like to you? What does that mean? If one meaningful thing is better in your business than it is today, what is it? I don’t want you to think of all the things that you need to do, not all the things that have to get done. If one thing happened, just one thing, and you spent all your time on that one thing, you could say, I finished strong. It was amazing. What is that one thing? Don’t create a list, but write that down on your piece of paper. Circle it, star it, highlight it, one meaningful thing that you promise yourself you will do, because on December 31, you’re going to look back and say, Because I did this one thing, I feel so successful and my company is so much better. Or maybe if it’s not your company, it’s your director role. Maybe if you’re an educator, If I just did one thing, my classroom would run better. What is that one thing? Write it down. Make it big. Put it everywhere in your office. Put it everywhere. Put it on your phone screen. The one thing that you will work on to make it better every single day. So now let’s build your year end plan around that one thing. Right? So five things around your finish line. The one meaningful outcome that matters most before December 31. You just said it, you just wrote it, you just circled it, you just started. That’s your finish line. Now, looking back at this finish line, there is a number that I call a scorecard that’s critical that you measure every single week to ensure that you’re on track so it gets done. If you said enrollment, if my enrollment increased by five children, I would consider that successful. So what would you do every single week to ensure that you enrolled five children? Some of you would say marketing. Some of you would say phone calls to reengage with families that inquired but never toured. Some of you would say reactivation. They came, they called, they toured, they didn’t enroll. Let’s reactivate them, reach out. How are they doing? Where are they? Are doors still open for you? Some of you would say that you would run such a strong promotion to get these children in, and all of a sudden, you look back and your goal was five and you actually rolled 17. Who knows? Is it revenue? Your one number that proves you crossed the line is revenue. So what needs to happen for you to cross the threshold of the revenue goal that you’re setting? Is it profit? What are you going to measure? Maybe your overtime is crazy, and that’s why you’re not profitable. So the one number you measure every single week is overtime hours. Maybe it’s your staffing ratios. You don’t have enough staff. And so maybe it’s big campaigns. Again, maybe it’s your nurturing. Maybe your turnover is too high. What are you doing for retention every single week? What are you measuring that will make sure you hit that number? Okay, that’s number two. Number three, three priorities. Not 15, not 10. What are the three biggest actions that will move you right now towards the success that you will feel December 31? K? Those are three goals, three big goals, something you can’t complete in a day, something you can’t complete in a week, but it may take you a few weeks. Maybe it’s the marketing plan. Maybe you said the entire year, everything’s going well if I just built my website. Put it off, put it off, put it off. One of your goals could be completing your website. That would be going towards your success that you feel at the end of your year. So three goals. Maybe it’s just two. I do not want you. I know as a business owner, as a leader, we tend to write all these things down because we think we can get to them. And then when we get to none, we feel like, I haven’t accomplished anything. So please make sure that your priorities are not three. And this is a big one, number four, the biggest obstacle. We all have obstacles. We all have things that get in the way. And I feel like childcare is one of the biggest areas where things get in the way. Again, that game of whack a mole. You just sit down at your desk, licensing comes to the door, a parent runs in and says, I need your help, I need this, that, or a surprise tour. The toilet’s overflowing. A child’s vomiting. A teacher needs green paint. Like, you are just all over the place. What are your biggest obstacles that get in the way of you being successful in your company, in your position, maybe your classroom? Name it now so it does not surprise you later, because we need to develop a plan that if this obstacle happens, then what? What are you going to do to ensure that you’re going to finish strong? And number five is the seventy two hour action plan. I want you to think of right now, just write down all the steps you need to take in the next seventy two hours, fast, whatever comes to your brain. What can you do in the next three days to start moving this in such a massive way if that is the only thing you worked on in the next three days? Of course, you’ve got other little tasks, but if you only focused on the biggest thing that will move mountains in your company, what are those things? Please write those down right now because our brain is set, and we’re thinking about all the success we’re gonna have to help you finish strong in 2026. Go, write them down right now. Go, go, go, write. So what I wanna do is point out you are slowly developing this plan. Right? And you’re creating something that’s becoming so clear to you what you need to do. And I have watched and trained so many leaders across the year write this beautiful 20 page strategic plan. You guys showed up at this webinar, and you guys are taking notes. Maybe you’ve gone to a conference in the past. You’ve taken notes. But how many times have you revisited them? How many times have you actually put a plan to the notes or action on the plans that you wrote? So clarity is the point. We are getting clear on what we need to do. Execution is the point. That is a big one. So executing always comes second. For some reason, we can get this beautiful plan in place, but nothing ever happens to it. So I’m here to tell you, I want to help you break this down, and I want you to write as much as you can so you can be clear. I really want you to have one finish line for 2026, one critical number. If you can’t think of that one finish line or one critical number or the three priorities, reach out to me, email me. I will help you talk you through that. Name your obstacle and what are you going to move in seventy two hours to make sure that you hit your goal? Okay? That’s your year end plan. That’s all you need. All of this fits on one page. It’s so clear. It’s broken down so easy. And it’s honest enough to actually mean something to you. Like, you are saying this right now. One finish line, one critical number, three priorities, your obstacle that’s going to get in the way because you know it will. And if you could do one thing, like one thing in seventy two hours and you just focused on it over and over and over again to move mountains, what are you going to do? Alright? So this will help you start ready because January is execution month, not the planning month. Okay? If you’re waiting to get a plan in January, you are absolutely starting behind. I work with so many business owners and leaders that need to make their decisions and have their planning days in November or December for the upcoming year. So think about what decisions you can make right now based on what you just wrote on your paper, so that January is about the executing plan that you’ve already built. Think about last year’s January. I mean, enrollment, I don’t know about you guys, but between New and Year’s was my highest enrolling month because parents have settled. They chose something, they started the New Year in September, everything was going well, and actually they are not happy. So I’ll just wait till the new start of the year. I’ll just wait until January hits. I have some time off between the holiday and the new year. I’ll go visit centers. So before enrollment heats up, before people come back, before vacations are done, or maybe spring breaks are starting, before you are already behind, please, please, right now, put on your calendar a planning day in December so that you can plan, you can communicate, you can roll it out so expectations are clear in January. Alright? So your direction in 2027. If we can establish these six things before January begins, you will be so far ahead of the game, further ahead than any business owner, because you are looking at your 2027 direction. Now I want you to think. Here’s another thing I want you to write down. Take a second and write one clear sentence. What does a successful 2027 look like to you? Write that down. Number two is end of the first quarter. If you’re looking at your first quarter and you’re looking at your clear sentence of what success looks like in 2027, what needs to happen in the first quarter? Do we need a marketing plan? Do we need to build a mentor training plan because we need more retention? Do we need more training? Whatever that success looks like, do we need to budget differently? Do you need to build a parent advisory board because you need more retention in your school for parents? What needs to happen by March 31 so that it is starting to be true and follow the success that you just wrote for 2027? Go ahead and write that down. Number three is what are those three Q1 goals? If you don’t accomplish anything else, nothing else, at the end of quarter one, it was worth it because I got these top three things done. Okay? Remember, goals or priorities are big things that you accomplish. Training program, you can’t get them done overnight. It doesn’t take a day. It doesn’t take an hour. It may take you a month and a half to do. So what are your top three priorities in Q1? And then we’re looking at our scorecard, our critical number. What do you need to track every single week to know that you’re making progress, to know what your scoreboard is? You know, your directors need to know this. Your regional needs to know this. You as owners need to know this. If you aren’t looking at a scorecard every single week, you’re just completely running with no direction. I tell business owners all the time, it’s great that all of our new cars have a mapping system right on it. But if we took that away and we woke up one morning and we’re leaving our home and say, I think I’m going to drive to California today and I’m going to go to the beach in California, and we have no map. We don’t know how long it’s going to take to get there. We don’t know what roads to take. We don’t know when we can stop or how long because I want to get there by ten and it’s already 08:00, but I’m seven hours away and I don’t know that because I don’t have a map. So I just start. Do you think I’ll get there if I don’t see my directions, my map, my stops, my road construction, everything that could come up? So what I want you to think about is what are you tracking? What is your map? How are you going to get there? What is that critical number? Is it how many children enrolled? Is it how many interviews you’ve had? Is it how much overtime? Is it how many posts you have on social media? Is it anything that relates back to your success in your quarter, those are the numbers you have to be tracking. Number five is a big one, you guys. Number five is a big one. Who owns what? If every priority runs through you as an owner, that is a problem. Who can help you? Who can get you to where you need to be? You do not have to do everything in your company. You’ve hired people to do that. Please give ownership to someone else and spot that, delegate it, instruct it, model it. And then number six is January 1 action. So what happens first? Not second, not third, not, oh, I’ve got all these things to do. What is the first thing you need to do? Because when that’s clear, that’s where you start. I wanna hit this ownership warning real quick because on the last slide, I said, Who is the owner of the thing that needs to get done? If you thought, Well, the answer to every priority is me or the owner is me, that’s a problem that we absolutely have to take a look at. Because a business where everything important runs through the owner is not a business. It’s actually a job with extra steps. So think about that. Ask yourself right now. Who on my team could own some of those quarter one priorities to help make my company successful? But what do I need to do in place to make sure that handoff is successful? Can be a reality because that’s huge. People that you hire want to do well but cannot do well without the proper instruction and proper leadership to give them the tools to help them be successful. And if it’s all up in your head, they don’t know who or why or what to do, so they’re just kind of guessing. So the simple rhythm that works only if it’s used, screenshot that, write it down. You are developing the plan right now. So a lot of people are great at making a plan. Execution? Not so much. One, because the plan either sits in a notebook. Two, the plan doesn’t get revisited. Three, the plan, you guys just kind of are listening to me and emailing and doing everything, come back to me. If you’ve got other things open on your computer and you’re doing other things, right now is the time you need to come back to me because you need to write, plan, because you are needing to execute. Measure. Almost 90% of business owners do not measure. That is that scorecard, right? If your scorecard was written incorrectly or it’s totally not doable or you’re seeing some patterns that just need to be adjusted, this is where you need to adjust. Or you need to… Don’t adjust the numbers, adjust the process trying to get there. Maybe your numbers should be absolutely accountable, but how you’re getting to those numbers need a little adjustment. That’s where you revisit. And then when you plan and execute and measure and adjust, let’s repeat. And you do this every quarter, every week, every month. You have to have this system in place because this rhythm and your company will only work if you’re doing all five of these items. So let’s close the gap. A plan does not eliminate the unexpected. It just gives you something to come back to. Put your plan up front and center. Make sure you look at your plan over and over and over, because you know things are going to happen. You have teachers that call out, you have enrollment that falls through, you’ve got licensing visits, you’ve got families that have challenges that you need to fix. I mean, so many things. We as childcare owners or leaders or teachers, wear so many hats in this industry. So the unexpected is not the exception in your world. It’s like the baseline of what you know is going to happen each and every day. So your plan is the anchor to your success. When everything else is on fire and you’ve got that fire hose and you’re trying to put every single thing out, you need to be able to come back to your plan and know that your finish line is still there. You still want to get to the numbers, to the actions, to the plan that you created. So important. Do not leave it in your notebook. Do not leave it in a desk drawer. It is way too important for you to leave behind. So one final question for you today. What decision can you make today that your January self will thank you for? I want you to write this down. I want you to think about this very seriously, because you didn’t open a company to just run it and just be in it and have your company run you or your school run you as a leader or your classroom, the parents, the kids, the assistant, the aide, if you’re an educator, you did not take on a teacher role for them to be running you. You are the CEO of your classroom. So think about that. You are the CEO of the position that you hold, and I need you to think about you sitting in your position January 1. What does that look like? What decision are you gonna make today that will help you think, man, I’m in January, and I feel so successful, and I’m so grateful I did x, y, and z. What is that? I mean, your January self is already out there. Ten weeks from now, you’re gonna be either executing your plan that you’re writing today or you’re scrambling around and the year’s already come and you’re filling in classrooms or you’re moving and grooving in all these different areas and February comes and you still don’t have a plan. So which is it going to be? What decision can you make today that your January self will thank you for? So if you’re really confused right now and you have never, ever, ever done anything like this, and your answer is like, oh gosh, I really need a plan. I understand that we’ve had, like, forty five minutes together so far, and this is enough to get some sort of clarity. It’s not enough to build a complete strategic plan for your business or your role or your classroom, and you truly do deserve a plan, a complete plan. So thinking about where we started when you first got on the call and each step of the way, and you have been listening, and you’re trying to think of how to answer some of these questions that you just aren’t following along or you just don’t get it, and you’re saying, I think I need to go deeper. I want a better picture of this, and I want to build my 2027 plan before January arrives, you can join me on December 4. Because every year, I run a full four hour strategic planning intensive session. It’s Friday, December 4. It’s ten to two Central. It’s live. We start with your mission, your vision, your core values, where you stopped in 2026, where you’re going in 2027. There’s four focused hours on your entire 2027 direction and plan. Your first ninety days are mapped out before January even begins. So that is important. So you leave the end of this session with 2026 review, a full understanding of your numbers, twenty twenty seven goals, clear and intentional, your complete quarter one plan mapped out and ready, your entire marketing strategy in a document. It’s a template. I’ve created it. I’ve helped you. I give you examples. And then your exact first action for January 2. So you walk out with this complete plan that you’ve built with me and others on the call. No more figuring it out in January. This holds you accountable. You schedule. You show up. I walk you through each step at a time. So if you would like, I’ve also added the good AI that everyone’s talking about. People that are registering before November 4 receive a full twenty twenty six year end business audit, I’ve built an AI tool that helps walk you through that step by step, and it will help you move into these four hours of training because you’ve already had all the work done with AI before you even step into the class. So the deadline would be November 4 if you want to join us. I mean, you could join us at any time, but I just thought I’d throw in that extra tool. And if you would like to reserve your seat, you can go ahead and use this QR code or you can click on the link that’s in the notes or in the chat. Every year we do this, we have more ‘s, we learn, I make the program stronger and stronger. So I truly hold this day for any leader who wants to be done starting January behind. If that’s you, I would love for you to come. I can show you, I can teach you. You’re one on one with me. Basically in this webinar, I’m answering questions live, we’re building. It’s truly a space where you come and you build. And I just truly want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for showing up today because that tells me that you are an amazing leader and you invest in yourself, you invest in your time, you want to be better. It’s not common. A lot of people don’t do this. And when I get the privilege, I feel so blessed to be in a space of being with people who really want to grow, and this will help our future. This will make your company better, and you as childcare leaders become the leaders in the industry. Because we are not only growing our companies, but we are creating that platform for children, and we’re building our future. So thank you so much for showing up and I want you to go out there and finish strong and make sure you’re ready for 2027 because that’s what this last quarter is all about you guys. And I’m here. Let me know if you need anything. I truly, truly appreciate you and wish the best for you, for a really fantastic finish to your 2026. Awesome. Thank you so much, Alita. Lots of good stuff, lots of good stuff. I love… There were a lot of actionable ideas that you shared today that I’m really excited to hear from center directors and staff who are just going to, I know, benefit from those greatly. Right now, we are opening it up, so if there are any questions for Alita, before we close things out today, we wanna make sure we can answer those for you here. As we’re waiting to just to see kind of any more questions that are coming in, You know, I was thinking about this in terms of being a leader and working together with your team to align on these goals for 2027. What sort of tips or examples do you think you can share for the group that would just be a way of getting that initial process started to bring your team together around goals for 2027? Absolutely. So I trained my team. When I owned child care centers, I trained my teams on everything best business practices. So they knew exactly what needed to happen and what my expectations were. So I would always put together a two day training every quarter before the quarter happened. I would train on them. I’d look back at what our successes were, what our areas that we were challenged, what we didn’t get done, what goals we completed, where we finished on our scorecards. I would ask them to come to our meetings well prepared with, what do you think your three goals would be for the upcoming quarter? What do you think they should be? What do you think you should be scoring to hit the goal numbers, to hit our budget, to hit whatever it is. Each school was different. They had different goals. They had different numbers depending on where they were with enrollment, staffing, families, budget. I taught them how to budget, so my books were always wide open for them. They always had where they were going in front of them and where my vision for the company was. Because if we don’t share that, like I said, the roadmap, but I always give the vision too of, if we go to a football game or a soccer game or a baseball game, there’s no scorecard, there’s no timer, there’s no nothing. And everyone’s like, go run, hurry up, get it. But we don’t know who’s we don’t know if there’s who’s winning. Don’t worry. We’re winning. Don’t worry. Or don’t worry. We’re losing. You know? Well, how do we ever know how much time we have left to get those numbers back up? Or what’s the plan? Are we supposed to win? Are we supposed to… Like, what are those numbers? So I presented my vision for the year, the three years, the five years. They knew exactly where the company was going all the time. So based on my vision for the company, my leadership needed to hit that. I would bring them together, like I said, for two days. After we met, we would… I would go back with my regional director. We would set those numbers. We would set the goals after we talked. Sometimes they changed, sometimes they didn’t. Then they would have that meeting with all of the teachers and says, our goal for the center for this quarter is x, y, and z. How can you help me hit my numbers? How can you help us get to that as a school? So then the teachers were on board as well. Because if the teachers don’t know where we’re going, the preschool teacher may not know the toddler room is empty or needs enrollment. They sure feel it when we are low staff, but they only think about what’s going on in the classrooms with their children. They don’t really put on the, Oh, I know a teacher who could probably come and work for us. We have to be that communicator. We have to share what the expectations are for our vision for what success looks like in our schools. So bringing people together, getting clear on the vision, getting clear on the communication, and making sure that goes all the way from the top down to the bottom. It could be all the way down to your bus drivers and your cooks. You never know what cook or bus driver knows of a family that needs care. They just don’t think about it. They’re doing their role and they’re going. Absolutely. I think oftentimes when we get in the execution phase, we can, tend to miss some of those things. So it’s great to have those clear periods where you circle back together with your team and evaluate your mission. For sure. For sure. Wonderful. Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Alita. Yeah. I know we’re getting close to time here. I did just want to thank everyone again for attending today, and thank you, Alita, for just the wonderful information that you had today. And, again, please go visit Alita’s website. I know we’ve dropped it in the chat for you folks so you can check that out and learn more about the strategic planning intensive that she’s offering. Also, just a reminder for folks, if you weren’t here when we started, we do have a giveaway for a $100 Amazon gift card for someone who takes our survey for attending our webinar today. Please make sure you do that and get entered in for a chance to win that. We will follow-up and let the winner know in the next couple of days, as well as there will be a recording sent out of this webinar. So if you didn’t get to see everything or if you would like to share this with others, you can do so. And once again, thank you so much Alita Mechtold for coming today and just the wonderful knowledge and wisdom that you presented with us. Thank you for having me. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone. We hope you have a great rest of your week and we’ll see you later. Thank you.