Children’s Enrichment Franchise Brings Dance, Yoga and Fitness Classes to Day Cares, Elementary Schools and Community Centers
- Creative Kids Movement Network (CKMN), a children’s enrichment franchise, offers dance, yoga and fitness classes for kids aged 2-10 at day care centers, elementary schools and community centers.
- Founder and CEO Kate DeBiase began teaching dance at age 20 in 1998 as a side job.
- DeBiase pivoted from her successful sales career to focus full-time on what would become CKMN in 2016, growing the business by 274% within a year.
- More than three in four of the 30 million kids who want after-school enrichment programs can’t access them.
Kate DeBiase (above) knows the joy of engaging children in dance, yoga and fitness — and she understands the demand for these activities, not only from kids and their parents, but also from day care centers and elementary schools. As founder and CEO of Creative Kids Movement Network, DeBiase has been teaching kids to dance for more than 25 years. What started as a side gig when she was 20 is now a growing children’s enrichment franchise offering dance, yoga and fitness classes to kids aged 2-10 at day care centers, elementary schools and community centers.
“My mission has always been to bring movement and mindfulness to as many children as possible,” she says. “To me, franchising is all about creating a network of people who are looking to break free and make a positive change in their lives, their families’ lives and in the lives of others. That’s why ‘Network’ is in our name!”
A dancer since she was a child, DeBiase was teaching a few classes at a small studio in 1998 when a friend asked her to teach at her child’s day care center. “The experience revealed two things: I really enjoyed working with young kids and there was a real need to bring classes to day cares for working families to enroll kids without having to take time out of their evenings and weekends,” she says.
Demand Exceeds Availability
Training manager Christine Williamson gets a group hug.
Demand for children’s enrichment programs is greater than ever, but program availability is severely limited, according to EducationWeek, which recently reported that more than three in four of the 30 million kids who want after-school enrichment programs can’t access them. A look specifically at the children’s dance franchise market shows robust growth estimated at a compound annual growth rate of 6.5% to $2.7 billion by 2032, according to Dataintelo. The research firm attributes that growth primarily to parents’ increasing awareness of the positive impact of dance on children’s physical health, emotional well-being and cognitive capabilities.
Many day care centers and elementary schools also recognize the advantages of working with on-site enrichment providers, DeBiase says. “It truly is a huge benefit to them because they’re bringing in a program that parents would typically take their children to during evening or weekend time. Bringing our programs on-site during the day when parents are working not only gives kids something to look forward to, but it also gives parents back that valuable time with their children during the evenings and on weekends.”
DeBiase’s own experience in rapidly scaling the children’s enrichment franchise reflects the demand for on-site classes, as well as her passion and “drive to put my corporate life behind me and live a life that I truly wanted,” she says. After years of teaching dance classes as a side gig in the Rochester, N.Y., area, DeBiase decided in 2016 to give up her successful sales career and dive full-time into building what would become Creative Kids Movement Network (CKMN). Within six months, DeBiase’s enrollment grew from about 100 students to almost 500, and, within a year, the business expanded by 274%.
Training and Support for Franchisees
DeBiase’s husband, Alex DeBiase (pictured together below), whose background is in medical device sales, encouraged her to pivot from the corporate world into full-time entrepreneurship, and then into building the children’s enrichment franchise. He now serves as CKMN’s business development director. He says the ideal franchise owner is an owner-operator with experience working with children, as well as dance, yoga or fitness, and a drive to get the business up and running. Sales experience is not essential, but it is a plus for prospective franchise owners.
The CKMN team provides training and support in setting up and starting the business, marketing and sales tools, teaching tools and lesson plans, enrollment, customer service and more.
“In those early days, growing your business is all about building relationships, making connections and sharing your passion with your community,” Kate says. “The great thing about our franchise system is that, if any new CKMN franchisee wants to replicate the kind of growth I generated in 2016, it’s absolutely do-able. Our systems are designed to create rapid growth — especially when it comes to sales. Between my 15 years in corporate sales and Alex’s 15 years in medical device sales, we’ve built a powerful, practical sales training program that helps our franchisees hit the ground running and grow very quickly. With weekly virtual coaching calls, both sales-focused with Alex and our program training with our training manager, Chris Williamson, our franchisees have all the support they need to build confidence and fill their schedules within their first six months.”
Creative Kids Movement Network initially expanded with licensees who have since become franchise owners in markets in the Northeast, Michigan, Colorado and Florida. Territories are available throughout the U.S. Those franchisees with sales experience had a faster startup, but the others quickly caught up, as a result of the comprehensive training and support provided by CKMN, Alex says.
Additional advantages for franchisees include the children’s enrichment franchise’s low cost, mobile model with no brick-and-mortar location required, and territories with a minimum of 200 qualified prospects.
For information about franchising opportunities, go to the Creative Kids Movement Network website.
