If you’ve experienced the joy of hearing your child speak for the first time and want to help other parents experience that joy sooner, then you might want to think about going into the baby sign language business.
The average baby can start forming words around 13 to 15 months old. It might be a few months beyond that before they actually start to form meaningful communication. With baby sign language, you can start communicating with a baby when they’re as young as 6 months old. They’ll be able to communicate meaningfully with you in just 2 or 3 months.
In addition, teaching baby sign language stimulates the language centers of the brain and speeds up spoken word development.
As a baby sign language instructor, you’ll be spending your days teaching mothers both the actual signs used with their babies, as well as the best methodology for learning to use these signs.
What You Need to Get Started
You can either take on the task of building your business all on your own, or you can purchase a teaching kit. A teaching kit is usually under $200 and includes several of the most important signs, along with a specific teaching methodology developed by whoever is selling the kit.
If you decide not to go the kit route, you should at least have taken a class yourself and have experience using signing with your own child. The more experience you can bring to your future students, the better.
While you can incorporate a business, it’s not always necessary. Forming an LLC will protect you against potential liabilities, but if you’re only teaching friends and referrals of friends then it may be unnecessary. On the other hand, if you’re getting clients from paid advertising and/or training multiple instructors to work with you, then you probably should incorporate.
Workshop Size and Location
The two most popular formats for teaching baby sign language are one-on-one and group lessons. Group lessons allows you to offer your services at a much lower cost per person while still earning a good income for yourself due to economies of scale. On the other hand, if a mother is willing to pay your one-on-one fee, she can really benefit from the personalized instruction.
Many baby sign language instructors run their workshops and lessons out of their own home. You can also run the workshop in your student’s home.
Alternatively, you can also run your classes out of a daycare, community center or other organization that caters to mothers and families. You’ll likely have to split a small portion of your revenue with the venue.
If you’re considering leasing a space to conduct your workshops in, first make sure you have enough demand. Make sure you live in a big enough city; and you may still want to start your classes off at home first to test the waters, then move to a leased space once your demand exceeds what your home can handle.
