I have ads on care.com, sittercity.com, daycare.com, and Craigslist. I have gotten no responses for a couple of months now, other than the occasional check-cashing scammer or person who didn't read the ad and is looking for a completely different kind of care.

Until everything went silent, it seemed I was only attracting people who care just about the rate. You know the message: "hi how much does it cost."

A few weeks ago, I cut my ads down to just bare-minimum info in the hopes that it would avoid turning off people who didn't like my program description or photos. No luck there. So today I added photos back in, created a detailed program description, and bumped the rate up.

Right now I only have two full-time and one part-time family in care. The word is out at my daughter's school, but nobody has come to me through word of mouth yet. I pass out business cards every chance I get, but nothing.

Who has had luck increasing interest by raising their rates?

Who has been able to land a contract through advertising vs. word of mouth?

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Raising rates has not gotten me more interviews. What it has done is brought me higher quality clients. I don't get the price shoppers who jump ship when they find someone cheaper, the ones who attend for 3 weeks, then tell me that they can't afford to pay my rate anymore and ask "what can we do about that", thinking I'll cut my rate to keep them. I have a client now with 2 kids who is on assistance, and I can't wait to term them (I'm waiting to fill my last 2 full time spots before I do), but other than that parent, I have some good parents right now.

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been doing this for a long time so it feels. Not as long as some on here, but I agree with Leigh. You will attract higher quality clients, but you have to know what you are offering them. Why are they paying you more?? USe that as your selling point.

When I really started to see my business grow is when I became a BUSINESS woman. No longer trying to please each family and in the end feeling like I got ran over. My emotions were too involved and I didn't know how to sell myself. I didn't have a product to sell so to speak.

Over the years, I finished my education, sought out how to be unique from all of the other programs, both in-home, preschool centers, large corp. centers, and etc. I found something that no one in my area had and I ran with it. It took me a few years to get good at it. Lucky for me, I came here and through many post I learned how to take the emotion out of running my business and run it like the business I needed to.

I became very professional this way. I stuck to my guns about anything in my PHB. I learned how to enforce my policies in a professional manner and do it with a smile on my face.

I am not saying that you are not doing any of these things, but in my personal experience, I did not see any growth in my company until I mastered these things.

Other things I got good at is learning how to pick better families, learn how to sell myself and I learned how to conduct a good family tour/interview.

Talk to the form members on here, they are by far some of the most BRILLIANT women and men I have yet to meet in this business.

I know this may not what you were looking for, but this is what I had to go through to gain a steady business.

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