Our main philosophy at TOPTOTS is to “grow with love.”  We are passionate about this aim. We work to fulfil it by encouraging growth. Growth of the little children who come to us, growth of the parents, as they learn to handle new relationships and teaching skills with their children, growth of you as a franchise owner (in terms of personal enrichment and business skills), and of course, growth of TOPTOTS as a whole. We believe that a country’s children are the greatest asset that it has, and therefore on a broader level, we feel that we are playing a constructive role in the future of South Africa.

The modern consumer is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and less likely to blindly follow popular opinion. They want to make more decisions for themselves, especially as regards their children. This however gives them a responsibility, and the concern that they may not be doing all they could do.

We want to encourage the parent to become as involved with their child as possible, as this is the best gift they can ever give their child. To this end, we try and demystify early learning. Even though we use a lot of technical educational methods, ideas and terminology, we try and explain it to the parents in such a way that they feel more competent, understand their child better, and slowly start to use good teaching techniques naturally with their own child. The long-term effect of this positive
relationship, we hope, will be as powerful in the child’s life as any early learning that may occur. We also provide a gentle alternative to being separated from mum.

On the business side of it, we strive to achieve:

• We strive to promote small businesses.
• Teaching and supporting franchise owners in running their own business.
• The business skills and confidence you will learn by running a TOPTOTS Franchise will always be yours, wherever life takes you.
• Professional and modern learning centres.
• Vigorous national, and local marketing.
• Strong team support and step-by-step guidance.
• Every partner (franchise owner) will benefit from the potential being created by his or her own contribution.
• Communication is at all times honest and open.
• We encourage a strong team spirit and co-operation between franchise owners.
• As a service organisation we strive to always provide excellent service to our clients, and to achieve superior standards of operation.

TOPTOTS seeks to enhance the value of the intellectual property owned by all the franchisee owners. We will constantly strive to improve the concept, its execution, and its potential to expand into the market.

2. What do we actually do?

We run workshops that parents come to once a week with their babies, toddlers or pre-schoolers. The parent stays with the child all the time, but the classes are different to regular mothers groups, because of the professionalism and involvement of the teachers running the groups, the excellent educational content of our programs, and the quality of equipment used.

The parent and child come once a week to a class, which lasts about 1 ½   hours. The first 20 – 30 minutes are spent on cognitive and fine motor games, and on educating the parent about various developmental aspects. We offer a different programme each week, with lots of practical ideas on stimulation for the parents to take home with them. We then move on to parachute time where the children learn about rhythm and movement. Depending on the age group, we present ball skills, gym and massage. We are also very proud of our specialized music programme that enhances optimal brain development and music appreciation. Children also get the opportunity to play in our texture pits and complete age appropriate creative tasks. Because our focus is on development of the child in totality, we never leave out  action songs and   movement. Since many parents rely on our classes for social interaction with other parents, refreshments and chat time are part of the class. The classes are filled with music and laughter, as well as fun learning experiences in a warm and friendly environment.
TOPTOTS is not a course with a beginning or an end, but rather an ongoing programme, which gets more complex as the child gets older. Our focus is always on having fun, and never on forcing the child.
With the baby groups we do baby massage, body awareness, music and movement, textures, and early cognitive and fine motor skills (e.g. colour, basic form, pincer grip exercises etc.)
Little tots and older tots are introduced to concrete ways to stimulate intellectual, physical and emotional development, memory games, concept formation, and lots of motor skills. This age group is very active, so activities are fun and concrete.
Pre-school children encounter cognitive and fine motor games, music, movement and spatial awareness sessions, and creativity.

3. What makes TOPTOTS Unique?

We don’t just let the kids use the equipment once a week; however, we also give a follow-through program for home. We believe that parents should be educated too, and that parents should be an integral part of the child’s education. For this reason we give the mums and dads practical learning activities, which we actually do in the classes each week, and which they will be able to do at home using the handouts we give them.

These activities are all given to the TOPTOTS workshop owners in the form of simple to read charts, and detailed lesson plans telling you everything you will need to say and do for the week. They focus on intellectual and fine motor skills, but in a very fun and non-pressured way. They are a very popular and very unique part of our workshops. All activities are age specific, covering 6 age groups. Our activities have been designed and written over a number of years, drawing on extensive background research, and have all been tried out in real life workshops in the past.

Our centers are unique in that a mom can start with you when her baby is three months old, and stay with you until her child goes to pre-school. The activities will never get boring, with fresh ideas given each week to keep her interested. This also means that our TOPTOTS center owners enjoy the financial security of long-term clients, and the increased income that comes from having a wider range of clients that can come to your center.
Each age group, from babies to pre-schoolers, has a unique and age appropriate program. Babies have a special place at TOPTOTS. We have a specific baby program with lovely, gentle stimulation ideas. Busy little toddlers enjoy our active, fun games for intellectual and fine motor stimulation, and of course they love the gross motor play and painting. Parents of older children love our strong focus on school readiness, emotional intelligence, and many other essential areas. Children learn to associate learning with pleasurable feelings, and warm encouragement and attention from their parents. Our program has taken years to develop, and is given to all the center owners. The TOPTOTS owners, developing and researching our program, spend approximately 20 hours per week. As a TOPTOTS franchisee, you will receive absolutely all the intellectual property necessary to run successful classes, you will never have to prepare or plan your own programs. What’s more is that our programs are tried and tested before being sent out, so we know that your classes will be a success.
We try and offer our parents as broad a program as possible, encompassing intellectual skills, physical development, and emotional and social development.
The first few years of life are critical for intellectual development. In this area we do activities to help with concept formation, language, andperceptual skills,maths &creativity.
In the physical area, we do music and movement activities, balance, co-ordination, spatial relations etc. We have a very strong focus on fine motor skills, and we lots of things to integrate physical and intellectual development. We sit the little ones in tubs full of unusual textures. They love it, and it gives them the opportunity to learn to interpret sensory information. For personality enrichment, apart from providing the child with a chance to meet other children without being separated from mom or dad, we also do activities designed to encourage emotional intelligence (e.g. recognising facial expressions) and communication.
Special class time allows for ball skills to enhance and develop all the large muscle groups as well as develop perceptual skills and motor development.
Our brand new music programme has been designed especially for TOPTOTS by one of South Africa’s leading authorities on how music affects children.

Each and every one of our over 1000 activities are tried and tested and approved by Speech and Occupational therapists. We know that children, who attend our classes, have the best there is to offer!

4. Why Franchising?

Franchising has shown tremendous growth over the past few decades. This is because if it is run properly, it is a wonderful system that benefits everyone.

Customers benefit from supporting franchises because they know exactly what they are getting. They can identify the franchise by its brand name and corporate image, and they connect that with excellent standards and quality.

The franchisee benefits because, although you own your own business, you form part of a well-developed support system, which takes away so many of the pitfalls in running your own business. The failure rate of established franchises is less than 5%. In the United States of America, the Commerce Department tracked the success of 100 independently owned businesses, and 100 franchises over a ten-year period. At the end of the FIRST year, 97 franchises were still operating, but 38 independent businesses had closed their doors. By year ten, 90 franchises were still going strong, but only 18 independent businesses had survived. (Source DM Kisch Attorneys)
Banks also lend to franchises more readily, because a well-structured franchise has a lower risk profile.
The franchisor benefits because we are able to expand our business, and know with certainty that the people running the branch are just as motivated to make that branch work as we are, because it is their own business. The system works because it is very capitalistic: if you succeed, we succeed. Because a percentage of your turnover is payable as royalties, we are extremely involved in making your business work!

5. Why own your own business?

There are many reasons why we started the business, and why people want to run workshops themselves. From what our workshop owners have told us, three of the most important reasons are:

• Job security.  It sounds strange that running a business gives you more security, but it does. Your career no longer depends on someone else, only yourself. We give you a clear business system to follow, and solid practical input, so that you can build up a good base of clients. Once you have that, it is hard to put yourself OUT of business!
• More time for family and living. In a business, what you make is directly proportional to what you put in. Your family will see more of you, and you can fit your work around your lifestyle, not the other way around. The hours are flexible, and you can work from home.
• Excellent income. Our centre owners are well rewarded financially for each hour they put in. We have the experience, and the long history in Mother & Child workshops, to be able to back you up every step of the way.

One of our franchisees writes:
I bought this business for a few reasons:

• I could work from home - no more traffic and wasting time in the car.
• I could determine what times I would run classes, how many classes I would have a week, how many clients I would have at a time and so on. This appealed to me.
• I could have my precious child in the class with me at all times - NO OTHER job allows this.
• I could be a career woman in my own right, with my own business and most important, I could control my income and destiny.
• I could feel like I was really doing something worthwhile, yet could be a family woman at the same time.
• Being a teacher, what appealed to me most, was the design and layout of the programs. I knew what had to be collected and for what date, and it was easy to plan ahead. I especially appreciated the fact that each activity was explained really well. Before I presented a class, I knew exactly what had to be done and what the purpose of the activity was. Even though this was my first experience with under three’s (except my own child), I felt as though I knew what I was doing!
• By the end of 1997 (within 6 months), my business was flourishing!

6. Do you have what it takes to become a TOPTOTS franchise owner?

We like to believe that we all operate together in a happy TOPTOTS family. It is therefore important to us that prospective franchisees will become suitable family members.
An ideal family member would display the following characteristics:

• Love and devotion for parents and children
• A love for and an understanding of early childhood development
• An inner drive and enthusiasm to succeed
• Tenacity and energy
• An ability to communicate with adults and children
• Reliable and a sense of commitment to the development of the TOPTOTS group as a whole
• An open and honest disposition
• A willingness to learn and to grow on a personal level

Along with the above, you will need an area to operate your classes from most franchisees use the space the size of a double garage. Although we are not too prescriptive, it is vital that your class is big enough for the parachute to fit in. About 30m2 would suffice.
You will also need an outside play area and an area in which you could do your creative and texture play.
Bear in mind that you would accumulate a great deal of equipment so good storage space is vital.

7. Training

Training lasts one to two weeks, depending on your needs. You will be personally trained by one of the TOPTOTS directors. The following aspects are covered in our training programme:

• Business and Financial management
• The practicalities of running a workshop, a step by step walk through from day one onwards.
• Setting up your workshop – what you need and the best places to source them.
• The program and content
• Marketing and advertising
• Trouble shooting
• The development of client relations
• Early Childhood development (This section may be completed at home)
• Computer basics (if necessary)

8. Where do we go from here?

To receive more information about our Franchise complete the Franchise questionnaire and we will send you information on earning potential and the financial outlay you can expect.

Feel free to contact us at (031) 266 4910 (Durban) with any further questions. If you live close to any existing TOPTOTS, we would like you to visit and get a feel for what a class is like.
Once you feel that this is really what you would like to do and of course once you have returned your questionnaire and we have approved of your application, we will provide you with further information, which we call our final disclosure documents. These documents include the franchise deed and other legal information as required by the Franchise Association of South Africa (FASA).

We are very careful with our franchisee selection, as we have a long-term relationship, and the success of the group depends on the success of each franchise owner.

The time scale involved is as follows:

• Once we have decided on each other, you will receive your franchise agreement.
• In terms of FASA ethics, you need at least 7 days to look at the franchise agreement and final disclosure documents before you sign.
• After signing, we can train you as soon as is convenient for both parties. Training takes about two intensive weeks.  It is possible to do part of your training by correspondence.
• You can usually commence business a month from when you finish training and start advertising, providing you have your premises ready.

Good luck with your decision!
Regards
TOPTOTS Head Office