It is wonderful to hear from teachers who have successfully transitioned to business owners. We caught up with Richie Hoare – Nature Makers Faversham, Canterbury and Thanet Coast to hear about his journey from teaching.
Nature Makers is the UK’s leading provider of Award Winning Mindful Nature Art, Craft & Play experiences for Children & Adults.
What’s Your Background
I have a teaching background and feel like I’ve been a teacher of some kind forever but I did have another life even before I became a teacher. My route into teaching started with teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) which I did for several years in Colombia and Spain with a few bouts of travelling squeezed in – these were my nomadic years!
When I felt I was ready to settle back in the UK, I decided I would train as a primary school teacher. By this point, I had no notion of doing anything other than teaching. I initially took a job as a teaching assistant to gain some experience and was able to stay on at the same school to do my teacher training and then went on to work there for another 7 years after I qualified.
During that time, I developed an interest in working with children with special educational needs (SEN) and my final year in teaching was spent teaching in a SEN school.
Why Did You Want To Leave Teaching?
After going back to school after the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, I found the workload and the pressures were getting more on top of me more than they previously had. There always seemed to be more!
This was having a negative impact on my mental health and well-being and I started questioning whether teaching in schools was still something I wanted to do. This caused me to have a bit of an identity crisis as I had invested so much of myself in teaching and identified strongly with the role. I also felt a bit stuck in a rut, a bit stale.
I thought that a change of schools might invigorate me but, although I loved working with my new pupils and a great team of teaching assistants, I still struggled with the workload and pressures and was fairly certain I was heading for burnout, if I wasn’t already there. On top of that, I had a difficult year in my personal life and things were really getting on top of me. So I decided to hand in my notice and take a break from teaching and see what happened next.
Why Did You Pick A Franchise?
Initially, I was going to just take a break and have a few months off work completely. Then one day at home, I had the thought of finding a job where I could still teach and work with children but just teaching about nature and being out in nature (I am a big nature lover!)
I didn’t know if such a job existed but I decided I would look for it. Then a few days later I saw a post in a Facebook group about education franchises. I didn’t really know what they were so started doing some research and came across Nature Makers which seemed to fit with my idea.
I then attended a call with Faye (owner of Nature Makers) for potential franchisees and spent lots of time reading about Nature Makers and looking at its website and social media pages. The more I learned, the more it seemed like the very thing that had popped into my head just a few days before. Before I knew it, I was on a one-to-one call with Faye and things progressed from there.
What Does Your Week Look Like?
At the moment, I only have classes in the mornings. These are great fun and it’s wonderful to get outside in nature with the children and their adults and be creative. After class, I come home and have lunch before doing some admin tasks in the afternoon.
These include, posting on social media, marketing, planning classes, replying to messages and working on my business strategy. It’s very early days for me and I am working on developing a much fuller timetable which will mean my weekly routine will change.
What Do You Wish You Knew Before Starting A Franchise?
I wish I’d known how much hard work you have to put so I could have mentally prepared myself! I, somewhat naively, thought it would be a lot easier but I’ve now come to realise that I had quite a lot of unrealistic expectations.
Having said that, I have absolutely relished the challenge and have learned so much in a short space of time. There have been ups and downs but it has felt like a real adventure. I’ve also met lots of fantastic people along the way. My advice to anyone else considering a franchise would be to manage your expectations and make sure they are realistic. If I had done that I would have saved myself a lot of stress.
What Support Did Your Franchise Give You?
When you join Nature Makers you have access to so much training and support. It’s really set up to give you the best chance of success. When you begin, there is a series of training videos to work through as well as an in-person training which was great fun and involved camping – one of my favourite things!
Once you have completed your initial training, there are loads more videos you can access. Faye is really helpful and knowledgeable and always on hand to offer advice and support. We can book a 121 call with her at any time. There are also regular online coffee catch-ups which I have found very useful.
We also have a Facebook group in which franchisees can post questions and get help from Faye or other franchisees. This is a really great way of fostering a bit of team spirit and enabling us franchisees to support one another. On top of this, we also have access to an extremely useful support programme called Franchisee Bootcamp. This also includes plenty of training, regular calls and a Facebook group.
What Skills Did You Use From Teaching?
Although there are lots of new skills to learn when starting up a franchise, such as how to do marketing, how to manage your finances, how to grow your audience etc., teaching provides you with all the necessary skills for the core part of the work – teaching and working with children and building relationships.
What Are Your Top 3 Tips For A Teacher Looking For A Franchise?
- As I mentioned already, make sure you have realistic expectations. Talk to people who have gone self-employed to gain insights into the challenges you may face. There will be ups and downs but if you manage your expectations you will be much more equipped to deal with them.
- Make sure you plan and set goals and review frequently – I must admit that this is an area I’ve been a bit weak on but I’m working on it. It’s harder to celebrate your successes when you haven’t got a way of measuring them – you might not even recognise them! This leads nicely onto my final tip, which is…
- Celebrate your successes. It’s easy to get bogged down with everything you have to do and it’s easy to fall into the trap of going from one thing to the other without taking time out to reflect. Acknowledge your successes and celebrate them in any way you like – my favourite is with coffee and cake!
Thank you so much Richie for sharing your journey from teaching to running your own Nature Makers franchise.
We love that Nature Makers value teachers and the skills they can bring to their franchise offering. We also love that you can start a Nature Makers franchise whilst teaching, taking some of the risk away from starting your own business.
Faye is lovely, reach out to her for a chat if you are considering a Nature Makers franchise, or visit our Nature Section to learn more.
