19/01/2026
Let’s start with an uncomfortable thought experiment.
Imagine you have a newborn baby. It cries when it needs feeding. It doesn’t contribute to the mortgage. It doesn’t go to work. It doesn’t even say thank you.
It is needy, expensive, and wildly unimpressive by productivity standards.
And yet, you don’t call it useless and walk away.
You don’t announce to the world, “This baby just isn’t working for me.”
You feed it. You clean it. You invest time, money, energy, and patience into it. Because somewhere deep down, you trust the process. You understand that growth comes after care, not before it.
Now here’s the real question.
Why don’t you treat your business the same way?
Why We Expect Adult Results From Newborn Businesses
I hear the grumbles all the time.
“I’m not getting clients.”
“The phone’s not ringing.”
“It’s just not working.”
And when I look closer, what I usually see isn’t a failing business - it’s a neglected one.
No consistent marketing.
No visibility.
No relationship-building with an audience that hasn’t had time to trust you yet.
You’ve parked the pram in the shed and hoped someone else would come along and raise the baby for you.
But businesses don’t grow by osmosis.
They grow through presence.
Through repetition.
Through showing up long before it feels rewarding.
Your business is not broken. It’s just young.
And young things don’t thrive on expectation alone. They thrive on care.
One or two weeks of effort won’t do it. Neither will enthusiasm without structure. What’s required is the same thing you’d give a child - consistency, guidance, and an environment designed for growth.
What You’re Really Saying When You Say “It’s Not Working”
Here’s the part that matters most.
When someone says, “My business isn’t working,” what they often mean is, “I’m uncomfortable with how long growth takes.”
But discomfort doesn’t mean failure.
It means you’re in the messy middle.
And that middle stage is exactly where most people give up - right before things start to compound.
If you are a licensee, or considering becoming one, this is where the model matters. Because building a children’s franchise is not about hoping talent magically turns into income. It’s about creating systems that hold you steady when motivation dips.
That’s why we didn’t just hand you a logo and wish you luck.
We built the baby gym.
The structure that does the heavy lifting while you learn to walk.
You already have access to tools that remove the guesswork - from a website-building GPT that literally writes your site for you, to blog-writing support with titles, content, and SEO already handled.
You have reels and social media content ready to brand and post.
You have monthly CPD and marketing masterclasses designed to sharpen your skills and increase visibility over time.
This isn’t a lottery.
It’s a process.
And processes only work when you actually use them.
Raising a Business, Not Waiting to Be Rescued
Here’s the reframe that changes everything.
Your business is not failing.
You just haven’t raised it yet.
You’ve expected GCSE results from a toddler.
You’ve looked for proof before putting in presence.
But trust is built the same way in business as it is in parenting - through showing up even when there’s no immediate feedback.
That’s the difference between dabbling and building.
And this is where a well-supported children’s franchise comes into its own. You are not meant to do this alone. You are meant to be held by a framework while you grow into the role.
Because confidence follows competence.
And competence comes from repetition, not perfection.
When you stop asking whether it’s working and start asking whether you’re showing up, everything shifts.
Growth doesn’t respond to pressure - it responds to care.
Treat It Like the Newborn It Is
So this month, treat your business like the newborn it actually is.
Feed it with consistent marketing.
Nurture it with visibility.
Hold it steady with systems that already exist to support you.
Show up with real energy, not just high expectations.
That is how every sustainable children’s franchise grows - not through force, but through focused, repeated care.
And when you do that, something remarkable happens.
It starts to grow.
by Gemma Bailey (with the help of Ai)
https://nlp4kids.org/becoming-a-licensee
The NLP4Kids franchise gives you the training, tools, and support to build a thriving business as a coach or therapist using NLP and hypnotherapy to help children, schools and families. It’s for people who want to others create real, lasting change in children’s mental health, personal developme...