How It All Started

How It All Started

As often happens when women are expecting their first child, being on maternity leave left me with time to think about what I wanted to do after my baby was born.

I had built a strong career in the financial services sector, but it was not something I wanted to go back to. I didn’t want to work full time anymore, so I started to think of ways I could work around my new family commitments…

Lots of Ideas

Once my son was born in 2007, I began thinking about and planning my own ‘music mummy’ sessions for 0–5-year-olds … something fun, exciting, and educational. How would this work… would I hire a hall or run small groups in my own home? How much would I charge and what would I do differently to other people?

I did know that I wanted it to be upbeat, fast-paced, interactive, and full of surprises. I wanted to offer an engaging combination of music, dance, and creative activities to stimulate and entertain both adults and children! I didn’t want to make people sign up for a full term, I needed to offer flexibility and affordability.

It was important to me – as I’m quite an anxious person – to help people feel at ease. I wanted time for people to meet and socialise and for my son to meet friends … so social time where hot drinks and snacks were offered, and grown-ups and children could play and make friends was vital.

Bearing all this in mind I started to plan the business and I was just about to launch my first class when I heard of a new Jiggy Wrigglers group near me. It sounded very interesting, so I decided to pop along with my son.

Well … we both loved it. It ticked so many of the boxes above that were important to me, it was ‘pay as you go,’ and I even got a cup of tea and a biscuit at the end!

I left there very excited, and my head was buzzing with ideas. I immediately set up a meeting with the lady who ran the class. I explained my plans and offered her the chance to take the business to the next level. She was onboard!

The Start of Jiggy Wrigglers

I started Jiggy Wrigglers in 2008, and within two years it had grown from one afternoon class to more than 50 classes a week in Hampshire.

Because all of our franchises, leaders, and staff do such an amazing job customers kept coming back and started to recommend us to friends.

Our sister company Jiggy Wrigglers franchised Ltd was formed in 2010  to manage and develop the franchise side of the business whilst also growing my own groups and sessions.

After a while, my business partner decided that her wriggling days were over, and we parted ways. Instead of feeling despondent, I took the opportunity to expand the business into the Jiggy Wrigglers our customers know and love today.

The franchise model has retained many of the brand pillars of the original business such as friendliness, accessibility, and fun, but it was now on a much bigger scale. We added new and exciting programmes for different age categories and refreshed the branding with four new Jiggy characters.

Over the years, we’ve received kind words and recognition from some of our competitors and we have won several awards … this has made us very happy 😊

Our franchise sales doubled in the first two years, going from our pilot franchise to 24 franchises. Today, I am proud to say that we have spread all over the UK and we currently have over 50 members of our team, with more planned.

If you would like more information on Jiggy Wrigglers, please explore our website www.jiggywrigglers.com or email us at franchsie@jiggywrigglers.com