driving school franchisees

[Lee J]

i have a friend who is thinking of joining one of the big driving schools as an instructor.
basically you pay a fee up front and they put you through your instructor badge and you
get a franchise. does anyone know anyone that is an instructor for either RED, BSM or The AA?
friend has a few questions she would rather ask someone who actually does it than the company.

 

[beech1948]

A simple way would be to look in yeklklow pages and select a few numbers of relevant driving schools...then call. It would still be a stranger but info should be real.

Al

 

[Lee J]

but they only tell you what they want you to know. She wants to know potential earnings, how many clients the company gets you, how busy she'll be etc etc

 

[Gary Morris]

My mate Basil is doing the tutorials / tests etc, he said that they guarantee a job at the end, but it's self employed, so I guess they just help out with starting up. As far as he knows you have to build your own client base, so his potential earnings depend on how hard he tries and local factors. He was a bit vague - he's not been doing it for long and is doing bits here and there. Not a lot of help I know.

 

[beech1948]

Lee,

Your wrong. I have twice in my life needed to do such research and each time 4 or 5 people gave me 20 minutes and chapter and verse about earnings, rates, discounts, level of business, growth rates etc etc.

Of course you will get a few tossers who will give you grief and mess you around but thats normal for humans.

Al

 

[DTTech]

I was a driving instructor working for probably the biggest of the bunch.

I was very niaive in my expectations of what benefits being a driving instructor would bring.

What is it the adverts say, earn £35k a year or whatever it is. Not on a franchise you wont! What I found was that to earn a decent wage and offset the franchise fee you had to work a LOT of hours. most of them in the evenging and weekends - I was doing around 35 hrs a week tuition- which doesnt include the getting to and from other clients -and beleive me when I say that a 2 hours of fully guided instruction takes a fair bit out of you.

There are forums which your friend could go on and some offer really good advice.

If your friend hasnt started her training yet tell her not to sign up with a company. I could save her a packet with some simple advice. I spent way way way too much on my training - so called training.

I can see the attractions of working for a company - they gove you a nice car and a stream of customers. This may be true but you pay for it and you can end up running around like a eedjit.
Working for herself and building her reputaton and client base steadily is my advice. She'll be happier, more in control and better off.
I loved the job but the hours and pay were pants. I will be happy to elaborate if your friend wishes

 

[Mr_P]

Keeps seeing advertisements for 10 x 1 hour lessons for £99, what's the catch ?

Min wage is £6 an hour so £4 for insurance/petrol/wear and tear.

That doesn't add up in my head, can someone explain how / why they do it ?

 

[DTTech]

Keeps seeing advertisements for 10 x 1 hour lessons for £99, what's the catch ?

Min wage is £6 an hour so £4 for insurance/petrol/wear and tear.

That doesn't add up in my head, can someone explain how / why they do it ?

Dont know whta the catch is but i'd expect the lessons to be run in 2 hr sessions.

I'm only guessing but i'd expect the deal would include signing up to 10 lessons at regular rates - who knows, it was £21 / hr when I was operating and that was over 6 years ago.