Unit 49: Getting work

So you’re a driving instructor now. How do we pay the bills, how do we get established, and how – in the long run – do we build a profitable business?

Recommendations: Free.
This is the best way to get custom, but it won’t help you yet. One customer who has friends could fill your diary in a very short time – with a little luck! Treat every customer like they have lots of friends- build a recommendation scheme that will encourage and reward them to get their friends in with you.

The Directories: 1 line – free, 3 line bold – £120?, quarter column – £400?
Yellow Pages, The Phone Book, Thompson etc – get registered with all of these (this can usually be done online), and make sure you get your free line ad – if someone knows your name, they can find your number. The directories used to be the main advertising for Driving Instructors and many still spend up to £3000 a year on advertising with them. This may not be worth it. Your target audience will predominantly be younger and the directories will not be their first point of call.

The Internet: Name registry – £5/year? Site – Free up to £thousands.
This is where to start. The majority of any work which doesn’t come from word of mouth now comes from the internet. Get registered on as many of the directories as possible and get yourself a website.

At first your website won’t register on ‘standard’ searches (yahoo, google, msn etc), but the directories will send people to you. In the long run you will need your site to work for you.

This means you need people to see your advertisement – get some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) done on your site – at the very least you should appear on all ‘local’ searches for your area. You should also appear on the first 3 pages of the main three search engines (preferably number 1, page 1 for ‘driving lessons in your area’).

Ensure that you can check who is visiting your site and which pages interest them, this way you can adjust your site to keep people interested for longer and make sure that valuable information isn’t missed.

Even before you qualify, it can be worth getting a basic site (however simple) registered and submitted to the search engines. Search engines (especially google) may take some time to check your site and add them to search results – get started early. A professional, well optimised site should cost around £300 for 5 pages – home, prices, you and your car, the course, area. Instructor forums are good for this info (esp. www.drivertrainingtoday.co.uk).

Local Papers: Credit card size ad in the directory of services – £50? Same size ad in the motoring section – £25?
It is often tempting to put a big ad in and hope that this will do the job, but a safer option is to put a regular ad in every week. People will get used to seeing your name, and after a few weeks you will find that you are getting regular calls.

Lesson prices: First Lesson Free, First 4 lessons £5.99, First 10 lessons £99, oh the list of offers is endless!
Don’t get caught in the trap of offering cheap lessons for any period of time. I offer the first lesson free with no catches which means that people can try my service, then I charge a realistic price for myself and for the area I teach in after this. Average lesson prices vary from around £18 an hour in rural and deprived areas to £25 in the big cities.
Bear in mind that doing 6 lessons of an hour will take around 9 hours, but doing 3 lessons of 2 hours will only take 7.5 hours. This enables you to give sustainable discounts to encourage people to take longer lessons – something that many instructors haven‘t cottoned on to yet.
Payment in advance also safeguards you against customers not turning up or cancelling at short notice, which hits your pocket. Discounting for advance payment even by only one lesson will pay for itself and ensure a lot less aggravation in the long run.
What you need to do is work out how much you need to earn, and how much work you are happy doing in order to get there. Do your sums – silly discounts do not help.

Leaflets and flyers: how much work are you willing to do?
This can be a very cheap way of doing things – try to make your flyers as professional as you can afford, and drop them yourself. Ask local shops, take aways etc to put one up for you – many will do this for free, some will ask a few pence per week. If you have contacts with local secondary schools or colleges, ask whether you can advertise on their notice boards. This is a very hit and miss way of doing things, but one customer from 1000 flyers may well make it worth it.

Answering the phone: hmmmmm……?!
It’s all very well being the best instructor, having your number in the right places, and having the right discounts to draw people in, but if no-one is answering the phone you won’t get any customers. Answer as many calls as possible, as professionally as possible. If you have a message return it as soon as possible; people will move on rapidly if you don’t.

How much is one customer worth?
Well – 45 hours (average amount of hours with an instructor for every test passed according to the DSA) at £20 an hour – £900. If you reckon that could be 2 quiet weeks work, this would equate to around £650 after costs and before tax – paying £20 to get nearly 2 weeks work wouldn’t be unreasonable. While getting established, you should probably reckon on around £50 per customer – some of this may be your time and resources offered free, but some of this will need to be hard cash. Anticipate and plan for this, you will not be able to set yourself up without it.

Discussion Points:
Write your own marketting plan