A driving school franchise can be a great aid to your driving instructor business. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples in the driving instructor industry that have given driving school franchises a bad name; Offering very one-sided agreements and leaving driving instructors in difficult situations.
A good driving school franchise should do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Supplying you with not only a steady stream of pupils but also offering support too. You should be able to turn to your franchising school or trainer if you need help and advice on dealing with certain students or situations. They should also supply you with the necessary materials to help you with your lessons and make you stand out with you learners, as well as keep you updated with changes in the industry.
Why take out a driving school franchise?
When you first start out on the road working with learner drivers, you will have a lot to deal with. You’ve probably heard people say to learner drivers and maybe even yourself when you were a learner: “The real learning comes once you passed your test”. This is also true with the driving instructor training.
Your in-car training will be mostly role play with your trainer playing the role of the student and you playing the role of the instructor. This is a great training exercise but very different to teaching a real learner of course, as people will react differently to certain situations.
Whilst you are learning the ropes, you will also be taking on the business side of your driving school. This would include acquiring new students, managing your diary, accounts, social media… the list goes on! With all these different tasks at hand, it makes sense to join a driving school franchise for the first year at least. In our experience, most driving instructors stay with the franchise for two to three years. It is important to learn to walk before you try to run to make a success in this business.
Does a driving school franchise work best for everyone?
For most new driving instructors, we believe this is the best path to take but there are some exceptions. Maybe you only want to work part time and you don’t need a large number of pupils. Perhaps you’ve got years of experience in running your own business and think you might be able to make a good go of it. It is important to look at your individual situation.
We think certainly for newly qualified instructors who want to build their diaries quickly, a driving school should be able to achieve this quicker than someone who is just starting out. Not only because they already have an established reputation but have already developed the best marketing strategies for new instructors. A driving school franchise might also be suited to a driving instructor who already has experience but maybe but needs to build up a name in their new local area.
Other driving instructors stay on a franchise for their entire driving instructor career. For some people it works, as they don’t want the hassle of advertising and marketing themselves. They would rather just turn up to lessons and get paid. It can be a better work/life balance for some people, it’s all just down to personal preference.
Flexible driving school franchise available with Nayland Driving School
We pride ourselves on being the driving school franchise with freedom! As a trusted partner of SmartDriving, the UK’s leading driver training organisation, we help to connect driving instructors with pupils who are keen to learn how to drive.
Check out the franchise opportunities that we have available, and you will be able to reap the benefits of local advertising, free online diary, business cards, car roof signage and free apps for pupils – to name just a few!
We want to make teaching as convenient as possible for you, and will do everything we can to make the process stress-free and accessible.
Get in touch with Nayland Driving School today
To find out more about how to build your driving school franchise, please get in touch with a member of the team today who will be happy to assist with any queries that you may have.
