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Submitted by Peter on Sun, 11/29/2009 - 18:13

Show Four - Running a profitable business
Show recorded on November 25th 2009

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In this show;

We take a look back at a local LADDSA (Luton and District Driving Schools Association) meeting, that was attended by the DSAs chief executive, Rosemary Thaw, we chew over how to run a profitable business and we read your emails.

Increase your visibility to potential learner drivers

Submitted by Peter on Sun, 11/29/2009 - 20:42.

As we were talking about making your driving school business a more profitable one I thought I'd share this blog post I found. I did intend bringing it up on the show, but unfortunatly the conversation did not turn this way. This blog post was originaly by Shola, who is an ADI working in London. His blog is mainly aimed at pupils, but on this occasion he was addressing ADIs. His website can be found at www.ukadi.co.uk, where you can read the blog in full.

Shola gave his top 7 top tips to make your driving school more visible to potential learner drivers. If you can think of some more, or have any comments about these, then please do post it here on this page.

1. Get a driving school website, or work actively at promoting the one you already have or see if there are any improvements that need to be done on it.
A website can be one of the most effective driving school marketing tools available to the instructor to promote his/her business and if setup and promoted properly could be the only means of pupil generation required to keep those enquiries coming in. Setting up and maintaining an online presence need not cost a fortune. You can have an effective driving school marketing website for as little as £10 a year.

2. Make use of your present pupils as advertising and marketing resources. Most instructors might mention on a new learner driver's first lesson that they can be rewarded for introducing a friend, and that is the last time you mention it to them. While you don't want to hound them every week, think of times when it is worth mentioning to them again.

If your learner has had a particularly good lesson or session, that would be an appropriate time to remind them to blog about it or post a comment on their facebook profile.

3. Follow up on previous enquiries. If someone has given you a call in the past about learning to drive, call them up and find out if they are still interested in getting their full British licence. They might have rejected your services in the past because they wanted cheap driving lessons, but having gone down that route of £15 an hour (yep people expect me to offer them tuition at that rate in London) and failed due to improper instruction, or found out that a lot of information had been held back from them, they might wise up and consider paying for high quality services from honest fully qualified instructors like you. I prefer to call rather than text, as it is more effective in converting enquiries to sales.

4. Be of help to learner drivers on online forums. If you show yourself to be knowledgeable and consistently helpful to provisional licence holders who are either being taught by another instructor or family and friends, then you might start seeing people wanting to use you either to pass the test after a failed attempt or transfer to you from family in order to increase their chances of passing. Make sure you include a link to your website in your profile and signature that is appended to every post you make if allowed (see why you need a school website?). If you need more learners to take driving lessons with you, then you have the time to do this, and while the results might not be immediate, it will come if you persist and are consistent in being helpful to others.

5. Check up on lost pupils. Some of your old learner drivers might be thinking of returning to driving, and a call from you might be all they require to kick them into gear.

6. 6th form career advice. If you have a college near you, then you might try and see if you can give a talk on topics such as 'Being self employed and running a your own business'. This might generate some enquiries in addition to the opportunity of giving out cards to 17 and 18 year olds.

7. Put graphics on your driving school car. While having a roof sign is good, it doesn't advertise your services when you are not giving a lesson and don't have it on your vehicle. If you lease your car, then you could opt for magnetic marketing signs which can easily be peeled off.

There are many other ways of marketing your instructor services, be creative and hopefully you will start to see the rewards. Remember which ever advertising methods work for you, should be continued, the most successfull brands keep advertising to keep their number one position (you will probably be seeing a Coke advert on the TV shortly this christmas season!).

Any advice you can offer others on running a more profitable driving school business, then please add it to this page!

Peter.