I saw something on a forum on this subject, which I mentioned a few days ago. It was written by Louise Kirkpatrick, of Clearway Driver Training. She has kindly given me permission to reproduce it here, in full:
It’s horses for courses [smiley]
I really don’t know why the same people over and over again on forum after forum keep on getting out the “Driving School Franchises Are Evil” drum and start banging it.
We get the point – you don’t like the driving school franchise model. However, whether you like it or not, it IS a franchise no matter how you choose to twist the definition to fuel your personal bitterness. In it’s simplest definition, a franchise is the right to trade exclusively or non exclusively in an area using a “brand” owned by someone other than yourself with various rights, entitlements and exclusions via an individual agreement between the franchisee and the franchisor. There is nothing sinister about that concept at all.
We know you’d love it if someone waved a magic wand and suddenly ADIs were employees with contracts of employment and employee rights and all that stuff, but that’s not going to happen for numerous reasons. I think I read ages ago that commercial organisations (I think Tesco and Stelios the EasyJet bloke were two of them) had investigated whether running BIG driving schools on a profit making commercial basis was viable. The answer was obviously “no”.
So here in Realityville where the rest of us dwell, the driver training industry looks set to carry on as it has done with a mixture of:
* independent ADIs
* co-operative groups of independent ADIs
* national or semi-national franchises
* locally based franchisesAs for the ridiculous, finger pointing and assumption making “many have gone to the wall” comment, here’s a few points that should be bourne in mind:
1) I doubt whether any franchisor has ever MADE an ADI sign a franchise agreement.
2) I doubt any franchisor has abducted any ADI off the street and held them prisoner until they agreed to join their franchise.
3) On that basis, we must assume that any ADI who joins a franchise does so of their own free will and if they have any sense, they will have done some research about the franchise, read any agreement thoroughly and considered it’s implications before they put pen to paper.
4) A franchise agreement is NOT a guaranteed passport to success or riches beyond the wildest dreams of Joe Bloggs ADI. If good old Joe hasn’t got what it takes to make a go of his business because he’s a grumpy sod, or he turns up late for lessons or any of the million and one things that might make Joe’s pupils find another ADI instead of Joe, then that’s not the fault of Joe’s franchisor.Stop making ADIs out to be helpless fluffy little lambs being conveyed to the slaughterhouse of The Evil Franchisors who sit around doing zilch apart from counting franchise fee payments whilst cackling manically with glee and opening jars of mint sauce.
Let me tell you a little personal story…as readers may know, my husband (who is an ADI) and myself (not an ADI) run a driving school. We’ve done this since 2004. Business went well, so in 2006 we took on another ADI as a franchisee and we kept on doing this when we had more work than we could handle if we felt that we could sustain that level. We only have four franchisees and while we could take on more, we choose carefully and we only take on more franchisees if we feel we can generate sufficient work for them, or if they offer something “unique” i.e. services or skills for a different demographic that will not dilute the work available for existing franchisees. All bar one of the franchisees we have taken on since 2006 are still with us.
The person who started this thread and his comrade in arms have sneered at me more than once for referring to them as “our franchisees”, entirely missing the point that in every sense that matters they are “ours” and we are “theirs”. We are inter-dependant, each side fulfilling a need, in their case a consistent and reliable supply of work and ours for income…but there’s more to it than that. Over the years they have become not “just” franchisees or even colleagues, but friends.
A terrible thing happened 10 weeks ago. My husband and I were on holiday driving around Europe. We were in Livigno, a very beautiful, but isolated ski resort high up in the Italian Alps when, one morning, totally out of the blue, my husband at the age of 39 had 3 strokes in quick succession. He was admitted to hospital 70km away, leaving me terrified and alone. Without me asking, two of “our franchisees” put their affairs in order, got on a plane and then drove 5 hours from Zurich airport to Livigno to help us. My husband remained in hospital in Italy for over a week before flying back to the UK with an accompanying doctor, so “our franchisees” drove our car all the way across Europe and back home as our insurance company turned out to be scum.
What’s the moral of this story and why am I telling it to you? Simply that you get out of people and life in general what you put in…and the same goes for being an ADI. Indie is right for some, a franchise is right for others…and for a few, neither is right as quite simply, they’re in the wrong job and no amount of “blaming” someone else for something YOU have control over makes that fact any different.
I don’t think I need to add anything. This says it all.