I just noticed someone found this site on the search term “adi’s lack of pupils 2010”.
I’m not noticing any lack myself. I noticed a distinct reduction in new pupils between April-September 2008 (and yes, I do mean 2008), but from October 2008 it skyrocketed, and the whole of 2009 was very busy. I’m still busy right now, picking up typically 1-2 new pupils a week.
The snow affected lessons, of course. One pupil decided she would wait until it cleared up before she started lessons again, but others revelled in driving in the harsh conditions. I suppose some people who might have planned on starting lessons decided against it until the weather got better, but others seem not to have considered the weather at all and want to learn to drive. Pupils, after all, are like the phases of the moon. They are forever changing.
Having said that, the world does not revolve around me and I know that a lot of other instructors are having a hard time – and have been in that position for quite a while. So why might that be?
The first thing to remember is that whatever is the direct cause of not having enough work today is probably not the same direct cause that perhaps resulted in (for example) lack of work last summer, or in 2008, or 2007, and so on. What happens in the space between someone having an ADI badge and pupils wanting lessons is extremely complicated. Plenty of people think they know the answer, but they don’t – because as I just explained, there is no single answer. It is different for everyone, and it is different every time it happens.
Let’s just consider some of the factors which could be involved.
We’re In A Recession
Shops are closing every day (well, last year they were). Entire businesses are disappearing. People are on short time… You could go on and on. Anyone who thinks that this isn’t affecting people and their ability to pay for driving lessons – particularly in some areas of the country - is an idiot.
It does have a positive side, in that being able to drive is another string in the bow of someone looking for work, so they may put learning to drive as a fairly high priority if they still have funds. I’ve had a few of these myself, so I know it can be a factor – but in really depressed areas it might not be as significant a factor as it is here in the Midlands.
It’s Winter
Some instructors insist that it always goes quiet “at this time of year”. Well, maybe it does for them – so we can’t dismiss it as a possible factor. Personally, I only ever find the Christmas weeks (very) and maybe the first week or two (slightly) in the New Year quieter than the surrounding periods.
It’s Summer
Yep. You hear this one, too. In my own experience you will get a few who go away for an extended period. Even several people going away for a couple of weeks around the same time can rip your diary to shreds if it is already lightweight, but generally people seem to like taking lessons in the summer. However, see the next section for another reason why summer can hit you hard.
Bloody Students
If your clientele is primarily sourced from the Universities and colleges, then once their exams are finished and they go home your work just about dries up from that source (Unis especially). You have to wait until October for it to start picking up again, and it doesn’t pick up immediately… they have to get settled in, finish playing silly buggers, and wait for the colder dark nights to come before they start thinking about driving.
I got caught out with this one year, but I now make sure to the best of my ability that my pupil base isn’t entirely composed of Uni students over the summer. Up to a point you don’t have much choice (unless you turn people away just for being students, which would be stupid), and some years it is worse than others, but it shows the perils of concentrating on just the Universities with your advertising.
On the flip side of this, you do get a few students who start learning when they get home for the summer (although this can be affected by going on holiday, and the fact they stop again when they go back to Uni come October – but 4 months is still a long time to have them).
How Many?
In some places there are a lot of instructors. South Yorkshire is famous for it. And if you believe some of the scare stories numbers are still increasing as people try to earn the oft-mentioned £30,000 by doing as little as possible for it. Personally, I think the danger is overstated – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a factor to be considered in some areas. Obviously, too many instructors looking for work in a depressed area is likely to result in disappointment for some.
Where Are You?
There is a big difference between people living in the South East and those living in the North East or North West (or South Yorkshire, and parts of Scotland and Wales) in terms of employment and disposable income. There’s a big difference between the South East and the South West in terms of population density. In other words: everywhere is different from everywhere else for one reason or another – but if you cover a poor area, with high unemployment, and a reputation for low hourly lesson rates and stacks of ADIs all seeking work, or perhaps where you were the only instructor in a rural area but another two have appeared recently, you might find work taking a downturn.
Totally Independent
Driving instructors are all self-employed (there are a couple of elitist organisations which target affluent people and who, in some cases, might pay their instructors a salary – but they are in a tiny, tiny minority). Instructors either operate completely independently (e.g. Arnold Smith’s Driving School, consisting of Arnold Smith and one car), or through a franchise (e.g. BSM, AA, local school, etc. – all operating more than one car).
An instructor with a franchise will have the franchise’s marketing machine behind him to generate pupils. The effectiveness of this machine can vary from huge to bugger all use… and it is also prey to the same fluctuations already mentioned. Arguably, the larger and more ‘national’ the franchise, the smaller the effects of some of the various causes of fluctuations are likely to be – but then again, it is quite possible a small local franchise has its own marketing down to a fine art, though not all of them do. This is where risk enters the equation (and we’re not going into that here).
If an instructor is not with a franchise he has to advertise and make his own marketing machine. This can take many forms ranging from sitting outside the local school at lunch times or sticking postcards in the chip shops’ and newsagents’ walls… all the way up to whole page adverts in Yellow Pages and local newspapers. It can be cheap or very expensive – and it can be effective or a total waste of money (the amount spent is not automatically proportional to the amoung of work generated).
So what does all this mean? And bear in mind I am not offering a quick fix – just an explanation…
Well, any one instructor could either be fully booked or totally without work depending on how he has developed his business and how external circumstances have settled around him. Two ADIs living in the same street could have vastly different workloads depending on how long they have been doing this, what hours they cover, what days of the week they work, what kind of people they are, and so on. It is possible for the longer serving ADI to be the one without work. It is possible for the least “pleasant” ADI to have the most work. So it is pointless trying to emulate other people and expecting work to roll in: it doesn’t work like that. But yes, some people are suffering heavily at the moment. Any ADI is subject to any or all of the above factors (and there could be plenty of others I haven’t mentioned here).
New instructors especially may be totally useless at marketing their businesses – and yet these are the ones most likely to decide to become totally independent and not use a franchise as soon as they qualify.
The bottom line is that if you do the right things for your own circumstances you can only hope for the best – but with the knowledge that you really did give it your best shot . But if you don’t know what you are doing and just try to cruise along, the risk of failure is higher. In this latter case, you will only have yourself to blame .