You can’t have missed the abundance of television adverts, telling us how easy it can be to be a driving instructor, how much we can earn, work our own hours and have a fully maintained car, for those who have never worked for themselves in the past, these adverts can appear to be the dream business to give the standard of living they long for.
But like all businesses serious though should be made before entering into businesses and certainly some research should be done before handing over any money to a driving instructor school and certainly before leaving any secure job.
The first thing you should do, is research who is offering driving lessons on your area and ask yourself, is there enough space for you to enter this arena? Driving lessons is a very local thing, students do not want to lose time during their lesson waiting for an instructor to turn up and the driving instructor does not want to travel far, to pick up a student.
You can get a feel to how busy or popular the competition will be by their prices and word of mouth from neighbours and friends who maybe have used the service. If the school is advertising lessons for £10 an hour, there is a hint that business is not brisk. However is they are selling lessons at over £20 an hour this should suggest they are not in any price war.
Of course where you live should also be a bearing. Living in a small village may not supply you with enough customers for your business, however being in a slightly larger village where you are the only instructor could mean your business becomes a god mine. no one outside the village would want to travel to your patch.
Maintained car means the word leased and of course you are paying for this, so do not get carried away with the TV adverts as if the car comes free. whatever you pay for the leased car, is what you are not earning as wages, so take this into account.
Working your own hours is against your earnings. You cant work less hours and still earn high amounts of money, so really you have a choice, work the hours your clients want, or earn less money, it is up to you.