Franchises

 A newly qualified instructor may not initially want all the hassle of running his own business as a self employed driving school proprietor. Indeed many experienced and long serving instructors prefer to operate under a franchise agreement with one of the larger schools. This arrangement has advantages and disadvantages as outlined below.
 

1. Although you are classified as a Self Employed person, as a franchisee all the problems of finding and funding the purchase of a vehicle, the insurance, the advertising and the constant flow of pupils etc, are taken care of by the company offering the franchise. This leaves the instructor with the no small task of concentrating on teaching. Some companies are better than others at providing the back-up service an instructor needs to make a good living and a good instructor will find he gets a good supply of pupils from such a source. After all it is in both your interests to be professional and get it right. See the DRIVERS WORLD Directory for companies offering franchises in your area.
    

2. A word of warning - Not all franchise companies give good value for what they charge, nor are they good at supplying what they claim to offer. The weekly cost of a franchise can be anything from £150 to £300 and even more in some cases. An instructor may well find himself working between 15 and 20 hours a week just to cover the franchise costs before he starts earning money he can keep for himself. Some companies take on so many instructors that they cannot produce enough pupil hours to satisfy all their needs and an instructor may well find he is only allocated enough hours to ensure he can cover his franchise fees. This is unfair on the instructor, indeed it could be classified as sharp practice. He becomes disillusioned at not being able to make a living and leaves the profession. The company is not particularly concerned about this as there is always someone else coming along to take their place. Indeed some companies run their franchise operations in such a way that they make more profit out of the instructors than they do from actually teaching people to drive. Watch out for these
    

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