Work - Life Balance
If your life is all work work work, you need to find a balance.
Constantly working will take a strain on you in the end, and from a physical and mental health point of view, it's just going to burn you out.
Family life will suffer.
Try and create a routine for work, play, family and you time!
Whether married or single, you need down time.
Being in the driving industry the physical and mental issues are all to common on the human body.
The level of vehicles on today's roads, the complexity of certain junctions and just roads generally have the requirements for you to be on your toes all day long. That is just not good for your health.
Although you are not necessarily doing anything physically strenuous the fact that you are not moving much at all can be hugely detrimental to your overall physical health. Mentally, the job can be extremely tiring, although your are not physically driving, you are mentally driving while all the time instructing.
We always recommend to our pupils they should only drive for a certain amount of time before taking a break.
Driving instructors are not super human, they need a break as well.
If you have family, and you are constantly working, they are going to miss out on seeing you as much as you are missing out seeing them.
This in turn can affect relationships.
Don't let your job overrule your life. you only get one.
It has to start with you doing some maths.
You'll need to take into account everything that is necessary for you to run your household bills, run your business so that it is making a profit, and allow for things such as Tax, National Insurance, and even VAT if your business is that busy.
Make sure everything is included, which may mean combining your partners income as well (if you have one).
See what the total figure comes to, see how much contribution either of you can make to covering all of your overheads and then calculate how many hours per week you will need to work to achieve the required figure plus extra to make a profit.
You'll need to take into account that there may be downtime, where a pupil may let you down at the last minute, do you have Terms and Conditions that you supply to your pupils for late notice cancellations? You'll need to allocate a certain amount of time where you won't be earning due to holidays, or sick time. Are you going to be working at weekends? Is you rate higher at certain times of day or at the weekends? Although it may seem harsh to be charging a higher rate, if you've ever worked for a company you would expect to be paid more for working anti-social hours or at the weekend, so why should you not charge more as an instructor. These are all factors that you should consider, and consider it without feeling guilty about charging more. Remember, you are running a business not a charity. If you set just one fee, you are not rating yourself and you business high enough.
Once you have your figures, try and work out areas in which you want to work, and possibly as best as you can, try to group all your pupils who live in certain areas on certain days of the week to avoid excessive travel between each pupil. The more you are driving around in between pupils the more money you are losing.
If you find that you'll need to work 40 hours a week just to break even, there's possibly something wrong with your business model and you'll need to rethink your pricing structure. Doing all those hours week on week in a car is going to wipe you out. It's probably ok whilst you are younger and full of energy, but as you get older, sitting in a car for that amount of hours week in week out will eventually take it's toll on you.
If you are only doing one hour lessons, try making them 1 and a half hours or even 2 hours long. This will mean you needing to find less pupils per week, less travel time in between each pupil and possibly an earlier finish at the end of the day. This will give you more time with your family.
If that doesn't quite make sense to you, take a look at our pricing page to see how much difference it can make to you by increasing the length of each lesson.
