Treat your driving school like a business - Dino Tartaglia

Dino: 00:00:33

Foreign.

Terry: 00:00:43

Welcome and thank you for joining us on the instructor podcast where every week we're joined by experts and innovators, leaders and game changers so we can hold a mirror up at the instructor industry and see where we can improve and raise our standards. So if you're ready, we'll make a start.

So thank you for joining us on this episode 12 of the Instructor podcast, the last official episode in this series. We do have some bonus episodes coming up between now and the start of season two, which will actually be on August 1st.

So yeah, the the final episode in this series and I just want to take a moment to thank everyone for listen, it's been great getting the support I've got. I hope that I've managed to help you in some way or another.

Whether it's gaining confidence, learning a new trick around marketing, even if just branching out into some new area somewhere, experimenting on trying something. I hope that I've managed to help you or at the very least entertain you a little bit.

Either way, if you've enjoyed it, make sure you give us a like a subscribe, a follow whatever it is you do on whatever platform you're listening. That would be awesome. And we'll be back with a bang on August the first.

As for today's episode, I am joined by Dino Tartaglia, who is a man of much experience, much wisdom and many words and almost all those words are very intelligent and very helpful.

And he joins us today to give us some insights on how we can run better businesses, primarily as driving instructors, how we can run better, more efficient businesses and change our mentality potentially to look at ourselves as actual business owners rather than driving instructors. We are business owners who run a driving school that we are driving instructors within, as opposed to just saying I'm a driving instructor.

And it brings a wealth of knowledge and some some really good insights. So I'm sure you'll enjoy this episode as always.

We're joined by Chris Benstead of the DITC who's bringing us the latest update update from the world of the DVSA and their latest offering to us. So I'll see you on the other side with some final thoughts, but for now, enjoy the show.

So welcome to the Instructor Podcast and today we are joined by Dino Tartaglia with no G, the ever insightful and knowledgeable Dino. How are you today, Dino?

Dino: 00:03:31

I'm very good, sir. Thank you for having me on the show. Looking forward to it.

Terry: 00:03:35

It's great to have you on. You're one of my. I was going to Say idols. I don't know if that's quite the right word. But yes, you're definitely up there.

Someone that's been a big inspiration to me over the last couple of years and that I follow intently and admire. But anyway, that's enough praise. Get into what I've got you in for.

The first question I want to ask you is quite a broad one and go into as much detail as you want on this, but I'd just like to know a little bit about you, about your journey, about what, what you're up to now.

Dino: 00:04:06

Oh, right, okay. Right.

Well, having, having passed my driving test many, many, many years, I, I'm now the, the ripe old age where I'm entitled to discounts on public transport. So I hit 60 the other, the other month. So I, I'm actually down, down, down in the south of the country at the minute.

Although I live up in Newcastle when I'm in the UK and I got a, I got a train journey down which was just lovely, I have to say. So as much as I love driving, I like being on trains even more.

So yeah, I'm a just over 60 year old format electronics engineer so I came off the tools if you like at a very early age when chartered did as you do and you start man management and all that kind of stuff worked all over the world.

I was an oil and gas and control systems and stuff for quite a while, so quite a practical blog I guess you could say and been all over the place and eventually fell into via some kind of secured disroot business development and I got a bit of a taste for that.

I started figuring out how people worked as opposed to how systems sort of mechanical systems and electronic systems worked because it was just another set of processes for me and began to understand how to get people to do certain things in a positive way. I would stress and why people didn't do things. In other words, why systems failed because ultimately systems are just designed by and run by people.

So generally for systems not working well somebody hasn't thought something through properly or they're not doing the thing or and we were talking about this earlier on with pronouns when we terry about the implementation of something you have the best of intentions but you don't think it through properly from the user experience. Excuse me.

So you, your best of intentions kind of fall flat because what you think is going to happen and what actually happened on the ground, you know, just not happening frankly. You know, an illustration of that would be design for example, somebody designing footpaths, you Know, like a planning department.

You look at where there's a bit of greenery in a city and the shortest route to get to where you want to go to is not to follow the path around at a right angle, but to cut across the grass.

Guess what you see in most places a well worn path because somebody's fighting reality and not putting a path in there because that's what people are going to do, trying to force an outcome. We'll get into that probably, I guess, as we go. The whole idea of forcing outcomes.

So I kind of went through that process of discovering how people roll, got into business development, started, you know, getting a knack for that. I'm not a salesman per se, but I'd like to think I can communicate.

And for me, sales business development is just about open and transparent communication and understanding. If there's a fit and just being honest, you know, does this, is this likely the work for you? Good.

And I'm going to push, push this in that case because I think it will help. Or is there not a fit or not a fit yet? In that case, I'm going to talk about something else like how are your kids? Just some, something human. Yeah.

So I kind of got into that, got a. Found I had a, you know, got into my stride with it.

And just between being on the tools and doing the biz dev and doing troubleshooting, which is eventually what I got into, I just traveled all over the place. So the last time I totted this up, I'd lived in 23 countries on five continents. So lived and worked as opposed to just visited.

I think I've gone over 100 countries now in terms of countries I've visited. But in terms of living and working. So actually having experience of the culture, it's 23 and, and I've loved it. And it has.

You know, they say travel broadens the mind. By God, it does. Yeah. You, you learn to just relax a lot about a lot of different things that you think are right or wrong.

Because what's wrong in one country is absolutely right now and for good reason sometimes is right in another country. And you get to just be a lot broader in your approach and a lot more forgiving, I think, as a result.

So, yeah, troubleshooting, if I was to hang my hat on anything and just say that that's who I am, I'm a troubleshooter by nature anyway.

So I'll look at a set of, set of issues or dramas that are going on, somebody's business or life, whatever, and stand back and generally get a fairly clear perspective on what's going on.

And we have this expression that success engineers at the business that Simon and I set up, obviously, which is where you and I bumped into each other, which is brutal honesty and radical transparency.

And the reason for that is unless you understand what you're dealing with without the emotion, which is really key, you don't have a baseline to start measuring things from and assessing things. So then you're buying a story, not a reality. And that doesn't help anybody. So if. Yeah, if you want a personal philosophy, kind of starts there.

Terry: 00:09:09

Cool. It's quite an interesting tale you've got there. And I'm going to come back and pick the bones a little bit shortly.

But before we do, right at the start of that, you mentioned about driving and learning to drive. And I ask everyone, they come on what their experience was, sort of going back in learning to drive, then how you handled the test day.

So be intrigued for someone with, try and put this politely, your experience, what it was like when you took your test and learned to drive.

Dino: 00:09:40

Yeah.

So with the experience I have and the hindsight, which is always a good thing, looking back, there's no way in God's earth I should have passed my test. First things first. Just be really clear.

I had a very benevolent examiner, I think, on the day, and I think it was because, again, we go back to communication. I talked to the examiner through the, through the, the. The. The test. And I don't. I mean, obviously it's a long, long, long time ago, Terry.

So I don't know if things have changed. I suspect they have. But just that clarity, you know, here's what I'm thinking as I'm approaching this junction.

Here's what I was thinking when I made that mistake I just made. Yeah, that sort of stuff. I think that's what got me through because I fluffed it. I really did. But there was clarity of thought.

So I think the examiner thought, well, this, this guy, you know, has the right idea, just needs a bit more, you know, maybe it's nerves or whatever. I was nervous, to be fair. So I passed first time. I had no earthly right to pass first time. I don't use. Use that.

And even then, I didn't use it as a badge of honor. It was. I got through. Christ only knows how I got through. Thank God.

I'm going to go and light a candle at the local church and just put it down to put it down, the luck. Because I kind of knew I shouldn't have Passed. But I was very grateful for that because, of course, it's one of those things with exams, isn't it?

When you pass, you pass. Yeah, there isn't. Yeah, there is. Somebody doesn't go and say, well, you weren't quite, quite there on the day. We kind of fluffed it.

But do it again, you've got it and you've got your license. So that was kind of great. Went out and got bladdered. Didn't drive, obviously, and it was great fun. But to get there, I just, you know.

You know that expression about kissing a lot of frogs till you find your prince and all that? Yeah, I had a kiss a lot of driving instructor frogs. Basically. I ended up with a guy, a local guy who was cracking. Very, very bright guy.

We hit it off because he. He was a technical guy, so we kind of spoke the same language. Very methodical, but also great sense of humor. Highly intelligent bloke.

Probably about the fifth driving instructor or six driving instructor that I tried. We just got into a vibe and the way that he taught worked for me. That was it, basically. We just. We just became good mates, actually.

And he insisted pretty much as soon as I passed that I went straight in for AIM and did the advanced, which was great experience as well. And I just. I just basically followed everything you told me to do, pretty much. So, yeah, a top tip is.

And of course, people in your care have got that sussed, but top tip is find a driving instructor that is a fit. Yeah, I don't think it's our job to fit around the driving instructors. The driving instructor's job to, you know, to be a match, if you will.

That's my view and that worked for me.

Terry: 00:12:26

I think you mentioned some real key things there that I want to touch back on. And you just said there about fighting a match. I think that's massive.

You know, it even goes back to what you said before about going to different countries and different countries having different opinions or takes on different aspects of life. And I just think that's huge. And, And I do believe that's an area our industry is lacking.

And I'm speaking specifically about our industry because I don't know every other industry. I'm sure it applies elsewhere as well, but it's that that mindset of this is my way, so this can be the only way.

And yeah, I think that, like you're saying there for, for students coming to lessons, you don't have to settle on your first instructor. You know, I tell mine on that first lesson, if you don't like me. Be honest and tell me, you know, don't have to tell me face to face.

Drop me a message and find someone else. I think that's a real key point, actually.

What advice would you give to instructors on how to get that message out there and how to deliver that within your business, if that makes sense.

Dino: 00:13:29

That's a really good question. I guess, top of my head, I just say, communicate that to people.

It's probably a point of differentiation because I suspect the vast majority of instructors don't do this. They don't communicate this. And it's. Yeah, people will react the way they do because, you know, Brits don't.

Don't like giving what they perceive to be bad news. Even when somebody says, you know, the.

The New Zealand, the New Zealand, all blacks have got a great expression, stab me in the front, which basically, whatever your opinion is, tell me so I. I can get better. It's a great, great expression, and it's that kind of stab me in the front approach.

But if you say that to somebody, they're thinking, holy, I can't. I can't stab you. I'm gonna do that.

So they don't want to deliver what they perceive to be bad news, even though you don't see it as that, because they're. The way they feel about it being Brit is, oh, this is, you know, I have to let you down gently. Or sometimes they just run away and never tell you.

Yeah, think about the last time you sold a house. I've done a few of those. And people come around and go, oh, my God, I love it, and all that.

And you say to them very, very bluntly and very straight, look, that's. That's wonderful. If you're interested, let me know. And if you're not interested, can you just let me know? I'm cool either way.

Because it's my job to just get a lot of people to see the place so that we find a match. You know, somebody who really loves the place and really wants to pay the money. If that's not you, that's awesome.

It just helps me understand that I'm not waiting for you. Can you do that for me and people here? I really want you to buy the place. Please buy it from me because you said you liked it.

That's what they hear, but it's not what you're saying. And I think it's the same with driving instructors when, frankly, any service provider, you say this and you mean it.

And people hear something quite different, which is, please, like Me or please, please buy my service.

So it's flipping that around and just, I think just saying it and understanding that as a driving instructor, as a, frankly, as an owner of a business, ultimately it's your job to just bring in enough people so that you yourself find a match and you have enough students who just like how you roll and are a fit for you so that you can better help them. And that's the job.

So it's about finding a way to express yourself so that you attract those people and you repel all the people that just aren't a fit and aren't a pain in the ass of a student. Because I guess flipping this around. Yeah, driving instructors, we've got that problem too.

Terry: 00:15:51

Yeah, definitely.

And again, it's interesting you say that because this wasn't necessarily what I brought you on the episode to speak about, but just where you're saying that.

I'm having flashbacks now to the, the first time I ever worked with you on our, our first call, which is actually on my 37th birthday, I think it was. So, yeah, I can remember that because one of the things that you spoke to me about that was, was really niching down to who my target audience is.

And that's who I want it to be. That's my customer, not other people's views of who I should be taking is who I want to teach.

And I can remember being really, really resistant to that because, you know, you brought advertise to everyone, then you'll get everyone. But so I think just before I ask you sort of advice on that, just my side of that is that now my customers are awesome. Genuinely.

They, they get filtered out or they self filter. By the way, I am online, you know, 90% of the people I don't want to teach don't come to me because of the way I am online.

Dino: 00:16:57

Yeah.

Terry: 00:16:57

And then when I speak to them, whether it's by a phone call or message swap or whatever, they get filtered out them and it's them not choosing me. It's not me not choosing them. It's just I filtered them out almost inadvertently by talking the way I talk. So it worked for me.

I'm much happier in my job now because of the people I work with. So what, what advice or what tips would you have for people to, you know about not being afraid to niche down and learn how to niche down?

Dino: 00:17:25

Yeah, that's another great question. There's an old, an old expression. I have many old expressions. Old expression. If you speak to everyone, you speak to no one and it's.

And it's exactly that. The person who is a perfect fit for you as a, as a driving instructor and as a student.

And this goes both ways, actually, I guess, in some respects, but particularly for the driving instructor, they're out there, but there's a lot of noise and certainly in audio and electronic terms, what you're looking to do is to increase the signal and reduce the noise. So the kind of signal to noise ratio, if you like, changes and you want to stand out.

The number one cardinal sin in any business, first off, is that you're brilliant at what you do and no bugger knows about it. But then the taking up no bugger and going, well, who is that? It's identifying that.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of the whole in, in the online space in particular, although this is, this is the case for marketing in general. We're taught about avatars and ideal client profiles and, you know, and basically finding the people who.

And they've got, you know, 2.2 dogs and, you know, and half a leg and, you know, and the granny ate this for breakfast and all that kind of stuff. And they drive a Merc and that's great, that's the demographics.

And then you get told about psychographics, which is how they think and how they feel. But generally nobody talks about who they are. How much integrity have they got, how much fun are they to be around?

All that kind of stuff, which is the stuff we talked about. You start putting the characteristics and the personality of somebody into that mix and get a feel for.

And you should, frankly, if you're doing a kind of Mad Men style appraisal of what your ideal customer is, you should get to that level of depth. But generally we're not taught this in the business space. But above everything else other than can they afford me and do they need what I've got?

So in other words, are they in the market to learn to drive? Is it something they actually want to do or they've been told they've got to do that?

Identifying those basics, once that's out of the way, who are they as a person? Imagine that person sitting in your car for the next three or four months for one hour a week. Do you want them to be there?

Is it going to lift you, as I say, is it going to energize you or innovate you? Where is that?

And maybe write a list of characteristics down, take a bit of paper, stick a line down the middle and just put characteristics on what you know, on kind of one side, all the things that they could be in order to generate on the other side, the feelings that you get, the joy that you get from having them there with you.

And if you start to do that and start focusing on that, you'll start relaxing and talking about, as you have done manfully, by the way, and brilliantly, you start talking about the stuff that just makes you you. And that, like you said, Terry, that brings in the right people and it repels the right people, providing the message is being heard.

Signal the noise. Again, that's kind of key. So be who you are. I would say be more of who you are in more places.

Get vocal and start getting intentional about it instead of just letting life happen to you as an instructor.

Terry: 00:20:40

Yeah. And again, wise words. I think that. I don't know if I've mentioned this before on the podcast, but I think it was last year sometime.

I'd seen another school put a post up about explicitly stating in the post, we will not pull up at side at road and talk. If you do an hour lesson with us, It'll be like 59 minutes of solid driving. And I didn't like that.

But it was one of the most popular posts I'd seen for a while. So I just turned it around and I put a post up about what I do and said, we'll pull up at Sardock Road as long as you need to.

If we spend 50 minutes at Cider Road, 10 minutes driving, that's what we'll do.

Dino: 00:21:15

Yeah.

Terry: 00:21:16

And that probably garnered me more interest and more customers than any of our post had ever done because I explicitly said, I'll work with you and if we need to do this, we'll do this rather than, you know, being a dictatorship.

Dino: 00:21:29

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the difference between an off the peg suit and a made to measure suit.

Terry: 00:21:34

Yeah, definitely. And again, touches back what we're saying before about finding the right fit for you.

And if you're a customer that needs or wants an instructor that literally drives for 59 minutes out of a 60 minute lesson, then you're not the customer for me.

Dino: 00:21:47

Well, the other question I would have about that is. And yeah, some people, again, right, let me put this in the business terms.

The average person who is not developed as a customer looks for the how to. So how do I do this? So the mechanics of something, the more developed customer is asking about the thought process and how to be, not how to do. Yeah.

So you came to me at a point where you were ready to. You were asking questions about because the how to do hadn't worked for you so far.

So you were thinking, right, okay, I need to understand how to be, how to, you know, what is it? What has to change here in me, in my approach to business as opposed to learning the hacks and learning the mechanics of the business.

Same with the driving a car. Because the reality is, and I guess that the, you know, 95 of the, of the, the kind of efficacy, if you like, you know, being with you.

The benefit of being with you is you teaching somebody how to be as a driver. Yeah. Rather than how to, you know, how to, how to change gear, for example. Yeah. So how to drive, not how to work the mechanics of the car.

Because the truth is, you could go out with a dad or the mum and I just learn and just practice that once they've got the basics, but how to think as a driver, how to look ahead, you know, all the observational skills, the, you know, the navigating skills, just the understanding, the processing skills, how to handle themselves when they're under stress, if they're a bit nervous or whatever, or something happens on the road that will only come from you and the, you know, and, and, and then experience, obviously. So that might be 45 minutes of the lesson parked up to your point.

So, yeah, people go to a good driving instructor, they don't understand that they're not developed enough. They're going there because they think they've got to find out where the biting point is on, on the clutch and all that kind of shit.

And of course, it's not really about that at all, is it?

Terry: 00:23:41

No, like, like you said, you can learn that anywhere.

You could hire a car and go out with your mate and, and learn the skills, but you're not going to learn the behaviors and the attitudes and, and I think that's key. And, and that again touches back on what, what you mentioned before about the how to and the being.

And as instructors, when we become instructors, we're not. And speaking from a personal point of view, where, and I know a lot of people were in my situation, we're not prepared for the business side of it.

For me, it was very much, oh, I want to be an instructor, that looks fun, I'm gonna go do that. And I started up with a national company which made it a bit easier because they took care of a lot of business side of it.

But then it's like, oh, there's all this other stuff to do, like marketing, like tax returns, you know, like personal and self development.

And I'm Going to ask you a really, really broad question here, so I almost apologies for this one, but starting up a new business like that, when it's.

Whether it's a driving instructor business or whatever it might be, what would you say would be some of the key areas to focus on that maybe aren't necessarily the obvious areas of, like, for me, just go and doing driving lessons. What would be the key areas around that?

Dino: 00:24:56

So two. Two things to focus on, which are going to sound a bit abstract, I guess, to the listeners, but we'll kind of get there with this.

The first is identity. Most people go into business because they have no choice.

Pretty much they're kicked out or they've got VR or, you know what, they leave a job and they're out in the wild. And then generally speaking, whether they've elected to do it, I'm saying they've got no choice.

They've either elected to leave or they've left unceremoniously or somewhere in between. And now they're thinking, what the hell do I do? Or they've got a plan.

But generally it's to monetize their skills or they pick up a new set of skills. So they go and join a national driving outfit and learn, learn to become a driving instructor. And there they are. That's the. That's a new life.

So they're not learning that they call themselves business owners, but when you ask them at a party, you know, what do you do? Because. Yeah, that's generally what people do. It's. You don't get the response, I do this. You get the response, I am a driving instructor.

That's an identity problem. Because you're not a driving instructor. Yeah.

You might have the skill of a driving instructor and that might be the job of work that you do, but the business you've got is the business of delivering driving lessons and creating drivers. That's what you. That's what your business does. So I am. I am a business owner or I am a person who has a business that. Not I am a.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So the shift in emphasis is I have a business that. Because the business will require things of you that you will let slip.

Because if it's a job, which it is, if you say, I am a driving instructor and you move with that and you think like that, because most people do. I am a graphic designer, I am a physiotherapist. Everybody does that. Yeah. I am a. I'm, you know, I am an owner of a business that delivers X.

I am an owner of a business that does y. That's different. Because then it's. The business has to do tax returns. Whether you like it or not.

It has to happen because the business has that requirement. Yeah.

The business is sitting at the boardroom table when you have the boardroom meeting with yourself, because you are the director and the shareholder. You are it. And the business needs representation. So it sits there personified and said, what did you do yesterday?

The accounts are one day away from being overdue. What did you do about that? And you're going, oh, shit. Whereas if it's just you not asking that question, you are the firewall.

You don't think about it. You go watch Netflix and another day slides by and then you think, oh, I've really got this, got to get this done. All the stuff you don't want to do.

Yeah, marketing, as you mentioned before, and sales. Jay Abraham, the sales and marketing genius, said, paraphrasing, pretty much, if you're in business, you're automatically in sales and marketing.

And the man was not wrong. He really is. We are in. Now. Whether you do it or you get somebody else to do it needs to be done because the business requires this.

Because again, number one cardinal sin of business, you're brilliant at what you do. No bugger knows. How do you do that? Marketing, predominantly sales should be the conclusion of marketing.

Marketing done really well gets ideal customers almost standing outside your car ready to buy a block of lessons. Sales is taking the order, making sure, first of all they're a fit, and then taking the order. That's really what sales should be.

Generally, sales we see as persuasion and a bit icky and whatever.

But actually, if the marketing's done well, people already know who you are and they know that you're a fit and they want to buy, then you just got to make sure that you know you. They're making the good decision, which is really what sales is about. So there's all that stuff to sort of.

Sort of tackle, if that helps answer the question. So these are the things to think about. But start by shifting identity. I'm a business owner, which is kind of. Which is kind of really the key thing.

And then understand that there are. There are a lot of things that you have to do as a business owner because the business requires this.

Get them logged and start looking at how you do that, how you make it happen.

Because the truth is, one person, one man, one woman, whatever, one person can't do all of that necessarily, unless there's some kind of structure and ideally, Some kind of help. The sooner that you as a business owner accept that, the sooner you stop trying to kill yourself.

And instead of getting yourself into places where you get into kind of what Simon, the other half of success engineers calls thought furrows good expression into these mental troughs, if you like that. You can't get out of these ruts where you think, well, I don't have the money to bring anybody else in or outsource this. I'll have to do it myself.

Wrong way of thinking about it. Shift your thinking. The question is not how do I live with this? The question is how do I solve this? And that's another probably useful takeaway.

Whenever you're faced with something, question is, how can I do this? How can I solve this? Not how can I live with it.

Terry: 00:29:59

Yeah. And you mentioned there as well about bringing people in to help you.

And I think that's key because correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not necessarily explicitly meaning I'm going to pay this person to do this for me. It's not explicit that it's getting people to help raise your level.

So even if you don't want to get an accountant, well, if you get someone to train you how to do your own accounts, then you're going to be able to do that quicker and more efficiently and more accurately anyway.

And I say this word a lot, apologies, but it's interesting that you say that because it's somewhat that I think every single guest so far has mentioned on this show about personal development and professional development. There's a real excuse upon roadblock in our industry about particularly paying people to help you.

It's that old school mindset of I'm just doing this and people can't see your reaction when I say that, but I can. So I'd love your thoughts on that.

Dino: 00:30:57

It tickles me. It really does when I hear that. It's like part of the language. But you're a driving instructor. What the fuck do you think you were doing?

Terry: 00:31:05

Yeah.

Dino: 00:31:06

Yeah. And it's the same with every service provider. Yeah, same and the same question. What the. Do you think you.

You're helping people who are paying you to help? They're outsourcing their learning to you. Yeah.

And then you're helping them do that or whatever, you know, whatever services or the pain, if you're a physio or whatever. And it's the same. So it's like, well, what do you need done? Again, forget you. What does the business require? Take it away from you.

What Is the business requires this. Okay, answer. You're, you're sitting around the boardroom table with the business sitting there, you know, as a person saying, I need this.

You're saying why? The business says, well, it's a legal requirement. Accounts, for example, is it filing with hmrc? Okay, I accept that. So, so now we qualified it.

I'm not just going to roll over because it's just somebody else in the board, you know, in the boardroom asking these questions and demanding these things.

I'm going to make sure that they're necessary because first rule of business, you know, or a task list, let's call it that in business is, is it necessary? Should this be done at all? It's a really good question to ask. Does this need to be done? Not now, not as urgent. Does it need to be done by me?

Just does it need to be done at all? What would happen if I just didn't do this? What would the consequences be? And if it's, it'll all go to. Probably needs to get done. Yeah. If it's.

Well, actually, I can't answer that. Probably nothing. Do you need to do it? Yeah, good question. So you're sitting talking to the board.

The, the business and the business is talking back to you saying, I need this thing done. And it's exactly, it gets, it gets back to the, the okay, we've now qualified, we've now qualified. This, we've established it needs to be done.

This goes on the list as one of those things that has to be done regularly, periodically, you know, as a one off, whatever. The question then is how, how do we do this? How can we make this happen? Not I can't afford it or it's not viable, or it's this or it's that.

Getting the negative shit out your head. The other thing that you mentioned that you mentioned personal development a few times, Terry, and rightly so, obviously. I mean, God.

Simon and I have a business model called character led business for exactly that reason.

It's about, you know, we talked about this in terms of finding your ideal client or attracting the right sort of people who are just fun to be around and just lift you up when they're in the car. Which is great and that's an ideal, but you know, it's not. It's one you should shoot for as a driving instructor, I think.

And in any business, character led business picks out characteristics, traits that people have, you know, and not just personality, sort of personality types and all that, but actually what, you know, what are their values if you like, how do they roll? How do they express that? Which is really what your character is? It's the outward expression of who you are. Yeah. So we, we kind of look for this.

When we flip this around as business owners, then we start asking questions like, well, what do we need? What are our values? What do we want as a business? Don't be a creature of circumstance. Be a creator of circumstance.

Decide on the type of business that you want within the confines of you owning a driving school and figure out what that looks like. What type of driving school do you want? What sort of people do you want? Do you want to be a one man band or one woman band?

Do you want to have other instructors? Yeah. Do you want to be national? Do you want to be, you know, local? Why? Yeah, most importantly, what drives that?

Is it, you know, will that bring you happiness? Will you feel fulfilled? These are questions you've got to ask. Then you start looking at who you are as a person and looking at your characteristics.

Terry: 00:34:31

Right.

Dino: 00:34:32

Well, that scares the out of me. Okay. In order to deal with that, then I need a bit more courage. Because you don't eliminate fear. You step into it with courage.

That's how you handle fear. Yeah. Bravery is not the absence of fear. It's doing it anyway and facing it. So you need a bit more courage. I'm always straight with my students. No.

Should I be? Well, yeah, that's one of my values. Honesty. Okay. You got to work on your integrity. Yeah, Characteristic. So that's personal development to your point.

Just, you know, I just felt I might go off on a bit of a tangent there and just maybe explain that, because a lot of people hear the term and don't really know what it means. And there's a great expression that you have to be before you do. And it's kind of true.

Sometimes you do in order to be because you get the experience from that and it forces you to grow a bit. Because we grow through challenge. There aren't many other ways we grow. Yeah, we grow as people. We grow through challenge.

Sometimes that's not a good challenge. Sometimes that's a great challenge. Look at any Olympian. They pick their challenges.

You look at athletes, they pick their challenges because they understand that that's a point of weakness, that they need to grow or develop or they need to just get a bit stronger in that area. And we don't think about that in business, but it's exactly the same. Could call it Olympic thinking. Yeah.

And that's, you know, that's another aspect of Personal development. What is it in my business? What is it, me as a human being even that I'd like to improve?

Okay, again, back to no judgment, radical transparency, brutal honesty. What is it? Okay, that's what it is. Okay. How do I. How do I. Again, how can I. How do I fix that? How do I improve that? How do I get better?

So that's my kind of view on that and that you put that into the mix. I am a business owner, I have a business that not. I am a driving instructor. And basically, how do I bring better people in as a fit for my business?

And how do I become better? So I attract those people and I'm worthy of that fairly simple philosophy.

I think that would transform an awful lot of driving instructors businesses.

Terry: 00:36:38

Yeah, definitely. It's. I think there's a fear there sometimes of. One of my fears was wasting money. It's like paying for a course or something, it not working.

And I've done that. But even when I look back now, it's like it may not have worked for me.

I've still learned from it, you know, even if the learn is not to go back to that person.

Dino: 00:36:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Terry: 00:36:59

You know, so, yeah, there's always a learn there. The other thing I particularly wanted to speak to you about because again, this is something that you helped me with in the early days and I.

So I think it'll be a miss not to speak about it is prices. And within the industry, I suppose, again it applies to every industry but it's a. It's a massive talking pointing us.

I'm in a lot of Facebook groups and there's not a day go by when someone doesn't ask about prices. There's a fear. And again, this used to be me, there's a fear of increasing your prices, that you'll lose money.

There's this notion that certain postcodes will only accept pay a certain price. And there's obviously an element of truth to that. You know, look at house prices for that example. But I'm just going to throw that to you.

Leave that there.

Dino: 00:37:52

All right, so there's a concept called price elasticity, which is essentially just how far prices will stretch from top to bottom in a given market. So there are this idea that you can just double your prices in the online space. There's a lot of this that's spoken about.

Oh, just double your prices and the market will sound it. It's like, well, easy for you to say, mate.

By the way, just on that point you were talking about learning experiences and going through learning curves.

One of the things for, I guess the guys listening in particular to bear in mind is if somebody gives you advice and there is no consequence to them for getting the advice wrong, if you implement the advice, be very wary about taking the advice.

They need skin in the game or they need to have demonstrated that they've had skin in the game, then I'm not saying take it at face value, but at least consider it. But if it's not there and there's no risk for them, be very, very wary about taking the advice. Yeah, somebody has to understand.

Bruce Lee said it really well. If you want to learn to swim, jump in the water. That's the bit of the quote. Everybody knows.

The second bit of the quote is on dry land, no frame of mind is ever going to help you. Yeah, you got to be in the water to experience what it's like to get wet, to potentially feel the fear of drowning if you can't swim, etc.

And it's the same somebody has to have gone through what you've gone through or at least relate to it. Like a coach who maybe has never played the game but is close enough to the action to understand what's going on and has been around long enough.

They need to understand that so that they can give you sound advice. But if there's no consequence to them in some way, shape or form, even if it's just reputation, be very wary of taking the advice.

So on pricing without all of that said, yeah, I'm very wary when somebody says, oh, just go and do this. That's another bloody red flag. Just this and just that.

It's a, you know, most people are nervous about it because they've got a frankly a relationship with money issue or there's a self worth issue or there's a belief issue, there's something getting in the way of them just going, yeah, absolutely, this is worth X and I'll find the right people. Because the truth is, generally you will. So there's a, there's a handful of things here.

First is be, be clear that what you're giving is worth, you know, for. If you stand on the other side of this and look at the customer experience, it's. Is it worth the money to the right person?

Are they in, you know, do they have that aspiration, that need or that pain to the degree where they're prepared to pay that amount of money for a block of lessons, Particularly when they're looking around the market and going, well, you know, everyone else, or most people are 15 or 20 or 30% cheaper than that.

So it's, it's what, what lens are they looking at to evaluate, you know, to evaluate this and then get aligned in terms of the lens that you use and the lens that they use to see the value? Because the truth is you don't determine the value. The customer does. If they don't use what you give them, there is no value. Yeah.

Even though you might think inherently I'm giving loads of value. No, you don't. What you do is provide something that is potentially useful. They determine the value. That's a mind shift.

I think it's useful for everybody. So on that basis, then how useful could it be? Well, they desperately.

They've got a job that they've lined up and they said they can drive, they're going to drive, or it's contingent upon them being able to drive and have having a license and they got three months and you've got to get them through their test and they've got to pass. Okay, pressure's on. What's that worth to them? Very, very different dynamic from, well, quite fancy driving and getting. And getting through my test.

And where's. Who's the cheapest on the market? Again, we go back to attracting the right people. You don't want those people because that's transactional.

You want to build a relationship. Yeah. So that's the other thing.

If you build relationships with your market and with the people and people can feel that relationship building like they do with you because you're a personality and people warm to you, then they will pay the extra because they want to be around you and because they trust you. And probably even before they necessarily know you, they trust you and they have respect for you to actually deliver.

They feel like you're the guy that's going to get them through the test. So you're a safe pair of hands that has value. So think about it from that perspective. How does somebody feel around you?

How are they going to feel when they're in the car and when they have a bit of a meltdown and you handle it better than anybody else that they could possibly have paid money to. Is that worth an extra 20 or 30%? Yeah, of course it is. You just got to find those people. Is that helpful?

Terry: 00:42:20

That's beautifully, Paul. No, it really is because again, it sums up my experience, you know, and. Yeah, and key phrase said their relationship building.

And I think that's what it is. I think that's massively underestimated in our many industries.

Dino: 00:42:35

Yeah.

Terry: 00:42:36

Brilliant. Well, we're going to sort of wrap up now. Before we do, I'm going to ask you if you would be kind enough to leave us with one piece of advice.

If you were to leave one piece of advice, one tip for our industry, what would you offer to us now?

Dino: 00:42:51

I can give you a more generic thing, if it's useful, about how you get from where you are to where you want to be. Two points. This I'll use a kind of driving. So people are very, very good at envisioning the future. If you ask them to do like a perfect day exercise.

You imagine yourself in five years time and your business is delivered as the vehicle, essentially, it delivers the life that you want. Because ultimately that's kind of what we want. Yeah, that's why we get into business generally.

It's delivered this thing and it's a halcyon thing and it's amazing. And, you know, imagine you step into that five years down the line, what does your day look like, what does the coffee smell like?

And you get all that kind of stuff. It's a useful exercise, to be fair, but it's a bit of a flight of fancy, so we kind of get all of that.

But so we're very, very good at going, all right, well, I want to earn 10 grand a month or 20 grand a month, and I want to have this life and have this house and that's all lovely. That's your point X in the distance. That's the place that you punch into the sat nav to say, take me to there. Yeah.

What most people are really at doing is figuring out where they are, where they start from. So they look at when they.

When they're in business, not at the start of the business, just at where they are right now in terms of where they are on their journey. So I call that your point A, which is the starting point now, not the starting point when you started the business.

Yeah, just if you're starting the business, that's your point A. If you've been three years in the business, that's your point A.

This is where you start from for the next phase of your journey to take you to your point X. We're really shit at that because it isn't just what, you know what's going on, but who you are.

We talked about being, you know, be, do have, give, being the sort of person that attracts the sort of people that are just going to lift you up and be great clients, great students, being the sort of person that can build a business that turns over 30, 40 grand a month or 10 grand a month or whatever. Yeah, whatever it is that you want. Because again, you just reverse engineer what you want from, from this is the life I want.

That's what it's going to cost. This is what I need to. You reverse engineer. So you are that, that person.

So you're figuring out who am I, what level of, you know, what characteristics have I got, what level of business acumen have I got, how good a driving instructor am I? All those things, what are my skills? So that's your starting point and we're at that.

So I, I, I kind of say to most of the guys that I coach, if you can't figure out where you are, how the hell do you figure out your route to get to where you want to be? Yeah. So think of the sat nav.

This is, you've been dropped, you've been, you've been smuggled out of Manchester and you've been dumped somewhere up in, just on the outskirts of Aberdeen, dropped into a car with a sat nav. What you don't know is the sat nav is not plugged into the GPS and it's defective. So it's just going to make this up as it goes along.

So you, you, you know, you're a bit befuddled and you're, you're a little bit scared, but you've, you find yourself with a blindfold off in a car with instructions to drive to London and you go dutifully, okay, fine, looks like I'm okay. I'll start the engine, I'll punch, you know, I'll punch in the, the address in London and off we go.

So you punch the address in and sat nav goes great. There's your route.

What you don't know, you're in the outskirts of Aberdeen and you don't know this is, it's taking you from Manchester because it thinks you're still there.

Terry: 00:46:11

Yeah.

Dino: 00:46:11

So your route now takes you from Manchester to London and you start driving, guess what happens? You ain't going anywhere. Pretty fast. And we run our businesses and our life like that. Yeah. Because we don't know where we're starting from.

So my advice generally to people is figure out the point a. And you generally need a coach for that. There's a great expression. You can't read the label from inside the bottle.

You need that outside perspective to help you. So get clarity. It's a really, really good term. Get clarity. It's a superpower of being clear. Get clarity on where you are.

Get clarity on where you want to go, and then you build your yellow brick road to take you there. And the way you do that is instead of going, right, I'm at point A, I'm earning three grand a month, I want to get point X.

Let's just take a really simple analogy. I want to earn ten grand a month. So the gap is seven grand. Yeah. So my route, if you like, has to produce seven grand. Sounds very logical. Yeah.

The problem is, most people that go into business, driving instructors, will be no different, is they see the 7,000 as the problem. The gap is the problem. The gap is not the problem. The gap is all the symptoms of all of the problems that lead you to not earning ten grand a month.

Now, because if you didn't have those problems, you'd be earning ten grand a month. Yeah, that makes sense.

So what we do is we, now we've got a point A, now we've got a point X, we build the yellow brick road by going, okay, what's the first problem I need to solve here? What's the most pressing issue? Probably a marketing issue, maybe. Yeah, I'm not getting the right students in. Maybe a pricing issue.

I'm not charging enough. So I put in all the hours and actually If I work 50 hours a week or 60 hours a week, I still can't earn enough. That's a pricing issue.

So you solve the first problem, you lay the foundations for it, you stick on the yellow brick, your first yellow brick, you stand on it, you make sure it's secure. Problem, solution. Then the next thing, which might be a marketing issue or visibility issue, okay, let's solve that.

Lay the foundation, put the yellow brick on it, make sure it's set, stand in it. Now you've got two yellow bricks and bit by bit, problem, solution, problem solution, problem solution. You build your yellow brick road.

Before you know where you are, you've gone from three grand a month to ten grand a month. That would be the best. I know it's not just a tip, but in terms of a philosophy, that's how I would approach building your business.

Terry: 00:48:26

And that's why I wanted to come on my podcast. Knowledge and insights like that, going right back to what I said at the beginning of this podcast. Every insightful and knowledgeable.

Which also brings me on to the reason I would say anyone listening to this now should give Dino a follow. He's always dropping stuff online, on LinkedIn, on Facebook and whatnot. Are you doing your D freeze at the minute?

Are they on the slight sabbatical They've.

Dino: 00:48:52

Been on sabbatical for a while. I think it'll be another couple of weeks, probably get into the middle of June and then I'll be back doing them.

We will be posting most of them up on YouTube. The YouTube channel goes live next week, I think. Yeah, it's there now, but there's. There's not a lot that we've actually published on it.

Although there is more of this type of stuff on there.

Terry: 00:49:10

There's a historical bank of D freeze, which is a daily dose of Dino, which I was scrolling through again the other day and seeing all the different countries. You've done them, which was quite.

Dino: 00:49:18

Yeah, back when we could do that sort of thing. Yeah, I did enjoy that. Yeah.

Terry: 00:49:22

Yeah. So on that note, where can people find you? Take a minute to tell people where you can find you anything you want to promote.

Anything that you would advise people come and check out from you.

Dino: 00:49:32

Yeah, thanks. Okay, so guys, for the. If you. If this is been useful and you want more of it, you can find me on Facebook.

So just Dino Tartaglia be in the show notes presumably find me on Facebook on my wall.

If you want to get an understanding of the ridiculous sense of humor I've got as well as the nonsense that I spout, Facebook's the best way to see me. LinkedIn if you want the more thoughtful kind of more business like stuff I'm on LinkedIn, find me there. Come and connect. Get around our free group.

It's currently free. It will be chargeable soon enough because there's a shed load of good stuff in there called Success Unlocked.

Again I hopefully that'll be in the show notes.

And if you want to elevate your thinking and what I call collapse time so make things move faster for you, then we have a little program called the Accelerator Excel the Accelerator which is get better Faster basically, hence the name, which is not a lot of money. And I'm looking currently actually to be fair, and I probably not shared this with you, Terry.

I'm looking for what I call brick and mortar businesses.

So people who are not online because we've got enough online people to, you know, people who've got real overheads if you like not working from the kitchen table. And I don't disparaging of people who do that because we've got some brilliant people who do that.

But it's nice sometimes to bring people into our world who have got actual overhead, sometimes actual staff, but you know, real costs as well as just, you know, paying the household bills And I'm looking for people to come into the accelerator to give that breadth, if you like, of additional experience. And also because Simon and I come from brick and mortar. That's our world. We came online. So we're very real, if you like, very real world.

So if any of the guys are interested in, like I said, in getting better, collapsing time, sharpening the business up and doing it fast, then the accelerator is the place for that.

Terry: 00:51:20

Yeah.

And I would highly recommend that anyone listen, I mean, that I take a lot from it, even if at the minute it's just a little bit of clarity on a Monday morning. Um, yes.

Dino: 00:51:28

Yeah.

Terry: 00:51:29

Take a lot from that. Yeah. All this stuff will be in the show notes. There'll be links in there. One other thing, I'm going to give a little shout out on your behalf.

If you listen to this, you'll like podcasts. Dino does have a podcast out with Simon Hartley. It was called. Was it a Back Bedroom to Big Business?

Dino: 00:51:44

Yeah, actually, just on that. Thank you for that. Just on that. We've got one season at the minute.

It sounds like quite often when people come across Simon and I, because Simon deals with a lot of corporate. It sounds like we are big business.

And the reality is we take particularly from Simon, who's worked with Olympians and he's worked at the world class level and he's a world class coach himself.

We take the insights from the best in the world and go, okay, how can we use these things as ordinary people in our small businesses so that we don't make the mistakes that a lot of people who don't know this stuff make? That's really the philosophy. So back bedroom to big business isn't about building bigger, it's about building better, if that, if that makes sense.

So it's worth a listen for that reason.

Terry: 00:52:26

Yeah. And if you use that as your introduction to Dino, you'll. You'll get a good introduction. So, yeah, thank you for joining us today.

It's been brilliant having you on. You're someone I've been looking forward to picking the brain off. So, yeah, thank you for joining us.

Dino: 00:52:38

Been an absolute pleasure. Thanks. Thanks, Terry.

Terry: 00:52:47

So, big thank you to Dino for joining us there. As you'll heard, I've done some work with Dino. Dino helped me many years ago. Well, feels like many years ago. I think it was two years ago to.

To get started, to get back on track with the new way of running my business, which I hadn't done previously, which included a price increase, as you heard in the episode itself. So yeah, big thanks Dino. Some some real words of wisdom. There's make sure you go follow him.

Even if you just follow him on LinkedIn or Facebook, he drops some real knowledge just on his feed every day. So definitely worth a follow there. Subscribe to his group, even the paid one. But even if you just join the free one, that that's great as well.

And check out his podcast somewhere that I listen to and it's one of the the more thought provoking ones. And as he said, it's back bedroom to big business, which is essentially what it is. You know, you've you think about a driving school.

We're just a small local business that's capable of growing a little bit. So yeah, I touched on this earlier at the start of the show but again I do just want to say a thank you to everyone that's listened.

It's great, it's great to have people listening and getting something from the show. Really appreciate all the feedback I've got as well.

Obviously it's going to be a little bit more quiet over the next four weeks with the sort of pot the official podcast coming to an end. There is going to be a couple of bonus shows coming up. Well, more than a couple actually between now and then.

But the The Proper Season 2 kicks off on August 1st, so make sure you subscribed so that when we go live on August 1st it drops straight into your feed and you can crack on because we've already got some awesome guests lined up that will remain secret until shortly before they arrive on the show. But yeah, big thank you to you all. Going to head over to Chris from the dit, see the latest news in a minute.

But yeah, cheers for joining me and stay safe for the next few weeks.

Chris: 00:54:48

Hi, Chris Benstead here from the Driving Instructor and Trainers collective, the ditc, the signposting point for the driver trainer industry.

So we are bringing the instructor podcast some updates from the DVSA correspondence and they sent out an update on private practice which caused a lot of confusion. I know I've had pupils get in touch and weren't quite sure what was going on. I know Terry said he had people wondering if they should go buy a car.

I think the DVSA themselves had issues because they sent out a bit of a correction or clarification of what they meant. So what we got sent as instructors letting your pupils know about the rule changes.

We are emailing all theory, test and practical candidates with the test booking to let them know about the changes to rules around private practice. We would encourage your pupils to have a combination of driving lessons with you and private practice with family or friends.

During the pandemic, there have been restrictions on who your pupils can have private practice with. The types of journeys where this could happen as restrictions are relaxed.

We would like to encourage your pupils to have private practice and for you to work closely with their supervising driver to help them be better prepared for their driving test. What you can do to help for your pupils with theory tests booked, this is a good way to put the knowledge and theory they have learnt into practice.

This is particularly important for your pupils who learn whilst doing. For your pupils who have a practical test booked, this is a good way for them to practice their skills to support their lessons with you.

DBSA research with learners found that those who had private practice with friends and family in addition to their professional instruction are 1.4 times more likely to pass their test compared to those who that do not have private practice. There is guidance on getting the most from private practice.

On the official Learning to Drive guide available from the TSO shop, it's important that you discuss which areas of driving each of your pupils need to work on when they're doing private practice. This will help them cover the areas that they need to improve as they prepare for their test.

Your pupils can record their private practice using a useful free record which can be downloaded from gov.uk so that's what they had to say.

And clearly the wording on the learner Driver one, the one that went out to the to the candidates, wasn't clear and there were a number of posts on Facebook that were very confused and they weren't really sure regarding the private practice log. It's alright, you know, record your private practice.

sor to the outcomes of Driver: 2020

They have the date of the private practice, the conditions, wet snow, ice, darkness, darkness, not nighttime, country roads, town and city planning and following your own route, including a SAT nav. Then comments from the person supervising you and questions or concerns you'd like to talk to your driving instructor about.

Dino: 00:58:24

Do you know what?

Chris: 00:58:26

Not bad. It's encouraging engagement with the instructor and it's probably something that's worth pointing people in the direction of.

I think I'm going to be adding that into my pupil resources. So that was the email from the dvsa.

At the same time we get from our colleagues in Northern Ireland, the dva, DVA monthly tests, conducted statistics. So had these drop into my inbox. They are for the Tests which were conducted in May, and interestingly, the figures.

Look, if we kind of average things out normally, they are conducting 60 to 70,000 tests per month for cars specifically, and for April and May they've been conducting about 39,000. So it would be very interesting to have a look at the DBSA figures for comparison and to see quite what. How things have been affected.

I was speaking to a test center manager yesterday and they were saying that initially after lockdown, there were a lot of private runners and standards had clearly dropped.

The people that were taking the very early tests coming back, but that has really levelled out and the work that people have put in and the experience that they've been getting does, in their opinion, seem to be showing through.

They haven't noticed a drop, which is, I think, what we're all worried about with the extensive waiting lists and the, you know, I'll take it just in case approach. And they also said that, you know, they don't feel that inside that 30 minutes you can really get lucky without it showing that you're not ready.

There's, you know, the pressure of the day and the conditions on the road really do show out during that time. So it was interesting having a chat with them and finding out exactly what's going on at their end of things.

The main thing was, if you have any questions, if there's anything you're not sure about or if there's any concerns, get in touch with your local test centre manager and have a chat about it. They appreciate that there's a lot of give and take going on and it was nice to hear that they're inviting those phone calls.

I have to say, we are lucky locally to where I am, we've got some great LBTMS test centre managers, so they're very keen to help. So private practice is a good thing, 1.4 times more likely to pass. There's a surprise.

And consider how you're engaging with both pupils and parents, if that is the demographic of learner driver that you have in how you can get the best out of that practice. I think this is going to be something that is going to be revisited.

Driver: 2020

And anyone who's interested, we are broadcasting the Young Driver Focus Report on the DITC podcast channel. I'm sure Terry will include a link, so we've got more of those going up now. Slight glitch while I found time to record them.

More of those going up now and lots more happening in the future.

So keep in touch, keep an eye on our social media and we will make sure that you get to hear through the instructor podcast what exactly is going on with us. Stay safe everyone.

Terry: 01:02:35

So thank you for listening today. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you click subscribe wherever you're listening so that the next one will drop straight into your podcast feed.

If you want to get in touch with us show head over@tcdrive.co.uk you can get in touch with me by any method over there. And remember, let's just keep raising standards and stay safe.