RSS feedsWhen Julie Craig and Deborah Strickley first met they were working for an insurance company. They lost touch but then ran into each other on a driving instructor training course. Deciding two heads would be better than one, the working mums joined forces to set up their own driving school and in September 2004 Ab Fab took to the road.
They shared the same ideas about how the business should look – customer focus, smart dress and a professional outlook and a catchy name.
‘We went with Ab Fab as it was short and punchy, it fits on the header board, is easily remembered and it’s at the start of the alphabet for the Yellow Pages advertising,’ says Craig.
Four years later and they now occupy a large slice of the market in the Tees Valley area. ‘We are the largest school in the East Cleveland area and the third largest in the Tees Valley area,’ says Craig.
But despite rapid growth – there are nine instructors on board now – Craig and Strickley don’t want to grow much larger. Instead, they are concentrating on being the best, ‘small and select’, and are looking to grow in other areas such as eco-friendly driving courses, instructor training and taxi test preparation.
‘We are concentrating on developing the team of instructors by giving them additional training in a variety of areas,’ says Craig.
Ab Fab’s turnover was £60,000 last year. However, as each instructor is self-employed, they only have a record of their individual turnover. This could be anything from £20,000 to £60,000, depending on how many hours they worked. Craig estimates that as a group they have a turnover in excess of £350,000.
At the start, finding finance and business advice was tough. ‘Business Link seemed to be the most knowledgeable place to go, but they had sub-contracted to a wholly inadequate company within our area,’ Craig says. ‘We worked on a trial and error basis for the first few months. The banks would not give us any funding because we were a new business. Inbiz would not help us because we were not unemployed. It was a struggle but all of these hurdles have made us stronger.’
Ab Fab has hire purchase agreements on some of its cars, and small loans from the founders, plus an overdraft facility for emergencies. They have now taken on a £10,000 loan to help fund a new business, Ab Fab Enterprise.
This is built around a driver skills awareness and development programme, which they intend to deliver to companies to help them adhere to their duty of care and corporate social responsibility, and comply with the Corporate Manslaughter Act.
‘The programme gives ten individual policies, including eco-friendly driving that helps reduce the companies’ carbon footprint. Training is given on each policy and then the policies are signed and bound and are given to the company to place on the individual’s HR file,’ explains Craig.
Time management is an ongoing issue. When the company was small, it was easier to do everything. ‘Now that the company is larger it is becoming more difficult to spoon-feed all the instructors,’ says Craig. ‘We have created this problem ourselves and we are struggling to make the instructors more self-reliant.’
Administration is also a worry, though Craig is concerned that the franchise fee charged to the instructors would have to increase to cover the costs of an administrator.
On top of this, the duo are increasingly asked for advice from business start-ups – their own success having been recognised by a number of business awards – but this is time consuming, so plans are afoot to set up a business consultancy. And while both Craig and Strickley are studying for MBAs, somehow they find time to act as mentors for the Prince’s Trust – helping others to drive their own businesses.
The main challenges:
- Improve time management and administration
- Help franchises become more self-sufficient
- Launch/grow/market new corporate business
Click here to read what our experts from HSBC think Ab Fab should do to move on
