Running your own Private Training Business

Being your own boss, calling all the shots, working hard to hit your personal goals… for many people, entrepreneurship and owning your own company is the ultimate career goal.

But as great as running your own business sounds, it’s also incredibly challenging.

How challenging?

Start-up failure statistics are some of the most shared stats online. Take a look at some of the damning start-up failure numbers below which shows just how hard it can be to go it alone.

• Fewer than half of UK Start-ups make it beyond 5 years (GOV.UK, 2019)
• 60% of new businesses will go-under within three years (Telegraph, 2019)
• 20% of new businesses will close their doors within just 12 months (Telegraph, 2019)

Here’s the good news: Starting a company can be one of the most rewarding, exhilarating, and interesting opportunities you’ll ever get. Better still, starting a Private Training Provider (PTP) business within the Active Leisure, Learning & Wellbeing sector has a particularly low barrier to entry and coupled with this, the eLearning industry is growing – fast.

So, as people have well and truly warmed up to the idea that eLearning is just as effective as traditional training, amplified further by COVID-19, there’s never been a better time to get into this business.

However, before you take any steps toward launching your PTP business, determine whether or not business ownership is your best path. Aspiring tutors need to ask themselves whether they want to be businesspeople, or they want to teach. If you only want to teach, you’re better off working with an established PTP that can handle the myriad demands of running a business and free you to do the best teaching you can do.

Time and time again we at Your Guardian find that as a result of being great tutors, educators begin on the well-trodden, best intentioned crusade of driving industry standards, only to find their teaching success struggles to transcend many of the fundamental disciplines of business.

On the other hand, if you have the entrepreneurial spirit to launch a new business in the midst of a pandemic, a strong source of initial client referrals and strong credentials that you can communicate well, there is definitely an opportunity, particularly if you can identify any business gaps and seek help in filling these. 

Don’t be afraid to ask for assistance. Network, ask for advice and learn from other people. At Your Guardian we can offer sector specific advice for PTPs and excellent resources for new business owners. Our very own ‘why’ is driven by the desire to support vocational training providers, so they can deliver the life changing learning to students that ultimately raises industry standards.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly thrown a wrench in conventional learning, there’s one silver lining for educators: a vocational training boom.

Start a PTP business and a piece of that lucrative pie could be yours. It has never been a better time to be an innovative and engaging educator, particularly with many people newly unemployed or working reduced or more flexible hours. With the right help it has also never been easier to set up and begin a successful new PTP.