3.  Pupils.  Names and addresses, are they up to date and if not get them up to date. Only use the pupils you are on good terms with and parted company on test day on good terms and if you have ever parted company for any reason other than on the very best of terms then do not use that one.

Pupils Birthdays.  You should have it as it is on the licence the day you checked it. 

Pupils Test pass dates.  This should be in your diary and the HMRC require you to keep records going back 6 years, so you should have lots of them.

4.  We all love to be wished happy birthday, unless you are touchy about your age and if you are, then you can leave at this point, and to get a card or message out of the blue from someone you have not had contact with for a while gives us a warm glow. If not, you can leave here as well as it is wasted on you. Send a text or send a nice email to the pupil and wish them a Happy Birthday.

4a.  If you have a laptop design a simple birthday card for your pupils, it is free to do in Word and the skills required are minimal as they have different templates you can select to work from, or just use what they have, also you will get a lot of fun doing it too. Email the card to your pupil, what a nice guy you are to think of them and keep them in mind.  I get messages from pupils from 20-30 years back and I must be honest I love the contact so why should they not like to be thought of, we are all the same inside. 

4c.  Driving Test anniversary.  Same as above, send an anniversary reminder of when the pupil passed the test and wish them well. Ask how their driving is going and are they keeping well. Did they qualify/pass the exams they were doing and how are they doing now and what are they up to.  Be careful with these questions and do not ever ask all in one go.  A general enquiry to start with and work on any response you may get expanding gradually as you would do in a conversation over a coffee or bumping into someone in the park or around town otherwise it can have the feeling of being stalked.

These are wonderful people who spent at least a day or two, sometimes more if taking over 48 hours of lessons in your car in a confined and stressful situation and they are very special.

5. Website.  If you do not have a website and are afraid of the cost of one, then get one for FREE. Many years ago I found FREEINDEX and they have been brilliant for me. I have one of their free pages and I use it for my pupils to post their reviews on. Take a look at my page there for a an idea of it can do for you. It is important to note if setting up pages that you use a generic term for example I have used Hastings Driving Lessons because that is where I work, I also have Bexhill because that is where I live.  I did think of using my name or my school name but what you need is what people look for and they will look for...'town' driving school or 'area' driving lessons.  e.g, Brighton driving lessons Coventry driving lessons, or Leeds driving school, Sheffield driving school.  If they are looking for you then your name will come up in the references anyway.

Once you have the Freeindex account (does not cost you a penny and you don't give any financial details)  you will have a link that you can send to your pupils to submit a customer review for you. Once they have done it Freeindex email them to confirm it is genuine and Bob's your uncle, or Bobbie's your auntie.   You can post a reply to say thank you for the review and it shows up as independent and honest. If you try to get the rellies (relatives ;)) to do it from the same server, it will warn of this too as 2 of mine working for the NHS many years ago did them from work at the same hospital and it showed up despite them never having met up. Not an issue if happens rarely but will be if in the same household.

Now if people are looking for Hastings Driving Lessons in search engines, I come near the top with my Freeindex listing and all my reviews are there for people to see. Try looking for 'hastings driving lessons' and you will see for yourself, I may be further down the list due to your location but I will be nearer the top for locals as Google et al use the users location to narrow the search area with their algorithms.

If Freeindex is not for you then try one of the others, such as Weebly, Wix, Ueni, there are plenty out there and this is a great time to have a go if you have not done it before.  If you think it is beyond you, or are too old then think again, these are designed by clever people who want your business and if your site is successful they can tag advertising onto it. Go for it, it is free, and you have nothing to lose apart from time and there is an abundance of that out there at the moment.

6.  Facebook.  I love it as a super marketing tool. I know there is a lot of controversy over social media but my simple attitude is that when I picked up my daughter from school I chose who I wanted to talk to in the playground, the same until March 20th with my grandsons and the school run. You chose who you want to talk to, keep away from the bottom of the pit and you will be fine. FB is great as you can easily set up your privacy levels yourself and block who you do not want to have anything to do with. Remember though that you are on a public platform and what you post is there for all to see. Avoid putting up political preferences as this will alienate some and adverse comments against others, this is your marketing tool so use it as such.  

6a.  FB is very easy to do and has easy steps that you can follow.  Once you have your personal account you can set up different pages for your business. This is slightly more difficult but there are plenty of easy steps for you to follow.

Very important, don't use Billy's SoM, Annies Driving school etc as this will only go back to the pupils who know you and you want a wider attraction/draw.  As above I have pages for Hastings driving lessons and Bexhill Driving School, I have an additional page for my school name so that those who are specifically looking for it can find me. Clever but very simple and very, very free.

All this and not a penny spent yet, are you keeping up here, we are getting to thousands of people, yes, thousands of people near to where you live and the area that you work in and not a penny spent on advertising, not a card in a shop window, not a poster bought or made, not a leaflet printed.....and all free.

7.  Linked In.  I have to admit that I am not a huge fan but you can get a listing and put your website on there, and all the links I have on here, above and below. It all helps to improve your rankings.

8. Then there is Twitter, Instagram, Pinter and all the others. I have only used Twitter so cannot comment on the rest and I use Twitter more as a reposting location for all the other stuff I put out there.  You can link your website to your pages quite easily and there are usually links within the website building packages to do this. Linking the pages up is quite important as this will build your presence on the web with the search engines and they will see your presence on the net more easily, pick you up more easily and show you in searches more readily and more often.  This is what 'experts' will try to sell you all the time.  Ok, you will not get to the top overnight doing it my way, but we are talking about the future and doing it all for free. We still have not spent a penny, unless you visited the bathroom while working your way through all this.

9.  Yell, and all the other sites that will give you a free listing for your website, get on there and get the links.  If you have a local site that you can use to advertise, then get on there immediately. Put your website out there again and again in as many venues as you can.  Put a link on your website to your local area, the council, the post office in your pages. Have a page where you list the local businesses that you can recommend and  tell them you will list them for free, if they will list you in return. Everybody loves free advertising. You have local grocers, electricians, builders, plumbers, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers - anyone. Get them all on board and you will help each other out. If you only do manual, ask a local ADI who does automatic if they would like to link up. Make sure they are decent though with a good reputation. Automatic, then you do the same in reverse with a manual ADI.  Teamwork, just like the AADI, we are all in this together, so let's come out of it together roaring on into the future.

10.  I am going to be putting up a page with the listings of all the members who want to be on there. As the AADI is your association, of course the listings are free to any member who has their subs up to date.  So, once you have read this and you want to send the details in drop a line via the contact us page and we shall have you on there before the the next full moon....Hoooowwwwwllll! all going well. Or email me, if you are a member you know who I am as I send the emails out to you, just reply to one of them with your details included and I shall see to it. Don't worry I will not give away any personal details over the net, just your site details or FB page, whatever you want me to use, just so long as it is yours and you own it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this one, it is a little long but at least I've given the other half a break from me.  If you have any questions that you want to ask, get in touch. If you find I have written something that is wrong, or you disagree with, tell me and if you like it then tell a mate and help them out.

Cheers and keep safe out there.