Aftermarket March 2023

MARCH 2023 AFTERMARKET 55 www.aftermarketonline.net relationship with them because rather than investing £50,000 to £100,000 setting up a MOT station, they rent out our bays.” It also helps Premier MOT Training to have real MOTs being performed on-site: “In order to keep compliant, we have to have a live MOT bay. All my trainers have to keep their live testing status in order to be compliant. You've got to do a quality check on each of your testers too. This means we need a live MOT bay, so it is a win-win. When one of our trainers is doing an MOT, we can QC them, or we can use that as part of a course to Quality Control check somebody else, and then it goes onto the system.” Donna continued: “Our busiest courses are always MOT, hence why we have run them every week since the pandemic. We used to run groups of nine, but since COVID-19 we keep them below eight just because then they get a desk each and a laptop each, without banging elbows.” While MOT training is the core offering, the business is keen to promote its wider training, and is looking to push in this direction in the next few months. “We are currently building a new website. We currently have two websites. our MOT Annual Assessment site, which is www.annualtraining.co.uk , and we're currently merging that into our Premier MOT website.” There are also new courses on the horizon:“We're about to do a pilot in December with Ian Gillgrass, which is going to be launching us as becoming accredited with the IMI. We're going to launch a IMI-accredited diagnostic IMI accredited course for Level 3. Obviously we do offer the hybrid and the F-Gas as well. We are trying to put it out there more about hybrid and F-Gas.” Surprising That’s not all: “We had a first-generation Toyota Prius here, and we kept it as a historical talking-point, because people still don't believe the first hybrid vehicle ,the Toyota Prius, was first released in 1998. People were just still shocked that. Types of vehicles that in our sector we tend to think of as new have been out on our road for 25 years. We've still got 70% in the market to train up in this area, which is quite surprising. We try and keep our cars to pretty much what our students see. We could go out and buy brand new cars, but none of our students are ever going to do a test on that or ever do any servicing on it. We are not keeping a brand-new EV though, because that's not relatable to our students. They won't be seeing them. They won't need an MOT or a service in an independent for some time. We try and find something around seven years old because that's what they're going to be getting in their workshop.” Growth Looking at what Premier MOT Training will be looking to achieve during 2023, Donna added: “We've really put ourselves about lately, and will continue to do so. We were at the UK Garage and Bodyshop Event at the NEC in June, we were reception drinks sponsor at the Top Technician and Top Garage Awards Evening in October, and we will be at Automechanika Birmingham in 2023. We've gone for a bigger stand, and we are going to try and bring two bikes along because we noticed there was no bikes there last year.” They will also look to grow the team: “We're going to look at taking on another trainer and another member of staff in the office. We don't have sales staff – They are Training Consultants. They are not selling a product, they are supporting garages around their trading needs.” Donna added: “If we don't feel like it's the right course for someone, we won't book them on it. We are all about matching a candidate for the right kind of course.” For more information, visit: www.premiermot.com If we don't feel like it's the right course for someone, we won't book them on it. We are all about matching a candidate for the right kind of course ” Below: Inside the workshop at Premier MOT Training