If you’re looking for a tiling course then there’s a few factors you need to consider before booking up with any Tom, Dick or Harry. This post is designed to outline a few of those factors to give you a better start.
The fact that BAL have now stated they are offering their training brand as a franchise clearly tells us that these tiling courses and tiling training centres are money making machines.
I hope by the end of this article you are thinking seriously about your choice of training establishment!
Be sure you are being trained by a Training Company that ONLY runs tiling courses!
It can’t be said enough. It’s important to know that you are being trained by the right people. There’s a bit of a shortage of tilers in the UK (not the 15,000 quoted on a certain training company website) and as a direct result of this there are Tiling Training Centres popping up all over the place charging to allow you to stick tiles on in their rented units.
One that runs plastering, plumbing or decorating courses too could just be out there to make cash and not put out Industry Qualified Tilers, and good ones at that.
You’ll often hear a training centre say that they only teach tiling but actually the plumbing training centre over the road is theirs too. So watch out for those!
Make sure you read all the feedback you can find online!
Make sure the training centre you choose has a good reputation. You can find course feedback online on website’s such as TilersForums.co.UK. TilersForums.co.uk is an independent Forum and is not connected to any training centre but other forums and online communities are lead by the actual training centres so you can’t really compare the feedback of a couple of training centres for example. And of the feedback you do see, how much of it is genuine and not the Staff of the training centre themselves posing as former students?
Support those that support the industry Association!
The only way the whole industry will ever move forward as one is to support the only existing Association in the industry, which is The Tile Association.
The Tile Association supports training centres that are good and the ones they don’t support usually just don’t use their name at all but some training centres get a little hot headed and seem to think that if they can’t be part of the existing association then they’ll make their own association.
This is sometimes considered to be giving out the wrong message. There’s only the TTA and there always will be. The TTA are currently in the process of ensuring all good training centres are offering NVQ’s and the bad ones don’t get business through them.
Make sure you get trained by somebody who is Qualified!
As a tiler you can earn a fair wage tiling. So why would a good tiler become an instructor for a training centre working for somebody?
Make sure you’re not being sold the experience of the training centre owner but would be shown the ropes in the training centre by an ex car salesman or a carpenter for example.
Make sure the trainer has tiled before and feel free to ask to see their C.V. and proof of their NVQ certificate and any other credentials they claim to have. And make sure the name on those certificates will be the person who will be teaching you.
There are too many people getting charged for tiling training and getting shown the ropes by somebody who is just as inexperienced! This has to stop!
Don’t get fooled by the “we help you setup a business” aspect!
Many training centres get picked due to the fact that they can help a new tiler setup in business. Then on the course they’ll spend your valuable tiling time sitting down and chatting about the right banks and marketing tactics etc.
Now what they don’t tell you is that this information is provided free of charge by hundreds of sources such as Banks, Accountants, Representatives of related companies and most of all, the Government funded organisation Business Link.
So if you’re going on a tiling course, just consider them for their tiling training and NOT their ability to help you setup in business.
It’s good to hear they tell you a few tips but to sit and tell 20 tilers how to setup in business is a joke when they know the market in the tilers local areas will be soooo different to each others and the tiler from the same area are going to be hitting the same tile shops, banks and business card printers.
Don’t choose them just because they have certain Brand Names and representatives of those companies in to “visit” you for a free chat!
It’s easy as a training centre to call a company and tell them that there are 15 - 20 new businesses at their unit each week and ask for a Representative to call round on a regular basis to give talks! But these reps would come your own home to chat too!
So what is happening here? These “free-talks” are just taking up your tiling time and enabling the training centre to act like a conference meeting point for reps to tout for your business which is sick to know the training centre is charging you for this service that’s provided free by the company the rep is part of anyway!
Don’t book with a 4 week course knowing a good few days worth of that course are spent by listening to reps selling you their services and products!
And if the training centre says you can sit out of them then, make sure you have THE QUALIFIED trainer around to help you out and use this time wisely while some of the class are off getting sold services by the reps you get a one to one session.
Don’t get sold by the “We get you exclusive trade accounts with credit limits”!
Any tiler is entitled to a trade account with tile retailers such as Topps Tiles and trade outlets like CTD (ceramic tile distribution). To say this service is an exclusive one is just fooling around with you to get your trust and your hard earned cash. There’s no benefit in signing up with these trade accounts at the training centre so why bother? Sign up afterwards. But don’t spend too much time at the training centre talking about it and certainly don’t choose a training centre just because of the accounts.
Due to the large amount of new tilers being pushed in the industry one Topps member of staff on TilersForums.co.uk actually now asks to see a portfolio full of examples of work in real customers jobs and even a few references from customer with their telephone numbers on to checkout the tilers work before trusting him to get business from the store. So you don’t want to be included in ‘that weeks set of new tiler trade accounts’ all the time with these companies offering you trade discounts.
Be sure you’re not too crowded!
It’s OK to have 20 tilers on a course providing there’s 3 or 4 trainers. One to one training would be just too much so it’s OK to share a teacher, just not with 19 other tilers. One teacher watching 10 guys can be hard and you’ll find the teacher just couldn’t point out as much about your work as he could if there were less to watch.
Make sure you are being covered by THE QUALIFIED tiling teacher 100% of the time you are in the practical training environment. And make sure when you’re in the theory environment you’re being lectured by QUALIFIED TEACHERS and not a company rep!
Recap:-
- Only hand cash over to a centre that does TILING ONLY!
- Check feedback online and only trust feedback that’s governed by an independent body!
- Support those that don’t slag off the industry Association!
- Make sure you are being trained by a QUALIFIED TILER at least, preferably an NVQ Assessor or similar.
- Don’t let them spend too much time on getting your business setup, there are plenty of FREE sources for this!
- Don’t let them sit you in front of Reps of companies to do talks on their products - That’s FREE elsewhere too - obviously!
- Don’t book just because you get credit accounts with certain industry trade outlets, those are also FREE!
And a couple of Good Business ethics.
- Don’t give business to a company that compare themselves to their competition directly, there’s always a catch and they would never point out their competitions’ benefits over their own.
- Don’t give business to a company that knocks their competition in any way, a good company wouldn’t need to.
- Don’t always go for the cheapest or the most expensive, normally the one between the two has studied the market better and can then provide the best.
- Always read the small print!
Recommended course providers can be found on the Tiling Courses website and feedback about them can be found in the Tiling Courses Feedback Forum at the Tiling Forum. And there’s even a list of Tiling Courses on this website too.
Additions to the article:-
If the training centre owner has experience tiling swimming pools and rooms at opposite ends of a building keeping the datum line at the same height and level throughout, then good for them but don’t book a course based on that fact.
Many tilers would have at some point tiled a swimming pool (which is as easy to tile as a room with no doors or windows) or used a water level to keep two walls level, no matter what the distance between the walls are, so don’t assume this teacher is the one for you. If they’re selling their courses based on those types of facts are they’re running out of other things to say about their tiling courses, training centre and /or instructor?
Written by Tiling News on August 20th, 2007 with
27 comments.
Read more articles on Tile Adhesives & Grouts and Tilers Forum and Tiling Courses and Tiling NVQ and Uncategorized and Wall and Floor Tiling.
Little Mitch
Gary.K.Walmsley
Darren
March
dave….
Mr JB
Mr AW
Jason
#2. August 20th, 2007, at 7:01 PM.
Couldn’t have put that better myself..that was a cracking article and if you are thinking of enrolling on a course then take great notice of what is wrote in the fore mentioned article….
yours…D-howe (time-served tradesman )..
Good luck in your chosen new career…