In this episode I return from the DEMA Show pumped up and you’ll learn what makes the diving industry so great.
Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business. I’m your host Tec Clark and I just returned from the DEMA Show 2019! Oh my goodness, I am absolutely blown away by how many of you came up and said, “hi, I love your podcast.” I was blown away and I would ask you which one and the majority of you would say “both”, or you’d say “the new one, the dive locker.” My goodness. I was just so, so encouraged by you all. And so many of you were just so complimentary. Thank you.
Thank you for stepping up and meeting me. Thank you for the encouraging words of the episodes on the app and how to do the DEMA app and what to see and things like that. I saw some of you in seminars that I had recommended, so it was just such an amazing, amazing time. So I came away from the DEMA show and I’m absolutely pumped just like I am every single year when I come back. And because of that I wanted to create an episode that was dedicated to what makes the diving industry so great. I want to share this. I want to share this passion for this industry with you. I think this will resonate with you whether you went to the DEMA show or not. I believe that there is so much about our industry that should be celebrated and is so cool that we need to pause and reflect at times. And I just got done doing that for a week and so I’m pumped.
So Pumped About the Diving Industry
Now, yeah, I’m extremely tired from the meetings, the interviews, the seminars and the socials. It is so much, it’s so intense. It’s so engaging. And I mean, my morning started from 7:30 and went till, hmm, let’s say really late. But anyhow, the deal is, is that I was just surrounded by professionals just like you. People that inspired me, people that had a passion just like I do for this wonderful, wonderful industry and sport and career. Also I want to give a huge shout out to my dive team from the Nova Southeastern University Academic Diving Program. Here’s a whole bunch of college students that had come up and spent what little time, what little resources they had to be better professionals. It was great to see, it was great to hear their stories of what they learned. And at the end of the day we’d get together and go to dinner and we would just share and talk about what was new and exciting.
And you look at it from new professional’s eyes and a show floor that has 600-plus exhibitors and countless seminars and these guys and gals are just walking away, buzzed at how much they learned about everything. That was really good. So huge shout out to my dive team at the NSU academic diving program. Great job guys. Great to see you there. Now I kept walking around this show with a smile on my face. It’s hard to go to the DEMA show and not have a smile on your face. It’s like going to Disney World, you can’t frown. You’re just always smiling because there’s so much cool stuff around you. There’s so many great people, there’s so many great things. So I want to kinda capture that here in this episode and share with you my three things that I just am so jazzed about in this industry.
The People
The number one thing is the people. Now what I love so much about the people in this industry is that they want to work together to make diving safer, to have more to do in diving, to make it more fun in some cases, pushing the limits or pioneering technology. And of course at this show in particular, there’s such an intense focus on our underwater world and the conservation of the underwater world. That’s such a really unique thing. And you know when we talk about this before, you’ve heard me say this, that when we’re dive pros, the oceans in aquatic areas that we’re in our offices and the Marine life is our inventory. So we really need to do a good job of being stewards of our resources, of that Marine life, of the underwater world. Because it is, it’s our office and it’s our inventory.
Well, to see such a push for sustainability and environmental efforts at this show was really, really awesome because it’s not fabricated. It’s not a theme, it’s not clichéd. It’s that every one of us deeply has a passion to care for these because why? They’re so darn cool and we want our kids and our grandkids and their kids to see this and be a part of it. That’s what it is and that’s why people are just so passionate about that part of our industry.
The other thing is, is that I love to see that dive professionals are down to earth. Now, when you walk around the show floor at a DEMA show, you’re going to see people in shorts and flip flops, really comfortable. There’s hardly anyone wearing suits. Some jackets here and there. I’m guilty of it, I wear a jacket, but look what the deal is, is that you go and you look at other conventions that might be in the same convention center or in the same hotel with you.
And what do you see? You see people in suits, you see people kind of showing off. Sometimes you see a lot of pretentiousness. Well, our dive professionals are not pretentious, you know? And I think it’s because as divers, we learn to live with bad hair. We learn to live with boogers on our face. We learn to live with pee that might be on our body. Urine on our body because we pee in our wetsuits. No, no one does that. What? No. So you think about it, we’re kinda, we kinda gotta be a different breed anyhow because we’re just different in that respect. Right? And so, but even the ones that are crushing it in our industry that are making really, really good money, they’re humble. They’re cool, they’re down to earth. And that I think is what is the common denominator of why people are so good, is that we have this passion for this thing called diving.
We are underwater explorers. And as an underwater explorers, we’re just a hardier bunch of folks and we have a passion and we live for something more than just a jet set lifestyle. We get rocked when we go underwater and see awesome, awesome Marine life and have great dives. That is what’s really, really cool. I also want to point out that our diving legends and pioneers are totally approachable. Every one of them. I mean we’re talking greats like Zale Parry, Zale Parry from Sea Hunt, the Co Star alongside Lloyd Bridges. You know, she is just there. She’s beautiful, she’s spirited. She’s just a lovely person and you can say hi to her and meet one of the first female divers, first female celebrity divers. You know, it’s just, it’s just awesome. Bob Hollis, the originator of Hollis manufacturing, Hollis line of dive gear, great guy, and just wonderful and approachable.
Hal Watts, a guy that set the air record on scuba at over 400 feet and he’s just hilarious. Zig and Joanne Zighan from Beneath The Sea. They won an award, the DEMA Reaching Out Award. You know, they’ve just been in the industry for so long, but they’re so sweet and they’re so approachable and they want to know people. You’ve got people like Captain Spencer Slate. Spencer, also won the DEMA Reaching Out Award. Now Spencer, when I was becoming a diver in the early eighties, I remember seeing a Skin Diver magazine with this goofy guy who had a ballyhoo sticking out of his mouth and a massive Barracuda coming up and biting it out of his mouth. What a great shot. I think it was Stephen Frink, that actually took that photo and you know, here he is, many, many years later getting a reaching out award just because he has been an icon in the Florida keys.
And I’m pleased to say he’s a good friend and you know, these people are just super, super cool down to earth, approachable, and there’s countless, countless more. So I just love that, our legends and our pioneers who actually were part of the earliest days of the sport, the earliest days of scuba training agencies, the earliest days of pioneering new equipment are around and they are part of who we are. And you know what else I love? I love the fun, loving nature of the people in our industry. I laugh a lot when I am around folks in our dive industry. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a dive boat or if it’s at the DEMA show or in a dive shop, that’s just, there’s humor, there’s this, this lightheartedness, there’s this happiness. Because I think people are just so jazzed about diving in general and what it is that they just see a different side of life there. You know, they’re cool, they’re chill, they’re adventurous, they’re fun. So those are kind of the attributes that I chalk up to one of my favorite things about this industry is the people in it.
The Toys
Now, the other thing I love about our industry are the toys. Yep. I got to say it. It’s the toys. The toys are pretty darn cool. It’s like Christmas when I go to a DEMA show, I geek out about so many things. The vast majority of manufacturers and their brands are at the DEMA show. So you get to see everything in one place. You even get to see what’s new and upcoming for 2020 and what’s cool is you get to ask to the reps and even some of the engineers and you realize that there’s dozens of people back home, not even at the show that have created these things.
It’s truly amazing to see the technology that unfurls and what comes out every year and what gets improved every year. You know, I think that it’s awesome that we have all these advances in technology. We’re doing all these great things. The equipment is actually getting better every year. Duh. Right? But think about it. I mean, it’s really getting better every year. It’s incredibly safe and it’s even getting safer. So to see what’s happening with our lines that are out there and with the toys, the equipment, it’s just so, so cool and so exciting. I just absolutely love it.
The Destinations
And then finally is destinations. I am so jazzed on where we get to go with our cool toys, with our cool people. Folks we can literally dive all worldwide, diving world wide. Now take that in. How cool is that? And, what are we going to see worldwide? You know, walking these halls was just an intense reminder of how big our world is and how much we have yet to see and explore.
Even as dive pros, there’s so many places to go. And you all know I have another podcast called the League of Extraordinary Divers. You’d be amazed how many legends in the industry I talk to and they’ve been to great places around the world, but they haven’t been everywhere and they have places they still want to go. That is such a neat thing for us to set our sights on destinations and to bring others along with us as we explore these destinations. And what’s the great stuff about it? Well, look, I mean, we can go to a small reef and we can sit and just be mesmerized by a little five by five section of reef just sitting there and watching all of the biodiversity that happens right there. Right? You with me? I mean that gets me excited, but then what’s it like to go with the big animals?
What’s it like to go on whale expeditions where you’re actually in the water with whales? What’s it like to go where whale sharks are at and be a part of them? Or even if you just see one on a on a day or, but just go to places where they’re at and they aggregate. What about hammerhead migrations? The sardine run off of South Africa. This is Epic. You’ve got sardines running and what also is attracted to them? You’ve got whales, you’ve got sharks, you’ve got birds diving in the water. I mean to see the footage of this, I haven’t been, but to see the footage is just unbelievable. That’s off of South Africa. Also off of South Africa; Great whites. Get in a cage and have these epic great whites come around you. And then speaking of sharks, tiger sharks at tiger beach and Grand Bahamas. How about mantas in Kona?
How about the reefs and wall dives that you’ll see in Philippines, Indonesia, Palau, then Australia, the Florida keys, shallow and accessible. Cayman. There’s Bonaire, Turks and Caicos, Honduras, Cozumel, Red Sea, Catalina Island, kelp diving in California. Then there’s shipwrecks, super historic ones like Scappa Flow in Scotland and Truk Lagoon with the world war II wrecks, the great lakes of the United States. You can even dive between two continents in Iceland. That’s cool. I forgot the name of it, but that is just really, really cool. So you know, think about this, you’re a pro. How cool is this as a trade that we get to be on this entrepreneurial journey with these people, these toys, and going to these destinations literally all around the world. And you get to share that with others. That’s why you’re a professional. You’re selling them those trips, you’re selling them those toys, you’re getting to do it with them and you’re getting to make other explorers.
That to me is a noble and awesome profession. Will you make a fortune at this? No. No, you won’t. And some of you might, but most, most people won’t. You know, the adage is how do you get $1 million in the diving industry? Start with $2 million. But look, folks don’t believe that, by the way. I know it’s a joke and I just say it because so many people say it. But here’s the deal.
You know, a good friend and industry colleague I was having drinks with the other night at the DEMA show, the store that he purchased years ago, barely made, barely grossed $200,000 in a year that the whole store barely grossed $200,000. Last year he did $1.2 million gross sales. Now that is really a neat thing. And why is that? Well, there’s tons of secrets and a lot of the things we’re sharing on these episodes of The Dive Locker, how to be good at your craft, how to engage customers.
That’s what he did and he is having a really, really successful dive business. That’s awesome. That’s encouraging. And you can do the strategies he was telling me. There was nothing like really amazing. He’s just good at being good at retail sales and customer service and giving them opportunities and encouraging people and advertising. Well that’s what it’s about. You know? So I think we do all this for something more. And as Drew Richardson, president and CEO of PADI put it at the PADI social on Tuesday night of last week. It’s all about the awe of what we get to do. It’s the awe. Diving is awe inspiring. All of our senses are truly engaged and very present. When we dive, it makes us focus on a truly foreign, another foreign world in nature. We’re so used to this terrestrial world and we get to put that gear on and go under the surface. It’s a new world.
You love it. I love it. We’re passionate about it. Let that awe be what inspires you to continue being a dive pro. To continue your journey as a professional, your journey as an Explorer, your journey as an educator and raise up those beneath you and behind you. Get them to be inspired. It can happen from the very first pool session all the way to go in and doing an epic trip to the Red Sea, right? This happens all along the way and our sport is just groomed for growth and being able to help people. So I just have this absolute passion and desire just, you know, I hope that you feel the same, the same or the same inspiration that I do. And remember, the word inspired means in spirit, in spirit. So are we really inspired and in spirit of this sport that, that we get to do as professionals?
I hope you are. I’m fired up about it. Hey, if you’re not or you’re like, “man, I don’t know. I’m not making enough money” or whatnot. Look going to the DEMA show charges my batteries every year. And the biggest thing is it’s about only seeing all this cool stuff and reminding me of where I could be and reminding me of, of how cool it is, what we do is what we do. But it’s being around other people, like my friend who made $1.2 million last year and a very small dive shop by the way. When you look at that, (I mean in footprint size), you know, when you look at that, that is inspirational too. Folks we need to get around like minded people. We need to get around and be surrounded by other pros that will lift us up.
I want to give a huge shout out to the industry. For those of you that were at this DEMA show, I have never been to a DEMA show where there was more positivity. This one was a record book show. I go up to booths, I go up to colleagues. I say, “how you guys doing? You know, how’s the show going for you?” You know, there’s some years that you get “well, it’s slow” and you get naysayers and well, blah, blah, blah, and on and on. Not this year, not this year. People were absolutely pumped. Yeah, I know the economy’s doing really well right now and that’s a good thing, but I’m telling you, it was more than just the economy. It was an attitude, it was infectious and everybody felt the buzz. Everybody felt it. It was truly one of the greatest things. And so I want to encourage you, reach out to other pros if you’re having a tough time with it.
I mean, don’t look at your pros as competition all around. Find others. Go back to your original instructors. Go back to who taught you divemaster, who taught you to be an instructor. Go to those trainers, go to those examiners, go to others. And remember what I said about approachable. Look, all you gotta do is pick up your magazines, pick up the scuba periodicals that are out there. You will find authors of those magazines, you will find people and you’ll find their Twitter accounts. You’ll find their Facebook pages. Connect with people and say, “Hey, tell me about this. Hey, let’s connect. Hey, I need some input.” Whatever. You know, this is really, really a great industry. Let it grow. Let it blossom in you. Reach out to others that are gonna lift this up. And I’m telling you folks, you will have a wonderful life in this industry.
And I look at these legends and I interview these legends and they with twinkles in their eyes get to reflect back on the wonderful things that they’ve done, the wonderful places they’ve gone and the wonderful people they have met in this industry. And that is what it’s about. Hey, and if you’re an up and coming pro listening to this podcast, I’m going to tell you to go for it. You know when I was in college, I asked my mom to borrow some money so that I could be a scuba instructor. She hemmed and hawed and then eventually said, “well, it’s something you could always fall back on.” You know what? It became my career right out of college. It was my career and I’ve been doing it 31 years. I’m telling you folks, there is something for everyone in this industry. I say, go for it. Become a pro. If you’re not one already, do it. Enjoy it, and if you are a pro, I’m sure you feel the same way I do. You’re inspired. You’ve got a passion for diving and you like sharing it with others.
Thanks For Listening!
That’s it for today my friends. Once again, this episode is sponsored by you! That actually is sponsored by you. Why? Because you are the inspiration for this show. All of you that came up and said such great things to me at the DEMA show about this podcast. I can’t thank you enough. I can’t thank you enough. That just empowered me. And so I just wanted to share with all of you how I felt walking away from this show, being so jazzed about the industry.
And for those of you that couldn’t be at this trade show, I just want to say, Hey, keep it up. Be a part of this thing. Get inspired, get pumped. And I hope my words today have a little spark that can, can resonate with you. So thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live, and please leave a show rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com. There you can also click the microphone, leave us a comment, connect with me. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.
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