Tec Clark, Author at ScubaGuru

007 Six Great Tips for Independent Instructors

The Dive Locker, episode seven. Six great tips for independent instructors. 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 it is great to have you with us today everybody. In today’s episode, we’re going to look at that age old discussion of can you make a decent living as a scuba instructor?

Well, I have two guests that are both making their living as independent instructors. That means they don’t work for a dive center, resort or a boat. They have their own dive training companies and they work as independent instructors. Since these guys are absolutely rocking this, I mean even to the point of making over six figures annually as independents, that means over $100,000 a year independently. I wanted them to share three of their biggest tips each so that those of you who are independent instructors, and even those of you who are in dive centers, you can learn a lot here.

But first I want to thank our sponsor, the DEMA Show 2019. The DEMA Show 2019 is taking place this November 13th through 16th in Orlando, Florida. It is the world’s only international trade only event for dive, travel and action water sports professionals. At DEMA Show you never know who you’ll meet while walking the show floor, participating in one of the 300 plus education sessions, or attending the networking events. Find your next opportunity to partner or a vendor who can take you and your business to the next level. DEMA Show is the perfect place to find new ways to grow your business. Learn more at demashow.com.

Okay, so let’s meet our guests. First up is Dave Ochs from West Palm beach, Florida. He left being a manager of a dive center in 1993 to go independent. He then launched Aqua Safari Adventures in 1996 where he is focused on training and dive guiding to make well over six figures a year. Dave also serves on the NAUI board of directors. And next we have Grant Graves from Malibu, California. He’s been a PADI pro for 33 years and five years ago he went independent. He’s providing independent training at all levels but specializes in health and safety and technical courses with both DAN and PADI. So these guys are absolute rock stars in independent instruction. So let’s do this and dive into my interviews with Dave Ochs and Grant Graves.

Dave Ochs

TEC CLARK: Hey Dave, welcome to the show. It’s good to have you on.

DAVE OCHS: Thanks. It’s great to be here.

TEC CLARK: Well I invited you for this segment on independent instruction and how independent instructors can succeed for you to give us tips. Now, I’ve already talked about you and kind of what your background is, but one of the things that stands out to me about you is that you have been doing full time training and dive guiding since 1993 and you are making a full time income of it, and a very nice and respectable full time income.

One that has been so just championed that NAUI and DEMA, all these different venues that you’ve been through and places you are going, you are actually speaking and teaching people on some of these principles that you hold dear, that say, “you know what, as an independent instructor you can make it in this industry.” So can’t wait to hear from you. Dave, what are your tips that you have for folks as we’re talking about this topic?

DAVE OCHS: Well, I’m excited to talk to you and be sharing this stuff is a real passion of mine and one of the things is kind of funny. I’ve actually been telling people probably over the last decade or so, do not refer to yourself as an independent instructor. If you are teaching independent of a shop that’s just great, but what you’re doing is providing a professional service. So yes, I do not own a traditional dive store. My business is designed and focused on providing dive training and dive guiding and I refer to myself, I am the owner and operator of a dive training operation and that’s what I suggest that others in similar situations say they’re running a dive training operation. There’s often a negative stigma attached to an independent instructor. And that’s not what I’m doing. Independent instructors are often considered, “Oh they do this on the weekend or part time.” But like you said, this is my full time job and I’ve been doing it. I started Aqua Safari in 1996 and this has been my full time career training and dive guiding divers.

TEC CLARK: That’s awesome. And I love the term you use. You say concierge style. Tell us what that means.

DAVE OCHS: Concierge style is, is different than off the shelf or just walking in and taking a prepackaged product. With Aqua Safari Adventures, all of our training programs or dive guiding programs, in fact, everything we do for the client is centered around them. It’s tailored and custom fit to meet their unique training needs, their unique schedule, et cetera. So we do private and personalized service as opposed to “Hey, class starts on Tuesday, runs every Tuesday night for the next three weeks, come sign up now.” No, we build it to suit their needs and provide them that kind of service.

TEC CLARK: Nice. That’s awesome. So what tips do you have for those that are independent out there that might now be not labeling themselves independence anymore, but, what tips would you have for them that you think are kind of the heart and soul of success?

DAVE OCHS: Wow. Teaching scuba is one of my passions. So it’s too bad we have 10 minutes, we could probably talk you and I as educators for 10 hours over this. But really distill it down for both career success, professional success, and just training divers well, which I think any of us who are committed to this and want to do. Number one, your education, your training has to be student centered. Student focused. You want to teach to the students’ needs, not some formula and not some script, but design your training to meet the needs of each student. And that’s difficult to do in a big group class I get that, it’s one of the reasons why I enjoy focusing on private training with Aqua Safari Adventures. But you can hybrid that for group classes to really focus in your training to the needs of the students and making sure each student is learning to the proper level to make them a competent and successful and fun loving diver.

TEC CLARK: That’s so smart. That’s so good. And people will honor that and they will appreciate that to the nth degree because they know that they’re getting a quality experience that is focused on them. They’ll feel that. And so many people in a group setting or a class setting don’t really get that same care. So that’s awesome. Excellent. I love that.

DAVE OCHS: Yeah, that and that one really leads into the second one, which I am just a firm believer in always providing quality service. I don’t care what line of work you’re in, do it to the best of your ability. Provide the best type of service that you can. Realize that’s what you’re in business for, to provide something of need and value to your client. So when we’re teaching scuba, it should always be high quality service, which goes beyond just comprehensive training that has a good result in a properly trained student.

But, the simple things that probably most of our parents taught us growing up. Be polite, be courteous, show up on time, do what you say you’re going to do. For us it means providing, bringing the equipment to the student in their training setting as opposed to them having to come to our office to pick it up, right? We provide a, a training itinerary that lists every detail of what they’re going to be doing with. You anticipate the client needs, and then fill those needs before the client even knows they have them. So it’s a smooth and seamless experience from start to finish, right? The goal of building a great relationship with your clients is so if they come back and refer others.

TEC CLARK: Yeah. I think that that’s so important and you take such attention to detail with the clients time and I think that that’s an amazing thing when someone’s calling you, you are calling them back immediately. You’re showing that attentiveness to them, right?

DAVE OCHS: Absolutely. Yes. No one wants to have their calls or emails unreturned and it goes on a lot in this day and age, so call people back.

TEC CLARK: Yeah, exactly. And that just shows care and concern and desire to work. People will automatically give you a bunch of brownie points for just that right there. But you’re so right when you can take attention and put all that detail in and make a quality training experience that is service oriented. Now all of a sudden it, they do feel like, “wow, I am getting a lot of value for my dollar.” And I think value is the big key here is that they’ll get quickly that this person is truly serving me and that that service is something that’s going to be remarkable to them. And they know it. They can feel that.

DAVE OCHS: Exactly. I think you do a presentation on a servant leadership and it’s that type of attitude that really pays dividends in the business world.

TEC CLARK: Yup, absolutely. And for that, there’s obviously time that you’re investing more in your students than maybe a prescribed class or even these abbreviated trainings or things like that. How does that equate with what is important about your time and all this?

DAVE OCHS: That really gets to the heart of this and leads to my third most important element that I want to leave with all the instructors out there listening to this. That is charge prices that reflect your professional expertise and experience, charge like a pro. We’re in this because we all love scuba, but that’s a given and we have a passion for it and that’s absolutely fundamentally critical. But if you’re not charging professional fees for your service, that passion will begin to dwindle. Thank you, right? Do not miss my calling as a DJ, right? Passion can begin to wane if you’re just working so hard to provide student centered learning and quality service and not being properly compensated for that.

I like to remind people of what a golf pro makes. I live down here in South Florida, but golf pros, even the mediocre ones, you’re making $75 to a hundred bucks an hour. The good ones are making $150, $200, $300 an hour. Same with the tennis pro’s. We are scuba professionals. We should be charging the same amount of money. The guy who comes to repair my refrigerator, it’s $75 to show up. I’ve got a rental house with the water softener systems. It’s $100 just for the service call, right? And yet we’ve got scuba professionals providing outstanding service, holding people’s lives in their hands, quite literally with all sorts of training to do that properly, willing to work for four or $5, $10, $15 bucks an hour!

It’s not enough, right? You need to charge like a professional. And then when you’re hiring instructors, pay them professional level fees to maintain that type of high quality service. Otherwise it’s simple economics high caliber people who can demand a higher wage. And in any industry, if they’re not getting properly compensated in the job or industry they’re in, they will look for work elsewhere. And after 26 years in the scuba industry, I’m so tired of seeing excellent instructors have to leave to just to go find a job where they can make a decent living. That’s wrong. And one of my goals with, with Aqua Safari is to change that. Sorry, we’re preaching.

TEC CLARK: No, no, no. This is exactly it. And people need to hear that Dave. People need to hear that, especially new pros and even veteran pros that are probably not doing it the way that we’re talking about here. You and I have seen constant, constant, numerous examples of individuals that have gotten burnt out. And I mean financially burnt out. It’s not about that they’re burnt out on the sport or they’re burnt out about work or taking people underwater and showing them the same reef 20 times. We can go on the same reef 20 times and be like, “cool, we saw something new today.” It’s awesome. Right?

The deal is though is that when people start getting squeezed, when they’re having a tough time paying their rent, when they’re having a tough time having a social life, when they’re having a tough time making ends meet, then they turn to this and say, “man, I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t do this. Maybe I shouldn’t be a dive pro.” And you know they start looking at dive boats. They start looking at dive shops and centers and they start to kind of get that feeling of, “Oh, is this all there is, is this all I’m worth? Is this all I’m going to get paid?”

How do we live in certain markets in this country and get paid what places are paying? I love that you are an example of independence. What that looks like to have a different style, to have a different training organization that is not embedded in a dive center, but that it’s yours. And you get to kind of call the shots and you get to be the heart and soul of it and you get to be the one that interacts with the clients, but you’re doing it responsibly and effectively so that you can make a living and love what you do because the money is there as well as the love for the sport.

TEC CLARK: So you are a shining example of this and so I want people to check you out. And I know you got a new website coming out too, but a, that’s going to be at the aqua safari adventures dot net I’ll put that link.

DAVE OCHS: Actually Tec. It’s just Aquasafari.net

TEC CLARK: Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, Aquasafari.net right. And take out the adventures. I’ll put that then on the show notes page Aquasafari.net so people can see it on our show notes page and link up with you. Maybe even say hi to you. You’ll be at DEMA right. So maybe some people can bump into you and meet you in person. And you know, I just want to recommend that if anybody is ever around an area or an event that Dave is doing a presentation on independent instruction and concierge style services and training, you need to hear what he just told us now is scratching the surface of what his other tips and techniques and presentations are. So definitely be in touch with him and, and check out what he’s got going on at, at other training events.

DAVE OCHS: Tec, can I make a quick plug? I’m actually giving a presentation at DEMA this year in Orlando. I’m doing at least two on, continuing education, why that’s important and how to profit from it. And then I’m also part of a business round table. Both presentations are being sponsored by NAUI. So you can go to the NAUI website and find out, look at their DEMA schedule or just look at the DEMA schedule generally. But continuing education is a real passion of mine to talk about that, and it’s really important for dive professionals and so don’t miss it that one. And I think the business round table will be incredibly helpful as well. There’ll be several individuals that are successful in scuba diving, sharing the things they’re doing.

TEC CLARK: That’s awesome. Well thank you so much Dave. I greatly appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you at DEMA. I hope other people do too. Thanks again bud. Thank you. We’ll talk to you later. Thanks.

Grant Graves

TEC CLARK: So grant, welcome to The Dive Locker. It’s good to have you here.

GRANT GRAVES: Hi Tec, it’s great to be here. Thank you for having me.

TEC CLARK: So I reached out to you, you and I go way back in the industry. We have done so many things together. And years and years that we have partnered and done things, what has stood out to me is that on the West coast of the United States, you are basically crushing it in a nontraditional sense of scuba training and education. You have been an educator in diving for what, 30 something years? 30-33 years, right?

GRANT GRAVES: So technically a PADI member for 33 years.

TEC CLARK: So this has been big, but it’s not like a longevity thing to you and it’s you know, just worn on your sleeve. It’s that you truly love education. The last course I was in with you, your passion for teaching and education really is huge.

But then when you dig in and find out that you have done this kind of nontraditional, client based almost concierge style of teaching individuals almost kind of quasi privately and independent is as some might call it. This has been something that has really stood out to me about you over the years. And that’s why I wanted to invite you on for this special episode that’s dedicated to independent instructors. So thank you for being here. Grant, give us your top three items that just really stand out to you that you think are successful attributes for independent instructors.

GRANT GRAVES: Well, I think the first thing is you really truly need to understand what your day is valued at for you. And to make a living and making a living is not working 30 days in a row. You know, 12, 15 hours a day like sometimes happens and having $200 to buy food after the 30 days. It’s being able to save some money and you know, put some retirement away and things like that. And I don’t know about you, but in sunny Sandy Silicon beach out here, we have the highest cost of living in the country right now. So it takes on a real meaning. And a lot of people I think, as they come in as instructors, don’t think about it. It’s diving, they love it. When I’m training instructors, part of my homework on the very first day is “what is your day worth?”

And the way I preface that is if you are on your regular job and out on vacation in Tahiti and they had to have you back, what would it cost them to get you back? Because when you’re a part timer, and I get a lot of part timers and say, “I’m just part time, I’m doing it for fun.” And I say, “well, it’s more important when you for you on that time because it’s time off to make real money because you are that person in Tahiti when you’re working and teaching scuba away from your normal job.” Me as a full timer, I can take on some projects for passion or you know, sweat equity trade and you know, that only works if you have enough equity as in money coming in to afford to not charge for it and take time as payback or whatever.

Right. So I will, I will take some passion clients once in awhile and say, “you know, you can pay me, which isn’t cheap. It’s an investment between us, but we could trade time. It’s just going to cost you a lot more time than if you paid me.” It matters. But you know, it’s just one of those things that’s kind of an exchange. So it’s not always about the money, but if you’re, you know, starving in the desert, no water, no sandwich, no food for 30 days. When you arrive back from the desert, you want a sandwich. You don’t want to a pat on the back or a certificate, right? So there’s an awful lot of instructors that tend to be economically starving and in the desert. So money is a reality of this. If you want to stay in it, you have to afford to not quit.

TEC CLARK: That’s such a good point. You know, you get on forums and people are talking about how to get jobs in the industry and what’s available and, and when they kind of go down that pipeline of only looking at a dive centers or dive boats as their way to make money on these professional certifications that they’ve achieved, that can erode what it means to be a dive professional. And all of a sudden when you are faced with that cost of living, like you’re talking about out there in California, us over here in Florida, it doesn’t matter where you’re at, are you really being able to make the cost of living but make a good living so that you are living in doors and have clothing, shelter and things like that. I think that’s an excellent point that you bring up.

GRANT GRAVES: Well there, there still is that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. You need to be able to afford a house and a roof and a food and a life, and if you’re trying to raise a family. If you want to stay in it short term and have some kicks, fine. You know, I’m not going to disparage, there are some very good shop owners out there doing very sophisticated businesses and treating their people quite well. So I’m not against being affiliated. I just know that there’s a big chunk probably in the majority of shops, if an instructor relies solely on work from that shop through classes, they’re not going to make enough. They have to be entrepreneurial. Even if they’re in a shop, you have to cultivate private clients. You have to cultivate private relationships. You have to view yourself as hanging your own brand shingle underneath the roof of someone else’s shingle.

And unfortunately some shops are not as willing to have that entrepreneurial spirit. Some people don’t want to consider they work that hard. But the reality is the clients don’t know better. And they’re used to not the way services and the dive business, but where it is in Nordstrom’s. So our expectations shouldn’t be about lowering their expectation cause it’s the quote unquote dive business right now. They have that modern expectation of good technology to do presentations and mobile applications. Having on demand saying yes, it’s not our job to tell the client whether we should take their money or not. It really is our job to not always say yes immediately, but facilitate it. So if that takes some training, if that takes some guidance, that’s part of our role. And if they can, you build a listening and trusting relationship with the client, they’re never gonna go anywhere else because you’re their guy.

It’s like you’re taking them to Everest sales for years. Easy. We’re expedition outfitting. If we treat it that way, listen to their values and what they care about. We’re kitting them up to have an amazing adventure. It’s not about the features and benefits, it’s about what’s what makes them functional. What makes their experience the best and facilitated without having gear issues getting in the way. We’ve all had that leaky mass that drives us crazy and we miss the giant Manta Ray because we’re messing with our mask. Nope. It’s our job to help keep that from happening and if it happens more than once, fix it.

TEC CLARK: Right. Excellent. Grant, what does that relationship look like when, when you’re independent and you decide to embark in this area and you decide to have some private clientele and do some private courses, what does a relationship look like to quote unquote affiliate with a dive center or partner with a dive center in some way, shape or form?

GRANT GRAVES: I certainly have some dive centers that are close relations and friends, but it really is an economic one. Well first of all, it’s picking your demographic. A high end market is just easier to deal with cause if price is your barrier, you shouldn’t come to me. I’m not your instructor and you’re not my client and that’s not to be elitist. I just need to make a certain amount of money to give you my full professional capability. And I think every professional owes that to their client. Whether the through a shop in a group class are private. We owe our clients our full professional capability appropriate to the level of training. And for me that means this long I need to have a certain economic return to make sure I’m not thinking about three classes ahead. Most instructors are thinking three classes ahead to make that monthly amount in the bucket.

So for me it’s kind of easy. I’ve had clients that want to start their own dive shops with me and I’m like we don’t need to, I could have the worst relationship in the world with a dive center any in the world and they will take 100% full price retail sale. So that’s one of the first things. I make it economically viable for the shop. I will, I’ve had lots of shops surprisingly want to give me a discount and I’m like, “I don’t want to discount.” My job is not to get a discount on gear for my client. My job is to make sure their serviced the best they can be. So rewrite the quote for full retail, not more, I have to protect them from being gouged, but they’ll happily pay that extra 10% or 15% and as an outside instructor, it’s simple math inside you have a huge cost of sale, right?

It’s not just the item. Unfortunately, some owners says “it’s the cost of the item.” No, there’s electric, there’s paying your people, there’s insurance, there’s all that. And that cost of sale in diving is high. So when I come in from the outside with no workup, no anything that they have to do to add onto that cost of sale, other than the item, their profit margin on a sale at full retail for me is, you know, 50%, 60%, 40% whatever the item is. So some play at times I’ll say, “Hey, why don’t you give me 10% back?” So they’re still making 40% net versus the 10% or 5% or 6% or 15% that most retail facilities are so. If I owned a shop, I would be catering to every outside person on a high end client I could get. I have one shot with one client that they did in a period of 18 months, a $150,000 with that one client in full retail sales.

So it can be quite lucrative. And like I said, anybody who’s going to take a retail sale and I want that retail sale for them, so it’s a healthier sale. And if I have an issue, I get response right away. If they want to throw in rental gear for a more basic level class, great. Otherwise it’s just a cost I pass onto the client. And realistically at this, at the high end level, they’re not staying without gear very long. So often in the open water class with their own gear anyway. But it’s just about having a conversation around business. They’re in the business to make money ultimately. Right? So if you make the situation healthy for the support facility, the shop, then it’s a win win for both of you.

TEC CLARK: That’s fantastic. And I think, you know, listening to this podcast, also are dive center owners and not, not just the independent instructors that are benefiting from your tips here, but those dive center owners I’ve heard, and you have to, that there are tons of dive center owners that say “absolutely not. I don’t want anybody from the outside. You are competing with me. Even if you bring them to my shop, you’re taking away lessons from me, et cetera, et cetera.” And then you’ve got these savvy business owners that go, “I’ll take as many independents that can target people to our shop as possible. Let’s work together and let’s raise this up together.” What would you say to that dive center owner with respect to independent instructor?

GRANT GRAVES: Oh, the ones that are resistant, I imagine you’re asking me about. Well, first of all, take the gun out and shoot yourself in the foot because that’s what you’re doing. But beyond that, I beg to differ. This is not a client I’m taking from you because I guarantee you 100% with total confidence, it’s not a client you’ll ever see. I visited dive centers unbranded all the time and as long as I’m not recognized from a previous PADI video long ago or something, I see what happens. And I’ll tell you sadly in several, you don’t get a hello. I go over to the most expensive item in the store, pick it up, still not an acknowledgement or hello. So it doesn’t take a lot to be a hundred percent better. And sometimes I think people are lazy and I’m not calling dive center owners lazy because they’re some of the hardest working people in the world.

But every person walking into your building is a $10,000 bill. If you create a relationship, often the minimum they’ll spend in the first year. How that happens, I don’t think matters. And if you don’t have to deal with the cost of sale of your entire operation and it’s coming from outside with no interaction other than fulfilling an order, I think that’s a much higher net situation. And if you’re a business person, increasing net is a huge thing as far as I know. So it’s not a bad relationship as long as you manage it well and it’s fair and people are acting in a fair way.

TEC CLARK: Yeah, absolutely. That’s fantastic. So tip one was, what is your day worth? Tip two is that you’re catering more to that high end market. Some places just the clientele is going to be fine with one place, but not for you and your services. Number three, what is your third tip?

GRANT GRAVES: I think it’s really understand your client. I think it’s about saying yes and that’s not, “I want to dive 300 feet today, and I don’t have to dive today. And…” All right, we can get you there, but it’s going to take me a couple years. Right? So there’s, there’s always a way to find a yes. And again, it’s not our job to tell the client how they should spend their money. And often times so many shops, people, and I think it’s a subconscious personal bias that we all carry that we wouldn’t pay that price for a service ourselves. So it’s a self worth thing in some respects. The client doesn’t know what it should cost. They don’t. They really don’t understand. So we have to paint a really good picture after first listening to the client of what they expressed to us and their needs, wants, desires. How are we going to fulfill that and say, absolutely no problem.

TEC CLARK: I love that. So it’s really, how are you going to provide service? What you know, coming up with that, how do you say yes to them and give them what they want and give them the value.

GRANT GRAVES: That creates that value that the transformation diving itself. We know underwater, even in a crappy lake where we’ve dived in Florida, sometimes for some of those exams, they have a great time. They’re turned on. The underwater stuff isn’t the problem, and it changes people’s lives.

We can take somebody to that Sandy pit of a, of a swamp across the street or whatever, and they’re different every time because they are, the dive is different every time because there’s a human, they’re different every time. It changes them as a person. So that’s easy. Our issue then isn’t the diving. That’s always good and it’s built into diving is transformation for the person. It’s us. We’re the barrier. People are leaving because of us and what happens between dives or the amount of time it takes to go get that dive. We need to fill that up with value too.

I see a lot of instructors standing around between dives and telling them “that giant sea bass you to saw, it’s incredible and it was endangered” and all this stuff. Rather than shutting up and asking student “what was it like?” Let them express their experience. We’re not supposed to tell them what they experienced. Let them experience. It becomes a customized, mass private we call it, right? It’s a private because it’s their experience and the way you lead things, the conversations you have sitting around between dives and just kind of kicking back and doing nothing, or you’re going to talk about the kelp out here in California and maybe it’s laying down. What does that tell you? You know, are you going to fill that downtime, that 80% 70% that isn’t in the water with value and that’s creates relationships and a lot of it’s about listening to the client first.

There’s, “I’ll feed you everything you need to know” and then you just park back with the expedition kit outfitting rather than sales pitch and you’re going to make retail sales too. And if you think you’re not in the retail sales business, you’re crazy because your clients have to have gear. We are not adapted to breathe water. So if they’re going to continue to dive, and I think every instructor and shop owner really truly wants their clients to keep diving and make it part of their life, we need to make it easy for that and part of that is kitting them up.

TEC CLARK: And you got to make those connections for that. That’s great. Well thank you so much Grant. This is awesome. How can people follow you?

GRANT GRAVES: I have a blog that’s unfortunately not that active, but it a lot of good information on it called precisiondiving.com and that that outlines my training philosophy that underlies any training agency. It’s about mindset. It’s about the what I call the four pillars of performance, breathing, buoyancy, swimming and how you trim, but built on that first is mindset. So it all starts with how you envision things. We could have a whole different discussion about precision diving, but it’s a long conversation.

TEC CLARK: Right. Well cool. I will put that link in our show notes page for this episode. So thank you so much Grant. That was awesome. Love the valuable information that you gave here. Thanks so much bud.

GRANT GRAVES: Appreciate for your asking and happy to be here.

TEC CLARK: All right, take care.

So there you go. Wasn’t that valuable? Look if you’ve been thinking that you just can’t make a living teaching scuba, these guys are living proof that you can. And I want to point out that at the end of my interview with Dave, he kept apologizing about his website, that it’s old and it’s out of date and that a new one is coming because we’re putting the link to his website. But I said, “Dave, this is even greater proof of what you are doing is right in the sense that you’re taking care of people, you’re providing such a great service to them. They are telling others, you see, it’s not about your website in your marketing, it’s about that you have provided such outstanding service to your customers that they have told others about you over all these years.” And now he is tremendously successful because of the services he provides, not his website.

So we’ll put a link to his website. You’ll see maybe if you’re seeing it earlier, you’ll see the old version or if you listen to this interview later you’ll see the new version. But at any rate, it’s not about the website, it’s about the quality instruction and services that one provides.

Thanks for Listening!

So that’s it for today everyone. Thanks again to the DEMA Show for being our sponsor of this episode, and I thank you 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 rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page over at scubaguru.com There, you can also leave topic recommendations for future episodes or even comments. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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006 Diving Industry Statistics, Performing FILO

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

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 thank you everybody for being with me today. In today’s episode, we are going to go over two segments.

Segment one is diving industry statistics. Now if you’re like me, you hear the word statistics and you start to have a little bit of a seizure. Well, why do we need to have dive industry statistics? Why are they important? You’re going to learn that today. We’re going straight to Willie Cline with The Cline Group. He is responsible for compiling the diving industry’s most comprehensive survey and statistic results. Also, we’re going to go over performing FILO,F. I. L. O. Is this a European breakfast food? Is it a dance? No, it is a risk management technique that you should be doing for all of your confined water and open water dives.

But first, let’s thank our episode sponsor, the DEMA Show DEMA Show 2019 taking place this November 13 through 16 in Orlando, Florida is the world’s only international trade-only event for dive, travel and action water sports professionals. This year’s expo floor will feature more than 600 leading dive equipment manufacturers, travel destinations, apparel wholesalers and service providers. Register today to create stronger partnerships and uncover the latest and most innovative new products and services. Learn more at DEMAShow.com so let’s suit up and dive into this week’s episode.

Diving Industry Statistics

Alright everyone. Now let’s take a look at some dive industry statistics. We’re going to do this with The Cline Group report that comes out quarterly and I am just tickled to have Willie Cline here, good friend, industry legend and veteran who has been doing this report for dozens of years and I’m just so happy to have you on Willie. How are you doing today?

WILLIE CLINE: I’m great Tec. It’s so nice to be on your show. Thank you.

TEC: You’re welcome. Well, you know you’ve got a survey that comes out quarterly and myself and tons of dive pro’s look at this and we are studying it to see some trends. We look for comparisons from a previous quarter or from the previous year to see what the health is in our industry. Tell us about this. I think this is such a unique tool that we can use as dive professionals and tell us about that and tell us even how people can be a part of this as well.

WILLIE CLINE: Sure. Well, you know, first I’m going to digress a little and tell you a little about myself. For those that don’t really know me well in the industry. I’ve been doing this particular survey for 18 years, but I ran a consultancy in the diving industry out of the Dallas area since, 1990. So over 30 years. But you and I share common roots. We both, have, have gone through Pro Dive or have worked at, right. And so, I actually started my professional side of the industry in high school in Southern California where I ended up, at the ripe old age of 16 being a dive shop manager because the dive shop owner could go home early and put me on the insurance. So that was my first for it, trying to see the real sophisticated side of the diving industry.

And that from those simple beginnings that I went on to become a course director with Alex Brylske, in fact, I was actually the only instructor employed at Pro Dive in 1986, early 1987, I replaced a girl that had gotten bent and, and I was the only instructor and I looked at Greg McKay, I’m like, are you kidding me? I’m a brand new instructor and I’m, I’m the only guy here kind of thing. Of course, it went from that to being, you know, one of the world’s largest, instructor training facility.

TEC: Exactly. Oh my gosh, I didn’t know that.

WILLIE CLINE: Yeah, yeah. Alex. In fact, I was the first hire and then Alex was one of, I think like the second or third. And I had the, that’s really where we met. We became great friends and I had the wonderful joy of being able to just participate as he redesigned the entire IDC curriculum back then.

So I’ve kind of been involved in the roots level of our industry for a long time. I left there and set up a business in Dallas. Actually with the intention of thinking, diving was finally done with me and I was done with it because I had to go on and get a real career. And it followed me. And this is a really long story for probably a totally different interview how I got here. I got to this point, but needless to say for the last seven years, I have chaired DEMA’s research committee. I’ve also been vice chair of their board of directors, for two terms. And I’m running again, by the way, read this fall. But cause I think I’m not done. I think there’s more things we can do from the research side of things.

The problem in our industry has always been, we tend to be very coveted of our information. Most industries you can go out and you can buy lists, you can buy data, you can find information available on the activity level, the consumer, that professional side. Our industry is just never ever been that way. It’s been very, very closed. Part of the reason why dive publishing is so struggle, so difficult in this industry and has been, is that there’s just a very few people in new, in the industry that have the lists and we all, it’s just the nature of the animal. So about 18 years ago, in all the research I’ve done in my company has done a lot of market research and consulting over the years in marketing for a variety of clients has always usually started when a client’s hired me with research.

And so out of pure necessity, we ended up doing and becoming probably the largest provider of private research in the dive industry over the last 30 years. One of the things I saw on many years ago was what we lack is basic forecasting tools and DEMA, bless them, does a fantastic job with reporting with what they can and what they have access to. But what we as an industry don’t have is the ability to forecast and say okay, what is going to happen the next quarter, the next year. So the very first attempt, which is the exact same survey that’s been done for 18 years, 72 I believe 72 or 77 quarters now, is the survey that I send out and it is a very simple survey and I ask people to identify where in the world they are, what time zone they’re in, if they’re in the Americas, what their business classification is.

Cause we want to know everything. We don’t just want to look at retailing and when to look at really the whole global picture of manufacturing to training and so on. And I’ve had an average of probably over the last 18 years, somewhere around 4,000 to 5,000 surveys had been completed. The way we look at as I tend to look at a quarter at a time. So I look at the industry to see how you people have reported and then we ask them the only question I’m aware of that’s ever been asked in the industry consistently is, “how do you think you’re going to do next quarter?” That type of survey is very subjective in nature, but when you ask it the same way, quarter after quarter after quarter to the same group, in theory, you end up with very accurate armchair estimations.

So that’s really essentially all forecasting is how is someone thinking what they’re, they believe they’re going to do. So, my survey is absolutely free. It’s available to anybody to participate. You don’t even have to even be in the industry, but if you’re not, you probably won’t understand a lot what’s in it. And my website is WilliamCline.com. That’s W I L L I A M C L I N E dot com. You can go there. It’s really easy to find a subscription link. I don’t sell anything. I simply use that information to send out the newsletter. And the way it works is every quarter we send out this survey, it’s tabulated through a program called limesurvey, which resides on my servers. That’s not even a third party that does that. And then about a week to two weeks later after the collection period has expired, I’ll go ahead and send out the results in the second quarter survey is out right now.

But I would ask people, you go to my website, certainly subscribe to it, please participate. It’s the kind of survey that’s a crowdsourcing style survey. The more people participate, the more accurate it becomes. It’s just that simple. So I’ve had some months where I’ve had, or some quarters where I’ve had 300-400 people respond and other months, maybe it’s only a hundred or so, it varies depending upon kind of the publicity and the promotion that’s going on in the industry.

And I think people sometimes think, “Oh, it’s that survey again.” But if everybody would, and it takes only minutes to do, it’s literally eight or nine questions. It’s that quick. And anybody that has any kind of a basic accounting function within their op within their company can probably do this right off the top of their head. It’s helping the percentage of increase this quarter versus last quarter. So, that’s the kind of the 90 second overview of, of who I am and what the survey’s about.

TEC: That’s fantastic. And you know, I think that there’s other people that are sitting there going, “you know, I don’t want to give my information” like you said before, you know, but this is it’s not that, it’s not like something bad is going to happen at all. You know, this is more in the lines of sharing with the industry how you’re doing and how you feel. I love the part about that. It’s like that, almost the business confidence side and I’ve watched that at times, wane, and get stronger and it kinda does this ebb and flow, you know, when people are saying, “yeah, I feel good about the upcoming quarter” or “I don’t know, I’m a little shaky” and we’ve seen that through recession periods and whatnot. So I think that that’s a really good tool to use.

And then to be able to see it kind of, regionally when you look at that, okay, if we’re doing hot down here, but maybe other places aren’t or vice versa because we’re getting hit with tropical storms and hurricanes like you and I were talking about earlier, what’s that doing for, for the business down here, you know? So I think that that’s a really good thing to, to do. And I do want to encourage everybody to be a part of this, to subscribe and also to put some of those data points and be a part of this because just as Willie says, the more people that are into this survey, the more accurate it becomes. And that’s fantastic. So we will put the link to the subscription for Willie and his web page so that you’ll be able to go right there and do that.

Now, I also want to say yes, I just saw the DEMA ballot come out, so I know that you’re on there and that’s gonna be awesome. You’ve done a fantastic job on DEMA and you continue to do that. So thank you for that. And thank you for that service to our industry. Willie, will you tell us what the last quarter results were and give us kind of a, a picture of what that looks like for people that have seen it, haven’t seen it. This is the first time they’re learning about it. Share some of those data points with everybody.

WILLIE CLINE: Absolutely. And if it’s okay, I’m gonna digress to a couple of points that the survey has been done for so long that we can go back and look at and look at different quarters in this case years and last year DEMA had produced a, the, the census data that they produce has been really struggling because it doesn’t report all of the training agencies it only reports a few. So, I went back and looked at our survey data that we pulled from the last 24 months up through June of last year for instance. And that’s the beauty of being able to have such histories. I can go back and pull and see specifically how dive retailers and independent structures, cause we actually surveyed them separately because I believe it’s a category that’s really largely overlooked is independent instructors, but they’re there combined with retailers and for the term of this tabulation and we had a two, a two and a half year average growth of 3.7% so that is really significant in new certifications.

And if a lot of instructors are out there listening or dive retailers, you know it’s, as I said from the very beginning, good, accurate data is really hard to come by and DEMA bless their heart is doing the best they can at trying to do the census. But it’s hard to do a census if you don’t have the entire picture represented in the census. So this survey crosses political lines, crosses training agency line certification lines. It has nothing to do with who you’re affiliated with. It’s just simply asking you was it so, but we are do have that ability. So that’s a really important number that the survey shows for last two and a half years. Contrary to kind of what’s out there, we actually have seen a very slow growth. Our industry’s rarely gone through dynamic growth. It did when introduced modular school program because all of a sudden anybody could teach it and there was an explosion.

On the consumer side, we saw a huge explosion, in the nineties you know, but at most average, our industry doesn’t tend to grow more than three to 5% a year and it’s been that way for 30 saw 40 years now. That’s called a slow growth industry. That’s how you build resorts on. That’s how you build million dollar liveaboards with cause you want an industry that has got that nice trend. So that’s a really important figure. The second thing I want to point out before I jump into the, to the last quarter survey, if you go to my website and you can see every single quarter going back several years, but the, the quarters are the fourth quarter of the year because what I do, and it started with the year before, but last year especially to have really excellent John, my opinion is I take the entire year and I total it up and I can tell you how we did for a year as a whole.

And it’s really, really, really important data. So the fourth quarter study, you know, you can see things like how we did in 2018 as a whole, like 4.6% of the, of the 4.6% growth in our industry globally. You know, we had a, what does that, I’m just looking at, I understand that 3.3% growth for retailers in 2018 those are critical numbers because that is the health of our industry. You know, you look at when you look at things on a granular basis such as in a quarter, you tend to see fluctuations and, and like you said, there’s waning and waning and there’s excitement. But we also are not impervious to the economic effects all around us and forget that sometimes.

And, and the guys that Dive Training, Mark Young and Gerry, they do a great job on their Insights and Betty Orr now of what the, how they publish their, cause he’s always, ever since he’s published DCB Dive Center Business Magazine, he’s always tied in the industry to the economic growth factors of our country. That’s really smart cause we do bottle those trends to some degree. The idea is to be resilient. We to see it’s economic resilience, but it doesn’t mean the retailers are not affected by the economic conditions. So they see that on a quarterly basis.

And sometimes you can even tie it to economics as a whole. But definitely when you have storm events like what occur with Dorian affects consumer confidence. Consumer confidence, as we know, affects their willingness to book. They may decide to go to Hawaii instead of Florida Keys this year. So we send a tendency though, so the fourth quarter is always a really important survey. It’s up on the website. The most recent one is the second quarter back to, we’re here about 10 days away from doing our third quarter.

And in the survey there’s two parts of the results. The first part is the reporting of what people said happened in the second quarter and then the second part of the survey as what they think is going to happen in the third quarter, which I personally find very intriguing because it’s just not in our industry. That gives us that kind of roadmap. And even though the sample size is relatively small, I always identify exactly what the sample size exactly where everybody’s from, exactly which countries and exactly who’s reporting. There’s a little tight table on every single survey. So you’re in the, in the research industry, you can take that with a grain of salt because if you know a little bit about statistics, excuse me, they tend to two, you have error rates. Error rates are affected by the number of people respond.

Just like how have the presidential poll, the 1,700 people, and it becomes very accurate usually to predict what happens. It doesn’t take very many, but it does have to be a random sample and there’s a lot of other factors there, but the lower the sample, the higher the error rate. It doesn’t mean that the data is incorrect, it’s the higher percentage chance it could be incorrect. So this data, all of my surveys tend to run between a seven and a 10% error rate because of the size of the sample. And what that means is if you repeated this survey 100 times between seven and 10 times, you would find in, you would find the numbers will be higher than seven or 10% of what’s reported. So just means that there’s a chance for a higher error rate. It doesn’t mean the survey itself as is inaccurate.

Our industry is a very small industry. We have a very small number of retailers. If you took the total global number of retailers, it’s probably less than 5,000 to 6,000. I’m not even sure if that’s right, you know, so when you’re looking at say the retailing base, it doesn’t take a very large sampling to have a good accurate number. We had a good, a good quarter. Most everybody in the second quarter in general, and I won’t go into a lot of detail, but in the second quarter everybody was pretty much up. Saw an increase in certification slightly. We saw an increase in, actually take it back. Certifications were slightly down, but overall business averages were up. We saw travel, did very well that quarter. The big change in the second quarter is that forecast from third quarter of the forecast from first quarter to second was very robust.

Everybody was very positive. They felt like things were rocking it. And then we did have a very strong summer. It wasn’t probably as strong as whatever they hoped it would be, but I do see a very much of a, a lackluster outlook for the third quarter.

TEC: Really?

WILLIE CLINE: Yeah. And it’s not bad, but it’s just for instance, 44% of dive retailers think they’re going to have more sales, than, than what they had last year for third quarter.

TEC: So only 44%.

WILLIE CLINE: Yeah. Right. You know, it’s not everybody and these numbers are always deceptive. You know, you can find bright spots in every single quarter in every single state and every single city of dive shops that are just blowing and going and they don’t follow anybody’s trends cause they’re just great marketers and they’re great. They got switched on, you know, but again, this is ask enough people, you tend to get a consensus.

On my survey you do have the ability to drill down and look and see, as you mentioned, very regional. So I, I do tabulate, retailers and independent structures. Now I do have other data in there for manufacturers for if we have enough reporting live awards, we have enough reporting. The travel industry usually I combine into one big lump, which is dive resorts, liveaboards. I include if you’re a charter boat, be reported in there. So we will sometimes have a, a combined a number in there and the travel cause I think that’s important to look at from an industry to how does our retailing base doing, which I include independent instructors in the retailing base. I do separate them in some cases to beat up on their numbers and reporting. But they do represent, like I can, I used to teach certify in a small town in Branson, Missouri.

I had a little dive shop and it was a ton of little independent instructors around there that were responsible for, you know, far more than say what the large shop in Springfield at the time was doing. So, you know, you have to look at all those factors. The survey tries to, but from a, from a regional area, we break it down into three broad regions. The United States, the Eastern time zone, central time zone. I usually combined at Atlantic actually in Eastern because that does open new fundamental little bit. And then you have, the Pacific, Hawaii and mountains are all reported usually in one big classification. It’s a very broad, big region, but it’s probably one of the hardest areas I get have getting participation from is shops in the West coast. So shops my California brothers, you know, or you instructors out there, please respond because we need you in the numbers.

You’re probably the lowest reporting area. And the more number we have, the more accurate I can break it out to look at that exemptions. But they were a little bit off. In the second quarter, the central time zone was about 4% increase in gross. The strongest was in the Eastern seaboard, the Atlantic with a 7.4% increases and the gross sales. So I asked, usually I ask very simple classifications. I asked your gross sales, what percentage did you do better or worse than last quarter? I don’t ask the numbers, we asked the certifications, what percentage did you do? And if you are a retailer or you’re anybody that teaches or certifies such as divers, what we do, ask me how many you actually certified. We figured that out, the fairly benign number. And that’s really important because then I can tell you exactly for instance, because of that, we had 70,000 certifications issued in the retail environment in the, in the United States for the second quarter.

So we began to build those numbers in to look at our yearly numbers. Again, the attempt here is to try to help the industry see really an accurate reporting on what’s happening on the certification since it’s like we all know our lifeblood of our industry as new divers coming on. That’s the lifeblood. However, the survival is keeping, of course, our existing divers diving cause that’s one thing that a lot cheaper than bringing on new divers, but it’s, we need look all those factors. So the, the majority of my responses usually are from the United States. and last quarter was 68%. I’d love to see that. 50, 50, let’s say 50% of the United States and 50% from the rest of the world. So if you’re out seeing from someplace in Europe or whatever, your numbers are important, we’d love to have them. And even if you don’t want to participate, if you’re on my mailing list, you still get the survey.

TEC: Nice. Nice. That’s fantastic. I love how you’ve broken that out. And you know, I think it’s interesting cause when we look at the quarters and you look at the months that are part of those quarters, I think your third quarter is going to see some spikes because that’s gonna be our latter summer. Right? And so now this is a big time for us, early summer, late summer for diving and dive numbers.

So I have a feeling that even though people might be a little leery going into a quarter, I think they’re going to be surprised, you know? So when they come back and look at the results, I have a feeling that, you know, as that changes now we look towards the fall and you look towards the sales that can happen with the holidays. So I love seeing those patterns and I think that’s something that we can all learn from too whether we’re owners or operators of dive centers or resorts or a dive boats or whatever that is, that this will help if you’re an independent instructor this information will help.

All of this I think is really valuable to our industry. And you just nailed it on the head when you talk about the size of our industry. When you talk about the amount of retailers that we have, in the United States and, globally, you know, there’s a lot of money out there, but we’re really not as big as many other industries, especially in recreation too. So it’s a unique bird that we’ve got in our industry that we’re all pros for. But I love that you are doing this and I love that survey.

And so yeah, as Willie said, yeah, kind of call to action for that West coast group, please be a part of this, but also international people. Please be a part of this. This podcast is going literally worldwide. Everybody should be a part of this. And in a, in not only giving data, but also collectively seeing it and seeing how we can improve, how we can change, how we can grow as an industry and then use other tips for that as well. But this data really helps with that measurement. That’s awesome. Willie, I love this. Thank you so much.

WILLIE CLINE: You’re very welcome bro. I think that from, from a, from an individual business standpoint, this data is not going to put more money in your bank account, but this data will help you if you’re analyzing your business and trying to compare and see how you are doing to other people. So you know, if you’re doing better than what I’m reporting, God bless you. You’re doing it, you’re doing everything right in the business, you know? And if your not, then it might be time to look and see if there’s something you could do to change things. Now, are you dealing with the regional issues such as weather events or whatever, or dealing with just maybe you need some basic marketing that needs to be changed. So that hopefully will be the motivator for, and there’s some other great resources on my website for, for all different kinds of companies visits. And so take, feel free to use, anything that’s on there. It’s all free of course.

TEC: That’s perfect. Well, thank you so much Willie. I greatly appreciate that. Again, we’re going to put all the information that we talked about here in the show notes page so that you can link in and subscribe right onto Willie’s website. Again, that’s WilliamCline.com. Right? And so we’ll put that in all those links will be there and then be a part of this, see what it’s all about and subscribe. Thanks so much. We look forward Willie to having you on every quarter to give us this overarching look at how we’re doing and, that measurement, is coming out in your report. I think it’d be great.

Everybody can see it, but it’s great to hear from you and I love that you bring some, a little bit greater sense than just the numbers. In college I had a statistics professor, as you were going into statistics there, I almost started twitching. But the deal is, is that I had a really good statistics professor who took the numbers and said, “but here’s why this matters” and that’s exactly what you’re doing for us. So we look forward to having you on the show for your quarterly results and in the client group report. So thank you so much Willie. Really appreciate you being here.

WILLIE CLINE: Hey, and if you all going out to DEMA this year, you know, everybody of course in the industry should go to the DEMA show if you can. It’s going to be in Orlando of course. Come find me. I’m usually in The Bahamas pavilion. I hang out, I’m easy to find. You can find me through my website. You can even text my business number, which goes to my phone too. So, I’d love to hook up and say hi and meet you if you’re out there at the Show.

TEC: That’s great. Well, thanks again Willie. I really appreciate it and we’ll see you next time. And I’ll see you at the DEMA show and so will others. Thanks a lot for that.

WILLIE CLINE: Thanks Tec.

Performing FILO

All right, so I know what you’re asking. What the heck is FILO F. I. L. O? Well, simply put, it stands for first in last out. You may have heard this in other sports or anything like that, but guess what? It has an absolute risk management application in professional diving services. Here’s why. When you adopt FILO as your operational procedure to conduct pool sessions and to conduct open water dives, you are stating that you are always first in the water and the last out of the water.

Now, here’s the reason why. Think of where is the greater threat to any human? In the land or boat or manmade environment or the water environment? The aquatic environment poses so many more risks that that is the greater threat area. So by you as a dive leader going into the pool, the Lake, the quarry, the ocean, wherever it is by you going in the water first, now you are prepared to deal with anything that arises when your students or your divers come in.

And the same goes for getting out. Once you are getting to the point of the exit, you want your individual divers to go out first. You want to remain in the water, the absolute last so that if anything goes awry, you’re the one that has the greatest skillsets in the water of anyone in the group. So because of that, FILO is an amazing principle. How does it actually benefit and work? Well, think about this. When individuals are jumping in the water, they’re doing a giant stride from a boat or whatever. Think of all the things that can go wrong. They lose gear, they get caught in current and they get off the downline or the tow line. They have equipment problems, they show immediate anxiety or there’s things within the water, like a colony of jellyfish or whatever the deal is, is that you are first in.

So now when they come in, you’re there to handle and help those issues if they present themselves. And the same thing takes place, getting out the exit. So this is the time when they’re taking off their, they’re getting on ladders, they drop things, they fall off the ladder, they get off of the tagline, you’re there in the water for them. Look, remember, it is our responsibility to give care to those that are in our charge. That is the legal term duty of care. We all have it for people that are in our charge that we have a responsibility to. So these individuals, we want to give them the greatest amount of attention that we can. So if you are getting out of the water first, are you not turning your back on those students or on the divers that have signed the releases to be with you?

Wait a minute, you are. And so by doing it the opposite way, by performing FILO, you are keeping your eyes on your divers, your students the entire time getting in and getting out. They’re always under your supervision. And when it comes to the threatening area of the water environment, you are the master of that domain and you’re there to help them. So there you go. That’s what FILO is all about. First in last out, do it yourself, teach all of your dive professionals to do it. Have everyone at your dive center do it and you will see that this is the best way to safely handle these type of entries and exits in a supervisory capacity.

Thanks for Listening!

Well, that’s it for today. Thanks again to the DEMA Show for being our sponsor of this episode and thanks for listening, my friends. 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 rating. Items talked about in this podcast can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com The Dive Locker and there you can also leave topic recommendations for future episodes. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

Hey, this is Mehgan Heaney-Grier, free diver, ocean adventurer, Marine conservationist, and I just want to say congratulations Tec on this new podcast. I’m so excited for all the awesome stuff you’re doing. Keep up the good work.

Congratulations tech. This is Dave Ochs from Aqua Safari Adventures in West Palm Beach. I’m excited about your launch of The Dive Locker and wish you all the best. You are a true professional, and The Dive Locker will be a great resource for every dive pro looking to up their game.

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005 Why Attend The DEMA Show? Beverages at Your Dive Center

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Dive Locker Podcast, the podcast for dive professionals. Where we bring you the latest and diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management, and dive business.

I’m your host Tec Clark, and it is great to have you on our show today everyone. In today’s episode, we’re going to be going over a couple of features here. Number one, why attend the DEMA Show? Some of you go and some of you don’t. We’re going to be bringing you the reasons why you should be going and there’s going to be some cool things to learn. Second is offering beverages in your dive center. Should you do it? Can you do it? Why do it? So we’re going to get into that. But first I want to thank our first sponsor of this episode of the Dive Locker podcast, and that is the DEMA Show, the DEMA Show, 2019 taking place this November 13 through 16 in Orlando, Florida is the world’s only international trade-only event for dive, travel and action watersports professionals. Attending DEMA Show provides unrivaled opportunities for professional and personal growth. Make new connections that can elevate your business, meet face to face with peers from around the world, and learn new ways of thinking to help increase your success. Learn more and register at DEMAShow.com So here we go. Let’s do this.

Why Attend the DEMA Show?

Okay, so I remember back to when I became an instructor. At the end of my instructor training course, the trainer said to us all, “congratulations now that your instructors, this is your license to learn.” And I thought, “what are you kidding me? I just went through a huge course, grueling, and I’ve just hit the pinnacle. You know, I’m at the top. What do you mean this is my license to learn? I just learned a whole bunch.” Well, I didn’t get it until shortly thereafter. The license to learn is when we do become dive professionals, this is the start of gaining more wisdom, more knowledge, more experience in our field. We become more into our craft of education and teaching and professionalism and supervision. So that comes in time. But it is a really great point that says we never stop learning. You have to have a student’s heart and a student’s mentality to be a great leader and a be a great dive professional and a great instructor.

One of the things that I have found keeps me at the top of my prime and the top of my craft is annually attending the DEMA Show. So DEMA puts on an annual trade Show every year, and that trade Show is one of the kind – mecca for people to go to, to understand our industry, to dig in and go deeper in our industry. So the reasons to attend the DEMA Show are what I want to really explain today so that you get it. If you’ve never been before, this is going to be eye-opening for you to understand why this investment matters. And for those of you that have gone before, maybe you’ve done it in just a one day, in and out, maybe you only go into the Show floor and that’s it. Well, there’s so much more to the entire DEMA Show and to your development as a dive professional.

And that’s what we’re going to do today is go over my top 10 reasons why every dive professional should attend the DEMA Show. Now, it is coincidental, is it not, that this is the first episode that the DEMA Show is actually a sponsor of! Hey folks, the DEMA Show is a sponsor of this episode, but I’ve had this in the queue already from the beginning, from weeks and weeks ago that this episode was going to be now. Cause we’re about six weeks out right now from the DEMA Show, so I wanted to do this now and lo and behold, DEMA Show became a sponsor. So anyhow, this is pretty cool that those two gel together. So let’s get into this.

First of all, you’ve got to take a look at this team: Tom Ingram, Nicole Russell, June French, all the team over at DEMA get together with NTP National Trade Productions. This is an award winning trade Show productions company that works together to put on these epic events. And they do it in a really great manner that is in multiple locations and it has grown since the first trade Show. The first DEMA Show was in 1977. Today, the DEMA Show has grown to host over 600 exhibitors with just about 10,000 attendees at each Show. Now, the neat thing about these attendees is that they are all diving industry professionals only. It’s not open to the public or consumers. You have to be a dive pro to get into the DEMA Show. And we’re talking about these 600 exhibitors. They are everything from equipment manufacturers, travel destinations, apparel wholesalers, dive training agencies, and diving business service providers. So there is something for everyone at the DEMA Show.

And so you know, there’s a lot of you that, come hell or high water, you’re going every year. That’s me. I’m with you. And then there’s those of you that say, “no, it’s not worth it. It’s a drain on our finances and time, resources.” But I’m here to tell you folks that can’t be further from the truth. Your opportunities for growth and development in the diving industry multiply when you or your staff invest in going to the DEMA Show. It is truly professional development. Put aside professional development dollars, make this a budget and attend the DEMA Show. So here are my top 10 reasons to attend.

Number 10, Location. Get away. Really get away. If you’re like me, when I’m around my house, when I’m around business, all I’m thinking about are the things that need to be done. All my tasks, so doesn’t matter if I want to listen to a podcast or if I want to focus on a webinar or read a book or something. There’s always things in the back of my head that I got to do. However, when you get out of your city, you get out of your business and you go somewhere else and that place is a cool travel destination – that is something neat. You get to really disconnect and focus on why you’re there. Now of course you can touch base with your dive center and your crew back home and yeah, I do it too. But the deal is that you’re more focused because you are somewhere else and the locations are pretty darn cool.

So this year coming up in a few weeks, we’re going to be in Orlando. In 2020 we go back to new Orleans! So many of us loved the New Orleans thing and it got out of the rotation for a while. Now New Orleans is back in. That is a fun Show. Cool location. In 2021 we go to Vegas! Vegas, baby! And 2022 we’re back in Orlando. So there’s a great rotation of destinations to go to and Hey look, these locations are so tourist-rich that helps make your flights less expensive to get to. And there’s all kinds of ways to get great discounted flights and transportation, things like that.

Number nine, Resource Centers. Now two of the most popular and expertise intensive areas in diving are photography and technical diving. So the Show has created custom areas on the Show floor called resource centers. They have the Image Resource Center and the Technical Diving Resource Center. Now in these resource centers, they’re kind of little theater based areas and experts get up and talk about these areas one right after another in a schedule that goes all day long. And what’s really cool is that these resource centers are located in the midst of several exhibitor booths relating to that specialty area. So around the image resource center are tons of underwater photography and video vendors right there.

So it’s just awesome. Same with the technical diving resource center. All these technical companies and brands are all around that. It’s really cool. So it’s kind of like a hub on the Show floor that specializes in these two areas. So number nine is resource centers.

Number eight is Social Events and Award Parties. Now these are cool. Every night of the DEMA Show is filled with some kind of social event. Many of these are hosted by the major players in the industry. Some of them are open to everyone and some of them are open to just the kind of private clientele of that group or let’s say it’s a training agency. You might have to be an instructor or a professional with that agency. Now a lot of these places have cash bars, sometimes free bars, or free hors d’oeuvres and so forth. So if you want food, get there early!

Now some of the best socials that are out there are SSI, PADI, DAN, DeeperBlue, Wet Pixel, it goes on and on. There’s a lot of them. And then you’ve got the industry awards. Now the industry award socials are a little bit different. These are more formal. They usually come with full dinners. There’s a cost to them and these are some of the biggest award parties that are out there. We’re talking the Women Divers Hall of Fame, the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences, and of course the big one is the DEMA awards party. Now with the DEMA awards party, they’re going to be giving out the Wavemaker awards and the Reaching Out Awards. And this year, by the way, big shout out to my buddy Spencer Slate, Captain Slate. He was on League of Extraordinary Divers podcast, episode number two. He and I go way back.

So congrats. Slate for being a Reaching Out Award winner and also Zig and Joann Zighan. Now if you are part of the Northeast, you know, Beneath the Sea Dive Show, legendary dive Show in the Northeast, it’s fantastic. Zig has been doing this for decades and he is just an awesome. So those two guys are going to be celebrated at the DEMA awards party. So that’s a great one too. Um, all the social events and awards are just fantastic. So that’s part of the nightlife and that’s part of networking and it’s more casual than on the Show floor. So you get to do a lot more talking and get to know people in a really fun and engaging way.

Number seven is DEMA Sponsored Seminars. Now here is one of the cool things that I absolutely love. Not only is this huge Show floor with 600 plus vendors, right? But we also have seminars, tons and tons of seminars. And of those seminars, DEMA has what’s called sponsored seminars, DEMA sponsored seminars. There’s also exhibitor sponsored seminars, which you’re going to hear about next. But the DEMA sponsored seminars are a big deal because what DEMA does is that they vet out and go nationwide to people that do this speaking circuit in business, in social media, in marketing, and they bring them in to give you high caliber business lectures and presentations. They’re really cool. So some of the things that you’re going to see this year are going to be about social media, selling, social media advertising, winning at trip advisor, SEO (search engine optimization) best practices, Google analytics, hiring strategies, YouTube strategies; the list goes on and on and on. So the DEMA sponsored seminars are really cool, really rich, and they can help you out so much in your dive business.

And that leads us to number six, Exhibitors Sponsored Seminars. So you can imagine if there’s over 600 exhibitors, they get the opportunity to create and do one hour seminars on their own so they can put on educational presentations at different points throughout the Show. And it could be just one offs here and there to learn more about a vendor or a brand or something like that. But then there are exhibitors like PADI and NAUI and SSI and Divers Alert Network and they have ongoing seminars in multiple rooms over multiple days. And if you can’t make one seminar then just look at the calendar. They’re going to do the same seminar on another day at a different time and on another day at a different time. So you get the opportunity to pick and choose what it is that you want to go to and hear. These exhibitor sponsored seminars are fantastic and you can get lots on risk management, sales practices, standards changes and you can even get training and that’s a really cool thing – to repair courses and you know any kind of trainer level courses and all that. So really, really good stuff in the exhibitor sponsored seminars.

Number five is Booking Dive Travel. Now we all know that traveling to some of the best destinations in the world is the heart and soul of what we do as dive pros and get people into underwater exploration. Well since so many dives centers and independent instructors offer dive travel to their customers, there is no better time and place to gather as much info on diving destinations as the DEMA Show you see. They’ve got everybody there from liveaboard yachts and land-based dive centers.

Dive travel is represented so well at the DEMA Show and what’s really cool is that if you’re interested in going somewhere like the Florida Keys or The Bahamas or something like that, you will actually find a pavilion. It’s called a travel pavilion and the entire aisle is dedicated to that region and you can go there and just say, “I’m interested in The Bahamas” and you’ll go booth to booth to booth to booth to see all the different operators are down there and hey, at the same time, you’ll be serenaded by steel drums and maybe some rum punch. So booking dive travel is so cool because it’s all in one destination. They’re showing you videos of their places, you get to see what the hotel rooms look like, the dive boats. on and on and on. It is awesome for booking dive travel at the DEMA Show.

Number four is seeing the Latest Products and Technology. Our industry is always changing and the DEMA Show is the place to see what is new and what is coming out. So in fact, on the Show floor, DEMA even has a New Products Showcase. So instead of going to booth to booth to booth to find out what’s new, you can conveniently look in display cases to see all the new products that are launched at the Show. And then you get to see where they’re located. So for more information, you know where you can go. So this is a great way to see what is new and what is on the market. And then to go research it further.

Number three is connecting with Dive Training Agencies. Now we all know to be a dive pro, it means you need to be a part of a dive training agency and for that reason, the dive training agencies are there at the DEMA Show. What’s cool is that you can learn directly from them about standards, changes, new products, risk management, new initiatives, all of this. Because they’re there, they’re there to answer your questions. So if you’ve got a beef about something, bring it up to them, right? Then you can talk about it. You can find out the rationale of why things have changed or whatnot. If a new products coming out or a new book or a material or training product, you get to preview it right there and see what it’s about.

The other thing is that, you know, I’ve talked about this before, there’s so much about agency bashing that goes on, “Oh my agency’s better than yours and blah, blah, blah, and on and on and on,” well, you know what? Why don’t you take some time and actually go to a booth of another training agency and see what they’ve got going on. It’s awesome to learn what are the strengths of other agencies and I mean it’s really a cool thing. So you can be more knowledgeable as a dive pro by spending some time in all of the agencies’ booths and seeing what they’ve got going on. I think that’s a really smart thing. And also the agencies have educational seminars just like I said in the reason number six, the exhibitor seminars. These educational seminars are fantastic and you will get to really dig in and learn more about your agency and what they have to offer by attending those educational seminars.

Number two, connecting with Equipment Manufacturers. Now let’s face it, we love the gear, right? It’s all about gear. So since we are an equipment intensive sport, the sales and distribution of dive gear to divers is a huge part of our diving business. So this is a great way to see what’s new and improved and coming around in the industry with regards to equipment, everything is there. I mean everything; the soft goods, the hard goods, the advanced stuff, the technical items, it’s all there. There’s even boats there. I mean, it’s crazy how much equipment is at the Show and then there’s the little stuff. So let’s say you have a dive center and you want some accessories, you want some apparel, you want some jewelry. These vendors are going to be there and you get to talk with them about what are the price points, what are the contracts, what does it look like? And you can actually make purchases at the Show for your year or however you want to do that. So there’s so much to connecting with equipment manufacturers that it becomes one of those big things. That’s why it is number two on my list.

And that leads us to our number one reason to attend the DEMA Show. Drum roll, please is Networking. Now, I know you might be thinking, “wait a minute, some of those other things that are a whole lot more compelling than networking,” but hear me out. In my experience over decades of going to the Show, I can say that networking has been the number one tool that I come away with every year and it grows and grows and allows my business and professional networking and standing to grow and grow as well. So whether you are in seminars, at social events or you’re on the DEMA Show floor, you’re going to be networking with the absolute who’s who in the diving industry. And we’re talking from the executives of the largest players in the industry down to brand new dive pros.

They’re all there. And so the ability to network with people just helps you to learn from them. They face the same challenges that you face, the same threats, the same opportunities. They get to share what’s working and what’s not working. And you get to share what’s working and not working. And because of that you connect. And that’s where we see people embrace every time they get together and they see each other every year at the DEMA Show. Why? Because they had great times with somebody from a previous year or they learned and met somebody and then went on a dive trip with them. Two shops went together on the same liveaboard at the same week and now they’re like best buds. This happens. I mean, there’s countless stories like this.

So for that reason, I think that the ability to connect with other dive pros gives you an advantage to return home with new strategies that you cannot get anywhere else. That’s why for me, number one is networking. So there you go. Those are the top 10 reasons why to attend the DEMA Show. Look into this yourself, head over to DEMAShow.com and there you’ll see how you can register, how you can get into the hotel block and everything. That’s a part of the Show. So there you go my friends, I hope to see you there because I’m going to be there, and introduce yourself. Let’s get to know each other and just make it a great time because it always is.

Offering Beverages at Your Dive Center

“Can I get you a drink?” When was the last time you heard that said, probably at your friend’s house or at a bar or at a restaurant, but not at a retail location. So what is with offering beverages at retail locations, for free? What about this and your dive center? Should this be done? Can it be done? What are the pros and cons? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this next segment. Now this came to me, a couple scenarios happened. First. Culinary Concepts is a outdoor grill and outdoor kitchen specialty store here in Pompano Beach, Florida, and the owner, Dean, when you go in your first time in there, he’s going to greet you, welcome you, and he’s going to say, “can I get you a beverage?” What he’s asking next is “would you like a beer? Would you like a soda? Would you like water?”

And from that point forward, whatever you elect, he’s going to remember in his contact management with you from this point forward. He’s going to remember that you like the beer, you like the Sprite or Pepsi or Coke or whatever it is? So what he does is he kind of establishes this, but think about this, that beverage and having beverages blends nicely with the outdoor grilling concept, right? So lots of men frequent that store and lots of grilling takes place and lots of beers consumed around grilling, right? So it’s kind of like this natural tie-in. Well here’s what happens when you say yes, you now have engaged in this new time and relationship to sit and sip a beer or a soda or whatever and talk and get to know a little bit more about the people and about the items that are in there and so forth.

And because of this, this is become a really neat thing that that store does and they offer it free. It’s not charged. And in our state this is legal. So there’s some really cool benefits that come here. There’s another scenario. This other scenario is this. My wife is a clinical psychologist and she just left an office space to open her own private practice with her own office space and in, so she invested in a Keurig coffee and tea maker and then put an assortment of coffees and teas in her waiting room with some wonderful relaxing music and some scented air diffusers. And so she made this environment very different than the other place she was at. Now what she’s observed is that her clients are coming in and they will sit and relax and really take the time to make themselves a coffee or a tea and just get in the moment to relax and get ready for the session.

They get to bring their coffee or tea into the session. And what she’s also discovered is that there are clients that are coming way early before her time and they are just sitting there to get their tea or their coffee and relax in a quiet room and just a great environment. And so all of a sudden this became a really unique feature to look at is the beverages that can be offered in, in that kind of setting. What does it do to people? What is it setting them up, how are they being treated and comforted? So I dug into this and found a whole bunch of things that I think are really compelling reasons why you should consider offering beverages in your dive center.

First of all, let’s get this straight. We’re not talking about, you need to be doing alcohol all over. If you do not think that alcohol and diving should mix in any way, shape or form, fine. There’s all kinds of beverages that you could do that are non-alcoholic; your coffees, your teas, your waters, your sodas, right? And that’s absolutely great. But on the other side of it is that, you know, our industry does have a lot of fun and you will see that there is social drinking that does take place on dive trips, obviously after the dives, right? Like any rule on a liveaboard, at the moment that you take your wine or open up your, your alcoholic beverage, you’re done diving for the day, right? So we don’t want the two to mix, but can it be a social thing on the, on the alcohol side, like beer or wine? Yes. So think about this. Let’s look at some of the things that take place when you offer beverages in your dive center.

First of all, there is increased time that is going to take place. When you offer a beverage, people are going to sip whatever beverage you give them. So sipping takes time and that time is time in your dive center. That time in your dive center allows them to be exposed more to your dive center and it also allows for more time to be exposed to the people in your dive center. So what do you think is going to take place? Well that’s number two, increased social interaction. There’s going to be more discussion. So more discussion happens than somebody just walking in and saying, “Hey, tell me about this. I want to try this on.” And then leaving. You can get a much more time intensive quality experience when somebody is sipping a beverage and you’re talking, this also is a social thing.

So think about this. When people put a cup in their hand or a bottle or a warm beverage – a tea or a coffee and they’re smelling that beverage and it’s got something that their hands can do, they just tend to relax a little bit more, open up a little bit more. They feel more present and more comfortable. That’s an awesome thing. And so whether that social time is all about diving or maybe it’s even non diving, doesn’t matter. You’re getting to know the person, which leads us to number three, increased bonding. Increased bonding means increased trust. When people look at you as warm, friendly, inviting, and generous, now you’re talking loyalty, now you’re talking comfort. People are going to be more apt to open up to you and want to do business with you because you’re getting to know them, they’re getting to know you. And because of that, there is a really, really great loyalty that can be built because of the comfort.

And again, I’m not talking that this needs to be, you know, alcohol fraternity party session. No, we’re talking that a beer, a wine, a, a coffee, a tea, a water – just something helps with people just opening up and staying longer and connecting. Now, here’s some things to think about. First of all, laws, when you’re talking about giving away free alcohol, let’s say. In many States, you do not need to possess a liquor license to do that. Now there are rules that go along with this. In other words, you can’t sell. You can’t advertise it. You have to be able to give it equally and indiscriminately. The list kind of goes on and on with that. Now there’s other States that say, “no, as soon as a person comes into your retail center, they’re doing business with you. And if you give them a free beverage or not, it doesn’t matter. You need to be controlled by a liquor license.” So you have to check first. If you do think that going the alcohol route, the beer or wine route is something that you would want to do, you must look into that, into the laws that a, that are with your state and with your County and city. So definitely do that first before you start investing in this beverage offering.

Now here’s a couple tips for you. First of all, you could just go out and get a Keurig or a kegerator – a little refrigerator with a keg in it for beer. You could just do that and make it happen. But actually here’s where it can get really cool. Partner with your local coffee roasters and breweries. So if you decide to go the coffee route, there are going to be in most medium to large size cities, coffee roasters that are local, independently owned shops, probably a coffee shop, and they are roasting their own coffee, producing their own beans and coffee blends and that kind of thing.

Get with them and tell them that you want to Showcase their product in your store. Now, what happens here is this great opportunity for cross promotion. They know you’re promoting them, they’re going to be apt to help you out with an event you’re doing or something like that. Prizes, giveaways or so there becomes a neat relationship when you do a partnership. So I recommend that for local coffee roasters. Look, everybody can get Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts in their Keurig, right? But why not go for something locally. So look into that. The other thing is the breweries, so local craft breweries are popping up all over the place, multiple ones in every town just about. And so you could do a rotation of different beers that the local breweries are doing. Again, the same thing applies their apt to promote you because you have promoted them.

And so it goes on and on. Hey look, if you are offering a trip to Hawaii and that’s your big, big destination that your dive center’s taking people to, you could be blending up some pina coladas, they could be virgin, they could be not virgin, whatever you wanted that to be. Just think about that and know what the rules and laws allow. But now that smell of coconut and pineapple in the air, and the opportunity to blend that up and then talk about the trip as their drinking that frozen beverage in your store that just leads to more contact time, which could in turn lead to more sales and whether that’s the trip, whether it’s equipment or whatnot. So think about this, offering beverages in your dive center. Lots of pros, barely any cons. The cons can be that you got some prices and some consumption and costs that go with that.

You’ve got the laws that you gotta know before doing so. You know, I do remember a dive center owner in California once saying that they did this and they had lounge chairs and couches and people literally spent hours in their store talking. It was kind of like the modern day dive equivalent to a barbershop and just people were hanging out talking. So, you know, he didn’t look at that terribly favorably, but they were good customers in the long run. Uh, but as he put it, he needed to get work done and he couldn’t talk to people all day long. So that could be one of the negatives behind it as well. But anyhow, Culinary Concepts is crushing it, uh, with the way that they do that and the way that they engage with their customers. Private practice, like my wife’s doing, you see this in, nail salons and in wedding shops. So this practice is getting a little bit more traction, so you should look into this for your own retail operations as well.

Thanks for Listening!

That will do it for today’s episode. Thanks for listening my friends and thanks also to the DEMA Show for being our sponsor of this episode. 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 rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page over at scubaguru.com and there you can also leave topic recommendations for future episodes. Thanks again everyone. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

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004 Value Selling Part 2, Defendable Dive Briefings

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest and diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management, and dive business. I am your host Tec Clark, and welcome to this week’s episode everyone.

Industry News

We’re going to start with some industry news here, Hurricane Dorian, that I’ve mentioned in the last few episodes, devastated The Bahamas. And that GoFundMe campaign, that relief fund is now over $35,000 in donations. Thank you all for the efforts that you’ve done there. And the reports that we’re getting are absolutely devastating from The Bahamas, but there is something that is amazing. Two things. Number one is the support that they are receiving from everywhere globally to build and rebuild and provide immediate support that has been tremendous to see and to witness the humanitarian side of us as a, as a people. And the second thing is to look at the country of The Bahamas when you look at their resilience and their strength to get through this and their faith and their hope.

Oh my goodness. It is truly something to, just touch the soul. It really is. So our thoughts and prayers still go out to all of those that are still suffering from the effects of Hurricane Dorian. Keep them in your thoughts and prayers as well. Also, on September 2nd, 2019, the liveaboard dive vessel Conception was engulfed in flames while anchored in California’s Channel Islands of the 39 passengers and crew onboard 34 lost their lives. This tragedy has been felt through the dive community and beyond the dive community. I’ve even had students and former students come up and want to talk about this and understand it. It’s really a tragic, tragic event, but in the effort to help the families of the victims of that fire, there have been numerous organizations that have risen up and have started donation funds and campaigns to raise money for these victims and their families.

DAN has started a program. They’ve donated actually $10,000 to kick off theirs, and right now at the time of this recording, they have gathered over $177,000. And that is with partnering with many of the organizations in our industry that have come together for this one. Also, if you go to dema.org, you will see, in their press release on the Conception tragedy that they have numerous organizations listed, many relief funds. All that, you can read about and see who are the organizations that are, that are doing them and, and promoting them. So there’s many out there. And, I just want to just give the biggest condolences to everyone that has been touched by this because it’s not only those families folks, it is the countless numbers of you that have been diving with that boat and that company and in that area, even maybe with a different boat or those of us that love liveaboards and now we’re thinking differently. It’s just such a hard thing from this.

We know that many things will be looked at and there may even be changes to policies or procedures or whatever that is within maritime or, the diving industry or whatever that is. But, again, thoughts and prayers are out with all of the people that are affected by this, not only the victims and their families, but also everyone that’s just touched negatively by this. So it’s been a rough few weeks here for our industry I think with all of these disasters that are going on. So again, keep everyone in the thoughts and prayers. Now let’s get to this week’s episode.

This week we are going to be talking about value selling part two, competing with value. Remember value selling part one was last week. This is going to be part two. We’re also going to discuss a risk management procedure that might assist you in defendability for your dive briefings. So here we go. Let’s get this episode kicked off. Ready dive, dive, dive

Value Selling Part 2

Hey, today we are at value selling part two. Last week’s episode was value selling part one and a reminder value selling is to sell or compete against value that you offer versus selling or competing against price and pricing. And so some of the things that we went over last week that there’s a lot of instances in our industry where we’re seeing that discounting is going on. Now, discounting in consumer driven economies is not necessarily a bad thing, but when it comes to services like those that we offer in scuba education and training, that can be problematic because so many corners wind up getting cut to be able to make ends meet or to not lose as much money as possible when the services are being given. So this is the value selling part two and we are going to actually look at what it means to sell on value.

I love this quote from Oscar Wilde. “The fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Now here’s another quote that I love from billionaire businessman Warren Buffet. “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.” So think about that. That’s pretty cool. Now, Brian Tracy, a sales guru says this, he says that the “value is the difference between the price you charge and the benefits the customer perceives they will get. So if the customer perceives they will get a lot of benefit for the price they pay, then their perception of value is very high.” So the good news is that you can control this by showing benefits and measuring on value. The individual will change their purchase decision making process based on the value that you offer. And the good news is you get to control the value that you offer in all the services that you do.

So let’s illustrate this using a different business model, a full service lawn company. So let’s say that you have a full service lawn company and you are in the market and you’re in the neighborhood and you’re advertising your services and whatnot. Well what happens when a new person gets a pickup truck and a lawn mower and comes in and wants to break into that market, they are going to undercut the competition. And so what happens now? There is a knee jerk reaction to which other lawn service folks are going to then lower their price to start a price war where everyone is competing with each other on prices. Well, you are going to be the savvy business person. You are the one that’s going to have the full service lawn company that stays above that price war. You’re not going to engage with that pull down of pricing that’s only going to hurt.

It hurts your margin and hurts your income; you’re living, your livelihood. No Way. Instead we’re going to go the opposite direction and don’t turn in that whole competitive market on competing at price. You’re going to compete at value. So here’s how we do it. We’re going to look at the six steps of value selling. Here we go. Number one is identify the customer’s problems. Picture an infomercial, remember the late night infomercial, right? And so you’ve got people that are showing all the things that are negative that you have to deal with and it’s always shot in black and white. Have you ever noticed that? And so people are sitting there and, “oh, it’s so hard to deal with, washing dishes and blah, blah, blah.” And there’s a frazzled housewife and it’s black and white and oh, she just looks disheveled and everything. Well, that’s the kind of stuff here.

We’re going to look at that in what we’re talking about in this full service lawn company. You want to be saying stuff like, “Hey, are you tired of having a bad looking lawn? Are you sick of mowing your lawn on the weekends and not spending time with your family? Are Your sprinklers a problem? Do you hate weeds?” Whatever that is. These are all called pain points. And these pain points are effective at identifying what problems the customers have and that you can solve them. So number one is identify the customer’s problems.

Number two is illustrate the better outcomes. So this is where you get the opportunity to identify every one of your customer’s pain points. So now with your help by being with your full service lawn company, they’ll have more time with their family. They won’t have to do their own lawn mower repair and maintenance, nor will they have to go out and buy oil and gas. They don’t have to go to the store and buy pipes and sprinkler heads. Okay. So now you’ve identified where you come along and help make their life easier and more enjoyable by eliminating their pain points. That’s number two, illustrating the better outcomes of doing business with you.

Number three is clear, compelling, and memorable differentiation. Differentiation is how do you differentiate yourself from your competitors? You see, it would be things like this, “we’re a full service lawn company and here’s what makes us different. So you may work from home and you might need quiet in order to make conference calls, or you might have little kids that take naps throughout the day. Well, we will only run our equipment when it’s convenient for you. For that reason, we have a special handy-dandy scheduling app that allows you to schedule our lawn service. Oh, and after we do your lawn, we check the sprinkler system every time to make sure we haven’t knocked off any sprinkler heads and if we have, we repair them on the spot.”

“Also, if we ever notice weeds or see brown spots, we immediately mix the right amount of product to put on your lawn and take care of it right then.” All right, you see what you’ve just done. You’ve now positioned yourself as a business that cares about its customers and that becomes a very clear and compelling differentiation from the competitors. No other competitor cares about. If you’re at home on conference calls and no other competitor has this app, that is differentiation. That’s number three, clear, compelling and memorable differentiation.

Number four is proof of value. Now you want to support your claims by sharing your scope of success. That means what have you done? That means point to the great things that you’ve done. So you’ve done award-winning houses in the neighborhood, maybe you serve the church down the street and do their lawn. Maybe you do the local country club and the country club is gorgeous and everybody goes, “Whoa, if they do the country club, wow!” Right? And then what do people say on Yelp? We want them to look at Yelp and say, “hey look, there is no better lawn service company and here’s why people are saying that we are so good.” See, you want to show that you have talent and that other people trust you. This is social proof. So that is important to show the value that you offer. That’s number four. Proof of value.

Number five is cost of inaction. Now, this is a reminder of the pain points of what happens when people don’t use your company, but it’s done in a little bit of a different way. “If you don’t use us, then you’re gonna miss out on football games. You’re going to miss out on time with the family. You’re going to have to continually do lawnmower repair. Now think of this one too. If you decide to do all of the services that we offer, but with different companies, you could have a sprinkler company, a weed control company, a lawn mowing company. That’s three different companies, three different schedules, three different bills. We do it all in one.” You see the cost of inaction stimulates fear of missing out, so we want to put that in there. Number five is the cost of inaction.

And then number six is the return on investment. This is when you get to show financial return in the investment of doing business with you. Now, let the people roll through the numbers. “Have you ever had your sprinklers knocked off by a lawn service and wasted a ton of money because the water just ran and ran and ran or that you have to call people out and fix it.” Okay. There’s cost in that. What about, “what could you be doing with your spare time on weekends while we’re handling your lawn needs? How much would you save in equipment in maintenance, in oil and gas?” Right?

When you start to add all these factors up of the savings of time and hassle and energy and actual raw dollars, now that return on investment starts to have a price associated with it, so when your monthly price is, let’s say $50 or even $100 more than your lawn service competition, the customer isn’t shocked. The customer thinks, “if I go with you, I get fewer hassles, I get more free time. I have a great looking lawn. I’m the envy of the neighborhood and I don’t have to pay for all these other charges. Oh yeah, this is worth it thing.” Dang, you have just done value selling! Those are the six points ending in the in that number six, their return on investment.

So let’s apply this to your dive business. How does this work and what does it look like using these six steps of value selling? Let’s take a look at that. First thing you want to do is identify your customers problems. “Are you frustrated with not knowing where to get certified because of all the different options out there? Is your equipment old and in need of repair? Has it been a while since you’ve been diving and think your skills may be rusty? Do you want to travel? Do you want to see underwater images and wish you could be there?” You see these are the pain points that people are going through and if you can identify those problems you have now hooked them into your story. How are you engaging with them? You’ve just peaked their interest. “Yes, I have always wanted to be certified. Yes, my equipment is old and in need of repair. Yes. It’s been awhile since I’ve been diving and I might need a refresher.” You’ve just stimulated discussion.

Next, illustrate the better outcomes with your help. So it is all about that. “We will turn you into a confident, well-trained diver, not just a certified diver, but a confident, well trained diver. You’ll enjoy satisfaction of diving worldwide. You’ll get to increase your bottom time because of better air consumption. You have skills that your buddies are envious of. You get to enjoy pain free diving with your ears because you know how to equalize. Lose your anxieties and be excited to go on every trip with our refresher course that will help you with that.” You see, these are the promises that need to be made so that the customer decides to come with you. They are better outcomes with your help.

Number three, we’re going to position ourselves against the competition through that clear, compelling and memorable differentiation. Now here’s something to know. You are going to need to know your competition to succeed in this area and I mean really know your competition. Yes. If you have dive centers, dive shops, dive businesses in your neighborhood, in your area, in your, your market, you really need to know what they’re offering. Don’t be shy to understand fully every detail of what they’re doing and how they’re doing it from anything: pool time, classroom time, sales, equipment offerings, repair. You need to know them well so that you can differentiate. So you want to say things like, “we are your full service diving professionals.” When you throw that term out there, they start to go, “well, if they’re full service, are others not full service?” You start to get some questions there. You see, “we offer custom schedules that accommodate your busy lifestyle. We are all inclusive. We have no hidden costs. So you’ll have no pressure decisions to make.” It’s simple to do business with us, right?

“We focus on areas that abbreviated training leaves divers lacking.” Oops, did I just say that? Aha. Because I get so many questions of people with different agencies that say, “how do I compete with the dive shop down the street that’s doing an abbreviated course for 99 bucks?” Well, this is where you compete on that. Remember we’ve got to take that whole thing of the c-card being the commodity and we need to change that into the value offering of what they get. So here’s where we’re going to say that. “Yeah, that abbreviated training can leave divers lacking. We will get you to be a comfortable and skilled diver. You will be comfortable and confident underwater. We will get to know you and your strengths and weaknesses and we will develop you so that you have total comfort and mastery of all skills as a diver.” Now, there will be people that that resonates with. There will be people that say, yeah, I get that. Especially if it’s refresher training. And they went, “yeah, I really never learned that very well.” This is important. You need to have clear, compelling and memorable differentiation from your competition.

Number four is your proof of value. Remember, proof of value is also known as social proof. They want real examples of how your promises work out. So you’re saying things like, “hey, these are some of the best divers that have taken our classes. They’ve gone on to be professionals. In fact, we have tons of dive professionals that come to us to get their professional training. We have a customer who’s an accountant and he relieves his stress by diving with us. We have a homeschooling parent that took our class with our kids to teach them an underwater science curriculum. We had a customer that took our refresher course and told us that he learned more in our refresher course than in his beginning class at another dive center.” Don’t mention the dive center by the way.

“Many dive pros come to us for their training. We certified the mayor,” Yada Yada, Yada. You get what I’m saying? So getting these type of testimonials also from other customers is great and if you can do it on sites like Yelp, give your customers some type of reward. If they go to Yelp and say, “Hey, this is what I experienced,” not for a great review, just a review in general, just say, hey, “we want everyone to go to Yelp. We are transparent and open and accountable. We want you to tell everyone about your experience because we’re that confident with our own service offerings.”

Number five is the cost of inaction. All right. What happens if they don’t use your dive center or don’t take your classes? Well, you can point out here “someone else may not give you the same quality time honing your skills under water. This can lead you to feeling anxious or uncomfortable when diving. Plus you may need to watch out for additional fees. Abbreviated training won’t adequately prepare you for diving and is leading reason why divers drop out.

You don’t want to be faced with those issues after such an important investment.” Yes. Use that term. Remind customers that investing in diving is truly an investment in themselves and their recreation, which can also relate to their wellbeing and their happiness. So if people have already gone out on board and gotten their equipment, remind them of that investment, they’ve taken their open water diver course, remind them of that investment or they want to go travel the world, remind them of the investment in taking proper training and getting the proper equipment. You see it’s all about that investment piece and point them to why it is important in making that purchase decision, which again is number six, the return on investment.

So see how this seamlessly ties in together with the cost of inaction and our return on investment with our course? “We have convenient scheduling, we have no hidden fees, we have plenty of time spent training you to be safe, confident, happy, make the right investment in you, make the right investment in your safety, make the right investment in your comfort and enjoy a lifetime of scuba diving adventures.” You see, this is that closing and this is where the person does not care about price. In this moment, you have just done six steps to show them why you have a greater value in your offering than other businesses. And here it is. It’s time for the price, okay, and now the sticker shock isn’t there because they see that you are a far greater value than the other businesses. That is how we sell on value instead of price.

And I’m telling you folks, this is the truth. When you talk to dive professionals that say, I am the highest priced dive center in town and we are doing just fine. It’s because they’ve got this right. They have got value selling down and they’re able to articulate it and they’re able to sell their customers on that value and their customers love them and are loyal and are dedicated. Do you see a customer that doesn’t do value? “The fool knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.” When people don’t engage in your discussion, in what you can add to their lives, in the value of them doing business with you, they will only compare you on price. Make this a priority, make value selling a priority and get together with your team, your management, your staff, every employee, and go over this in detail. Know your competition, study your competition and find the areas that you can out value them. Not undercut them. Out value them.

Defendable Dive Briefings

Okay, so now let’s turn our attention to risk management. You know, my family goes to North Carolina every year and we love to go whitewater rafting. Well, when we go whitewater rafting, we go out with a company called Nantahala Outdoor Center, and it doesn’t matter what river we’re on, what level we’re on. The service and risk management principles and protocols that they do are just outstanding. Now being in the business that we’re in, you know, whenever I go to an outdoor recreation or a high risk type of activity, I’m paying attention to the risk management side of things. I mean, I’m really paying attention to it and so these guys have been doing it right for a long, long time and that’s why we continue to return to them because they’re so good and they do such a great job. Well, one of the things that I honed in on that really stuck out to me was in their briefings, they do something that is very unique.

Here’s what they do when it’s time for their briefing, they show a video and then after the video, the guide, the main trip guide, gets up and gives a detailed safety briefing. But here’s what they do. They hand a piece of paper to someone in the audience. That piece of paper has a checklist on it. The checklist contains the big major areas that they are going to cover in that briefing. And what they do is they ask the person to check off the list as they say the different things that are on it. And so what happens is they do their briefing, the person is checking off the items that are discussed, and then at the end they collect that, the individual signs it and they sign it and then they attach it to their trip roster for that day. And that gets hard filed. And that’s it.

Well, there’s a kind of a science to this and I thought it’s brilliant on the legal defendability side. Here’s what I mean. In my many years as a forensic dive accident investigator, I remember going to do interviews with individuals and even depositions with individuals where they would be questioned on what did they say during their briefing. And now if you can think about this, maybe you have this or maybe you’ve seen it on different boats or whatnot. Some of the dive briefings can be said in one’s sleep, right? It’s just the same thing. You’ve said it so many times, it’s just a hundred percent memorized and you think that there’s no way that you could miss something because it’s what you do. It’s what you say. It’s what you always say. Here’s the problem under an investigation and an interview or a deposition, you’d be amazed how many dive professionals start to blank out on that memorized narrative that they say for their briefing.

And when one can’t articulate that, that becomes an issue whether or not it was really said and whether or not other people heard it and so forth. So when you look at this from a defendability point of view, the way that Nantahala Outdoor Center is doing this with having this very accountable level of transparency for making sure that that guide, no matter how many years that guide has been working there, no matter how well they’ve memorized that speech, they’re still ensuring that those top items were covered and that that audience heard that those top items were covered. And then that was accounted for by the sheet of paper with the checkoff boxes and the person name. And they sign it and it gets attached to the rosters. I think this is a wonderful, wonderful defendability tool.

It’s something for you to think about whether you decide to go into this type of an action for your own briefings on your, on your dives or on dive boats, whether or not you do this, it’s at least worth a thought to sit there and think about are you really saying what you need to say? And would everybody agree if everyone needed to be interviewed, would they all agree to all the things that you said? And then if you’re under stress, would you be able to say the briefing that you always say if it’s not one that doesn’t change much in that kind of thing, or if it changes, do people know the change of that day? So this is where having that kind of accountability checklist to go along with briefings can be a really, really cool risk management tool. And I give a ton of credit to Nantahala Outdoor Center doing this and for putting that in place.

Well, that does it for today’s episode my friends. Thanks for listening, and all of the items discussed in this episode will be available on the show notes page over at scubaguru.com including links to the fundraisers I mentioned, as well as my article, The Value of Value Selling at Dive Center Business. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live. You can also listen to this podcast on Google Play and Stitcher, and please leave a rating. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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003 Value Selling Part 1, The Reporter Icebreaker

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

I’m your host Tec Clark and thank you everybody for being here on another episode of The Dive Locker. Hey, you might remember in episode two I mentioned that, we’ve got hurricane Dorian bearing down on The Bahamas. Well at the time of this episode, it is still there. It is still bearing down on them. And I also mentioned in the last episode that we are going to hear about the relief efforts that are going to be needed for our friends in The Bahamas and, as this is starting to unfold and the news of the devastation that’s coming out is, is just catastrophic. So you’re going to hear about different relief efforts and we’ll see and keep our ears posted for what ones are coming out that are industry specific.

But there is one I mentioned last time and that is going to be the GoFundMe campaign that was launched for Cristina’s Zenato. Now, many of you know Cristina. She was on the League of Extraordinary Divers, but she has been really all over the place. She’s had so many documentaries, about her and her just beautiful relationship with the sharks that she has embraced over her many years at UNEXSO. She’s such a good caring soul. And now, Cathryn Castle Garcia and Gui Garcia have created this GoFundMe account to support and help them out. And so I think this is just fantastic. I’m looking at it right now. It is Cristina Zenato Grand Bahama 9119. And Cristina by the way, is spelled without an “h”. It’s C R I S T I N A Folks, there’s already been over $7,000 raised at the time of this recording.

So that is awesome that you all stepped up and, and came to the challenge for this. This is so cool. Great to see that. And so our thoughts and prayers are with Cristina and everyone else down there. I can’t wait to hear from Stuart Cove and see how he fared down there as well, and all of the operators. So look for more news on that coming up here in the future.

Well today we’ve got a really cool episode. We are going to get into a little bit of the business side of diving and that is going to be an area that I’m quite passionate about. We’re going to talk about value selling, value selling, what it is and how we can sell on value rather than price. This is going to be a two part series because of the complexity and the content that we deal with. So we’ve got that and we’re also going to do an icebreaker that I think you will really enjoy, that you can put into your classroom environments. And it’s really a great one for communications as well as being an icebreaker. So there you go. Let’s get into it. Let’s have a great episode of The Dive Locker. Ready? Dive, dive, dive!

Value Selling Part 1

For our first dive business segment, we’re going to be talking about value selling. Now this is an area near and dear to my heart. I have spoken on this at the DEMA Show. I’ve spoken on this at ICUE, which is the International Conference on Underwater Education with NAUI. And I’ve done an article on this at Dive Center Business magazine. So this is something I’m very passionate about and what we’re going do is we’re going break this into two parts. Value selling part one will be in this episode of The Dive Locker and value selling part two will be in episode four of The Dive Locker, the next episode. So be on the lookout for that. We’re going to break it down into the two areas of competing with “price” and then competing with “value”. So this episode we’re going to talk about the competing with price part of selling.

Okay. Don’t you love a good deal? I do. I mean who doesn’t? Right? Has this ever happened to you? You go to the grocery store and you’re going to get some food or something like that, and all of a sudden you pass by coffee and you see that there is a buy one get one free offer going on with the coffee. Now, this might not be a brand that you normally use and you might not even need coffee, but you’re saying to yourself, “wow, this is a really good deal, and I know I will need coffee in the future if I get one free, what can I do with that extra seven bucks? Hey, maybe I can get that cool ice cream. I’ve been wanting to try.” Well, does that sound familiar? And then you wind up getting that and you wind up kind of having that tension of the fear of missing out on.

If you don’t get that, you know, what have you lost? You know, this is such great value, right? And so you wind up walking away getting coffee, which wasn’t on your list, and you get ice cream, which wasn’t on your list, right? So all of a sudden we have seen consumerism played out in a wonderful and magical way. And that is done by the company. So the coffee company wants to launch their product, they want to get out the new brand or the new flavor or whatever it is of the coffee. So they throw what’s called a loss leader in there. They throw a free one. So now they’re not making the same margins on those per unit sales. But what they are getting is a greater share of market. So now more people get to try the product and as they try it, then they tell their friends, they like it, and they get more later on.

And so the buy one get one uses the one product as the loss leader. And in return they gain customers. So loss leader strategies work well with goods because it’s easy to calculate those per unit costs and you can kind of accommodate for this and so forth. But the deal is this, can you do loss leaders strategies to services, especially our services in the diving industry – scuba certification courses. This is an issue, and our industry really needs to take attention to this because what we’re doing is in using some strategies that are out there like this, we are taking professional training and we’re reducing it down to bargain basement discount prices that doesn’t work. And here’s the reason why. If we want to attract customers and we use strategies of discounting and we based those strategies on price, what is the cost? Now the cost in this case is that you actually deplete the quality experience for the student getting training and you produce a poor student!

Now what do I mean by this and how can discounting affect training that much? So here’s how this works. We often hear about competing with the dive center down the street and so if they offer a $199 open water diver course, well the other person’s going to offer a $99 course. Or they’re offering a $99 course, so we’re going to offer a two for one GroupOn. Now, the problem with this is that the dive centers in this case are competing on price rather than on value. Price comparison is not sustainable. There will always be someone, some company somewhere who will underprice you, especially from individuals who want to break into the business and they are willing to undercut the competition in order to gain customers. Sound familiar like the coffee example, right? But the deal is that if you react to those competitors by discounting your products and services, you’re likely to run yourself out of the business and be out of business in two to four years.

That’s just the painful truth about trying to compete on price. Now, why do we see this happening so much in our industry? You know, many people point to that, well, dive center owners and managers don’t have business backgrounds, which is true in a lot of cases, but that’s not necessarily what’s going on. What’s going on is it’s the opposite side. We are all consumers and we deal with consumerism and so we have to understand that there are consumer driven strategies that erode business models. Now they might work for big box retailers, but do they work for dive centers? Not really. Here’s some things to take into consideration on consumerism. So first of all, we love things cheap and quick, right? So what we do now is we go shopping on Amazon and Alibaba and other Internet retailers and we’re looking for the cheapest and quickest way to get things right?

And so that’s part of us, but yet we want to have businesses that are sustainable and we don’t want these customers to go to the Internet and, and you know, get their goods elsewhere. We want them to come into our dive centers. Well, wait a minute, it’s the same thing. You are a consumer too. And we have to understand that this is part of consumerism to get things cheap and quick. Then we’re also seeing that c-cards, the certification card is being turned into a commodity. So a commodity is any economic good that can be bought and sold. But you’re probably thinking, isn’t scuba certification a service? Well, you might be thinking that, but think about this. The consumer looks at the c-card as the means to the end to go diving. So they know if they want to be a diver, they need the c-card.

You see? So it’s about being a diver. It’s about getting to dive, which means I need to hold this seat guard to do it. That turns the c-card into a commodity, a product, just like anything else. So what the consumer’s going to do is look at that c-card as, “how can I get it as cheap and quick as possible?” This is natural. It’s not the consumers’ fault to think this way. We’re just inclined to do so. So when we have prospective students that are looking for cheap and quick, don’t dismiss them as being flighty or aloof or noncommittal. They’re just being consumers. And then we’re also seeing loss lead discounting. The loss leader, like I talked about in the coffee example, right? But here’s the deal. What we’re seeing with loss leading is that dive centers are using training to be the loss leader to get people in so that then greater purchases can be made down the line for continuing education, for equipment sales, and for dive travel.

All of these things to get the consumer in the door is the loss leader of offering a discounted course. So now if that loss lead discounting comes in and that course is sold for $99 or a two for one type of a GroupOn thing, what’s being lost? Well, this is where the slippery slope happens. It’s not as simple as a product is sold and now I have a per unit sale is down a little bit like in the coffee example. Now to be able to keep afloat for a service that has such fixed costs and variable costs like a scuba certification course does, that becomes an issue. What we’re seeing is the training is suffering from these consumer driven strategies. They erode the dive center business model, and they erode the quality of training that can be offered. Here’s how that is happening.

Okay, so let’s say that you’re competing by price to the dive center down the street and you start to do your pricing strategies. You start to do the discounting and get that bargain basement price just to get people in the door. Now what’s going to happen is that in a loss leader, which has the sacrifice kinda to it, if you just sacrificed everything at the high quality level, then the expenses of that loss lead would crush your business. So what happens is to balance out the loss leader, dive centers are pulling back on the services offered just so they can kind of survive that initial loss leader experience, that initial discounted training experience. Here’s how that happens.

First of all, we start to look at those, like I said before, fixed costs and variable costs, right? And those things are going to include, first, let’s look at pool time. So pool time renting pools. Now this can be done by the hour or by the student, but it’s costly. And so what we’re seeing is that some people are shaving the pool time by a day or two or hours just to save money. So now the student experience underwater isn’t there anymore. So what happens is they are now discounting that pool experience. They’re pulling back on it. So by pulling back on the amount of hours spent in the pool, there’s the savings of the pool rental, but there’s also the savings on the instructor’s hourly rate as well. If an instructor is paid by the hour, and then think about this, if the dive center pays their instructor per student, well then what’s the motivation for the instructor to offer longer pool time? You see, so these two things really hurt the student experience when you start to pull back the pool time. Now what about classroom time? Well, usually there’s not rentals that are going along with the classroom.

Those are usually done in the dive center, so you don’t have to pay for the rental, but what do you have to pay for? It’s the instructor. So the more time that an instructor is spending in front of the students, the more expense there is to pay that instructor.

So what we’re seeing is many dive centers moving more towards the e-learning. Now don’t get me wrong, e-learning is awesome. It’s a great tool for diver training. It really is. But here’s what we’re seeing. Some dive centers are keeping their instructors completely out of the classroom. They’re just having them do e-learning. And then they’re saying, “all right, well let’s meet and do our paperwork and review our knowledge reviews on the pool deck.” So they don’t even come to the store. They’re just going to the pool deck. Now think about this, how many distractions are there on a pool deck? So that’s not a good time to bond. It’s not a good time to get to know people and it’s not a good time to start going over paperwork and the first knowledge reviews and such. It just isn’t. So by missing out on that classroom time to save money and go more on that e-learning, it actually winds up hurting that instructor student relationship. That’s an important piece of developing divers.

And then we also look at the expertise area that changes. Now what do I mean by that? Well, think about this. Who is teaching the majority of courses and what are the majority of courses that are being taught? So in most dive centers, open water diver is kind of the prime catchall. It gets most people in the door. Well who are the people that are going to be teaching that? Is this going to be the tenured veteran instructor that’s moved into technical diving and things like that? No, it’s usually going to be the brand new instructors cutting their teeth. These are also the people that have the lowest pay rates. They’re being paid the least. Why? Because they’re the least experienced. So there’s a lot of dive centers that say, “yeah, we’re going to go ahead and use our least paid instructors to teach our loss leaders scuba class, open water diver.” So you don’t want to really go down that road too much because saving the buck and you know, even not giving divemasters to assist that new instructor just to save a buck. That can deteriorate that training experience too.

And then finally, location. What we’re seeing a lot is instead of places going out and renting a really nice pool at an aquatics complex that has a really nice dive, well you know, something 12 feet, 16 feet, 18 feet deep, that type of thing. We’re seeing dive centers say, “Hey, we got to save money on this loss leader. We’re going to go to other locations so we don’t have to pay for a pool at all.” And we’re seeing that dive centers will go to hotels or apartment complexes in an effort to cut costs. Now hear me out. If you’re in a resort and you are at a dive resort and the only pool is the pool at the resort, I get that. Don’t worry about that. That’s not what we’re talking about. I’m talking about the person that could literally do deep water training, but they are purposefully saying, “no, we’re going to go into a free shallow pool to save money on the course to get people into the course because we’re going to loss lead price it, discount price it.” Wait a minute. So that is really a tricky situation because now if you’re in that six foot deep apartment complex pool, where is the training for equalization really happening? Where is the training for neutral buoyancy really happening? Where are we feeling the wetsuit compress because of depth? You know, it’s different things like that that we kind of miss out on when we go down that road.

And another area that we’re seeing here in South Florida, we have dozens of charter dive boats all around us, and boat diving is typical for these parts. But we will have dive centers that save on the training and not take their students out on a dive boat and they’ll do all of their training off the beach. Now the beach is free and just pay for some parking, right? But the deal is, is that now you’re only going to probably a max depth of about 20 feet. So now you’re open water diver never gets to experience much deeper than 20 feet and they never get to go on a dive boat!

Now again, I’m talking about South Florida. There’s many of you that are landlocked and that’s okay. You and the lake are your only options. But I’m talking about purposefully saying, “you know you live here in South Florida but we’re not going to actually take you out on a dive boat because of keeping the course costs down.” So are we then, by doing that deep discounting in scuba training, are we actually hurting the diver and their experience to be a good well-trained diver? I think so. And I’m not the only one folks, maybe you agree. There’s many of you listening to this that are in the same mindset and opinion. I hear it from charter boat dive captains everywhere, crew everywhere, other dive professionals that go out and look and observe. This is a buzz. We are all sitting here saying the same things. There are students that do not know how to set up their gear and I mean new newly certified divers that do not know how to equalize that do not have good buoyancy.

And so where is this coming from? When me and my colleagues take a look at where this is coming from. There is one common denominator that we’re always seeing. It is the suppressed training courses, the courses that are reduced down to as cheap and quick as they can possibly be. And that is where we are seeing that competing on price is actually hurting our industry. It’s hurting our students. And if our student comes out, ill prepared, ill equipped, they’re not comfortable, they’re not confident, they’re banging into the reef and then they’re being yelled at for banging into the reef. They can’t get underwater and they’re holding up their buddies because they’re not good at equalization. How long you think they’re going to persist in this activity? They’re not. They quit. And in a place like here in South Florida, when you get on Craig’s List or OfferUp or anything that’s offering equipment, you’d be amazed to see the amount of titles that say “gear used one time”, “gear use two times” and now it’s for sale.

Wait a minute, there’s something broken here folks! And I point to this area of discounted training of discounted services, and I think that it’s really a serious problem that we need to look at in the industry. So now I have just really illustrated why competing with price has some challenges. Next episode is going to be the answer to this. Why do we not want to compete on price but on value? What will it be that we can offer a value that makes a student come to your dive center and choose you over the competition, but you might even be higher priced. Wait a minute, how can that be? I’m going to explain that to you next week, so we’re going to get into that. Be on the lookout for that next episode.

“The Reporter” Icebreaker

Here’s a cool strategy for an icebreaker. If you don’t know what it is, is basically that type of activity that you do at the beginning of a group meeting or gathering or class or wherever it is that you want to break the ice, get people to know each other and learn who the other people are in the meeting or the classroom or whatever. So icebreakers are a really good thing to do for our scuba classes at all levels. They’re great to do for meetings, anything that you want to introduce people to each other and get that out of the way in a fun and dynamic way. It really adds to the fun of our scuba courses at adds to a stimulating environment and a way to get to know buddies quicker. Now this icebreaker is called The Reporter and this one is ideal for divemaster and instructor training.

This was introduced to me at Pro Dive by Kelly Levendorf, my good buddy and I love this one. So I’m giving him props for this. And it was fantastic, we did it all the time at Pro Dive. And so here’s what this is about. The Reporter is where you’re going to have your class sitting around. And what they have to do is buddy up into teams of two and with their teams of two, they are going to take turns interviewing the other person, just asking them questions about themselves, their history, what their diving was like whatever it is that you want to give them to kind of “report” on and give each person three to five minutes to learn about the other one, where they’re from, what they like, what they don’t like, what their diving background is.

All these different things they’re to report to the other person. Now, once both people have interviewed the other person, now it’s time to go around the room and instead of introducing yourself and telling people about yourself, the other buddy is the one introducing you. So have the “reporter” stand up and say, “hey everybody, I’d like you to meet So-and-so. This person is from Chicago originally and became a diver at the age of 15 back home and blah, blah blah,” and on and on and on. Right? And so you then see that there is more attention given to the person that is doing the reporting. Everyone’s listening and the person speaking is really into talking about the other candidate, right? So they’re not shy and embarrassed and they don’t want to talk about themselves and they’re looking down. They’re actually very engaged in telling what the other person told them.

Now, here’s another great piece about this, is that not only do you command the room, you have more attention and people will lean in and listen more, but here’s what’s great for you, the trainer. You get to see and measure the communications skills of every person in the room before the class has even started. You are now assessing who you need to work with more for their communication skills, what’s their body language, what’s their crutch words? All of these things all of a sudden come out and it’s early on and you get to see how good they are or how rusty they are. So this is, I think, one of the coolest icebreakers. That’s why I wanted to share it with you. Again, props to my buddy, Kelly Levendorf who’s now at Rainbow Reef and he just gets all the credit for this one and, all the days that we were doing it at Pro Dive as well. I’m sure he’s doing it down there too now. So, thanks Kelly and definitely look at using this in your next leadership courses. You’ll love it.

Hey, thanks for listening my friends. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Also, you can leave me comments and feedback. Go to ScubaGuru.com find The Dive Locker podcast and you’ll see the microphones on that page. Just click the icon on the microphone and send us a message. Also, remember that every episode is going to have its own dedicated show notes page. So for this episode number three, you’ll have a dedicated page that will have links to everything we discussed in this episode, including the link to the article, The Value of Value Selling, which I wrote for Dive Center Business. I’ll provide the link for the Dive Center Business online so that you can read that article.

So there you go. Thanks again everybody. We will see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

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007 Six Great Tips for Independent Instructors

Dave Ochs

Grant Graves

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006 Diving Industry Statistics, Performing FILO

Diving Industry Statistics

Performing FILO

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005 Why Attend The DEMA Show? Beverages at Your Dive Center

Why Attend the DEMA Show?

Offering Beverages at Your Dive Center

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004 Value Selling Part 2, Defendable Dive Briefings

Industry News

Value Selling Part 2

Defendable Dive Briefings

003 Value Selling Part 1, The Reporter Icebreaker

Value Selling Part 1

“The Reporter” Icebreaker

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