The Dive Locker Podcast Archives - Page 29 of 32

018 Your Next Class Is Always Your Best Class

In this episode we learn why dive professionals should adopt the saying “your next class is always your best class.”

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 welcome to this episode everybody. Oh, here we are, second week of January, 2020 and it was put on my heart to share with you something that is a mantra of mine and I got it in my instructor course. That mantra is “your next class is always your best class.” So long, long time ago when I became an instructor, I had a wonderful instructor trainer by the name of David Fine. David had a lot of great pearls of wisdom and wonderful experiences. He was a fantastic instructor trainer, but one of the things that he said that really stuck out was his insistence that you always live by this motto, this creed, this mantra, whatever you want to call it, of your next class is always your best class. Now after working in that program and using that mantra and the whole dive staff following that same mantra on their hearts and minds, we excelled to greatness.

In fact, we were the top academic diving program in the country in terms of legendary status, what we did, the numbers of students we had, uh, it was just fantastic. And so this was part of it was that there was always this continual pursuit of excellence. And since that time, I have implemented this mantra in every dive training institution that I’ve ever worked, and you can see remarkable, remarkable changes and progress when you adopt this. So let’s take a look at what this is about because it’s just not cliche. It’s just not this Oh, pursuit of excellence and whatever. You’ve heard that so many times. No, no, no. There’s actually a method. There is a method to adopting the mantra of your next class is always your best class. So what we’re going to do is take a look at this. I’ve got five steps for you guys to take note of that.

You can really adopt this. You can share this in your dive centers. You can do this on your dive boats, you can do this in any, any genre any area of your dive profession that you want to explore this. You could switch the word “class” for “trip”. Your next trip is always your best trip if you’re doing dive travel, you know you can do whatever. But the solid foundation of this is, is born from the teaching aspect of it. And so when you think about it in our teaching aspect, we’ve got all these areas that we teach in, right? So the majority of our courses, the majority of, of what we teach in diving are going to involve classroom, confined water and open water training. So when we look at this, each one of those areas can be improved from class to class.

So what we can do is come up with a framework and a strategy that helps you look at each one of those areas that then improves on each of those areas, then makes your entire class overall improve. And so that’s what we’re going to look at now. So number one is we want to adopt this. Get it out there, tell everybody about it. Your next class is always your best class. Get that posted, put it in your break room, put it in your classroom, put it wherever you want to put it so that your staff is being reminded of this. So here are the principles to help make your next class your best class always.

1. Evaluate Every Class

Number one is evaluate every class. Now what do I mean by that? Well, here’s what we do. At the end of every pool session, at the end of every classroom, at the end of every open water, we will sit as a staff, whoever’s there, whether it’s one divemaster helping us or whether it’s divemasters in training or whether it’s two instructors, co-teaching, whatever. We will debrief. And that debrief is an evaluation because we bring out this question that says, “how can we do better?” So first we ask, Hey, what went right and what could we improve upon? We learn what went right. And that’s pretty cool. That usually is because we did some proper planning and preparing and, and it worked. Right? That’s awesome. But what can we do better is the heart and soul of your next class is always your best class. So what can we do better is asked about, but guess what – it’s asked about through the student’s eyes.

We want to be student focused here and we want to think how to improve based on them. Not us necessarily, but them. So what’s it going to be like when we sit back and say, all right, for the students in this pool session, you know, they watched these lap swimmers swimming behind us. I should have been in a different position in the pool so that I minimize that distraction of those lap swimmers swimming behind us. That’s just one example, right? So it really isn’t about me because I taught the same thing underwater. I did the exact same stuff. It’s not about me. It’s about the student, looking through their eyes. They’re distracted. Now how did I know that? Because I could see their eyes glancing up occasionally behind me. Right? And so if you’ve got a college coed doing a flip turn every so many seconds, that can be distracting.

So there you go. Evaluate every class is your big one to do. Now I also think about what can we do in the classroom session? Well, think about this. Let’s say you’re going along and you are teaching, you know, just the same stuff you’ve always taught. Well, wait a minute, isn’t there a different way to do this? Let’s say that you went long on something and you missed a bathroom break. That would have been nice, and then you started to notice that students were getting up and going to the bathroom. Well then what you can do is write in your notes for the next time, you actually put in your slides in your slide deck. Hey, here’s a bathroom break so that you have a reminder that there’s going to be a break, and our agencies don’t do that. When we’re going through our slide deck and our PowerPoint presentations and whatnot, they don’t have a little blank slide that says take a break, go to the bathroom, whatever.

You should do that yourself. So that’s a great way to keep on track and to keep things going. And that helps you with the next time. Also, you may get to a class and you might come right there because you always do it and everything’s just the normal, but then the classroom isn’t set up properly. Now all of a sudden you’re kind of scrambling, instead of you’re pulling up your slides and getting things ready, you’re now having to rearrange the classroom. So there’s your note for the next time. But Hey, I need to get there earlier than I normally do because the classroom is prone to not being set upright. So all you do is constantly evaluate, constantly evaluate. And when you bring it through the student’s eyes, you start to evaluate differently. Great example. So think about this. When we are taking people through knowledge reviews and they’re going through their books and they’re reading knowledge reviews or whatever, and you want to use an example and you point to page 57 look at this and look at that.

Wait a minute. Instead of looking at the pictures that they’ve seen in the book already, and instead of looking at the pictures, that’s, you know, on the video or projector or whatnot, have something to pass around. So if it’s shells, if it’s coral, if it’s equipment, whatever, you can be creative, pass things around, let it be tangible instead of just pictures. So this is a way to evaluate the class and go, Hey wait, student-centered wise, is this the best learning that they can get? Well, continue to think about the best learning what will work great here. And that would be awesome. So when we do those confined water and those open water sessions, and now you know, I don’t know about you, but I come away from them even after 30 years of teaching scuba, and I go, “ah, I should have done this and I should have done that and I should have done this and I should’ve done that” and I wind up should’ve all over myself.

Right? So what you don’t want to do is get into that. Instead you want to go, all right, wait, this is a teachable moment for me. That should have what I should’ve done. Remember for the next time you see? Because the more experience that we have, then the more cues that we’re going to take. So when we have confined water sessions, like what I mentioned with distractions in the background or whatnot, but what about open water? There’s so many variables. It could be the weather, it could be current waves, surf tides, visibility buddy teams, your divemaster or your assistant instructor, the boat type that you’re on, what shore support you have. And then what other external distractions there are. Your experience in all of this actually helps you for the next time. So if you’re new to teaching and whatnot and all of a sudden you have gone down to the same wreck and you’re doing your same skills on the same wreck, all of a sudden one day, the visibility is horrible and the current is strong.

I can’t do these same skillsets here. So you make changes. So once you start to experience that, then you can approach those variables ahead of time and look for that by an evaluation method that says, “wait, the last time we were at this site, it had this current, I need to come up with a contingency place to take my students to do their skillsets so that I’m already prepared for that if I need to.” So this is what it’s all about. And again, the heart and soul of this is to debrief, find out what was good and what needs improving. That is the key to evaluating every class.

2. Preparation

Number two is preparation. Now how many of you jump into your class? Just go right? Especially those of you that have been doing it a long time, there’s kinda not, not anything different. And you just show up and you go. Well, wait a minute, I’m going to challenge you here. Think about that. If you can get into a frame of mind, you will actually be better at your delivery, better at your passion, better at your student contact, because you’ve prepped yourself, right? It’s, it’s kind of focusing. And so when I stand up from my desk and I have to go into a classroom and I wind up getting in there and teaching, you know, I’m still on that, that my, my mind is like the hard drive that’s still winding down from the emails that I was doing. You know, you’re probably the same way. Instead, what we want to do is not in front of students, ramp up in the new area that we’re, we’re about to teach. No, we want to get onboard with that ahead of time. So my recommendation in preparation is look at notes, preview slides, rehearse. There’s nothing wrong with that.

So when I start to do that, all of a sudden I take my 15 to 20 minutes ahead of time before a class and I’ll just sit there before I have to, not in a classroom, but before I go and set up a classroom. I’m literally just looking at notes, refreshing my memory on the things to say, the order of things to say, I’m previewing the slides. Are they running fine? Is my timing fine? Do I need to add anything? Do I need to delete anything? Then for those of you that are new, you might want to rehearse, especially if this is a new course for you. We have students all the time that, we train a lot of instructors in our programs and we get new people that this is the first time they’re going to teach an advanced course. Hey, you need to rehearse.

You’re going to be talking about things you haven’t talked about before. Even in your IDC or your instructor training courses, there’s new stuff that you haven’t gone through. Rehearse so that you can get your timing down and your content down. I write lists that sits on piles for the different classes I teach. I know that sounds weird, right? But here’s the deal. What you do is, well, for me, yeah, I got a cluttered office. I’m going to admit that, but I’ll have piles around for the different courses that I teach. So if over here I’ve got my course for Diving First Aid for Professionals, right? My DAN course for that, and I am going to teach that upcoming in a month. Well, I have that course out, the notes out, the things that I bring for that course, the backpack. Oh, you know, all the good things that I’ve got for it.

And then when I’m going along and I think of something like, Oh, I just read something, or I just found out something or I’m reminded about something, I make a note and I put it on that pile so that that way when I prep for the next class, I get to go and I see these notes. Oh, I forgot about that a month ago. I put this note here to remind me to bring more gloves than usual because I want to do some glove drills. You know, that kind of stuff. So that’s where it gets really cool. I write lists that sit on piles for the different classes that I teach. And so that is a neat way to do that. I encourage you to be creative, be creative in your preparation. And remember what I was saying about evaluate every class and you know, what could you do better?

These are the things that you’ll often just keep thinking about too. It doesn’t just stop in the debrief. You might be going along and go, Hey, that’s a really cool thing for my upcoming divemaster class. I’m going to put that in. So that’s, that’s my, my area of preparation, a huge one. And I think that you’ll find benefit in, in really taking time and preparing for your lectures, pool sessions, and open water dives.

3. Keep Educated

Number three is keep educated. Now how do you keep educated? All right, here’s this fallacy that once you get the instructor level that you’re done, you’ve achieved your peak, you’re, you’re it, right? Your Jacques Cousteau, reincarnated, uh, wrong. So the deal is, is that you want to keep educated. What I say is just always, always be on the lookout for how you can grow. My favorite areas are going to be in periodicals, news items, press releases, and, um, anything that you’re seeing coming through our industry that is media.

This could be podcasts, you know, whatever. But here’s the deal. What you want to do is really pay attention to these things. So for periodicals and, and uh, and magazines and things like that. Think about this. You’ve got your agencies. So most agencies have some type of periodical actual magazine or a newsletter. So you got PADI’s Journal, you got NAUI’s Sources. Um, and then you’ve got niches, niche magazines, and niche publications like AquaCorps. That’s just for technical divers, right? And so there’s a bunch of these out there. So think about the, the different agencies you’re with and the different niches that you’re a part of. Then on a broader sense, there’s Divers Alert Network Alert Diver magazine. Fantastic. Absolutely fantastic magazine. Those of you that are DAN members and I hope all of you are, if you’re not, my goodness, become a DAN member immediately.

If you’re a DAN member, you’re going to get Alert Diver this, this quarterly publication is just fantastic. It’s gorgeous. Stephen Frink does an amazing job as the publisher, so it has everything in it. It’s not just about accident or incident related items that are part of Divers Alert Network or safety. It is everything. It’s travel, it’s safety, it’s research, uh, destinations. It’s great. So, um, I get a lot of information from Alert Diver. The other dive magazines that I absolutely love. Dive Training magazine and Dive Center Business. So Dive Training magazine. Many of you have seen, you even probably get into your dive center and you give it out free to your customers and your students. Well, Dive Training. It’s great for divers, but it’s also great for pros. I totally recommend that you read Dive Training and keep up with the content that’s in it because there are great experts that are writing fantastic knowledge topics that you would also want to know about.

So if you’re handing out, and I I’ve seen this before and it’s kind of a kind of embarrassing, you’re handing out Dive Training magazines and your students are getting them, your, your customers are getting them and then they come and they talk about something that’s in that magazine that you have no idea was in there – that that happens. So keep current in those type of publications. And then Dive Center Business. This one is our closest to our trade publication that we have. Darcy Keiran represent, um, commented on this in our last episode in episode 17, uh, when he was talking about trade magazines that our industry doesn’t really have any kind of trade magazine, but Dive Center Business truly is the closest thing we have to that. And it is fantastic. I’m a regular contributor to it. You’ve probably seen my articles in there and you’re going to have other experts that are talking about how you can succeed and flourish as a business.

I think that that’s a must have for anybody, even independent instructors. You can contact the company from Dive Training, um, to get both Dive Training magazine and Dive Center Business sent to you and to your business. So please do that. If you haven’t done that already or you’re not getting those magazines, please do it now. Another magazine that I really like, Scuba Diver magazine and the U S version of it Destinations, Scuba Diver destinations for the U S market. Remember you’ve heard about this one? This was Mark Evans. My good friend from across the pond over in the UK has this magazine Scuba Diver. It is also a free publication and it is, especially for the U S market, really focused on dive travel and destinations. This one is great because we need to know about destinations, we need to know about the places to go. So this is an example of just all the different magazines that are out there that are available to you as a dive pro.

Well then there’s the digital stuff as well. So yeah, Destinations and Scuba Diver magazine, uh, and Dive Center Business, Dive Training. They all have um, electronic versions of their articles or even the entire publication. So think about that if you like digital. But the other thing is that there are news sites out there like Deeperblue.com. Deeperblue.com is fantastic. It spans everything from free diving to scuba travel, you name it, it’s all in there. It’s absolutely fantastic when you subscribe, you’re going to get daily press releases and news releases and articles and reviews. It’s awesome. So Deeperblue.com I can’t recommend enough. This is a great one to keep on top of things going on in our industry. The other one is DiveNewswire. DiveNewswire you can subscribe to. This is for dive pros only and it’s mostly press releases that are things happening in our industry that you should know about.

So this is good to also be on a subscription with and those will be delivered to your inbox as well. So here’s the thing guys, it’s not good enough just to subscribe to all this stuff. You actually need to read it. So when I teach a rescue course, when I teach a divemaster course, I am sitting here thinking of things and these articles and all of a sudden when I’m going through and reading something, I’ll tear out that or I’ll flag it or I’ll put a, you know, a little post it note that says, Hey, refer to this article when I’m teaching my next divemaster course because it’s great about risk management or whatever. So keep educated. All right?

4. Keep Experienced

And then number four ties off of that, which is keep experienced, keep experience. The worst thing you can do is botched demonstration quality, right? So we say that if you do a skill at 100% your students might actually be able to do that skill at 80% may be all right if you bought your demonstration quality on a skill, now you’re teaching that skill to what 60% 70% you’ve done something wrong, you rushed it, you’ve fumbled whatever. Now what’s your student going to do? They’re going to be dropped down into the 40% or 50% level of skill quality. So you really want to keep experienced, have your skills good, have them ready, ready to go. So if you have been out of rescue for a long time and you haven’t taught rescue, you need to get in and practice it. You need to actually do some of those rescue techniques so that they’re flawless when you show them to your students. Divemaster, right? We talk about divemaster. Well there’s a lot of times we don’t do some of those skills that are in the different agencies, like a buddy breathing gear exchange or a skin diving ditch and recovery, right?

So some of these, different skill sets that we’ll use at the higher level, you may not teach so regularly. Like you do an open water course. So because of that we need to be accomplished. We need to keep experienced so that we’re ready to do that. For me it’s always knots, it’s always knots right. I mean, okay, great. I should know these knots. I do them all the time and yeah, I can do a bowline in my sleep, but when we start getting into the other ones, I go, Hey, wait a minute and I have to brush off some of the, the rust there and practice those knots before I get in front of the class and start doing it. So the more experience you have, the more skill sets you have, the better the educator you’re actually going to be. So keep experienced and then that leads us to number five, our last one.

5. Be A Student

Number five be a student, be a student, never stop learning. So this goes back to that misconception of that once you get your C card as an instructor, that you don’t have to learn any more. No. As we often say, your instructor card is your license to learn. It really is folks. And it doesn’t stop. When you’re an instructor trainer, you need to even learn more. Never stop learning. You know, this is why I look forward to the DEMA show so much because of what I’m going to learn there and what I’m going to walk away with. It’s absolutely great. I, it’s so intense. It’s an intensive. And so when I went to walk away with that, I’m a better dive educator from going to the DEMA show. And by the way, for those of you that did go to DEMA or did not go to DEMA, the DEMA show has posted the recordings of their DEMA sponsored seminars.

So if you missed out on out on them or if you got jazzed about one and you want to show your staff back home, they’re on there. So go check out DEMA show and uh, and sign up to get those recordings. Also, take more courses. You can, you can do more specialties, right? Whether your divemaster and instructor keep getting better, the more courses you have. It’s not about card collecting, it’s not about chevron’s on your patch jacket, right? It’s about making you better. When your better, not only do you get more experience, but here’s the great thing. When you become a student and you take more courses yourself, you actually are gaining teaching techniques, both good and bad from the instructors that are teaching you. So you get to actually get kind of a double benefit by being a student and taking more courses yourself.

And so the last thing that I recommend here is listening to books, reading books, podcasts on leadership, on success, on business, whatever it is. Dear goodness, there are so many out there. I’m a podcast junkie. That’s why I have two podcasts. But I also listen to tons of them and you know, think about this. So you could be teaching a class and you could be referring back to my other podcast, which is the League of Extraordinary Divers. And you could be talking about somebody like Dottie Frazier, who was the first female scuba diver (instructor). And in your class you could talk about the history of diving and you could bring up here’s what the first female divers were like or something like that. I mean, it’s really phenomenal how much you can learn out there. So be a sponge, soak it all in whatever medium you want to study, whatever that’s at.

Just be a sponge, be a student and take it all in. It’s all about better. It’s all about the pursuit of excellence. It’s just simply not good enough, guys and gals, to just do what is in your standards and procedures manual or is in your instructor guide and is in your slides and is in – no, you need to actually pour more into your students than that. They will see right through that. It becomes rehearsed and scripted and blahzay. You want fire, you want passion, so the more that you can be a student, the more passion that you have, the better educator you’re going to be. That means the better your classroom sessions are going to be, the better your confined water pool sessions are going to be and the better your open water dives are going to be guaranteed. This isn’t fufu. I have seen it work.

Your next class is always your best class. Say that. Say that at the end of your dive briefings so that you guys can get there and you can all be a team to be all about getting better and having your students rave about you and your dive program and your classes because of what you’ve done for them and how much different you are. One of the best testimonials of this out there, and maybe you guys have experienced this for us, it’s this way at a big dive program like ours at a college, at a university.

We have students that come in that got trained elsewhere and then they go through our dive program and they go, “Oh my gosh, you guys, this is unbelievable. This was so different than what I did” and on and on and on and that just makes you feel good. And look, folks, I’m not talking. Don’t sit here and go, “Oh, well that’s because you’re a university program and you can, you know, go for weeks” and everything like that. Nope, that’s not it. That’s not it. It’s about how we take attention to the details of making every class our best class. The next class is always your best class. Keep that in mind everybody and you will go far.

Thanks For Listening!

So there you go. You do all that and you guys will be benefiting from the successes of always focusing on excellence. Your next class is always your best class. That’s it for today. Everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

Podcast (thedivelocker): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

017 Does The Dive Industry Business Model Need to Change?

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

In this episode we hear from Darcy Kieran of Scubanomics and question if the diving industry business model needs to change for 2020 and beyond.

The Dive Locker, episode 17. Happy New Year!

I’m your host, Tec Clark, and Happy New Year everyone. Can you believe it is 2020? On the one hand I feel old. I mean, you know, I grew up in the 70s and eighties I remember the Jetsons. So I’m thinking like 2020 we should be all jetsoned out here, you know, but on the other hand, I feel absolutely empowered. Why? Because we have never had technology, economy, access to people and places. All of that like we do right now in 2020. I absolutely feel blessed and I think this is going to be an awesome and absolutely empowering year. I hope you feel the same. In fact, my wish for you is absolute prosperity and success in all that you do.

So the beginning of every year is a grand indicator of change, right? We change our calendars. We make new year’s resolutions where we change things about ourselves. We’re in, you know, new fiscal years and different things like that.

Well, in today’s episode, we look at whether the diving industry needs to change. Now I have to admit for Christmas presents this year, I did, a bunch of Amazon and everything like that, but I actually did the Amazon same day delivery. I was shocked. Literally, I got a package the same day I ordered it from Amazon. Now think about this. Who would have thought that was even possible five years ago? You know, that is crazy. Change is happening so quickly that it begs the question, do current business models in our diving industry need to change?

Well my guest today is Darcy Kieran. Darcy owned and managed dive shops, dive resorts and charter boats in both Canada and the USA. He’s been a course director and instructor trainer with numerous training agencies as well as being on the board of DEMA. Now Darcy’s background was in retail sales, so when he took the plunge to open his dive center 20 years ago, he realized that many dive professionals lacked formal retail training, so he went on to create the Business of Diving Institute and more recently he curates scubanomics.com a website dedicated to the business of diving.

I met up with Darcy poolside in Orlando and we discussed issues that might make you think about changes in our industry and in your dive business as we are now in 2020. He also shares his concept of that a dive center is six businesses in one. I think you’ll find this interview really compelling and very thought provoking.

Now, before we get to my interview with Darcy, I have something really cool to share with you. You all have heard of my ScubaGuru brand. Well, ScubaGuru Academy is an online school of tutorials for divers and pros. It was launched last year and has a couple of pilot courses on there already, but I’m here to tell you about my newest and most ambitious tutorial yet, and it’s coming out this month. It’s called Mastering Dive Tables and Decompression Theory. I designed this course for numerous divers and aspiring dive pros and even dive pros who are challenged by dive table teaching or decompression theory teaching.

This is especially beneficial for those becoming divemasters or instructors. Now, back in the day it was mostly the open water diver student who struggled through dive tables, but today what we see a lot of our divemaster candidates who have only learned dive computers their whole time diving and the first time they’re learning how to use dive tables is in their Divemaster course. This can be a major challenge and then when it comes to instructor candidates, not only do they have to pass their exams on dive table usage and so forth, they also need to be able to teach dive tables and decompression theory.

My Mastering Dive Tables and Decompression Theory course will help anyone at any level master the area of decompression theory and how to use dive tables. The course is broken down into several chapters, including the history of decompression theory, understanding gases, decompression sickness, decompression models, and the dive table usage. There’s over 50 sample questions as well as a thorough study guide. I know this is going to be something great for so many. I’m just giving you a teaser now that this course is coming out this month, January of 2020. I think you’ll be really impressed with it. More details in upcoming episodes. All right, pros. Now let’s get to my interview with Darcy. Kieran of Scubanomics.

TEC CLARK: Darcy welcome to The Dive Locker. So I referenced you in earlier podcast episode where I talked about, at your website scubanomics.com how you refer to a dive center as six businesses in one. Tell us about that.

DARCY KIERAN: Yeah, we always think of the dive store as a business and it happens to be a small business compared to any other business in the dive industry. Whether you look on the travel site equipment or training agencies, they’re all bigger than the dive shop and were referred to dive shop as a business, which is at the forefront of contact with the customers. But then the reality, it’s a lot more than one business. I mean, I, I’ve managed many different businesses in my life and I’ve never seen a business more difficult to manage than the dive center. It’s to me is because it’s not a dive center. It’s six different businesses. For instance. I mean if you’re a PADI, you know, the three E’s of diving, you know, education, equipment, experience, which is what you sell to customers. So, for instance, you’re selling equipment well that requires the skills of a retail manager, right?

DARCY KIERAN: You have to manage inventory and you have to have the proper level of inventory to satisfy the customers, but also a bunch of different financial ratios, education, Oh, that’s like managing a school. Now managing a school requires a totally different set of financial measures. Keep, key, you know, key performance indicators, critical success factors. They’re all different. The school and the retail store are two very different types of business. And then you have the experience, which can be a little bit different. You can either be a travel agency or a tour operator. I mean, depending where you are experienced part will be a little bit different. But regardless, it’s a totally different business, right? If you’re a tour operator or a travel agency, that’s extremely different than operating a retail store.

TEC CLARK: Right. So in the tour operator, are you talking about if you have a charter dive boat at your dive center and you’re doing daily trips as opposed to if you’re in the Midwest and you don’t do daily trips, but you do big travel and you’re going to the islands and you’re going different places internationally?

DARCY KIERAN: Yeah, yeah. Well I usually see the, you know, separate dive stores in two categories, the origin or the destination. So for your example of the Midwest is to me, an origin dive center. Sure. You do a little bit of diving locally, but it’s mostly flying down South. Right? So you’re an origin and if, and when you go to Roatan, then you’re mainly it destination. Most of your customers come from somewhere else. They’re not locals. So in Roatan, you’re, you’re a tour operator but or a resort, right. You’ll receive customers and the experience scuba diving with you. While if you’re in Chicago, you’re most likely the biggest part of experiences, most likely organizing trips down South. But either way it requires a totally different set of tools and expertise and way of managing a business. Travel agencies for it for a start. They’re all having issues nowadays with online booking and all that. And there’s laws and regulations in many States and countries that you have to follow. So it’s totally different than the school. So, and that’s just only three then is there the other four which are support services, right?

DARCY KIERAN: You provide rental gear. Oh, that’s like operating an Avis. Rent a car. You have to have a way to make reservations and make sure when people come they have the right sizes and etc. You have to maintain that equipment properly, just like you have to clean the car. All right, a refills. Well that’s like operating a gas station, right? You have peaks and you have plenty of time where the fill station is sitting doing nothing and then everybody comes at the same time to fill their tanks. And then you have repair and maintenance, which is like operating a garage. Now you have to have a parts. Some of those parts are provided free to the customer under warranty, but you have to have some sort of tracking system to collect them from the suppliers. So that gives you all your six businesses and, and it’s, in theory, you could have six different softwares to do this in each one of those industries.

DARCY KIERAN: There’s is software dedicated to doing this very well and there are good examples of businesses who do very well in each one of these six industries. You could use it as role model, but you’re a small business. You’re a dive store, so maybe you’re selling 500,000 a year in revenues, but you have six businesses with 500,000 in revenues. To me it’s, it’s humanly and physically impossible for such a tiny small business to be the best at each one of these six businesses. I just don’t know why you can do it now. I think it was easier to do in the seventies and eighties when customers’ expectations were not as high as the are today. I mean today, customers expect everything to be top quality. They want it now. And, and how can you really do that right now with a small business. I don’t see it. I mean, to me that’s where I often talk about the structure of the dive industry and when we discussed with her it’s drop out rate or lack of growth or grow that is small.

DARCY KIERAN: To me it’s all about the structure, right? You have to restructure it in a way that we can provide the customers what they expect nowadays. Right. So something has to happen.

TEC CLARK: Interesting. What would you say that something has to be? It to me seems like a different way of thinking.

DARCY KIERAN: Well, you know, I mean we’ve started saying that years ago, but the only, the only constant is change. And I think this is accelerating. I mean look at the Blockbusters, right? They all, they all had, they all had small stores, renting. Mom and pops, renting videos. But they barely had anything in stock. Then Blockbuster showed up took the market and everything and stuff all the time. And now they don’t even exist. I mean Netflix and the rest. So things evolve fast. And so we’re looking at the business model in the dive industry, it’s the same one that we had in the 70s so right there there’s some thing that has to be wrong and I don’t, how many industries have a business model that’s the same today that they had in the 70s you know right there you should ask yourself some questions.

So to answer your question, what we need is we need to restructure and it has to be restructure not on what we’ve done for the last 40 years or, or how we like to operate. It has to be structured, restructured based on what the customer want. even, if we don’t like it, that’s irrelevant. I mean we cannot expect to grow an industry by forcing customers to do what we like. It’s the other way around. So, for instance, when you look at buying gear nowadays with Amazon and the rest customers expect to have everything that you are going to have everything in stock and they’re going to get at the latest tomorrow and it’s seven getting to the point where tomorrow is late because Amazon is doing same day delivery. And so that’s where, that’s where the retailing industry is going. So if you’re selling dive gear, you need to have all the brands, all the callers, all the sizes in stock, and you have to be to be able to deliver it at the latest tomorrow.

DARCY KIERAN: So again, a small business selling 500,000 a year, so maybe they have, you know, 250,000 in gears sales. I mean how can you do that. It’s impossible to have that kind of inventory and you’re probably also not set up to do next day delivery on everything. So that that retail part of operations as to be restructured so that we offer what customers want. So really what you need is, is is, is a brand that sells all of that equipment with a central warehouse where you have all of that in stock next to a ups facility. So delivery is fast and efficient and inexpensive. And, and with that you need to have instructors teaching, right? And locations. Now teaching is usually done there near where you are, whether it’s in their resort or it’s at home. Usually don’t go that far. For taking classes. I mean you might go to Cozumel, right?

DARCY KIERAN: But I mean you’re going to do your classes near you, we’ll tell you or so that can not be a long distance thing. But dive gear can be, as long as you have a little showroom locally and you see a lot of retailers also moving towards showrooms and then you’ll get everything sent to wherever you want by tomorrow. And so right there, and we’ve only talked about these two industries and then there’s the other four. So to me it’s just so logical because you look at the owners of local dive shops and in most cases they started in the industry because they love scuba diving and then they became a dive instructor and then they were told by the training agency or their dive gear manufacturer, well, if you want, if you want to sell, you have to have all these six businesses, right? Are you?

DARCY KIERAN: You’re, you’re not. And so they, they end up with a dive store because they’re forced really by the training agency or the dive gear manufacturer. But that’s not their forte. I mean it’s not, in most cases, that’s not what they like. They don’t even like managing a retail store. They want to teach and they want to go diving. But we’re forcing them to be a retailer. Without really any support because I don’t see anywhere in the diving industry where you can actually learn to be a real professional retailer in 2020 nowhere. Nobody has that. You’ll have a little bit of sales training here and there. Product knowledge, right. But you don’t really have training for being a retailer, but we’re forcing them to be. So changing that structure to me satisfies everything. It satisfies the customers, what the customers want in 2019 and 2020 and it satisfies what the dive instructors wanted.

DARCY KIERAN: They want to teach, they want to go diving. They don’t need to be managing retail in a way that doesn’t even satisfy to these customers. So the first thing has to change the training agency and the dive equipment manufacturer where they have to stop forcing everybody to be dive shop for instance. And those websites, you’re not even going to be listed, right? If you’re, unless you own a dive store. So and on the PADI website now you haven’t have to be a five star in order to be on the first page. That’s the other way around. Because if I want, if I have a customers that I want to learn to dive and I go on those website that the training agencies, then I am being given a list of dive stores, which might not even be where to dive store teach the course.

DARCY KIERAN: Doesn’t make any sense to me. Right? If I, if I go and Google that, then I ask for a Starbuck location that you’re going to send me to a Starbucks location. But I go and find, I want to learn to scuba dive. And I searched for dive centers, I’m being dive stores, right? And a lot of dive stores teach sometimes miles away from the dive shop. That doesn’t make sense as a customer is I would say, what, what the heck is that? Interesting. So this center structure is to be changed where people should be doing what they’re good at. For instance, instructors, they like to teach it, like to go diving professional retailers should take care of their retailing part.

TEC CLARK: Interesting. Interesting. Darcy, you’ve touched on this on your website, scubanomics.com tell everyone about your website. And what is your mission? Because you have a passion and I love it, and it comes out in your, in your website. Scubanomics.

DARCY KIERAN: Well, my whole time in the dive industry, I fell that the structure was wrong and I mean, I’ve managed dive stores, small ones and big ones. And, but in all cases, it’s six was extremely difficult to, and I’m not saying I’m the role model on being good at all those six because I think it’s, it’s kind of physically impossible and financially impossible to actually be good at all of those six sectors of operations within that one roof. So I’ve been working on it for a long time with many different partners in the industry, but changing the structure, I mean, where do you start? I don’t fully blame the training agencies and the dive gear manufacturer because right now they’re selling through that prehistoric network.

DARCY KIERAN: How, do you pull the plug on that and go with the front route? I mean, it’s gotta be rock and roll for two or three years before you, you know, so it’s, it’s a very tricky question. you can actually implement a new structure. Usually in most industries what you see, it’s a new player coming in to change industry. Cause old players have a hard time adapting simply because they currently satisfy a bunch of customers in this set way. Now, who, that new player would be, I don’t, but the reason that the website was we need, we need the first step is we need to talk about it. We need to talk about it and realize that there’s things to do. on the website I listed a bunch of different strategies, right? And maybe some of them are bad and some of them are good.

DARCY KIERAN: But to me it’s a, let’s talk about it. Let’s recognize their are some issues, whether it’s dropout rate, not enough growth or customer satisfactions or satisfaction of the dive store owners or satisfaction of the dive structures and the fact that retailing is totally changing. So we need to adapt. So let’s start by talking about it. And then somebody somewhere will figure out how to do it. Im, be glad to be part of that process. But to me it’s, we have to start talking about it because whatever of either issues I see the dive industry is the lack of a real trade publication. We have a lot of magazines that are prepared for scuba divers. You thought about scuba diving to the general public and then training agencies usually have their own magazine, but they talk about, you know, their own, their own Koolaid and, and I mean they, Dive Center Business who I think is a very good magazine.

DARCY KIERAN: That’s the, that’s the closest to a trade magazine and the content is very good. Every dive store owners should get and read that magazine, but it’s, it’s more geared toward providing them with information and skills to currently to run their current dive shop. To me, a trade magazine is one that would cover trends in the industry, sales or sales or down and which segment of the industry sales are down and they should try it. That’s usually taboo in our industry. If sales are down in the Midwest and up in the Southeast, I mean, we don’t want to talk about that. Right. So where do you go to find information. I don’t see a trade publication, right. That covers any of that. Or if there’s sales, if there’s merger and acquisitions. We all know that there’s been a lot in the last few years in the dive industry. Again, it’s kind of, we don’t really talk about it, but why not? Because you really need to know where the industry is going, what are the trends, what’s working, what’s not working so that we could then all work with that knowledge to get better. So now I don’t have all of that on the website, but it’s part of it. Where is it? Let’s start putting the real cards on the table, discuss and see how we can turn around the dive industry.

TEC CLARK: Right. You know, you mentioned that there are lots of other industries bigger and smaller than ours that do have trade publications. Um, that is an interesting concept. You know, you mentioned, um, You mentioned change before and um, change agents. You and I are both major fans of blue water strategy and I think that, you know, the listeners of this podcast are usually a little bit of a different breed. They want to learn, they want to better themselves. That’s why they’re listening to a podcast for dive professionals. I have a feeling you, you know, you put the tenants of blue water strategy and blue water strategy created such a change that then the blue water strategy shift come out. Because people were then reporting back by saying, here’s what I did in my industry, here’s what I did in my profession.

TEC CLARK: I changed the way we did things because things were broken and these people then got brought in and celebrated for their excellence in what they did. And then they were used as case examples for the next book. So I think what you’re speaking to in the audience you’re speaking to right now, if, if this is resonating with them, it resonates with me six different businesses in a dive center and are we good? Are we excellent at all of them? Probably not.

And so what does that mean? What has to change? Do we become super men and women that are excellent at all these areas or is there a different way? I think you make an excellent point on that. So I would recommend, yeah, go to the scubanomics see more of what Darcy’s talking about and also check out that blue water, Blue Water Strategy, Blue Water Shift. Those books are excellent at making you think differently about how to change problems.

DARCY KIERAN: Yes, and there’s a whole section on scubanomics.com about the Blue Ocean Strategy.

TEC CLARK: Exactly, exactly. Well great. Thanks Darcy. This was awesome talking with you. We’re going to have you on a again in the future. This is wonderful. It’s always great talking with you. Yeah, enjoy the rest of the DEMA show too.

So there you go. I like how Darcy isn’t afraid to be radical in his thought. I like how he looks forward to change. This interview should really be a call to action for you to give thought not only into your dive business being six businesses in one, but to also challenge yourself to think about change. What changes need to happen in our industry for our businesses to thrive in 2020 and beyond. You know, let’s start this dialogue. Go to scubaguru.com and find this episode of the dive locker podcast, episode 17 and click on the microphone. That way you can record and share your thoughts about change, change of business models, change in your business practice. What do we need to change as an industry? Share those thoughts.

Well, that’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live. And please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and that’s where you can also click that microphone and leave us a comment about today’s episode and your thoughts of change. So thanks again everyone. We’ll see you in the next episode. Happy new year! Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

Podcast (thedivelocker): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

016 Scuba Diver Magazine and Henderson’s New Greenprene Wetsuits

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

In this episode we hear about the new Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine as well as a revolutionary neoprene-free wetsuit by Henderson called Greenprene.

I am your host Tec Clark and in today’s episode I want to introduce you to some innovative items in our industry. First up is Destinations Magazine. This is a new quarterly free diving publication now, not freediving, free – diving publication. That is dive travel heavy. Editor, and my good friend, Mark Evans tells us about his lavishly illustrated new magazine. In fact, he has multiple magazines worldwide under the Scuba Diver Magazine brand, but he created a special one for the U S market Destinations magazine. It’s gorgeous, it’s glossy, beautiful.

This is great for customers and students to get for free and wait to you hear Mark’s strategies of how to use this free publication in your dive center or dive business. It’s awesome. And our next interview is with Joe Polak, the president of Henderson Aquatics. Now they have just introduced the Greenprene wetsuit line. This line of wetsuits is made of Greenprene, which is 100% neoprene free, sustainable insulating foam.

It has been tested and approved by the US Department of Agriculture, USDA, and it is a bio-preferred item. This bio-based product green preen is formulated from deprotienised natural insulating foam. They add that along with other natural additives such as sugar cane, plant oils, and oyster shells. The result is a sustainable insulating foam that is totally soft, stretchy, yet it’s durable and lightweight too. Oh and for those who have a neoprene allergy, no more problem with allergies in this wetsuit. It is neoprene free! And wait till you hear what they are doing with the packaging of this product. It is a complete sustainable packaging. Your customers are really, really going to respond to this. I think it’s absolutely awesome. I felt it, squeezed it, stretched this product. I am totally sold on it. I haven’t yet dived in it, but my industry friend and colleague Stephen Frink was one of the testers of this product and he gives it glowing remarks. In fact, I’ll put a link to his video testimonial in the show notes page. All right, pros, let’s get into my interviews with Mark Evans from Scuba Diver magazine and with Joe Polak of Henderson Aquatics.

Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine

TEC CLARK: Welcome to The Dive Locker podcast. Great to have you here.

MARK EVANS: Thank you for having me.

TEC CLARK: So tell us about the new publication you’ve got out.

MARK EVANS: Yeah, we’re very excited to be launching this. Scuba Diver Destinations as the name kind of gives away is a nice glossy, lavishly illustrated travel magazine. and it basically aims to inspire and educate any level of diver. Doesn’t matter if you are a new open water diver and experienced advanced diver and instructor, a tech diver, keen photographer. there’s something in there for everyone. Nice.

TEC CLARK: Nice. Well, I have seen the issue that has landed here in the United States, so yeah, of course. Everybody’s hearing now that you are a brother from another mother across the pond. So this originated from the UK, right. And now you’ve dropped this new one to here. I love it. It’s absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. So, let’s talk about like the origins of that and talk about the Destinations issue. I want to get into everything because you’ve got multiple publications and multiple markets. So tell us the whole story about this.

MARK EVANS: Yeah. Well, let’s start with the beginning is, back in the day I started as editor of Sport Diver magazine, the UK edition, and I did that for about 18 years. and then when that magazine got unexpectedly closed down, myself and my advertising manager at the time, we basically were left out on a limb, suddenly had the rug pulled out from under our feet. So we decided, well, we know what we’re doing. So we set up our own company. So our first magazine then was Scuba Diver magazine, which we did in the UK. certain areas in Europe, in Malta and things like that. The content of that was very much the same as what we did with Sport Diver because the way we looked at it was, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. So we had a good blend of articles in there that were suitable for beginners.

MARK EVANS: We have stuff in there for technical, we have stuff for intermediate divers. We are how to choose from industry experts. So it was tech finning techniques, weighting, stuff to make you a better diver. Yeah, we had photography tips and advice in that we had a large gear test section because all divers like to talk about shiny equipment and see what’s new and then a new section cause all divers like to be informed. So we kept the same general format but we just changed our approach. So we still worked with PADI, which was obviously the, the link with Sport Diver was the official magazine of the diving society. But we still work with, but we also work with all the other training agencies. So we worked with the British SubAQUA club, SSI and all the tech agencies as well. So GUE, IANTD, TDI, et cetera.

MARK EVANS: So we worked with all the training agencies and our approach was we wanted to get it in the hands of active divers. And the best way of getting into the hands of active divers is to go into the dive centers. So we put the magazine to the same quality as Sport Diver used to be, but instead of selling it for four pounds an issue, we put it into the dive centers for free so that when a customer comes in, the dive center can give them a nice glossy magazine and hopefully that helps keep them inspired and interested in diving. And we get into the hands of actual active divers because if they’re in a dive center, they’re an active diver or they’re wanting to learn to dive.

TEC CLARK: So, right, right, right. And then, so you branched out. And so, you’ve gone into two other markets.

MARK EVANS: That’s right. So first of all, we got that up and running. We were up to about 14 issues we’d done of this, a monthly magazine. We then decided to move into another English speaking market, which was Australia and New Zealand. So that in that market we do a bespoke version. So is Scuba Diver Australia and New Zealand and it covers from the East coast of South Africa to the West coast of the States. So that includes the Maldives, anything in the Indian ocean, the Southeast Asia, obviously Australia, New Zealand, Micronesia, Pacific islands, all that sort of the sort of areas that divers in Australia, New Zealand would travel to. So it’s be sport content. The news is bespoke for that area as well. So we try to make it for that region. We’re now up to issue 18 of that. That’s going really, really well and being very well received.

MARK EVANS: And that then led us into the new title. So Scuba Diver Destinations, slight change on the title. Like I said, the other ones are just Scuba Diver and Scuba Diver Australia and New Zealand. The reason this one is called Scuba Diver Destinations is it’s only a quarterly magazine. It’s not monthly at the moment. The whole idea was with this one is it is more travel. So there is a little bit of equipment test at the back. There is a little bit of news. They are some photo tips but it is mainly about showing what a wonderful place we live on this water planet.

I’m trying to get people to see beyond where they perhaps have dive before and try to inspire them to travel further afield and just open their eyes. Because I’ve been very lucky in 20 odd years of working in the diving industry to travel to a lot of fantastic locations and I’ve still only scratched the surface. But a lot of people I speak to that they’ve only ever dived in the Caribbean or the, well, only ever dived in the Mediterranean and there’s so much more out there. So we want people to be able to read these lovely eight, nine 10 page articles with all our visually illustrated, with great photographs, some interesting facts, and you know, maybe just light a fire in them to try somewhere new.

TEC CLARK: That’s awesome. So yeah, the deal is I’ve looked at the, the new version that’s come out for the U S market. It’s beautiful. It’s stunning and exactly what you’re saying is what I’m resonating with. I look at the magazine and immediately I want to go to these places and I, you know, I just get this upwelling. And yet here I am a seasoned instructor and I’ve been in a lot of places. So I love your approach about how what you’re doing is you’re putting it into the dive center, but it’s so travel focused and now you’ve got individuals that can put this in their dive center and really stimulate lots of interest in many, many different destinations. So, you know, here in South Florida, you know, we don’t go very far where, you know, just to the Caribbean and that kind of a thing and it’s very easy. But there are people and places that are so into going international and going into places that they’ve never been before. But the only way that they’re going to find out about that is either through their dive center and the people that have done it or looking at, you know, other, publications or other type of video or something. This is, I think, one of the smartest ways that a dive center can introduce new destinations to people. In a free context. So talk about that from the dive professionals point of view. How do you feel that this magazine can actually enhance a dive center and a dive professional?

MARK EVANS: Well, this was one of the reasons when we first started it obviously as I said, going into a dive center, from our point of view, it’s a great business because you are getting in the hands of active divers, there’s little to no waste. When we used to do newsstands, we’d put 5,000 copies onto newsstand. We might sell a thousand the other 4,000 get pulped and the news agents take such a hit of the money. So say you were selling it for a pound, they’d take 80 pence, so you’d have like 20 pence profit. It’s just a waste. But by putting it into the dive centers, from our point of view, it’s, it makes sense we get to that hands back to divers. But at the same we wanted to be doing something to help the dive centers as well. So for them to have a glossy magazine on their side near their till that people can pick up and have for free.

MARK EVANS: It’s a great opener when you’re talking to people. So if you’ve got one of your regulars comes in, they’re coming in on you can have a chat, you can have a coffee with them, they might buy some equipment and then when you settling up you can be like, hi, here’s the latest issue of Scuba Diver. Take that right here. It’s a nice thing. They don’t need to know that we supply those magazines to the dive center for free. Right. As far as they’re aware, the dive center might be paying for them and out of the goodness of their heart. Given it to them. If you’ve got somebody who comes in interested in learning to dive and you give them the information about their open water diver course and everything, you can then give them a copy of the magazine and again, it’s inspiring them. Hopefully they read that and that helps ignite the fire in them even more than they’re already interested.

MARK EVANS: A lot of the content, the travel content, the hints and advice and stuff that is in there, it doesn’t date. So if you’ve got some copies left, so you get 30 copies a month then and you have 10 left, well that’s great because the next open water course, you do make a little bundle, give them four magazines. You’ve got nothing to lose, just give them out. But they think it’s great. They’ve got full glossy magazines. The read through of this new exciting sport that they’ve gone into. So from that point it’s great. Then it goes further than that dive centers in the UK, and I’m sure it’s the same in the States, eh, they make another as well as selling equipment and courses. They make a nice slice of profit from leading trips.

MARK EVANS: That is the bread and butter of it. And like he said, he saw him go into just into the Caribbean or it’s going further afield. So what better way of showcasing some of the places that you do trips to? Then there’s a magazine that’s got a 10 page article on the Cayman islands for instance, and you can use that then as a selling tool of this is where we’re leading the trip. And we’re hoping that that might expand the market for dive centers because they might have gone into a rut and they just do the Cayman trip, The Bahamas trip, the Turks trip, the Cozumel trip. Well divers are quite you know, well-traveled bunch. They like to, you know, travel to places that are perhaps a slightly off the beaten track. It’s nice when they come back and they’ve got the dive tee shirt from the Philippines or Oman or South Africa.

MARK EVANS: So this might actually get new destinations in front of the dive staff. And you’ve got your dive center on ago. That place looks great. That’s right. Look into it, organize a group trip to go there and then they can now make a profit on taking people further afield. So yes, it’s a good, it’s a good business model for us. But our whole ethos right from the start was how can we do something to actually benefits dive center? And then the nitty gritty is right down to it is, dive centers who are switched on, when the magazine comes out, they put it on Facebook, spread some copies out, have a coffee cup with their logo on next to it photograph on Facebook. Come in, pick up your latest issue of the magazine while stocks last. It drives customers in on a monthly or a quality basis into their dive center.

MARK EVANS: They come to pick the magazine up, but while they come to pick the magazine up, you’ll have the opportunity to either sell them a trip, sell them a course, or just engage with them on a more regular basis perhaps than you would’ve done before.

TEC CLARK: I love that. That is a really cool thing. So it’s like this, you’ve got to, you’ve got this, this value add. So if you come in and here’s what it is, so there’s this scarcity of supply and we get this amount come on in while it lasts. I love that. And so now people are going, yeah, I’m going to, I’m going to stop in or they’ve been wanting to get in but they haven’t, but now all of a sudden this lights a little fire. I want to get in there and get that. I love that. That is a great strategy.

TEC CLARK: You also mentioned, what it is in the international destinations. We see a lot of dive centers that do get into that rut. Just like you’re saying, we’re really comfortable on our Cozumel trip and we’re really comfortable on Belize trip. That’s all we do in a year and that’s what we call international travel. But folks, the thing is is that people are seeing that there are many, many different dive sites all around the world and if they start inquiring and you are giving them no’s and no’s and no’s, they’re going to find another way to go on that trip and cross that off their bucket list or whatever it is. Red sea or Oman or what you’re saying. So I love what you’re saying here. This stimulates more interest in travel and travel can be an amazing profit center. In a dive center. Yeah, I think that that’s awesome.

MARK EVANS: And the great thing is obviously as you know, when you do a trip, you can tie other things to that. So you then sell them travel kit for them to take their own equipment with them rather than renting. And then they might do a course with you while they’re on the trip. There’s all sorts of things that you can tie into just making the profit from you going on the trip as well. So you know, that was the whole idea behind it is the Destinations will always have something US-based. So there’ll be something in Florida or it’ll be something in California or maybe something in as an unusual one, one of the inland sites or something that the States has got. But then it will have like Caribbean stuff and then it’ll have Pacific stuff in Southeast Asia.

MARK EVANS: So we’re branching out and then it will have an unusual dive site that is not normally covered over here. And that is, that was the main thing us for doing it. But also if people can’t get the print copy, you can get the digital version of it on the website. The great thing is with that, you can also access our UK magazine and the Australia and New Zealand magazine via that way as well.

All three so you can read all three titles. So if people pick up a copy of Scuba Diver Destinations and enjoy it, they can always digitally read the UK one and the Australia and New Zealand because there is different content in each one of those. And again, that’s a great thing for you to drive people to as the dive center owner because that just fires them even more because you can use other destinations.

TEC CLARK: I love it. You know, I’m thinking of the supply that we have. First and foremost is, okay, we’re going to get this to to our folks. Well, putting them in a crew pack, right? So you’ve got your new divers or you’ve got your divers at an advanced level or whatnot. You start throwing that in a crew pack. Now their mind is going to more exotic destinations, more travel and things like that. But the other thing is the dive club. So now you put it in the hands of the dive club members at the next club meeting as well, and now you’ve got an interest where people are sharing stories or they’re earmarking pages and then coming to the next club meeting saying, Hey, from the previous issue, I want to go check this place out. So there can be a lot of synergy with this. And I think that the other thing too is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. So it, it’s, it’s almost like a coffee table magazine if that’s, I don’t know if that even exists, but it’s like a coffee table book in a magazine. So people get so worked up over pictures and photos and destinations. And I think because you’ve been such a travel editor all your life that you have this way of laying that out, you have this way of writing, you have this way of that photojournalism that really pictures this and excites people about where they want to go.

MARK EVANS: Yeah. And that was all at the start. We wanted it. Yes, it’s a free magazine, but we didn’t want people to think they were getting cheated, if that makes sense. So it is on a heavy stock of paper. It’s a hundred pages. It is a nice quality paper. It’s a weighty magazine. So yes, it is a coffee table. That was kind of the way we did it. So you can have it laid out at home so that when you’ve got friends around they might be non divers, but it’s so nicely laid out. People who are non divers will flip through it and be blown away by the photographs and stuff like that. So you can use it as a, you know, a bit of a conversation starter. you know, and that was the whole, the whole idea behind it really was to make it beautiful as well as informative, but have that to it so people hopefully will keep hold of them.

TEC CLARK: Love it. Love it. Well, it’s brilliant. So, tell us how the different markets can be a part of this, especially the U S market because although this is a, an international podcast, how, how can, how can people, how can dive centers now get a part of this? How can they sign up to have these deliveries?

MARK EVANS: Yeah, well that’s it. So, basically yeah, you can get in touch if you’ve got a dive center and you’d like to stock these magazines. you can just drop us an email info@scubadivermag.com and let us know how many club members you’ve got, how many, you know, magazines you’d potentially like to have, and then we can get you sorted out with the, the distribution on that.

And then the other thing that we’re also doing for people who maybe don’t live near a dive center, they might live abroad and then they don’t actually live there. I’ve sent everything is there, can actually still get it on subscription. So we’re doing a subscription price as well, if you want the convenience of having it delivered to your door. So we do offer that. But our main aim, I’d rather make people walk into their local dive center to pick a copy up. Because then that benefits the dive center.

TEC CLARK: Right. That’s right. Oh, that’s brilliant. Great. All right, so we’ll put all the show. We’ll put all the links to that so that people can do that in our show notes page. So that way they can sign up, they can have them delivered to their dive center. we’ll also do the digital links too so that people can see you there. I also want to do a, a shout out. I love your Facebook posts and Twitter. They, you have a lot of Twitter posts out there and they’re kind of, you know, little bit, a little bit of, of an article and then this and event. And so the, your content is spread in your Twitter too. So I want to put those feeds out.

MARK EVANS: That would be great as well. Yeah, because we try to, we have the website and the websites are updated constantly. So we tried to put new stories on there on a daily basis at least. But again, like I said, that we have real news, we have press releases, we have travel features, we have kit reviews on there. So there’s lots of going on.

TEC CLARK: That’s perfect. Well great. We’ll put all that in the show notes page. Thanks so much Mark for being here on The Dive Locker podcast. We love this content. I think this is going to be a really neat thing for dive centers to be a part of a worldwide, you know, as you’ve got these three markets that are out there. This just makes a lot of sense and it’s really cool. So well done.

MARK EVANS: Thank you very much for having me.

Henderson’s Greenprene Wetsuits

TEC CLARK: All right Joe, welcome to The Dive Locker podcast. We are at the DEMA Show 2019 and I am here in the Henderson booth because you’ve got something really buzzing here. Tell us about the new Greenprene wetsuit line you have.

JOE POLAK: Oh, thank you for having me. And I will be happy to give you that information. We, we take our new product innovation primarily from our customers. We look to our customer to tell, tell us what they want, what they would like to have. And that leads us in new product directions. So about 2014, we started to hear more and more, interest in removing plastic from packaging or making a better product. And rather than take it a little bit at a time, we said, can we take one product and start to finish, make it fully sustainable. One of the biggest hurdles we had was neoprene is in itself, a petroleum based product. And, we had a partner that we were starting to work with at the time that was, working on testing, a replacement to neoprene, basically a neoprene free insulating foam, that would allow us to eliminate neoprene in a wetsuit.

JOE POLAK: And over this last five years, we’ve worked very hard to replace that, replace that product. And, about a year ago, we finally got the product to a level where we thought we could start testing it and we began to secretly test it. Stephen Frink as you know, was one of our, secret testers. We’ve given Stephen the product. he made assumptions on what it was and it was sad, but he was assuming incorrectly on what he was testing. But, when he finally found out about it, he was extremely excited about where we’re going.

So, we came out with a new product called Greenprene and Greenprene is made up of it, looks like, feels like and performs just like neoprene, but it’s a fully plant-based sustainable material. That in itself was great, but we wanted to take it a step further. So we laminated it interior and exterior with totally recycled materials that are made from recycled water bottles.

JOE POLAK: And then we decided to take that a little bit further and say we want the whole packaging process to be fully sustainable. So we worked only with recycled cardboards. We worked with, we work with soy-based printing inks, all our propaganda, all the hang tags, everything is recycled. And fully stainable. So we were able to build this complete start to finish process. And now our goal is to take pieces of this process and implement it into the rest of our line, as the consumer begins to, absorb. And what do you want to say support this concept? Because we know for a fact that I think consumers are all aware that, green products aren’t always as good as the products they replace. We just, it just natural, you take a look at a cleaning product and it’s like, well, it’s good, it’s green, but it doesn’t get the stain off.

JOE POLAK: I mean, so we didn’t want to have that. We wanted to have something that was actually as good as what it replaced and we believe we’ve got there, but the price is slightly more than what you would pay for a standard wetsuit. But we can take pieces of this perfect situation and begin to lead people into it. We do, we’ve already seen amazing support for this product in the field. So, we’re already sold into our third order just here at the show. We’re sold out through three orders already and can see, and the consumer has yet to see the product. So we’re really driven, right? We’re really excited about that. And but what’s still left is the last and most important piece to consumer to be able to support it. But we believe that our dealer base is so excited about this, that they’ll do a great job to make the consumer aware and lead them in this, green direction. And we hope we’ve really started a change in the entire marketplace.

TEC CLARK: I think you will, you know, I’ve, I’ve handled the product. It is remarkable. I mean remarkable how I’m sitting there touching it and feeling it and saying, this isn’t the neoprene this is so the performance of that I’m sure, like you’re saying, is going to replicate what we’ve had in the past, but without the petroleum byproduct of leaving this behind, once they start to deteriorate over time.

JOE POLAK: And exactly. I mean a lot of the, some of the questions that sometimes surprise you when you come in, a lot of people ask about the buoyancy. There’s really no buoyancy difference. They ask about the warmth. It’s actually warmer at depth because it does, it doesn’t, compress as much. Pardon us, we got interrupted. So, it does not compress as much at depth, so it keeps you warmer at depth. The buoyancy would be the same as a normal wet suit. And, and I think some of the buoyancy confusion in the market has come by, I would say kind of zealous marketers that are out there now promoting neoprene-free wetsuits. Unfortunately, the wetsuits that they’re promoting never had neoprene in there to begin with their, they don’t have no insulating foam. So it’s easy to promote a product as being neoprene free when it never had insulating foam in it to begin with. But it’s confusing the consumer and the consumer saying, Oh, well, isn’t this neutrally buoyant? Well, what they’re talking about is essentially a dive skin and they’re saying it’s neoprene free, but as we know, dive skin’s never had neoprene to begin with. So that’s where we want to eliminate any confusion in the market.

TEC CLARK: Sure. Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’m thinking of this, you mentioned the consumer and you mentioned the higher price point. You know, take for instance, Whole Foods. You’re looking at a chain that has had remarkable success yet there are people that will joke about the whole paycheck or they’ll make comments about the expense of going to that. But what people are getting is they want a superior product. They want something that is done in the fashion that you’re talking about. They want sustainability, they want something that’s better on the environment and when people are that conscious about their, their footprint or whatever you want to call that, when they have a passion for nature and the world and generations behind them and they’re thinking of that, paying a little bit more does not then become the issue.

It’s about making wise and sensible choices. I think that this is going to be a tremendous success because think about all the folks that love the underwater world, so they’re in all over the underwater environment. They want that connection. They understand that the fragile, the fragility of it, is that a word? And so, you know, when I think that when they’re faced with making a choice and when it’s articulated what neoprene is and what it does, and here is this new product. I think that in a heartbeat, you’re going to get tons of consumers that make this choice as a wise decision.

JOE POLAK: Well, we’re, we’re counting on that. Yeah. We, we, we have a, we’re all in on that. and, and actually when I say that it’s, it’s, it’s more expensive. It’s slightly more expensive, but it’s not out of the reach of, of a, a general recreational diver. It’s actually less expensive than our best wetsuits. So we’re, we feel that the price is where it needs to be in the market, but obviously it is not the cheapest wetsuit, but then you’re paying for quality and you’re paying to make a statement. You’re, you’re paying to show that I care. And that helps us do more and allow us to bring more products like this into the marketplace as we move forward.

TEC CLARK: Right. And you know, I think also when we’re looking about cross promotion, so many of the training agencies that are retail savvy are building in purchase and retail opportunities into their presentations. And that might be open water level or it might be even in specialties that are environmental specialties. I think this is a great product that would be able to be inserted into those eco-friendly lectures that, that an instructor is talking about or a divemaster even. And how cool would it be if divemasters and instructors are in this and they’re making the statement, but they’re also using it as an educational tool. They’re using it as a functional prop to say, “Oh, and by the way, this is what I’m wearing and this is why I wear it. “

JOE POLAK: Absolutely. And we’re seeing that already. We have a, a great new partnership, that we just formed with Rainbow divers in Key Largo. Sure. Rainbow, was one of the first to jump on. And the reason they were one of the first is we happen to be filming our promotional videos for green preen in Key Largo. And, they were interested in what we were doing. So we shared a little bit with them ahead of time. And they, they thought that they need to have their staff in this product. We’re working with the coral restoration foundation, which was also in Key Largo and just in that small area, we saw such amazing support for the product right off the bat. So we’re, we’re excited and we think what you’re saying is absolutely going to happen and we want to encourage it and we certainly want to encourage it and we’re going to do everything we can to make that happen.

TEC CLARK: That’s fantastic. How can our dive professionals that are listening to this episode, how can they connect with you and learn more about this?

JOE POLAK: Well, they, if they, if they’re involved with a Henderson dealer, they can speak to that through their Henderson dealer directly to us. They can go online to Hendersonusa.com. Where, basically the, the homepage of our website now is the full introduction into Greenprene. The video I just spoke about will be there that they can see, they can call us, they can request materials. And actually one thing that I think is really important to point out, and I, and I did miss this.

There’s a strong hypoallergenic, story behind this product. If you were originally allergic to neoprene, there’s a very good chance that the Greenprene, you may not have that same allergy to. So by calling Henderson or speaking to a Henderson dealer that sells Greenprene, they can get a test swatch, that they can wear and they can see if they’re a, and it may be a solution for people for years and years and years that either had to wear undergarments or couldn’t wear neoprene altogether to be allowed them to get back into a, a thermal protection. Yeah.

TEC CLARK: That’s fantastic. Yeah, I didn’t even think about that.

JOE POLAK: And I would say it’s a story that kind of gets forgotten, but it’s an important one. It’s important.

TEC CLARK: It’s an important one. And it’s significant. I can’t tell you how many I’ve come across in my dive career that have said “no. I’m, I’m, I have an, an allergy to neoprene.” Wow. And sometimes we find that out a little late too.

JOE POLAK: And we’re also on active on Facebook and Instagram under Henderson wetsuits.

TEC CLARK: Perfect. So, well, Joe, I am truly, truly blown away at the product. I think this is revolutionary and I think this is the future and that’s why I wanted to have you on. I think that our pros need to know about this and support this fully because it’s that important. I wish you all the best of luck and success not only here at the show, but into 2020 as this product emerges and everything.

JOE POLAK: Well, I’m glad you saw our product and our statement as important and happy to share it with you.

TEC CLARK: Great. Thanks so much.

So how about that? Both of these new products can literally change the customer experience in your dive center. Thanks Mark. Thanks Joe. Remember to learn more at scubadiverdestinations.com and hendersonusa.com. I’ll put both of those links on the show notes page. As you know, episodes of this podcast come out every Wednesday and next Wednesday is Christmas day. I’ll be enjoying it with my family and friends and I hope you do too. So we will skip next week’s episode and I’ll see you the following week in the roaring twenties, New Year’s Day 2020!

Thanks for Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

Podcast (thedivelocker): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

015 PADI Check-In

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

In this episode of The Dive Locker Podcast we hear from Drew Richardson and Kristin Valette-Wirth of PADI Wordwide about the latest happenings in PADI.

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 good to be with you today. Everyone in this episode, we have the opportunity to hear from both Drew Richardson, President and CEO, and Kristin Valette -Wirth Chief Marketing Officer of PADI Worldwide. Now, in this episode, you’re going to hear some pretty cool things. I love how they have pointed their members, worldwide membership of divemasters and instructors and course directors to focus on the awe of the underwater world. You’re going to hear about that and what that means to connect awe with customers. I thought that that was a really good one.

Also, if you know the PADI logo, you see that diver and the diver is carrying a torch, right? Well, they have a really, really cool vision and that is to create 1 billion torchbearers to explore and protect the ocean. That was B billion with a B. That’s a lot. What a big goal. You’re going to hear about that. I think that that’s really neat. They also have a new motto of seek adventure, save the ocean. That motto they’re championing and you’re going to learn about that as well.

Also, the new training, the new IDC that they’ve got rolling out. So this is the PADI check in and you’re going to hear all about it from Drew Richardson and Kristin Valette -Wirth both President and CEO and Chief Marketing Officer of PADI Worldwide. So let’s get to it. Let’s dive into my interview with Drew Richardson and Kristin Valette -Wirth

Tec Clark: Hi, Drew and Kristin, welcome to The Dive Locker. This is the PADI check-in and it is your time to shine and tell us what’s going on with PADI. We’re here at the DEMA show in Orlando 2019. Your booth is absolutely a buzz. The social the other night was absolutely fantastic and powerful and moving. There was so much energy and there’s energy all over. And I think that you guys are contributing to that energy here at this show. Tell us about PADI.

Drew Richardson: Well, thanks Tec. It’s a pleasure to be here with you and sharing our message. PADI is basically an organization of people around the planet who, believe in not only training divers to be confident and comfortable, but see a responsibility to be stewards of something bigger than themselves. As you might remember, a couple of years ago we came up with a force for good and the four pillars of change, those still existing, but what we really focused on is ocean health. I think, the planet now that’s not controversial. People are becoming more accepting and trying to figure out what they can do. And we see ourselves, with our influence after 50 some years of creating millions of divers, over 28 million PADI certifications and each year a million and a half, if you count Try Dives. So that sort of stuff, a lot of souls being introduced into the space and once they’re comfortable and confident, we’re trying to enable their adventure and we’re trying to get them to pay it forward. And ocean stewardship and health is a big part of that. And we think divers under a concept, we’ll speak about it a little bit more on this torchbearer. I’d like to kind of expound on that in a minute. is something that people, hearts and minds can, embrace throughout the diving community. And dare I say well beyond it and join hands with like minded people of influence to actually put a dent in ocean health in a constructive way.

Tec Clark: Absolutely. That’s fantastic. And that resonated really well with the people that heard the message. You came out and talked about [beep, beep] come on.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: I’m sorry, should I not have brought my clown horn with me?,

Drew Richardson: I wasn’t using any explicit language. Why did you censor me?

Tec Clark: Watch your mouth. We did not use any vulgar language. It’s not an explicit episode. I think we need to leave that all in. That’s perfect. That’s all perfect. So as we were saying, the message the other night was about awe and I absolutely love that. So when you talk about that, have we all experienced this? We’re all dive professionals and you were addressing all of the dive professionals in the room and you were talking about the all that we feel, every single one of us feels that, felt that, that’s what carried us into the professional side of this before ever thinking money. And, and still that drives more than money sometimes. The law is really what it’s about. And I love how you then took that to the, we are those ambassadors that we’ve heard that term before, but you took it to the next level of Torchbearers.

Drew Richardson: Thanks Tec. Yeah, I’m glad that resonated. I’m not surprised for a bit. All of this powerful emotion. And I think, we see that on every dive we have to remind ourselves sometimes of those moments of awe. And that could be a quiet little moment with a neutral buoyancy or it could be a creature on this planet. So it’s about respect and admiration. As I said that night, diving is sensory and it wraps around us and embraces us and the awe being almost a sacred feeling underwater. So I don’t overstate that, but it’s a, it’s a very emotional, heartfelt connection. And I think the diving experience and becoming a diver and dedicating part of your life, if not your entire life to that lifestyle, is an emotional connection. And so awe is something that I look forward to every time I dive in.

Drew Richardson: And it could be just finding an old wrench, but oftentimes it’s a life changing event. Could be a giant Marine mammal, could be a tiny little macro flora or fauna. And isn’t that a wonderful thing?

Tec Clark: Absolutely.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: And for a brand new diver, it could even be the first time someone’s breathing air, you know, underneath the surface of the water, right. As instructor sometimes I think we forget that awe could be the real small things to us, which could be huge to the new diver.

Tec Clark: That’s so right. I mean, how many times have we been guilty of that? It’s like, okay, we’ve got another dive, everything like that. And then, yeah, and then we popped to the surface and we talked. “How was that? How was that?” “I was weightless for the first time in my life.” It’s still, “I was weightless.” And you cock your head to the side and go, “yeah, this is pretty darn cool.”

Drew Richardson: That’s why people love to share the gift of diving and diving travel or tourism or training. Yeah. but as powerful, if you experience awe in life that you don’t forget that goes into your heart, mind, and soul. So you think about what do you want to do with that? And you can channel that emotion into some really cool stuff. And that’s what we’re on a journey to do. And, that’s what we’re doing with this stewardship aspect of the torch bearing part. On the torch bearing part, since we’ve mentioned it a couple times, it’s, there’s almost a, a prophecy here. If you look at our logo, we take that as a deep seated responsibility. Time and place is clear now. Our logo, it’s a blue planet. And there’s a human figure on that that has a torch, a diving figure in the hand extended, which suggested illuminations, suggest exploration, suggest enlightenment, suggests responsibility.

Drew Richardson: And so when we try to, factor that into what we’re doing with our diving professionals and divers around the world, we’ve, we started to think about what could we do, how would we connect the dots there and how do we go beyond ourselves instead of just thinking about torchbearer as individuals? What about Torchbearers as communities? What about Torchbearers and other entities that maybe aren’t even divers but care about ocean conservation issues? And we start to join hands under that very powerful symbol, which interestingly enough that our logo comes baked out of, the 1950s Silent World and Jacques Cousteau divers, if some of your listeners have looked back in time and they’ll see those divers descending with the torches, that’s exactly where it came from. That’s inspired. So you talk about legacy, Jacques Cousteau happened to be PADI number four. He was on the board, so, so kind of goes deep then.

Drew Richardson: Now we look at this thing and I couldn’t be a better symbol for what we’re trying to do metaphorically, what we’re trying to do about connecting hearts, minds, bodies, souls and deeds to do something cool under this brand and holding hands with other like-minded brands. So we’re pretty excited about that.

Tec Clark: That’s awesome. And you have a big goal too.

Drew Richardson: Oh yes. Well I mean why, why aim low? It’s better to aim high and miss then to just be average. So we’re going for a billion. That’s a lot of millions. 1 billion. Torchbearers on this planet. And what’s the art of the possible there? So I don’t know if you do simple math, you think about our social followings and I think sort of 4 million or so. Okay. So let’s say all those 4 million souls decided to connect with 250 friends, families, business associates, and inspire them to be Torchbearers.

Drew Richardson: There’s your billion right there. And I’m not saying it’s a layup or that easy, but it seems so lofty. That’s about one in 10 people on the planet here pretty soon. But why not? And we look at it as if not us, then who? And if not now, then when, because the issues of mother ocean are are serious issues, but, and you can get depressed about them and you can get outraged about them. You can become hopeful that something would correct. But if you don’t take action in the absence of action, nothing happens in the absence of hope, then you stay depressed or outraged. So we’re trying to figure out how to connect those dots and, and really move the needle in a, in a meaningful way. So why not a billion? So that’s what I’m shooting for.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: And you know, Drew, I think it’s interesting because as divers and as dive professionals, we get to introduce people to the underwater world in a way that they’ve never seen before, right? So you know, they, they put a mask on, they descend beneath the waves and they get to explore the other two thirds of the planet that most people don’t. And in doing so when Drew talks about legacy and responsibility that is baked into our logo as a torchbearer? That’s, that’s powerful in the sense that it’s the moment you discover something, the moment, the moment you see something that you love and it’s going to transform your life because of course it transformed all of ours. Then you want to protect it. You want to, you know, you want to love and protect it and conserve it. So that’s where when we connect the creating a billion Torchbearers to explore and protect the ocean. It’s because we know that they can, we know that they want to. And and we just want to introduce more people to that concept because the ocean needs it.

Drew Richardson: Now we do think that’ll be quite an attractive thing for millennial generation, the generation behind them who are quite thoughtful and, and choosing and they, they don’t, they want to try to do something. Sometimes they don’t know how. So we think the diving space from the surface to the abyss is, it is a place where maybe they can engage, participate and make a difference and, and have hope through their own actions, whether that’s citizen science or maybe even maybe at home with the choices they make. And what they are consuming and what they’re using, consuming both in terms of foods and single use plastics and all the other things that are, are real issues and the issues are, are weighty. But there you start, you know, the, the old adage of the best time to plant a forest was 20 years ago and the second best time is today.

Drew Richardson: It’s that sort of a thing and the world needs it more than ever. And I think, it’s probably more ready than ever. So we feel an obligation. So how does that translate? So we’re really proud of our mission and our vision to try to create a better balance for humanity and the interaction with the ocean. And we’re looking at, saving the ocean in or a more healthy ocean. We can talk more about literally the literal interpretation of those ethos, but you think about how does that impact PADI divers or what’s in it for PADI retail resort or PADI pro, right? And they have to feel it and believe it and, and think about how to adapt it and express it on their local level. So we’re basically in, in the process of lead generation, trying to capture the hearts and minds of people external to dive industry and drive them towards our PADI core members for fulfillment.

Drew Richardson: That could be travel, that could be a affinity in terms of community, club that could be, engagement in training or exploration. And you see here the show a lot of PADI experiences. I’m sure Kristin wants to speak more about what’s PADI experiences mean, but it’s all about that, that net, but baked into all of that, having fun, exploring and feeling comfortable and calm and confident is this billion Torchbearers. So look after mother ocean from a stewardship. So it’s a real feel good message that has substance and it’s actually good for the health and welfare of the diving industry and stakeholders who are engaging there because it’s going to bring a heart and new public to us.

Tec Clark: I like that. I like that a lot. What are you showcasing here at the show?

Drew Richardson: I have a brand new pair of shoes. I think they look great, but they really hurt Kristin, anything else?

Kristin Valette-Wirth: Well, back to key messages. Good thing we don’t have any fun at all. When, when we look at going into the show, we always think about, you know, what theme do we want to put out there? Or, you know, what are the key messages that we want our members to listen to understand, you know, and then take back home with them, right? So this year it’s really all about, of course, the new mission, the new vision, and obviously the tagline, which is seek adventure, save the ocean, simply put five simple words that means so much. and to really execute on that, we have come up with this concept of the PADI experience. The PADI experience is, is really a way for divers to engage deeply in a diver lifecycle, both above and below the surface. And we thought about, you know, in the 53 years that PADI has existed, we have clearly become the way the world learns to dive.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: And there’s, there’s just no question about it. but we’re so much more than that. You know, we’re more than just a training organization. We really believe that we can provide a holistic journey to the customer and help the PADI professionals, the 137,000 individual members and the 6,800 stores and resorts out there that are so proudly carrying that PADI brand. We want to help them offer that complete PADI experience to their customers. So that complete PADI experience means things like travel. How do we, you know, increase divers ability and enable them to go discover beautiful parts of the world. So we’ve got an entire PADI travel group now that is doing just that and enabling those, you know, fantastic experiences all over the world at our leading liveaboards dive shops and resorts. And, we also have brand new, a PADI club, which is really the world’s largest ocean community, to really empower a deeper connection to the ocean environment.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: And we do that through pure and vivid content through a brand new magazine that we’ve just acquired into the group. that used to be a, the Bonnier dive group and now as part of the PADI team. And, that’s a cool way to keep divers excited, engaged, inspired through wonderful colorful content. in addition to that, of course there’s, you know, lots of privileges that club members get. There’s a wonderful savings that they get because we want them to do, you know, all that they can to protect the ocean. And the only way they’ll do that is if we get them more and more into scuba diving, you know, and enable those adventures and then, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And then finally we, we also launched at the show a PADI gear and a PADI gear is really a focus on an ocean first marketplace. We know that divers need certain diver essentials. And we looked at that and said, how can we create more sustainably sourced essentials for, so things like towels or rash guards or even lip balm and sunscreen, how can we provide these alternatives for divers that are sustainably sourced and good for the reefs? And it’s good for our oceans.

Drew Richardson: We recycle plastic, recycle, driftnets, things like that. Things that if you have that ethos and stewardship, you’d be proud to wear. So, and we have standards for that. So, and the people that are helping us with that journey are really switched on. People who have branded other entities on the planet of substantial nature and they just love our mission. So they want to help us. And we’re doing cool stuff for our pros. We have a co branded Patagonia apparel. Yeah. And so, and that’s a great brand. Everybody knows that means earth health. So it’s this sort of thing. And at the end of the day, I think for sometimes we move quickly and people wonder what’s, what is that and what’s in it for me? If I’m at a trade show speaking like that, and not divers divers actually love it. But when you’re a stakeholder or you’re, you know, trying to make your payroll, you wonder what, what are PADI you’re onto.

Drew Richardson: All these things blended in are about lead generation and acquisition of new customers and retaining them, not in PADIs buildings around the planet, but in as a community for a retailer, a community for resort or a liveaboard or an instructor who’s offering training. And ultimately that all experience, and that’s the part maybe that we’d like to communicate a little more broadly about lead generation recruiting and pushing it right by giving back to the good people that subscribe to the PADI ideal. And in that way it’s a aspirational consumer brand and that’s a differentiator. it took a long time, but we want to get better at that too. And that passion, that all that baked in affinity, is powerful and it’s an atractor and we just want to make it easier for our good members when they get supported and they join us every year to do what they like to do best.

Drew Richardson: And it’s not always easy. It’s tuff in some places. So we get that. And this whole thing is not PADI for PADI sake. This is PADI for the ocean sake. And this is PADI for the dive community sake. And it’s all about that end user feeling, the heart and mind and soulful connection to this brand that’s offered up within our network, if you will. So we like to think that’s, we’re not, we’re humble about it cause that’s a lot and that, but we feel a stewarding responsibility to get this right. both within the industry and with the partners that we have around the planet who, can help leverage and catapult that message and ultimately pay it back through our membership and our divers.

Tec Clark: That’s great. You know, you did the pillars before, but now what you can see is that the filter by which you guys are making decisions of growth and what to do into next is coming through in that, that slogan that you just said here, ocean first marketplace, you’re putting that as your filter. You’re putting that in front of the decision making as you guys are going forward. This is very, it’s very palpable. We see that and feel that.

Drew Richardson: We filter meaning implies we don’t grab everything around us where we’re making choices, we’re placing bets, placing bets that we feel are a more noble place. And we were, we are fortunate to be in a position to do that because this force for good. This base of divers through the hard work of our members, quite frankly for 53 years, it started with zero and they’re out there everyday working hard to recruit and train and retain. and it builds up this, this group of individuals. But we’re fortunate to have that because word of mouth and friends and family, there’s a exponential scale to that. If you say, are you a diver? Yes. And where were you trained while I was trained, I was trained by PADI. Get your PADI where? At this dive shop. At this dive resort. That’s a force multiplier. And but now it’s like, why did you choose PADI?

Drew Richardson: Well, because not only the force were good because I, I liked the way they source gear or petty is going to save the ocean and I want to help or, and it’s not just lip service, it’s not a campaign. Right? This is a, this is a filter about everything that we invest in, pay for, how we look at being responsible, how we broker our, our lives. Look, we only have so much living breathe and heartbeats on this planet. None of us are going to be around forever. So how lucky we are to try to do something good and no crazy world that’s full of negative media and all the rest and the dive space. I think when people get frustrated or trying to connect the dots, sometimes we’ll lean towards easier to complain than to, to do it. But I think in everybody’s hearts and minds because of that awe you started off with, it doesn’t matter who they are, listening to this or whatever brand new with that awe needs to get reawakened and turned into, “okay, that could work for me or I want to lean in, become a torchbearer,” whatever it is.

Drew Richardson: And, and, and PADI’s tried to do the right thing. So that’s what we’re doing right now, which we like to think it’s time and it’s place. And I think, I think we have a responsibility to do it.

Tec Clark: Yeah. Amen. Yeah. Like I said, it’s palpable. You know, you can feel that, you can feel it with a passion and everybody listening can hear that passion. It’s genuine. This is what you guys want. And I think that’s awesome. How can people follow you? Connect. Be a part of PADI?

Kristin Valette-Wirth: Well, first of all, always go to PADI.com there’s lots of ways to activate their interests there. And then all the social channels, you know, obviously we’re on all of the major social channels. We’ve got wonderful followings. Drew just talked about 4 million in our social channels and they are the most engaged divers I think I’ve ever seen. You know, you start benchmarking engagement against other brands and things and it’s just, it’s, it’s so rewarding to see how active divers are and how much they care. So, gosh, whether you’re even thinking about diving or an avid diver or teach diving, engage on those social channels because it’s gonna, it’s gonna feed your interest and keep you excited. And you know, one thing I would just say too, that, since we’re talking about being here at the show, the one thing that we didn’t really talk about yet is just really the whole Renaissance of our training programs as well.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: And that’s a big thing that we’ve been talking about and debuting at the show. Our brand new instructor development course is right out of the gate at launch the day before the show at the course director updates so that that’s a big deal. And also setting the tone for what’s to come in early 2020. Because we have done a complete revamp on all of our systems and platforms to really make sure that we are facilitating a best in class educational experience that encourage, you know, the, the, the awe and and so we’re very excited about the revolutionary technology that we’re bringing to the dive industry as well.

Tec Clark: Yeah, you should be. I heard really good things coming from course directors about the changes that some of them are very healthy and some of them were very forward looking and progressive and, and whatnot. And it appeared that it was almost a, correct me if I’m wrong, but it appeared that it was about a record attendance of course, right?

Drew Richardson: Yeah. Actually it wasn’t okay. It was a 300 people in that room, which is fantastic. And they had to get up and salute at 7:30 in the morning. It was kind of tough DEMA for a lot of people, it’s a social industry. The other thing is just in terms of, if you want to know what the crawls on inside of my head in terms of on some of our media, I put a blog out every now and then. If you look at how, what’s been trailing there, you can kind of see telegraphing of what we’re talking about today and it’ll, and that reflects pretty much the PADI ethos of how we’re all placing our bets, if you will. and it’s not about me, it sounds vainglorious to say my blog whenever I’m not gonna tweet to you or whatever. But you’re going to see on that, that how, what’s in it as a PADI member, as a PADI diver, and where are we going?

Drew Richardson: And it’s full of how you can actually do some stuff like how you can take actions and also analogs of people that are doing good things. I try to elevate our members are doing so many amazing things across the planet. So I try to get those stories out to inspire others because that’s where we can help. We’re a lightening rod. So yeah. So there’s a, there’s a thought leadership aspect to those blogs that maybe people can click and contact some of the people I’m elevating or think more deeply about, Oh, that’s why PADI are doing that. Or I’m proud of PADI doing that because I have been doing it and, and my organization is, backing my place. So yeah. it’s just a different way to look at it then. You know, we’re not here, we’re here to grow the pie, if you will.

Drew Richardson: It sounds like cliche, but we really well and truly are trying to bring more end users into the dive space cause we just love it. And you know, it’s not about the it’s boring to think about this one take up Peter to Paul thing. We’re really trying to grow the space and the ocean. Just if we ignore it then se la vie, then we’re just not, we’re just not going to sit still for that. We’re going to go for it.

And we think of, we think diverse amongst all humans on the planet. That resonates because that emotional connection that awe does, we’re going to connect it and we’re going to go for it and we’re going for a billion and I think we’re going to get it. And I think we’re going to get it in my lifetime. And I have no idea how much more lifetime I have, that’s not my call, but I’m kind of hoping but it’s, the torch will be past that anyway, you look at.

Kristin Valette-Wirth: That’s right.

Tec Clark: Well thank you both so much. This has been wonderful to get the PADI check in from you and to hear what you are passionate about and hear where you’re going. It’s really, really a neat thing. So all the best to you. Best of luck at the show. Wish you tremendous success in everything from the show forward. So thanks for being here.

Drew Richardson: Well Tec, thank you. And thank you for just being the lightning rod that bring all of us together because it’s an important role that you’re playing to get the voices out there and, and cross pollinate and inspire. So you’re a good man for doing it and we appreciate the opportunity to speak with you.

Tec Clark: Thank you very much. Thanks. Take care.

Okay. As you can hear after that conversation with Drew and Kristin. PADI really is more than a training organization. I think they have even redefined their original mission of training divers from 53 years ago because when I hear a vision like that, boy that is really awe inspiring. Well done. Hey, if you’re not a PADI pro, you can follow Drew’s blog. I’ll put that link on our show notes page so that you can see that. They also have a really awesome YouTube video promoting their new seek adventure. Save the ocean motto. For those of you who are PADI pros already, you’re already hopefully connecting with this mission through the different training bulletins that come out and through the undersea journal.

Thanks again, Drew and Kristin, that was awesome to hear from you for the PADI check-in. Well, that will do it for today, my friends. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way. You’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live, and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com there. You can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

Podcast (thedivelocker): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

014 Why We Need to Promote and Use Reef Safe Products

By Tec Clark Leave a Comment

The Dive Locker, episode 14. In this episode we hear from Autumn Blum, Founder and CEO of Stream2Sea about the importance of reef safe sunscreens and products.

Welcome to the dive locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest in diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

I’m your host Tec Clark and I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those here in the United States. I did. It was fantastic, but I don’t know if I can fit in my wet suit anymore. That remains to be seen. I ate a lot, but you know, it’s this time a year that we have Thanksgiving here in the US we have black Friday, we have local business Saturday, we have cyber Monday, giving Tuesday, you know, all these things that’s based on the holiday gift giving time. So holiday gifts are on our minds. Well, there’s a gift, a product that I use and I strongly believe in it and I give it to divers. And whether it’s students, whether it’s customers or whether it’s people that I know and love, it’s the Stream2Sea line of coral safe products.

Now I don’t promote or sponsor things on this show unless I truly, truly believe in them. I believe in the Stream2Sea product line because it helps two things that are vitally important to me. Number one is my health and number two is our environment’s health. So today you are going to hear from Autumn Blum, Founder and CEO of Stream2Sea. Now she was a cosmetic chemist, is a cosmetic chemist and also a passionate diver. And so she tied those two worlds together, did studies on what sunscreens could potentially do to our aquatic environments and what she found was riveting.

She found that the ingredients in sunscreens were not only potentially harmful to humans, but toxic to corals. So please, if you value our reefs as dive professionals, you need to be able to articulate the things that Autumn is talking about in this episode. You need to be able to tell your students and your customers about why coral safe sunscreens and coral safe products are vitally important to them and the environment.

Before we get to this interview, this is sponsored by the Scuba Exam App. I’ve partnered with the award winning Swedish app development team, Boboshi for this enhanced diving knowledge tool that helps students pass their scuba exams. Since 2010 the Scuba Exam App has helped thousands of people on their way to getting their dive certifications. The Scuba Exam App is loaded with features. You can customize your quizzes by selecting whether you want it timed or not timed; unanswered questions only or you can repeat questions.

You can have questions flagged to follow up and answer them again. And, you can have incorrectly answered questions come again and how many questions you would like to be quizzed on are all part of the settings that you can set up. You can also select to be quizzed on general questions or dive tables or both together and you can choose which agency’s dive tables you want to be tested on PADI, NAUI or SSI. You can also select whether you would like your dive table questions to be in meters or feet.

And every question comes with an explanation detailing the reason for the correct answer. The Scuba Exam App contains over 200 scuba theory questions and 50 dive table questions and you will find that these questions can help any level of diver. Scuba Exam App is only $4.99 . It’s available for iOS and Android and there’s even a Scuba Exam Lite that’s a free version, less content, less features, but it’s free. Use it, turn on your students to it and you’ll find that it’s available at the Apple App Store or Google Play Apps. All right pros, let’s dive into my interview with Autumn Blum of Stream2Sea.

TEC CLARK: All right, Autumn. We are here at the DEMA Show 2019 in Orlando, Florida. It’s great to see you again. How you doing?

AUTUMN BLUM: It’s fantastic to see you to Tec. It’s a great show so far.

TEC CLARK: Good, good, good. Well, yeah, this is day one and you’re already having incredible success at your booth. I went by to get you for this recording and your booth was packed and everybody was talking to somebody and everything. You got all these products out and all Stream2Sea has been really, really a very popular product. And I’m not going to say just product or products, it’s almost a movement. Will you explain to dive professionals what your brand is about and why it came to be?

AUTUMN BLUM: Absolutely. So I’m a diver as well Tec, right? So I had a skincare company, um, that I started right out of college. I grew it. I’m a cosmetic chemist. That’s my background, and I sold it in 2009. I was a junior diver and for the first time in my adult life I had disposable income and disposable time. Those never seem to go together well. And I started diving again, right?

So I’m out there in the ocean, I’m in Palau, and it was the most spectacular, beautiful reef that I’d ever seen. And I’m coming up to my safety stop and I saw what appeared to be like a rainbow on the surface, and as I got closer I realized that it wasn’t a rainbow, but it was an oil slick and it was coming off a group of snorkelers. And that was the first time in my career, now, I had been making products for the health food industry for 15 years at that point. It was the first time that I thought about how these products that affect our bodies might be affecting our planet, our oceans, our reefs.

I get back on the boat and I look overboard and I mean it’s like I could see, I could see the reef underneath and people are showering on the back of the boat and the suds are running overboard. And I’m seeing Nemo like gasping, right? I mean I just, I felt it and I came home and I knew that I had to start Stream2Sea. So, so Stream2Sea is about creating products that are safe for you, safe for our families, and safe our planet.

TEC CLARK: Got it. Excellent. Tell us about that. So, um, what is it about sunscreen in particular? Cause this kind of was the launching point, on the sunscreen side of it. What is it about common sunscreens that is problematic to our oceans and our reefs?

AUTUMN BLUM: So sunscreens are regulated as drugs right. They’re known to work inside of our body. That’s why you have to put it on 15 minutes prior to exposure. So those chemical ingredients have time to soak into the fatty layers, your body where they absorb the radiation, and then your body has to filter it out, right? So these ingredients are, the FDA is starting to call them into question. A lot of them are known to be endocrine disrupting chemicals.

TEC CLARK: What does that mean?

AUTUMN BLUM: That is, it messes with your hormones. And there’s a, there’s a popular… It doesn’t sound good. A lot of them are estrogenic, you know, so when I’m giving dive briefings or I’m teaching, I’m teaching dive guides and we start talking about the science. We really get into it. I talk about the estrogen mimics, right? I mean these things stimulate estrogen in our bodies. They stimulate estrogen in the fish. They’ve shown you put sunscreen in a tank with fish and male fish will convert to female when they’re not supposed to. I mean, it’s serious stuff.

And there is endocrinologists, people that study hormones, that say that the endocrine disruptors work the same way in a fish, in a rabbit and in the human. And we’re fighting, it’s the same thing with coral, right? Our reefs are alive and we’re messing with their hormones. It’s the development cycle of our reefs that are being affected by these sunscreen ingredients. It’s pretty freaky.

TEC CLARK: My goodness. So what is it about your products then, the changes that’s not part of that.

AUTUMN BLUM: Yeah. So first we don’t have any endocrine disrupting chemicals that are in our sunscreens, right? I mean, we can start talking about hormones. Good. So we can start talking about, uh, you know, the chemicals to avoid the oxybenzone, the avobenzone, the octocrylene, the octinoxate, um, the Hawaii bans, for example, Hawaii has looked at the studies and they’ve learned that oxybenzone and octinoxate are two ingredients that have been found to disrupt coral larva development and they decided to ban those two ingredients.

The challenge for the dive industry and for the conscious consumer is that savvy marketing companies have come along and said, “okay, we can’t use oxybenzone and octocrylene or octinoxate anymore. Let’s replace it with avobenzone and octocrylene.” Two very similar chemicals, also endocrine disruptors, but not yet banned. And that’s what’s going on for the consumers. And that’s why it’s really so important for the dive instructors, for the dive professionals to really understand how to read the back of the label. You cannot trust what’s on the front of the label anymore. You have to flip it over and look at what those ingredients are and kind of know what you’re looking at. And it’s pretty simple. It doesn’t need to be as complicated as what I’m saying here.

TEC CLARK: Do you think others are going to then brand and say this is coral safe sunscreen and that’s what they’re doing.

AUTUMN BLUM: Yeah. So they’re taking oxybenzone and octinoxate out. They’re replacing it with other chemicals and they’re slapping a reef safe label on the front of it. There’s no standard yet on what is reef safe.

TEC CLARK: That’s, that’s amazing. Now you’ve had, you mentioned the Hawaii, um, success story. There’s others that, you know, I’ve been following you and, and been a consumer of this product as well. Um, and you just keep posting that there are government success stories happening all over the place. Tell us some more about this.

AUTUMN BLUM: So what they’ve learned is that sunscreen pollution really is a symptom of unsustainable tourism. So these communities that, especially the popular tourist destinations are looking at, how do you support your livelihood? We have to protect, you have to protect the reefs if that’s part of your community. And they’re looking at different ways to do that. And eliminating sunscreen, eliminating the harmful sunscreen is one really easy way to protect your reefs.

Hawaii reefs are already rebounding or seeing really positive signs just by taking out in the ban hasn’t even come into effect yet. So it’s pretty cool. Wow, that’s fantastic. Coastal communities around the world are all looking at it. They’re looking at the science and they’re asking the questions and the more they dig into the science, the more onboard they are.

TEC CLARK: Fantastic. Oh, that’s great. That’s great to hear. Sustainability is such a buzzword to right now and it is super important. So how does a dive center benefit from the Stream2Sea brand of products?

AUTUMN BLUM: So we’re working really hard to make this easy for the dive center and the dive professional. Um, it’s, it’s all wrapped up together. We’re trying to make it easy for them to partner with us. Um, we’re giving them discounted bulk product. If they want to offer it for free to their customers on their boat, trying to make it affordable for them, they can sell it in the retail store. We’re giving an excellent, excellent margin on that. Um, we’re trying to make it as easy as possible for them to buy in, you know, low minimum orders and trying to work with them on discount and shipping rates and such.

Um, but beyond that, the consumers are looking for it. They’re looking to the dive pros because we are the educators of the sea, right? So looking at us for guidance and they’re actively looking for dive centers and partners that are promoting sustainability. They’re promoting eco-conscious options. Who’s getting rid of the plastic bottles on the boats? Right? Who’s offering the safe sunscreen on board? It’s a selling feature. Good for the planet. It’s good for their bottom line. I mean, I call that a triple win.

TEC CLARK: Absolutely. You know, we’re doing that in our dive program. And so when we’re dealing with college students right now, they’re extraordinarily environmentally conscious, um, much more than some other populations. And so what we’re finding is that we’ve got, um, that in our, items list, you know, items to bring onto the different dive trips, especially for our dive club. Um, we are of course saying bring water, bring blah, blah, blah, all these things a towel, a bathing suit. So you know what, we’ve always had sunscreen in there, but we have, based on this product, all this knowledge that’s come out and, and all of this, we have put that the coral safe sunscreen needs to be there.

That needs to be what they are thinking. We have had a really interesting, you know, once people see that they go, well wait a minute, I didn’t know. And so now the education piece takes place. I think that this is a really important thing that what you’re talking about gets into dive professionals so that when they are teaching courses, every single course we should be teaching some type of conservation or environmental effort in it.

So when we’ve got those specialties out there and we’re talking about this in any course, it doesn’t matter, that this needs to be something that is brought up and our instructors need to be able to talk and talk and say, “Hey, these are the harmful things.” That’s great. So this is not only from what you’ve said here, but are there any type of resources that a dive center could tap into that you have that they could educate a dive pro that they could almost memorize and kind of roll off the tongue very easily about this?

AUTUMN BLUM: Absolutely. So if they reach out to us or go to our website, I believe it’s stream2sea.com/pro . That’s the page that we’re creating pretty much for us, right? For the dive professionals out there. We have our dive brief card up there. It’s just a real easy download. It has some basic talking points. Why do you care? Well, I mean, is my sunscreen really gonna make a difference? The average consumer may say, well yeah guys, 62 parts per trillion of sunscreen is enough to kill coral larva. Well, how much is that? It’s hard to visualize, right? Right. That’s the equivalent of one drop in six Olympic size swimming pools. We give you some of those talking points, right?

How do you find a reef safe sunscreen? Of course I say try mine. If mine is not available, flip it over. Look at those drug facts and make sure it says non-nano titanium dioxide or non-nano zinc oxide. If it doesn’t say only those two in the active ingredients, just don’t use it. It’s not safe.

TEC CLARK: Wow. Right. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. You know I’m thinking about this too is that we’re talking about sunscreen so much, but you’ve also got the other products like you were saying, but um, you know, the bubbles or whatnot could because people are taking a shower and that’s going in. You’ve got a whole other line of other products. I shouldn’t say line. You have more products in the same line.

Um, one of my favorites because I have my wonderfully long hair. Is your leave in conditioner? Oh my gosh. I use it after pool sessions. I use it after dive trips and it has helped me maintain this wonderful mane. So, uh, kudos to you on that. I think that’s awesome. And so what’s the whole product thing on that is also safe, right?

AUTUMN BLUM: Absolutely. Every product in our lines. So the big difference I say between Stream2Sea and everybody else out there that’s slapping a label on the front is we’ve got the testing to prove it. So before launching Stream2Sea, we tested every formula. They’re all readily biodegradable, which means that they will biodegrade in the oceans, lakes, rivers, and streams within 28 days.

All of ours are significantly less. But that’s the standard. And they’re all safe for the aquatic environment, we’ve tested, we won’t harm freshwater fish, saltwater fish or coral larva. And the test results are all on our website. So we kind of put our money where our mouth is. We’ve proven it.

TEC CLARK: Right. That’s awesome. And you’ve also got a new product. Um, the defog, right?

AUTUMN BLUM: Our mask Defog. So, so most people use baby shampoo, right? So if you, if you go into an ecotox lab and you want to find something that’s going to have 100% mortality of fish in a tank grab, an average shampoo, sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate are the two primary ingredients in most baby shampoos out there. And those are the standards that they use for aquatic toxins. So when I say when I made a reef safe sunscreen, it was a challenge. When I made a reef safe shampoo, oh my God, that took months. That was the hardest thing that I’ve ever done. Shampoo is really hard. So making this defog that is reef safe was, was really difficult and it works really well. So I’m proud of this formula and we’re excited to launch it this weekend.

TEC CLARK: Oh, that’s so cool to hear. Well tell everybody how they can follow you and connect with you.

AUTUMN BLUM: Absolutely. So connecting with us is easy. Obviously our website stream2sea.com and I say it’s stream like a river, the number two and then sea like the ocean. Dot com. Um, we’re very active on Facebook and Instagram. Both of them would be stream2sea, um, what does that on Instagram they handle stream say. Right. And then if you wanted to find me, it’s autumnS2S on both Facebook and Instagram. And I’d love to connect with, with more divers out there in the world.

TEC CLARK: That’s awesome. Well you can tell, you know, you’ve got such a passion for this, but it’s not only just a passion, it is a background in it. It is, it is scientifically based. You have, you know, your professionalism on this has just been over the top. Just fantastic. Thank you for educating so many people and that’s why I wanted to get you on to, to this podcast so that you could really tell what’s going on out there so that our dive pros know that there is impact if we’re putting on the wrong chemicals and we’re introducing that to the water. This is wonderful. So thank you so much and love having you on the show and all the best at the rest of the show.

AUTUMN BLUM: Thank you Tec and it’s absolutely my pleasure. I like to say that we don’t have customers. We have advocates out there and we’re growing because of the passion of our followers, so thank you.

TEC CLARK: Nice. That’s awesome. All right, have a great one.

AUTUMN BLUM: You too. Thanks so much.

That’s good stuff. Thanks so much, Autumn. Hey, those resources she mentioned are simply awesome. Head over to stream2sea.com that’s S, T, R, E A M, the number two and S E A – stream2sea.com and sign up to be a pro. All right. You’ll get connected with educational resources, samples and discounts. There’s even a list of harmful chemicals. I can’t pronounce any of them, but what you get to do is see what those chemicals are and then also see what they do to your body and what they do to the environment. That’s all listed on there. It’s awesome.

There’s even a blog with research based articles all throughout it. So look, it’s holiday time, right? This is going in stocking stuffers and white elephant holiday parties for sure. You know, for all my dive friends, this is going to be a hit and it is a hit. I give it to students all the time.

Now here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. The sunscreen is concentrated, right? It’s water resistant for over 80 minutes because it’s so concentrated and natural. A little goes a long way. So when you give this as a gift or you’re selling it to someone or you’re giving it as a sample, you need to show people how to use it.

The reason why is that most people lather on sunscreen generously and they just put it all over and rub it in and it’s good, right? If you do that with this product, you’re going to have a very pale skin. You want to use small amounts and you want to work it in. This is just a tip for you. I’ve had students put it on and they have a white face and we just kind of laugh at them and then I realize you know, I should have shown you that there’s a nice way to put this on.

You rub it in and you won’t have a white face, so small amounts and work it in. That’s my tip for you. But it’s just not about coral safe sunscreens in the Stream2Sea product line. It is also other skin and hair care products as well. You’ve got lip balms, you’ve got after sun body lotions, you’ve got the shampoo and the body wash and my favorite, the leave in hair conditioner. I mean it really is amazingly awesome. And another one that I think you’re going to love is a sun and sting relief gel. So you get those little stingies out there, you get a little, a little bit of a jellyfish sting or a hit of a sea lice or whatnot. You’d be amazed at how good the sting relief gel works. So you hear me promoting this stuff, it’s because it really is good stuff.

It really is good stuff. And autumn is an awesome person. Awesome in our industry. She’s so well connected, so well articulate the issues and the need for this product. So I support her, I support this product and her brand. And uh, I just love to see new businesses, entrepreneurial businesses that are doing something good and important.

Hey, and if you heard of or saw a press release come out or a news thing that talked about, “well, are coral reef safe sunscreen’s really a thing?” And you got people that are scientists that are saying, “well maybe it’s not this and not that. And it could be other things.” Wait a minute, let me point this out to you. So first of all, if you think about the cosmetic line, especially sunscreens, do you have a favorite sunscreen? I do. I did, right until this product came along and I would use it all the time.

Why? Cause I loved its smell. I was used to its smell. I, you know, I liked the product. And so there’s brand loyalty. So think about all of the companies that realize that they have to either come into this genre of product or they’re going to lose some customers on a product line that may have been a favorite product line. So you’re going to have cosmetic companies and sunscreen manufacturers actually possibly come out and try to get scientists to say, “Hey, is this the thing?”

Well, they can always point to tons of things. It’s just like down here in South Florida. People could say, “so Tec, why are you so eco-conscious? Why are you, you know, using multi-use a single use bottles over and over, excuse me, multi-use bottles over and over again instead of single use bottles, um, you know, tank tape or you know, sunscreens or whatever it is.”

Anything that I can use to point out to do good for our water environment, I’m going to use it and point it out. Now you could have someone come along and say, “yeah, but see Tec, you know, all those things that you’re doing, they have minimal impact on the reef by comparison to the phosphates coming off the lawns in the fertilized lawns of South Florida on a rainstorm during a runoff that goes from the lawns to the streets to our storm gutters, to our canals, and then out across our reefs twice a day with the tides. Right?

Uh, that’s causing algae and coral destruction.” And on and on and on. Well, there is truth to that, but that doesn’t negate that I’m going to try the best I can as a dive professional to do something good for the environment. A lots of little steps and that is important to me.

It reminds me of the star thrower story. If you haven’t heard this story, it’s the story where a storm happens and thousands and thousands of starfish are washed up on a beach and a child comes out and sees this and he starts taking starfish after starfish and bringing them to the water’s edge and putting them back in the water and throwing them back and tossing them back in. And an old man comes along and says, “you know, why are you doing all this? There’s no way you can save all of them. It doesn’t matter.” And the kids says as he picks up one starfish, “it matters to this one” and he throws it in. Think about that.

What we can do might not be world changing in one fell swoop, but what we can do is make little changes and remember you are a dive pro. You are an influencer in this industry. Be an influencer by sharing what is the right thing to do to be good stewards of this underwater world that we are called to be professionals in. That’s it for today. Everyone.

Thanks For Listening!

Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher, that way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live. And please leave me a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Safe diving and take good care, my friends.

Podcast (thedivelocker): Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: RSS

018 Your Next Class Is Always Your Best Class

1. Evaluate Every Class

2. Preparation

3. Keep Educated

4. Keep Experienced

5. Be A Student

Thanks For Listening!

017 Does The Dive Industry Business Model Need to Change?

016 Scuba Diver Magazine and Henderson’s New Greenprene Wetsuits

Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine

Henderson’s Greenprene Wetsuits

Thanks for Listening!

015 PADI Check-In

014 Why We Need to Promote and Use Reef Safe Products

Thanks For Listening!

Welcome Dive Professionals

Recent

158 Everything Speaks About Your Brand with Dennis Snow

157 In-Service Training for Dive Pro’s

156 The Power of Friendliness in Diving Businesses

155 Making Safety Essential in 2023 with Gareth Lock

154 Diving Industry Status Report: Post DEMA Show Reflections

153 What to Expect at The DEMA Show 2022 with Tom Ingram

152 Interpreting the Ocean Environment Without a Marine Biology Degree

151 Incorporating Weather Into Your Emergency Training Scenarios

LXD062 : Joe Dituri

LXD061 : Jeff Bozanic

Search

1. Evaluate Every Class

2. Preparation

3. Keep Educated

4. Keep Experienced

5. Be A Student

Thanks For Listening!

Share this:

Share this:

Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine

Henderson’s Greenprene Wetsuits

Thanks for Listening!

Share this:

Share this:

Thanks For Listening!

Share this:

Welcome Dive Professionals

Recent

Search