In this episode of The Dive Locker podcast we hear from SSI’s National Training Manager Mark Scott about all things SSI.

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. Welcome everyone. In today’s episode, we are going to have another training agency check-in. Today we’ll hear from Mark Scott National Training Manager for SSI. Last week we had the NAUI check in and we had the PADI check in in December. Today it’s SSI’s turn. Again, this is special no matter what agency you’re with. You know, how many of you have heard SSI doesn’t have independent instructors? That you must be affiliated with an SSI dive store? Well, you get to hear what that’s actually all about directly from the national training manager. That’s good stuff.

Also, you may remember hearing from Willie Cline back in episode six, Willie produces the Cline’s Diving Industry Survey. Well, he’s gathering the data for the fourth quarter of 2019 to close out his results for the year. This survey asks about trends, increases, decreases in certifications, sales, etc., and it only takes three to four minutes to complete. I’ll put the link to Cline’s 4th Quarter Diving Industry survey in our show notes page. Please go to it and participate in it.

And finally I want to express my condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Wayne Hasson of Aggressor Adventures. In fact, if you were an industry colleague of Wayne’s, you were a friend. Wayne was a former US Marine, then became the first captain of the Cayman Aggressor. He went on to become president of Aggressor Fleet and Aggressor Adventures and dedicated 35 years to that brand. But Wayne also had a heart for giving. He served on the board of directors for both the Sea of Change Foundation and the Oceans for Youth Foundation, both not for profits that bring education about the underwater world to thousands of people. To see how impactful Wayne was to our diving community, just check out his Facebook page where hundreds of comments have been posted.

One thing that stands out to me is from our friend and diving legend Dan Orr. He posted a thing called Remembering: My ashes have left this bow. Remember that I am with you now. I am the waves upon the sea. You’re smiles and tears are full of me. I am the Island winds that blow. I am the evening stars that glow. I am the rainbows in the sky. The morning light, the clouds up high. A part of you I will always be. My name is Wayne. Remember me. Anne our hearts and prayers are with you. Wayne will be missed.

All right, pros, here we go. Let’s hear from Mark Scott for the SSI Check in.

Mark Scott Interview

TEC CLARK:           All right Mark, welcome to the SSI check in. How’s it going?

MARK SCOTT:      It’s going well Tec. I’m a big fan. I’ve got to say, I love the Dive Locker. I love how it’s grown so quickly and thanks for having me.

TEC CLARK:           Thank you. Thank you.  you know, we’re here at DEMA show 2019 in Orlando, Florida. And your booth is bustling. Your seminars are bustling, I have attended a couple of myself and love the content that’s coming out here. It looks like you guys have a lot of energy here. The show is very energetic. I mean, there’s a lot of really positivity going on in the show. But let’s speak specifically about SSI. What are you guys doing and showcasing here at the show?

MARK SCOTT:      For those of us that don’t do too much about SSI, we were founded in 1970 so next year is our 50th birthday. We’ve been around for 49 years. We were purchased in 2014 by the water sports division of Head. A lot of people know they have tennis rackets, tennis balls, snow skis, things like that.  But the water sports division actually purchased SSI and they also own Mares as an equipment manufacturer and also as Revo. And so one of the things that we enjoy by being purchased by such a large entity is that as soon as we were bought and they merged our offices with the Head in the Mares and the Revo facilities worldwide, we became the largest training agency by footprint.  Which is pretty impressive for humble beginnings. And we also became very quickly in the investment in digital, we’ve got over 44 languages that our materials are translated into. We’ve got over 60 programs.  We’re no longer just recreational scuba diving. We’re also extended range or what we call our technical programming.  We’ve also got swim, lifeguard, freediving.  Mermaid, which has been very exciting. I think China did about 13,000 mermaid certifications the first month. It’s very big in a month in China. So that’s a lot of blue, pink and turquoise hair running around there.

MARK SCOTT:      But you know, mainly we’ve been excited to have our dive professionals come to reenergize them. We’ve done some instructor trainer, instructor certifier training to boost the integrity and consistency of our programming and our evaluations.

TEC CLARK:           The first day of the show or pre-show the pre-show Tuesday, and it looked like you had a huge crowd.

MARK SCOTT:      Yes.  At 90 spots in 87 in attendance three people could make it because of flight delays.  but we offer three times a year we bring our instructor trainers and certifiers together just to keep everybody on the same page to keep consistency among the evaluations and instructor training so that way we can ensure worldwide if you get an SSI instructor that you know exactly what you’re getting, how they’ve been trained. And with the internships that we incorporate that with the dive shops and the training centers locally, you’re getting a very well rounded experience, not only as an instructor candidate, but also for future job placement assistance. You’re going to be a well-versed dive instructor.

TEC CLARK:           Outstanding. That’s great. Yeah. Let’s talk about those digital products. I’ve seen them, you know they’re, they’re fantastic. I mean, they really are fantastic. Beautiful. And then the ease of entry. I think that that is remarkable. Talk about that.

MARK SCOTT:      So if you can go to the divessi.com website.  Whether you have an Android device or an iPhone device, you can download the app absolutely free. Once you download that app, all we ask for is it you use an email address and we’ll email you a password to that email address and you can log in and experience four different programs absolutely free so you can see what the content looks like.  You can see our news events in videos, which are exceptional. We have several, 360 degree videos. So you can do like the, the RMS Rhone the wreck is now collapsed, but you can do a swim through of that.

MARK SCOTT:      It’s been a lot of fun when you’re out to eat and the waiter or the waitress says, “Oh, scuba diving. I’ve always wanted to try it.” You just show them these videos while you’re out in public and just tell them to download the app and then affiliates them to a store. And next thing you know, people are trying and scuba diving.

TEC CLARK:           Wow. That is a wild acquisition. I’ve not thought of that.

MARK SCOTT:      Exactly. And that’s how we encourage people to use it. Right? So one of the things that we’ve done is a disservice to SSI as ourselves. You know, a lot of people say, well SSI is not globally known or recognized and it is a misfortunate thing. But the positive of that, and the thing that was most excited about, is that we encouraged our training centers to promote themselves, to promote their dive professionals and to promote their local offerings.

MARK SCOTT:      They have their own set of experiences, unique opportunities, and we want them to really use that, to distinguish themselves in the industry. So what’s nice about that is is we’re actually a larger footprint than what a lot of people have understood in the past. And now that we’ve grown so much over the last five years with our conversion to digital, and it’s a truly digital offering, you can be in airplane mode as long as you’ve downloaded that material to your smartphone or your tablet. You can do the quizzes, the readings, view the videos and everything. Even in an offline environment, which makes that ideal for let’s say a liveaboard. And our liveaboard device is called the SSI Hub. So don’t download that when you’re looking for the app. If you come across the Hub is specifically designed for our liveaboard partners who are getting out of wifi range, allows them to put all of the materials on one device.

MARK SCOTT:      You sync to that device and you can take all of your specialty courses while you’re aboard the liveaboard. And then when you get back into internet range, they simply assign you the kits on your own device and you can download the material after having completed everything on the liveaboard. It’s very cool. And we’ve seen great margins for our training centers. Even our liveaboard partners notice a huge jump because they have the materials there. Yeah, that’s the other thing. There’s no inventory. So we don’t charge you until you assign the kit. Each kit comes with about 44 languages already translated in it. So no matter what your customers are speaking, they can find the materials. And the really cool part is page 16 in every course is exactly the same. So if you’re having a conversation in English about something on page 16, the student can see it in their native language or their preferred language while you’re having the conversation and showing them the information on page 16.

TEC CLARK:           That’s pretty cool. Is that critical information?

MARK SCOTT:      Very critical information. You know, the proper ascent rate. Why equalization is important. When it’s great to dive with a buddy. I always dive with a dive plan. Right?

 TEC CLARK:          That’s neat. One thing that sets SSI apart from- there’s many things of course that sets  SSI apart – but  talk about independent instruction.

MARK SCOTT:      Independent instructors. I  was a pro with another agency for a lot of years and even though I had the ability to be an independent instructor, I was always connected to a dive center. I always, I had to get my air filled somewhere. I had to buy my own equipment from somewhere and I had to go in, you know, quite frankly, I got a discount if I bought the materials from the training center because they were doing in a much larger volume than I ever could.

MARK SCOTT:      So I’m not trying to be insulting to anybody, but I do think independent instructor is more of a fallacy because you are going to be connected to a training center anyway.  Obviously SSI was founded by a group of dive retailers, but we believe that the dive center is the center of the universe. Everybody should be going there to meet their instructors. And then from there, when you develop that relationship with your students, they’re going to prefer to take classes from you because of the way you teach, the experiences you offer, the opportunities that you give them. In all of our materials we tell people, listen, you should buy your own total diving system. You should take continuing education. You should commit to at least 50 log dives when you start your open water adventure. Because those are the people that are going to continue to support and fund the local dive center, the local dive professional and they will travel with you.

MARK SCOTT:      It will go on fun times with you and they will continue to be an important part of your business because of that return customer. They will be a good advertiser for you. They’ll say, “Hey, I love taking classes with Tec. You should come take this class with me.” And next thing you know you’re growing your business and you’re getting a following. So we have a lot of SSI instructors who can affiliate to multiple training centers and move around as they would like, but they have a specific following because they may be a technical diver, they may do caves, they may do specific caverns. And so those are the things that attract people to those dive professionals. Right?

TEC CLARK:           Absolutely. Yeah. I think this is a really good point. The top independent instructors that I know are connected to dive shops and in some cases more than one, they are going to work with their client and really try to satisfy their client needs. So now they might be using two stores that they’ve had a relationship with. And so what I’m hearing is that by the affiliation process you could, as you’re saying, kind of move around in that and be affiliated, but you’re still connected to a dive center. And I also really like the concept. You know, Doug McNeese is on the League of Extraordinary Divers and Doug talked about that. That was one of the foundational things. I think it’s possibly a carry over from NASDS, but you know, here into this logic of, Hey look, if you’re going to be a diver, invest fasting and training, why not invest in equipment? And the full kit, the full package, what does that look like to now be able to call yourself a diver and to make that investment? I think that there is something really special about that you’re seeing. How does that play out in the SSI shop? How does that, how does that work?

MARK SCOTT:      Well, because our materials tell the student, listen, you will be the most comfortable if you buy your own total dining system. Nothing fits like a wet suit that you’ve gone and sized properly with a trained professional in a retail store or an instructor that’s going to make the time to sit down with you and tell you this is what need to buy. Our professionals, we treat them like professionals. 80% of the time, they have the most influence over that student and their buying decisions based off of what the instructor’s wearing. And all we’re asking is as a professional, wouldn’t it be better if you supported your dive center and wore the equipment that your dive center sells and from there your students will support and buy their equipment locally.

MARK SCOTT:      I have nothing, nothing against great deals from longtime online retailers or those that may offer, you know, cheaper options.  Everybody needs a to be aware of their financial resources. But the brilliance of being able to support the local dive center is they can come in, they can touch it, they can feel it, they can size it, and the instructor has the most influence over what gets purchased. And so right from the very beginning, every digital material says you’re going to be most comfortable. And if you’ve ever rented a car, I’ve driven lots of cars, but my car, the mirrors are already set. The seats already set. The radio stations are already there, so I’m having a better time than when I go to an airport, rent a car, and then I’ve got to make all those adjustments on the fly while I’m trying to figure out where I’m going.

MARK SCOTT:      All traffic patterns are different, so maybe you’re stressed out from a flight in or out. All that’s eliminated when you own your own total diving system.

TEC CLARK:           That’s a great point. I love that. It’s almost a sales, a sales talk. You could tell somebody that and they’d go, you’re right.

MARK SCOTT:      But, it’s not high pressure and you know exactly what we’re doing is presenting the opportunity to say, this is why you need these things. Right? And then you can talk about, well, what can you find initially afford? And it’s good for everybody. We’re not trying to put students into high pressure buying situations where they feel intimidated. This is stuff that you need to do. If you were going to go mountain biking or if you were going to go skiing, you would sit down with an expert. They would tell you exactly why you want this bike or why you want these skis or these bindings or these boots. So why are we not doing that in the scuba industry?

TEC CLARK:           Yeah, you’re absolutely right, and we have to remember too that when we call ourselves professionals, that by nature means that we’re not in hobby mode anymore. We are being paid for our programs, our services, the retail experience, all of the things that we’re doing. So we’re transferring knowledge to somebody. We as professionals want to transfer the knowledge of here is what it means to be a diver. Then on and on and on in this as a, just a great tip to, to say that, and I think that a lot of people are a little bashful on the retail experience side of it. Their great instructors, they love teaching. There they are. They’re rock stars in the pool, but then they get sweaty palms when it comes time to this person saying, well, what should I get?

MARK SCOTT:      Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, and so I love the logic of just that it’s clearly laid out, but yeah, no, you’ve heard it from multiple sources that you need to do this. It’s not a high pressure sale. It’s just definitely showcasing why this is a good option.

MARK SCOTT:      Absolutely. Well, how many times have we had that student that looks at you and goes, why did you pick that mask? Why do you like that BCD? Why do you like those regulators? Yeah, so just answer the questions. Yeah. We all have our personal preferences and that’s what makes scuba diving so awesome. Yeah. You know, here’s the DEMA show. We’ve got dive educators, but also dive manufacturers, right? I’ve walked that floor. There are some exciting things in dive manufacturing going on right now. You know the rebreather that doesn’t have a tank, it’s just a totally self contained helmet. And I’m going, we’re getting to the Jetsons era.

TEC CLARK:           I still don’t know about that one. I can’t get my arms around that one does make you think you sit there and go, wait a minute.

MARK SCOTT:      Well, I, I’m not trying to make fun of anybody that’s bought a completely dry snorkel, but at the end of the day it’s like how can a snorkel stay dry if you go under water? Right. So those little scientific advances that we’ve used to improve on the dive equipment has made it so much more fun to go diving, you know, low volume masks. I remember we used to dive with a half of an aquarium on our face? Now those were scary times.

TEC CLARK:           Right, right, right. That’s awesome. Well, Mark, this has been great.  Please tell folks that are listening how they can connect with SSI. They might not even be on the, I’m not saying that you’re an SSI person, but somebody that wants to learn more about what you guys do and how you do it. Just what would you point him to?

MARK SCOTT:      So I would say, listen, just go to our website, divessi.com.  I would say take your smart device and download the app. It’s absolutely free. Costs you an email address and a little bit about five minutes of time. It’ll give you full access to experience SSI’s, digital materials. Everything that we tell students is in every single page and offering. We’ve got blogs, we’ve got news articles, all of our training centers put their events on there.

MARK SCOTT: And that’s exactly what you’re going to see. The videos are absolutely amazing. We put a blend of things on those videos lists, so it’s like how to use the app better, how to use the website better.  some skill demonstrations and we rotate through that content as well as the videos of the diving experience. So many people don’t know what it’s like to go diving and you can show them a video and say, “this is what the fish do, this is what your buddy’s doing, this is what you’ll see and how it sounds.”

MARK SCOTT:      So it’s just a great way to connect to more information. So, like you said, even if you’re not an SSI professional or a student, even if you don’t have SSI on your radar, it’s still just a great diving information tool. And that’s what we want people to do.

TEC CLARK:           Neat. But clarify it. So someone is not an SSI leader, they can still see your educational materials?

MARK SCOTT:      They absolutely can. So when you download the app, one of the things we’ve encouraged all of our training centers and professionals to understand is we’re giving you free material to show people as an acquisition tool. What brings them in? We’ll usually, it’s fear of the unknown. So we’re going to take our try scuba diving, which is our introductory to scuba experience. We’re going to take scuba diver, which is the first three chapters of the open water manual.

MARK SCOTT:      We’re going to give them a try free diving and snorkeling. Now a lot of people and professionals especially will make fun of us because we emphasize snorkeling at SSI. But think about it. There’s seven to 8 million divers on the planet. There’s 15 million snorkelers. So I don’t know which one you want to try to sell to and capture, but snorkeling is a great entry tool. Also our scuba ranger program for eight, nine year olds, you have about a 90% conversion rate for those folks. Those young kids going into the junior open water diver program and they’re not just going to come by themselves. They’re going to bring their friends, their siblings, their parents, their aunts, uncles, they’re probably born into a diving family anyway. So the materials really help you acquire new students and you can share those things. Everything’s connected to Facebook and Twitter and you can say, “I’m going to do a scuba experience. Who wants to come with me?”

MARK SCOTT:      Diving is a buddy sport and it’s so much more fun and community and we are a really fun community to be involved with. We’re so helpful. You know, every time I’d go diving I tried to put my gear together incorrectly and you’d be surprised at how many people offer to help me correct that situation. You know? And it’s, we’re just warm and helpful, friendly people. Yeah. And it was really fun to hang out with.

TEC CLARK:           So yeah, you know, and I think this is remarkable. So people often come to the DEMA show and they are checking out other agencies because they know they might not want to walk into their competitors’ dive center and flip through the manual pages. You guys have done a different approach. I remember, you know, even Doug with his his… 

MARK SCOTT:      Scuba university?

TEC CLARK:           Yes, yes. He would just invite people. Just come, just come and see what we mean and see what our philosophies are.  And so your openness, like SSI’s had a very, very strong openness. And so I think that that’s a really neat thing that to check out the materials and so forth. And this is a great way to dig in. So I will put all of these links that we’ve talked about here on our show notes page. That way people can check that out.  and go right to what it is that you’re talking about.

MARK SCOTT:      Well, the thing I love about being a dive professional is professionals are always learning, And so we do that. We invest the time and the resources to keep up to date with what’s going on.  the things that we study, these are other tools for our toolbox.

MARK SCOTT:      That’s all they are. And you know, one of the things I love about our dealers summits is we get together at the end of every year and we say, “what are our top 10 dive centers or training centers done that made them their top 10?” And then we ask them, “can we share that information?” And this is how we’re getting more students and this is how we’re selling more continuing education. This is a thing that we’ve done to get more conversions from try scuba’s to open water divers. And all of a sudden now when you share that with the entire dive center base with all the professionals, we’re giving you new ideas, we’re giving fresh perspectives and we’re giving you tips that are verifying to work. And that’s one of the greatest things that we’ve seen. All boats rise in the tide and everybody that takes care of scuba diving contributes. I don’t care what agency you’re in, what your passions are. We’re, we’re just diving together.

TEC CLARK:           That’s really cool. Well put. Well thank you so much Mark. This has been a wonderful check-in and I think you’ve enlightened folks onto what you guys are doing here in showcasing. All the best to you and great success to the rest of the show and into 2020 as well.

MARK SCOTT:      Absolutely. Can’t thank you enough for having me.

TEC CLARK:           Thanks Mark.

MARK SCOTT:      Appreciate you Tec.

I love Mark. He is so down to earth. Head on over to the show notes page at scubaguru.com or you can see a transcript of this episode there. You can also link to SSI or visit them at divessi.com or download the app. Check that out. The app is really good by the way. I will also have a link to Cline’s fourth quarter diving survey for you to participate in this important survey that will only take three to four minutes to complete. Please do that.

Thanks For Listening!

Well 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. There you can also click on 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.

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