Make Good Money as a Scuba Instructor

[captdave]

For some reason the forum posted my reply before the response so i am re-positing to keep the thread intact.
You guys just love to crack me up. HA HA HA HA

My facts are true although delivered rather courseley to get a reaction. Here is the bottom line.

All scuba shops rate there customers. And of course the customer is always greeted with warm open arms and asked to come dive with us. "You will hear the term" We would love to have you come dive with us" While in the mind they are saying that so and so took his open water lessons from us and bought all of his gear from the shop down the street and the internet. I have indeed thrown people out of my shop.. I have a reputation...

That is how I treat my customers with niceness and bull****,most of the time. But the fact that still remains is the same. that customer will never get any type of consideration and extra help in their development. We will take their money but we will not consider them a good customer.

On the otherhand a customer who bought all his gear and takes all his training will get the extra mile in service and concern.. Better training, better position on the dive boat. the best of the hotel rooms. friendship, concern,etc. When we have a close out they get called and e mailed way before the rest of the slobs do....They have paid us for it. Guys like you just don't get it and never will.

This goes back a couple of generations that you tech heads don't remember.. Your parents and their parents used to shop at the same butcher shop and the same gas staion even when they could get the meat and gas cheaper at the bigger stores. Why do you think they did it. Simple they got something more from the shop that guys like you don't want to understand because you have grown up in the walmart generation....You are price motivated and thats ok.
The people in my business plan are also price motivated but they will pay more for the services because they perceive more.

All of the Tech companies are on their ass because they have confused customer loyalty vs customer service vs price. It cost money to provide customer service..Cheap ain't gonna get it...

It really is guys like you that have hurt the scuba industry but it has cost you and you will never know it because that LDS you screwed over with still great you with smiles.

In this forum I can tell you like it is cause you aren't my customer and I never expect you to be. Maybe I will get the idea to some others out there that there is usually a reason for a higher price other than trying to rip you off....

In regards to taxes and my income forget it. That it and will always remain a private matter between me and the IRS>

 

[bash]

Originally posted by joewr
.... (Of course, you will have to dream up a new word for the nerdy guys. I have a suggestion: sucker)

Yep. That's just about how I feel in my relationship with my LDS: like a sucker.

I'd spent about AUD$12K at my LDS on gear and beginner courses, and had signed up for a must have series of courses (I was loyal to my LDS), before I'd gained enough experience in the diver-world to realise I'd been lead along by the nose.

(You may notice that my profile says I'm advanced trained with less than 50 dives: in fact, I'm nearly a master scuba diver... with less than 50 dives - I have been a sucker)

Originally posted by captdave
.....Your target market.
Teach only to people who have access to money. .....
The right client is a special type of individual. They are not leaders, they are not physically gifted and they are not independent thinkers.
They are not rugged adventurers, nor are they millionaires or celebrities....

Yep: that's what I think my LDS thinks of me. So much for loyalty to the customer, eh Captain?

Still, as I said before: a dive operator has the right to make a buck and I have the right to take my business elsewhere.... that's capitalism for you.

I'm not one to 'bite my nose off to spite my face': if my LDS can offer something worthwhile to me, I'll take up the offer, but not until I've checked it against other options.....I'd be a real sucker if I didn't learn from my past experience with my 'commerce-comes-first' dive shop operator.

Captain: I can see that what you are proposing is clever and I genuinely think, 'good on you' for putting in the energy to set up the market, and for taking the risk. You have a right to reap the benefits of your work.

Are you aware that the language you use to describe your target market implies that you don't really respect them? It hit a nerve with me 'cos I felt 'used' by my shop and I felt they didn't respect my intelligence. As a result, they don't get my loyal return business without being compared with other market options first.

If I was considering an investment in your company, I would want more information about how you intend to keep customer loyalty. Return business is an area of your strategy that appears unconvincing.

-bash

 

[captdave]

I really can't figure out why you don't get the reason for firing an employee who sends a customer to a competetor.

DO you really think that if a guy worked in a FORD dealership and he sends a customer to a Chevy Dealership he would keep his job for very long..

DO you think there is something different about the business of scuba that this type of behavior would be acceptable.....

Again I state it is totally unethical for an employee to send a customer to a competetor and that employee should be terminated immediately...

Unless of course you really believe in the miracle on 34th street.....Ain't

 

[captdave]

Hey Bash,

You could not be more than wrong. I love my customers and I have the upmost respect for them.

The description in the plan is from a marketing point of view and not from a personal point of view..

I am confused about what your LDS did to you and why they have driven you away. I know some times this happens but maby they perceived you were not worth the trouble or perhaps they are real jerks anyway.. What was the details..

They is a great deal of more information yet to be delevered regarding the plan that may answer some of your questions but I certaintly do not want the perception that we do not respect our customers at all...

 

[scuba_adventurer]

First of all, you have to be a pretty bad shop to have a guy working for you who feels the competitor down the road has a better product. There are instances when a customer wants to purchase something somewhere else, but it is stupid for an dive shop employee to make that decision for them.

Captain Dave,

I have read your comments with great interest, and while I am not sure how much you are BSing, you have good ideas. What you do is foster that continuity that makes a local dive shop great, in my opinion. LeisurePro can not give advice, fringe benefits, or act like they give a damn if someone is having a problem with a skill. Many people who don't have a dive shop search online, and naturally form message boards to express their questions (I realize that these people are not the only ones who use this board), so they will have trouble seeing the logic of your ideas. Your package is not the trip for the LeisurePro shopper. Your package is however ideal for many of todays "I am too busy to have fun" kind of people. They just want to take a vacation and be done with it. No work in advance, or no follow up. It is the success of Adventure Travel summed up.

I think you have some great ideas, but I don't understand how you find time to run a dive shop and go our and proactively drum up al of this business. What you suggest is time consuming, as is running a dive shop. Which operation takes a back seat to the other?

 

[Belushi]

Capt Dave, most of your ideas have sound financial sense, but your idea that to sack your staff because he send a customer to another dive shop is ludicrous!

If I come into your dive shop and want a Poseidon Cyklon 5000 because I am going to dive Scapa Flow in Scotland in three days, and you do not stock it, and you cannot get it for me in two days, what am I supposed to do? Not go to Scapa Flow? I want this regulator because it is a top quality regulator.

You do not stock one, you cannot get one for me, but Dodgy Joe's dive centre down the road sells them and your salesman knows this. He tells me that Joe's does sell them and then I go there. You then sack your salesman. The reason I went to your dive shop in the first place is because I trusted the word of the professionals in it, which generally means I will be back to purchase other stuff.

So, not only do you lose a good salesman, but you lose my custom. But then you do not want my custom anyway because I am a cheap and nasty customer who will not go on your $3000 a week trips. It sounds vaguely lose-lose to me.

:boom:

 

[captdave]

Belusi,

First of all I think the Poseidon is one of the best regulators made. I do not carry it any more nor recommend it to any of my regular customers because parts are very difficult to come by and it requires a very special technician to work on it. This is not a good Idea to purchase here in the U.S. I would have expected one of my Salesmen to deliver you this message and suggest a top of the line regulator that has parts available and the service technicians in our shop can handle any problem you might have.

I Think your trip to Scotland sounds nice and if you still want to Dive a Poseidon I suggest you purchase it overseas as it is cheaper than paying duty to get it here but don’t bring it to us to service and as you will find there are very few shops that really know how to deal with the service problems…Most end up sending the entire unit into the Distributors and your unit is down for weeks and In one case I sent one in it took two months.

There are no dealers in our town that carry the Poseidon any more..

 

[neil]

Originally posted by captdave
Belusi,
I would have expected one of my Salesmen to deliver you this message and suggest a top of the line regulator that has parts available and the service technicians in our shop can handle any problem you might have.

Capt. Dave
So what happens when the potential customer says, "thanks, but I really only want to purchase the Poseiden regulator, no matter what the drawbacks", and your employee, after giving his best pitch tells him, albeit reluctantly, where to get one? Do you still fire him?
In my humble but experienced opinion, everybody that walks OUT your door should be happy for some reason: either happy with a purchase, or with good info. You failed, what a shame. Do you want to discuss loyalty some more?
Secondly, your indignation at being asked to prove that you make the kind of money you say you do speaks volumes. To me at least.

Neil

 

[captdave]

Belushi,

I think one thing you may be forgetting that most of my customers come to us as their scuba instructors and ask for good advise. They trust our honest advice. I have never had a situation like you describe. Should this happen I would again tell them that their decision in my opinion is not a sound one but if that is their choice I will respect it and leave them with a smile. A stranger off the street would get the same information but We would supect he is out shopping his dive shop and note it for future reference.

I again repeat that it is neither my place nor any of my sales people’s place to offer any information regarding any of our competitors. This is not good business and is not done anywhere that I know of. That is what the yellow pages are for. We are not the Telephone Company!

Again my friend my tax information is none of your business...Or should I doctor something up to make you feel good like most of the real crooks do!

I could possible understand this if I was asking someone for money but I am not asking for a thing. What I offer is free to anybody who wants to learn...

 

[rstone]

From a business point of view I can understand a company to not want its employees to send customers to its competitors. I think more often then not you will find most companys frown on this, however they cant watch every employee 24/7. As someone who works in a dive shop I usally dont have a problem with not being able to get something since we have 9 stores and usally 1 of them have it and I can get it quickly. However if someone comes in the store looking for something we "our stores" dont carry like Sherwood.. i have no problem referring him to a shop down the street if i think he has made up his mind, however that doesnt mean i wont try to sell him one of ours first