USIA:Your not in competition with a conference that a dealer has to go to for the chance to win a new scooter.
I ran three seminars for Aqua Lung Apeks at DEMA introducing the new APEKS WTX tech line of products and introducing dealers to the entire line of tech products from Aqualung / Apeks / Suunto and these workshops had 25 people in them each time. Now these 90 min workshops were spread out. One at 830 am (perfect time) one at 11 and one was at 1PM --- each was full but that took effort. Fortunatley these were all established dealers who wanted to not only see the line but learn about market share, penetration, and technical diving as a whole. I would have prefered 8:30 am each day so that I could not spend my selling time in a seminar but then ...... wait ... i was selling...... for Aqualung ! (Hired consultant)
So some seminars are worth going to.
But ya know i did not see where I was going to win a free scooter. I know the Haskel guys tied up about 50 people on Friday at 3pm to give away a booster. Interesting thing was as i looked at all those waiting to win one most were industry people and not prospects who would have bought one anyway!
For USIA i would say that your approach now is to focus on consumer shows. You have your military market. There is little you can do to convert a wet-suit dive store mentality to dry suits at this point. With the 500 or so dealers you have the best thing is to support them with Consumer Show displays. Let the consumer drive the demand and no thin out the system with more dealers. The key to understanding marketing in the dive business is that there is no "new" market share. The # of suits sold each year is for the most part finite. What needs to be addressed is shelf space, displacing the other line with a more superior line.
Here in the middle of the desert we dont sell a lot of dry suits but we do our share. We show only USIA. Why? Gee that's simple. They make a GREAT suit at a GREAT value. And, they are fast and dont have "a-t-i-tood" Plus the features and options are second to none. Jerry knows that one of my very dearest friends is the founder of the "other dry suit company" and we just dont sell them. It's not personal - it's business. As a dealer we get unparalleded service from USIA. That passes down to the consumer. I think USIA needs to do a seminar for manufacturers -- " How to Provide Exceptional Customer Service to Dealers"
Now ..... can i win one of those RIB boats of yours if I attend ?
Cheers
JDS