None. But I have gone into a few businesses that just left me disappointed due to poor inventory, uncompetetively high prices, poor service, and even BS sales pitches. Unfortunately, many of them were dive shops.
Thanks, I was figuring $40K. And I'm figuring that cost should be amortized over a period of at least 20 years, maybe even twice that. Since we are only talking a couple thousand a year, it probably does not matter too much.
How about the distribution of gas consumers in the shop?? I'm thinking 15% to customer tanks, 15% free to key personnel, 40% to training, 20% to rentals, and 5% to tech service. And then, the total number of fills (or fill equivalents) with a "fill" equal to about 60 cu ft? I'd guess a small but reasonably busy shop is doing 5 to 10 thousand fills a year. Bigger shops maybe twice that and the smaller shops maybe half that or less. What do you think?
I also took a quick look at filtration costs and get the impression, with a good clean air source, filters run around $250 for about 100,000 cu ft. Sound right?
There are poorly run businesses in every market segment that exists. There are also those that are well run and, by that virtue, successful. I won't argue there are many poorly run dive shops but I also like cars and guns. There are several businesses in those segments where I wom't spend my money; by the same token, there are a few where I spend more money than I might elsewhere but I know I can trust and depend on them.
In the real business world, amortization generally refers to the "writing off" or debt retirement of intangible assets (think intellectual property) while tangible assets (capital investments) are depreciated, often in a schedule determined by our excellent business mentors, the federal government. I'd have to ask our accountants for sure but a common depreciation schedule for mechanical equipment normally runs about seven years. Keep in mind that I'm talking about actual business reporting here (which is critical in maintaining things like income statements, balance sheets, accountant's compilation reports, etc.) and even more critical in determining costs and profit margins. It's not as simple as, "I figure I can make this thing work for 30 years." That's a hobby, not a business. And don't get me started on "write offs." Real money v. fake money in my book and a write off sure as hell doesn't, as many people think, make something free.
And I will admit that I don't factor down to filter costs per cubic foot of air because those numbers are included in cost codes that are, for my purposes, a combination of variables. Should the percentages--and I focus on monthly income statements and their percentages, not necessarily dollars--seem out of whack, we can drill down to determine if that .0025 cents (your number) worth of filtration per foot is creating a measurable and negative impact on the bottom line...that's worth the time to address. It's not, by the way. If all I did was run massive compressors and banks of air, I'd be laser-focused on those numbers but I really don't know of any Google server farm-types of fill stations.
Oh crap, I'll just give it up. The entire secret to being successful in business (keeping the customers happy, being efficient, idea generation and simply getting the job done) is people. That's what we really lack in the scuba businees and, in fact, all businesses, that can't be done in any other way. I'm willing to bet that even someone as obviously jaded as you could be satisfied by the right combination of physical plant, environment and personnel.
I'll make you the same offer I make everyone, and it's completely transparent. If you want to see what we do, start your own business or, maybe, improve on one you own, come visit us. I'll give you everything we have pertaining to operations, marketing, accounting or just about anything else we do and work with you to help build your business...if that's truly what you want to do. I'm working with an amazing group of people to change perceptions, expose new people to diving, train them safely and, finally, help them fall in love with one of the things we all have in common--and some of us still love.
If the glass is half empty, we intend to fill it up.
And no, the manufacturers and DEMA don't get it. You can ask them how tired they are of hearing me talk about effective national and international marketing, training and measuring the effectiveness of those efforts.
I'm far from the smartest guy in most of the meetings I attend but let me leave you with this: waste some time watching teevee commercials and count the number of types of businesses who feature even a short vignette of scuba diving in their ads. They're not dive shops or even scuba-related businesses but, instead, auto makers, banks, RV industry marketing groups, hotels and assorted others...all of whom pay big bucks to ad agencies to capture the interest of consumers. Those agencies don't simply pull that stuff out of thin air, they research, survey, test and conduct focus groups to discover what interests people. They've already done the hard work, we just need to capitalize on their work product.
Damn. I'm tired. Soapbox slid back under the couch.
