Hey, thanks everyone!
Ray, you make a good point. I think you're right, and if I had to guess what the most dangerous threat to my business is, I think it would be the fact that I do love diving and find it difficult to charge people for alot of stuff.
I guess that the problem here with me is that I'm not really all that motivated by money- I understand that the business needs to have enough earnings to pay the bills, but I'm not really looking for anything more than that. I am extremely motivated to be the best, and am sort of a perfectionist. The problem is that if you want to be the best, it's a pretty good idea to have a boat, which costs money. This is definitely an area where I'm gonna struggle, and in fact, may already be doomed in. I'll explain.
I decided to operate the boat as a 6 passenger max charter, though it is pretty big. Actually, other boats like mine operate with 16 max. However, one of the things I hate the most when I go diving in other areas, is a crowded boat. So... it's a six pack.
The economics of a six pack are scary enough, but on top of this I decided that one of the other things that really bothers me is when I show up at a boat with a friend, or to if I'm taking pictures and get paired with another diver who I don't know. Now please don't misunderstand, I'm happy to dive with anyone, but if there's some sort of purpose to the dive, the mission can sometimes be curtailed by being paired with a diver that's interested in doing something other than what you've set out to do with your dive, or ended earlier if they don't last as long with their tank.
As far as I can tell, the most effective and responsible way to resolve this issue, is to have a DM available on every trip to be in the water. With this arrangement, any single divers can go with the DM, which frees up the groups that arrive together. Furthermore, I also like to offer divers who are unfamiliar with the area a guide if they want one, so they can also opt to dive along with the DM. So, some people might say, "okay, so you put a DM in the water on every trip, what does that add to the operation's costs per trip... $25.00?"
Here's the part where I want to be the best maybe a little too much for my own good. I feel very strongly that the DM is the most important player in the operation, simply because he or she is the one that is provide the bulk of the service. He or she is the one who fixes problems that may have pre-empted dives otherwise, the one who answers questions about the area, ID's stuff that folks may have seen, helps someone who may be about to get in trouble, the list goes on and on. The point I'm trying to make is that the DM is the heart of customer service, and I don't really trust anyone else to do that job the way I want it done (perfectionist, remember?)and therefore do it myself.
Effectively these decisions cause me to hire a captain for every trip. This moves the break even figure on a trip up a couple of notches, and if there's only six notches available, it makes the margin kinda skinny. It may be that they're too skinny to make this thing work. I am the only operator that I'm aware of that has arrived at this configuration, and it may very well be that this is because anyone else who has is now bankrupt.
I'm hoping that if I do a good job for people, the rest will fall into place, but the economic limitations that operating in this way impose may be more than the business can stand. If this doesn't look like its going to work out I'll have to make some changes. We'll see... keep your fingers crossed.
