Scuba Schools of America/Rusty Berry

[sigxbill]

Like Divin'dog and AZtinman, I too started skiing in blue jeans, rental boots that didn't fit, a non - ski specific jacket, etc. Despite how wet and cold I got from falling down trying to teach myself, I loved skiing and eventually became a really good skier. Years later, when I took my first lesson, I thought about how many falls I might have avoided had I been able to take lessons from the start. I also thought about how much more comfortable I now was properly outfitted. Over my 20 years of diving, I have developed a keen interest in what motivates males and females of all ages to dive. What I have discovered is that while there are some who stick with skiing while enduring the budget conditions of wet jeans, etc., Divin'dog, AZtinman and myself are the exceptions and not the rule. I find comfort with skills and gear to be the rule even more in diving, and have come across way too many people who didn't stick with diving because they weren't comfortable! Anyway, the point is how to keep people diving, and not if you can put up with wet jeans skiing ... and if that means selling someone a complete diving system, is that bad?

Thanks for the advice Divin'dog and the reasonable reply. I never blow smoke and while I enjoy and appreciate the experience of others, i have worked very hard to develop enough knowledge and experience to find my way diving in poor viz ;-)

 

[Sonnylynnvick75]

Like Divin'dog and AZtinman, I too started skiing in blue jeans, rental boots that didn't fit, a non - ski specific jacket, etc. Despite how wet and cold I got from falling down trying to teach myself, I loved skiing and eventually became a really good skier. Years later, when I took my first lesson, I thought about how many falls I might have avoided had I been able to take lessons from the start. I also thought about how much more comfortable I now was properly outfitted. Over my 20 years of diving, I have developed a keen interest in what motivates males and females of all ages to dive. What I have discovered is that while there are some who stick with skiing while enduring the budget conditions of wet jeans, etc., Divin'dog, AZtinman and myself are the exceptions and not the rule. I find this to be the rule even more in diving.

Thanks for the advice Divin'dog and the reasonable reply. I never blow smoke and while I enjoy and appreciate the experience of others, i have worked very hard to develop enough knowledge and experience to find my way in poor viz.

I haven't read through all the responses, just this one and a couple of others.

I too started skiing in jeans, rental boots, skis, poles, a cotton jacket and baseball cap on a straight man made slope in north eastern Alabama, yes I did say Alabama. After taking lessons and learning I know downhill ski, skiblade, and snowboard with proper gear. When I began diving I used my knowledge from skiing and bought all my gear right away in order to save myself and trouble with rental gear and such (plus I bought all the gear from a best friend for a dirt cheap deal).

 

[sigxbill]

Some people take out loans on their credit cards just to go on vacation and stay at a place that costs $2800 / week, but you don't see people writing on this board to boycott that place because it is possible to stay somewhere for $700 / week.... like I wrote earlier, this string seems to be mostly about buyers remorse ...

 

[boulderjohn]

Some people take out loans on their credit cards just to go on vacation and stay at a place that costs $2800 / week, but you don't see people writing on this board to boycott that place because it is possible to stay somewhere for $700 / week.... like I wrote earlier, this string seems to be mostly about buyers remorse ...

Yes, it is buyer's remorse, but there are different reasons for buyers to have remorse. When the original purchase included unethical salesmanship, then the buyer has a legitimate right to that remorse, and those complaints should not be dismissed.

When I was a struggling graduate student, a local audio dealer advertised some outstanding deals on some stereo equipment. When I went there, the salesman started to show me some really high end stuff. I asked about the stuff they had advertised, and he got a disgusted look on his face. He said something that translated as "Oh, you're the kind of low grade excuse for a human who wants that kind of crap, are you?" That is called "bait and switch," and it is so unethical that it is against the law. My brother spent one miserable (for him) year selling furniture, and he told me all sorts of similar tricks they used to get customers to buy things they really didn't want to buy. Yes, those buyers will have remorse but I don't blame the buyer for being duped by the unethical sales techniques of a soulless salesman.

A couple of years ago I sat through a week-long workshop on scuba marketing. It was part of the process the shop I worked for then used to convert to the agency represented by the presenter. The descriptions in this thread suggest to me that the salesman took the same workshop and adapted those techniques to an extreme. I believe that all of us who were part of that workshop were troubled by the ethics of it all. The presenter recognized it and made a well practiced explanation of why the tactics--including outright deception--were OK and consistent with what is done with other retailers--like furniture salesmen, I assume. I could never accept it, and it is one of the reasons I no longer work for that shop.

In my Utopian vision, a salesman strives to understand the legitimate needs of a customer and then match the product to be sold to those needs. In the vision of others, a salesman uses any trick in the book to get a customer to buy anything at all, regardless of that customer's needs. In the first case, there will never be buyer's remorse. In the second case, buyer's remorse will be common and justified.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

I talked to someone last night who is thinking of getting into trying to make some money at this activity. My advice to him was the same thing I do with the majority of people I deal with. Unless they know what they want one of my first questions is what is your budget? Then we try to work within that. I don't upsell.

Last night I had a student here as well. I told him not to buy the lift bag he was going to get from me until he tried mine. I also told him to see if a less expensive SMB would work for what he wanted to do. We're going to find out next weekend. Then if he still wants to buy the bag or something else I'll sell it to him. But the BS about walking into a shop and getting led right to the most expensive stuff and then getting a look like you crapped in the guys Wheaties when you say I simply cannot afford that sucks. Happened to me early on and I refuse to put others in the same position that come to me for gear.

 

[boulderjohn]

Look at posts 13 and 14. What you see there is essentially what the workshop I attended told us to do. Here are some quick summaries of what we were told to do:

1. Rental regulators should come without mouthpieces because of a concern for your health. Students have to buy their own so they will be safe from deadly germs.
2. Get equipment before class, saying the cost is fully refundable. If the student has second thoughts after the first pool session, explain that "fully refundable" means "not used." The second you get in the water for CW #1, it is used.
3. Throw away the mask straps that come with the masks you sell so that they have to purchase a mask strap from you. Do the same with the mask cases.
4. We were given several sales pitches to use to get them to buy gear before the confined water sessions begin and absolutely by the time the open water classes begin.
5. We were told to call key equipment by a set of names not used normally in the scuba industry. Why? Almost all new students know nothing about scuba, and you are the first "experts" they have talked to. They will think that those names are the norms. If they decide to shop around and the next place they visit doesn't know what they are talking about and is using weird terms like "regulator," it will seem to the student that the second shop doesn't know much about scuba.
6. Make the student/customer feel as if you are just plain doing everything you can to help them, that you are cutting them one break after another after another, when you really aren't doing anything of the sort. That way if they show up having bought something at another shop or online, you can lay a real guilt trip on them about how they betrayed you after you made all those sacrifices for them.
7. In general, talk about the key safety issues related to the equipment, and make sure the customer feels like anyone who is willing to trust his life to anything but the best--especially for his family--is a cheap SOB willing to risk people's lives to save a buck.
8. Identify a package of gear--specific regulators, BCDs, computers, etc.--that will bring in the top profit margin. Push everyone to those specific items, regardless of need. If you sell a high number of specific items, the manufacturers will usually sell you them at a discount in the future, thus increasing sale margins.
9. Require your instructors to purchase those items identified in #8 and wear all of them while instructing as their "instructor uniform." Require them to tell the students that as instructors, they have the freedom to buy anything, but they want the best. They therefore carefully selected every item they use while instructing because it is the best there is. (The only item on our required uniform list I would purchase and use for myself was the wet suit. I would have been required, for example, to say that I use a specific brand of alternate air source on the inflator hose because it's the best way to dive, even though I personally would never buy one if given the choice)

If you think all of those tactics are part of a salesperson helping to meet the needs of a customer, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a customer who feels duped after that is just having buyer's remorse, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a brand new student who doesn't even know anything at all about scuba needs to buy a rebreather before the very first CW class (because it's the best, and you only want the best, right?), then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

 

[drrich2]

John:

That sickening business model would've been powerful before the advent of the Internet, but with the free exchange of info. amongst hobbyists and others online these days, it seems that while you could sell a course or two and an initial gear set to a student, you would lose that student once he or she interacted with other divers outside the local reality distortion bubble and figured out what a rip off it was.

Did they address that in the training? The issue of losing disillusioned customers once they finally wised up & started spreading bad word-of-mouth about the dive shop & instructor?

Richard.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Look at posts 13 and 14. What you see there is essentially what the workshop I attended told us to do. Here are some quick summaries of what we were told to do:

1. Rental regulators should come without mouthpieces because of a concern for your health. Students have to buy their own so they will be safe from deadly germs.
2. Get equipment before class, saying the cost is fully refundable. If the student has second thoughts after the first pool session, explain that "fully refundable" means "not used." The second you get in the water for CW #1, it is used.
3. Throw away the mask straps that come with the masks you sell so that they have to purchase a mask strap from you. Do the same with the mask cases.
4. We were given several sales pitches to use to get them to buy gear before the confined water sessions begin and absolutely by the time the open water classes begin.
5. We were told to call key equipment by a set of names not used normally in the scuba industry. Why? Almost all new students know nothing about scuba, and you are the first "experts" they have talked to. They will think that those names are the norms. If they decide to shop around and the next place they visit doesn't know what they are talking about and is using weird terms like "regulator," it will seem to the student that the second shop doesn't know much about scuba.
6. Make the student/customer feel as if you are just plain doing everything you can to help them, that you are cutting them one break after another after another, when you really aren't doing anything of the sort. That way if they show up having bought something at another shop or online, you can lay a real guilt trip on them about how they betrayed you after you made all those sacrifices for them.
7. In general, talk about the key safety issues related to the equipment, and make sure the customer feels like anyone who is willing to trust his life to anything but the best--especially for his family--is a cheap SOB willing to risk people's lives to save a buck.
8. Identify a package of gear--specific regulators, BCDs, computers, etc.--that will bring in the top profit margin. Push everyone to those specific items, regardless of need. If you sell a high number of specific items, the manufacturers will usually sell you them at a discount in the future, thus increasing sale margins.
9. Require your instructors to purchase those items identified in #8 and wear all of them while instructing as their "instructor uniform." Require them to tell the students that as instructors, they have the freedom to buy anything, but they want the best. They therefore carefully selected every item they use while instructing because it is the best there is. (The only item on our required uniform list I would purchase and use for myself was the wet suit. I would have been required, for example, to say that I use a specific brand of alternate air source on the inflator hose because it's the best way to dive, even though I personally would never buy one if given the choice)

If you think all of those tactics are part of a salesperson helping to meet the needs of a customer, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a customer who feels duped after that is just having buyer's remorse, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a brand new student who doesn't even know anything at all about scuba needs to buy a rebreather before the very first CW class (because it's the best, and you only want the best, right?), then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

Jesus! Who the hell pushed this load of crap. They need to be identified. God, no wonder the industry has a bad name with scum sucking low life bottom feeders like this in it.

 

[Akimbo]

... God, no wonder the industry has a bad name with scum sucking low life bottom feeders like this in it.

You shouldn't slander scum suckers of the world like that, they will get one of their “associates” to sue you.

 

[oreocookie]

Look at posts 13 and 14. What you see there is essentially what the workshop I attended told us to do. Here are some quick summaries of what we were told to do:

1. Rental regulators should come without mouthpieces because of a concern for your health. Students have to buy their own so they will be safe from deadly germs.
2. Get equipment before class, saying the cost is fully refundable. If the student has second thoughts after the first pool session, explain that "fully refundable" means "not used." The second you get in the water for CW #1, it is used.
3. Throw away the mask straps that come with the masks you sell so that they have to purchase a mask strap from you. Do the same with the mask cases.
4. We were given several sales pitches to use to get them to buy gear before the confined water sessions begin and absolutely by the time the open water classes begin.
5. We were told to call key equipment by a set of names not used normally in the scuba industry. Why? Almost all new students know nothing about scuba, and you are the first "experts" they have talked to. They will think that those names are the norms. If they decide to shop around and the next place they visit doesn't know what they are talking about and is using weird terms like "regulator," it will seem to the student that the second shop doesn't know much about scuba.
6. Make the student/customer feel as if you are just plain doing everything you can to help them, that you are cutting them one break after another after another, when you really aren't doing anything of the sort. That way if they show up having bought something at another shop or online, you can lay a real guilt trip on them about how they betrayed you after you made all those sacrifices for them.
7. In general, talk about the key safety issues related to the equipment, and make sure the customer feels like anyone who is willing to trust his life to anything but the best--especially for his family--is a cheap SOB willing to risk people's lives to save a buck.
8. Identify a package of gear--specific regulators, BCDs, computers, etc.--that will bring in the top profit margin. Push everyone to those specific items, regardless of need. If you sell a high number of specific items, the manufacturers will usually sell you them at a discount in the future, thus increasing sale margins.
9. Require your instructors to purchase those items identified in #8 and wear all of them while instructing as their "instructor uniform." Require them to tell the students that as instructors, they have the freedom to buy anything, but they want the best. They therefore carefully selected every item they use while instructing because it is the best there is. (The only item on our required uniform list I would purchase and use for myself was the wet suit. I would have been required, for example, to say that I use a specific brand of alternate air source on the inflator hose because it's the best way to dive, even though I personally would never buy one if given the choice)

If you think all of those tactics are part of a salesperson helping to meet the needs of a customer, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a customer who feels duped after that is just having buyer's remorse, then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

If you think a brand new student who doesn't even know anything at all about scuba needs to buy a rebreather before the very first CW class (because it's the best, and you only want the best, right?), then you and I have a different vision of business ethics.

Then after #5, when the customer takes their reg in for service at another shop and asks to have their "air delivery system" serviced, the person behind the counter can be somewhat amused. (I think I remember seeing it called that in a 1970s training manual, but never heard anybody actually call it that until a few weeks ago.)