So...what's your plan?

[cerich]

Dear Dive Professional,

Plan your dive and dive your plan. How many time have you said that to new students? A thousand, more?

So my question today is simple...what's your plan? You know the plan for when enough dive shops fail that certifications fall so far that we experience a cascade effect on the dive industry. That plan.

You know the manufactures have one, the signs are written and easy to see. The training agencies have one and to be honest I have one. See it's easier for them to plan to diversify into other industries and fields than it is to plan to turn the dive industry around (look no further than the DEMA consumer show for proof boys and girls) So what's yours?

You see I have been having conversations with others in the industry for the last 6 years about where we as a industry are headed. We haven't adjusted well to changing consumer expectations....actually we failed to notice them let alone adjust. By the time many started to see the current economic malaise came and became an easy excuse for our industries woes...except that isn't even near the problem. In fact I don't think it's even a quarter of the problem.

Every day most of us are coming in to work and looking at the chips on the table, taking a deep breath we push them to the middle and then stand up and go fill tanks, dust the shelves and maybe service a reg. At the end of the day we look in the till if we are brave and figure if we get to play the next day. It's a little stressful I fear. It's also like remembering to look at your tank pressure when it gets hard to suck.

My problem is that I REFUSE to believe what everybody seems to be so certain about, that collapse is certain. I believe that the diving lifestyle and wonder we find in the worlds oceans, lakes, rivers and ponds is compelling enough that we can sustain our industry. In fact I believe that we have more interest in diving than ever before. We just aren't capitalizing. Shark Week pulls crazy stupid ratings and we moan about it. These people are fascinated and we hold the key! We have more students talking marine biology than will every get a job in the field. The ocean is the world source of life and the greatest mystery and we have a population waking up to a awareness of planet earth like never before in history!

AND WE ARE FAILING!

What gives? I personally think between crappy courses (which BTW is different than a short course) leaving new divers afraid to scuba alone in a pool and crappy customer service and barriers at every turn we have simply pissed off our customers to the point they are actively telling people "don't bother, the hassle is too much. Try a resort course in Cayman one year". We can fix all that, but like every problem we have to admit and accept it first. In the mean time there is an awful lot of vested interest in "hold on things will turn next year, in the mean time book out with me so you have the best price when it turns" How has that been working out for you?

So seeing as it's freaking impossible to get the industry planning to succeed it may be fun to discuss how we are going to fail.

By the way, as I write this EDGE is up, WAY up. I am running well above what I fore casted growth this year.For that I really must thank my retailers and the EDGE and HOG divers. The reason I am writing is is I'm pissed off at the industry, I want a dive industry to be there 50 and 100 years from now.

 

[DevonDiver]

Plan: Sit on the beach in my sandals and shorts. Offer small volume, customer-focused courses that are flexible enough to be tailored to divers' needs. Shun reliance on hard-sell, grandiose claim, all-frills marketing and rely on honest word-of-mouth recommendations from customers. Keep my overheads down and focus business spending on course quality, rather than branding, agency affiliations and gimmicks. Make a little money, dive a lot. Love what I do... and be infectious with that enthusiasm.. it can't be faked.

It's great to be an independent.

The Future: Keep doing what I am doing. Watch the high-overhead 'sausage factory' mega-dive operations struggle in an increasingly competitive market. Boom and bust baby.

 

[Peter Guy]

Current Plan -- Be an independent instructor but affiliated with one brick and mortar shop and one virtual shop -- and keep my working wife happy.

Future Plan -- More of the same -- AND continue to maintain contact with former students to convince them to stay active as divers

Long Term Plan -- retire and ride my horse

 

[Akimbo]

There has been a tendency in the retail recreational diving industry to be light on business acumen and heavy on the love of diving… until they run out of money or a bean-counter type takes over and runs off the customers. The current economy and the Internet are just the current bumps in the road.

I truly hope we are at the bottom of the business cycle which has degraded training as you describe. Service almost always deteriorates during poor economic cycles, but the Internet is further accelerating the demise of the weakest retailers. There are some good shops and management around but as usual, are in the minority.

I fear that this economic cycle will close a lot of shops but more of the same will appear as things improve. IMHO, the direction the industry has been moving can’t survive.

 

[tbone1004]

Plan, push your products and try to let that become main stream because you have saved me more money than I care to think about.
I think the shear amount of dive shops has killed it. They won't compete price wise against each other which also is killing a lot of their business. Why would I pay almost double from my local shop, when I can call Mike, John, and Edd up and Piranha and get them to sell at well below MSRP. I'm in textiles and we see this same trend with brick and mortar stores ticking their customers off and all of them going online. Our shops up here are barely civil to each other and you get HUGE animosity if you ever bring up the names of the others. If that changes and they merge together the game would be a lot different here.

Plan:be thankful for people like you that are helping to save at least the tech divers. Glad to hear EDGE is doing well also.
Keep diving and pushing the mentor type dive buddies that was prevalent in the old school diving days.

Contingency: be glad I'm not in the diving industry and stock pile parts kits so I don't have to worry about the industry

Industry got too big and is about to collapse methinks. Whether it will collapse completely or the big boys will fail and everything will get consolidated. We have 7 dive shops in the Raleigh Durham area. There are a fair amount of divers in this area, but 7 is wicked excessive. Some of these are doing better than others, but in an area like this there is no reason for more than 3. It's hard when students ask us which dive shop we use and we have to say we avoid them if at all possible. That's not fair to them. Same when we get asked about which agencies for them to look at after they graduate. Too many of them for us to recommend, especially when it always ends up "it's the instructor not the agency". Too many chiefs with not enough indians.

 

[sheeper]

the dive industry (dive shops that is) are killing themselves. I see too much empahsis on spending money for gear, certs, lessons, etc. NOT enough of an emphasis on being a better diver. IMHO, better divers spend money on that stuff.
I see too many people who "used to" dive and gor turned off because their instructor did not actually make them comfortable in the water (and just wanted more $$ for "advanced" lessons). We should be making better, safer divers as a priority. Those are the people who can be the future of the dive industry.

BTW....love my HOG and Edge gear......got a Stealth BC, Edge Epic regulator and HOG 2nd stage. great stuff!

 

[colo_diver]

Customer Service and More of it. Adapt to the changing schedules of our clients and offer them more of what they want.... Classes, gear local diving ( in Colorado). Activities in the shop such as social nights, no sales pressure, just a dive movie and divers and pizza. Diving is SOCIAL, how many times have you heard oh you are a diver? and the conversation flows, what are your favoite islands and such. Continue to offer your divers new and old the chance to connect

 

[Jim Lapenta]

My plan is to continue doing what I have been for the past 9 months or so. Offering quality training to new and not so new divers. Working with, not for, a shop as an independent instructor in order to support them and keep my self supplied with air fills and items I do not carry in my own lines of gear I sell. Speaking of which Edge has allowed me build a customer base that includes divers all over the world. I will continue to offer them the level of service and value they seem to not be able to get locally. While working a full time job in another field. Not easy but nothing worth doing ever is.

 

[Rogersea]

My plan is to offer quality Recreational Courses, and fun dives to small groups, slowly grow the business and build a brick and mortar facility on the beach. I think that providing a high quality product is the only thing that wil allow you to keep your business alive. I have Nine Courses (7 of which are continuing education) scheduled in December between two small groups(all repeat customers). I am keeping my prices reasonable, and never ever pass up the opportunity to teach.

My biggest problem is the very lean months in a seasonal industry(here in the PHilippines). Last year I expanded the services I provided by offering Hydro-Static Testing. I ended up Hydro-ing around 200 tanks. But here in the PHilippines sometimes pricing is sooo low it hardly makes it worth your time



Cheers,

 

[clint@uniquescuba.com]

cerich, I feel your pain, but I don't think the dive industry will collapse at all. I think it will grow, but I also think the industry must first get through this "Darwinian Flush" phase we seem to be in right now. And I'm all for it!

Many of the Key Players in the industry are quite entrenched in a business model that has worked for years... they have their heads in the sand.... and will continue to fight change until the end..

This is a good thing!

I'm not mad at them for not changing, not evolving, not opening their eyes. I'm just waiting for them to Die and make way for the young bucs.


Think about it, if this industry were to grow leaps and bounds, Big Players would enter into the picture and crush everyone else anyway. The state of our industry being fat and lazy will allow smaller companies to enter into the game and grow.

The cream will rise to the top, it just takes a while.....