Thank heavens for PADI

[norcaldiver]

Armyguy38 once bubbled...


Well I would love to know where you got your school done , Mine was $330 just for the class never mind the required

You paid too much. Mine was $229. $25 to the shop, $25 for pool fees, $79 for the rental gear (except personal gear, mask, snorkel, fins, gloves, and boots) and $100 right to the instructor. Now personal gear was about $300, but that wasn't paid to the instr. And the books and vids. So I paid about $600 for the class all in all, but that doen'st mean that the instr saw $600.
The ONLY thing the instructor saw was $100 and I know that because it was paid to him seperatly-the shop wouldn't touch it because of liablity and IRS. All the intructors at the shop were private consultants, not employees of the shop. As a DM it's even worse, but I was diving for free. I was paid $50/class...CLASS not weekend, just enought to cover gas and McDonalds at the ocean.

 

[Armyguy38]

when I said I paid $330 for the class and book that breaks down to,

$105 to the College for the classroom and pool use
$40 for the book
$135 for gear rental
$50 For the Shop

Gear rental for two days was the biggest cost well then you add what was it $7.00 for the Cool PADI photo ID I paid the same as most of you. Here in New England everything is more expensive.

Now everyone Please does not misunderstand me, I am not saying they are bad people for wanting to make money. I am just trying to say we should not fool our selves into thinking that the Dive industry is doing everything they do for the fun of it. Yes most times it benefits us but like the drug companies if there was not money to be made they would not be doing it they would be somewhere else

Thanks
Bob

 

[MikeFerrara]

newdiverAZ once bubbled...
Do you think the agencies don't understand this? Who was president of US divers? Who was a PADI founder? Get it yet?


Who is president of GUE? Who is president of Halcyon? Everyone has to make a living. You cannot blame padi for people wanting to make a dollar. Why did you open your dive shop Mike? I got bashed once for insinuating that a dive shop should offer something for nothin, I was wrong. If people don't wanna pay for training, how do you suggest the rest of the dive shops keep from going under? After the rest of the shops go under we can all buy from leisure pro. We can even send out tanks to be filled mail order.

It depends what you want from or for the dive industry. What's being sold to the masses is underwater tourism. Don't confuse this with diving. There isn't anything wrong with doing it as long as you don't confuse the two.

I would like to see shops make training a profit center and do it well and we're not even close to that.

I opened a shop on accident. LOL
I jumped into this lock stock and barrel. I took all the classes and bought tons of equipment. Then, I ended up an instructor. It didn't take long to realize that I didn't want to teach for any of the shops in the area so I started advertising my own classes. However I still needed a pool, rental equipment and I still had to send or take my students some place for their basic equipment. I soon realized that the shop where I got that stuff was making money and I wasn't. I decided that I could sell a few masks and fins, give good prices, make a little and own my own rental equipment.

Guess what, I couldn't find a manufacturer who would sell to me unless I had a full service dive shop. One thing lead to another and that's what I ended up with. Since I got into it for the teaching it didn't take long for me to learn to hate the industry. It's almost impossible to teach well and support a shop. You have to play the game.

In the meantime I continued my own diving and training. I soon learned that I didn't even know how to dive and virtually all that I had been tough about diving and teaching was all bs. BTW, that goes for all the equipment I bought. The more I learned about diving and teaching the more incompatable with the dive industry it all seemed.

How do I expect shops to make it? I'd be just as happy to shut the whole thing down and start again.

 

[ScoobyDave]

"The real product is the C-Card" ?? Really? From what I am hearing, the training is the important piece for the students, not the card. Do I care about the agency behind the training, nope. Do I care about the reputation of the shop and the instructor, yep.

I can show you a diver who has made over 100 dives, bought countless dollars of gear, had hundreds of tank fills, all without a C-Card. Me. I find it hard to believe that the famous C-Card is the holy grail of my training.

I've got one now, but it was secondary to my primary objective of getting formal training versus being mentored. I'll say I benefitted from both.

 

[Allen42]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...

The real product is NOT dive training. The real product is certification cards. People choose a class based on price and the convenience of the schedule. It's been devalued to the point that the market for a lousy instructor is identical to that of a good one because the card is the same and that's what most are paying for. Both instructors hand out the same card. Both divers go on the same vacation. It's like McDonalds, you can't call any of it good but just what do you compare it to?

Also, the purpose of this product is to sell equipment. The more cards you issue the more equipment you sell. The faster you can do a class the more students you can certify. Equipment is the real product but we need to give them a card before they'll buy any.

Do you think the agencies don't understand this? Who was president of US divers? Who was a PADI founder? Get it yet?

Excellent post... I forgot to touch on them creating their own market as well... ingenious. I'm curious as to how happy they are with that part of the plan these days.

 

[MikeFerrara]

norcaldiver once bubbled...


You paid too much. Mine was $229. $25 to the shop, $25 for pool fees, $79 for the rental gear (except personal gear, mask, snorkel, fins, gloves, and boots) and $100 right to the instructor. Now personal gear was about $300, but that wasn't paid to the instr. And the books and vids. So I paid about $600 for the class all in all, but that doen'st mean that the instr saw $600.
The ONLY thing the instructor saw was $100 and I know that because it was paid to him seperatly-the shop wouldn't touch it because of liablity and IRS. All the intructors at the shop were private consultants, not employees of the shop. As a DM it's even worse, but I was diving for free. I was paid $50/class...CLASS not weekend, just enought to cover gas and McDonalds at the ocean.

So far the classes I've tought have cost me over $50,000 and thats not including any of my instructor training. Make money...that's a joke.

If training is ever made a profit center and good experienced instructors are being paid to teach it the cost will be about $1500 for an OW class.

As it is the only purpose for the class is to sell equipment for the shop so they get minimum wage people to teach it or the shop owner teaches it and it's just part of the cost of sales.

The $300 you people pay for an OW class only offsets part of the costs. It's not even break even unless at least some of the strudents buy mask and fins. There isn't any profit unless one or two buy a whole equipment package. That comes to many hours of work to make a few hundred on equipment. Imagine where we'd be if we had to pay divemasters.

This is the system that PADI helped design. The IDC teaches new instructors about the three E's Education, equipment and experience (diving). Each one sells the other. The only one by itself that is a profit center is the equipment. The other two exist to sell the equipment. PADI teaches that training should be a profit center but now through in the influence and pressures of the manufacturers and the shop is in a position that in order to be able to buy enough from each manufacturer to have a decent selection the only focus is selling equipment.

 

[PhotoTJ]

MikeFerrara once bubbled...


So far the classes I've tought have cost me over $50,000 and thats not including any of my instructor training. Make money...that's a joke.

If training is ever made a profit center and good experienced instructors are being paid to teach it the cost will be about $1500 for an OW class.

As it is the only purpose for the class is to sell equipment for the shop so they get minimum wage people to teach it or the shop owner teaches it and it's just part of the cost of sales.

The $300 you people pay for an OW class only offsets part of the costs. It's not even break even unless at least some of the strudents buy mask and fins. There isn't any profit unless one or two buy a whole equipment package. That comes to many hours of work to make a few hundred on equipment. Imagine where we'd be if we had to pay divemasters.

This is the system that PADI helped design. The IDC teaches new instructors about the three E's Education, equipment and experience (diving). Each one sells the other. The only one by itself that is a profit center is the equipment. The other two exist to sell the equipment. PADI teaches that training should be a profit center but now through in the influence and pressures of the manufacturers and the shop is in a position that in order to be able to buy enough from each manufacturer to have a decent selection the only focus is selling equipment.

You know, this is something I noticed.

Given that this is about an average length post, and you've averaged almost 8 per day for a year and a half, you may have some insight into exactly where your dive business went.

Just an observation. Not trying to be cruel, but in your rants against PADI, and the dive business in general, it just hit me that spending this much time debating, and not running a business, would most likely be detrimental to said business.

 

[MikeFerrara]

PhotoTJ once bubbled...


You know, this is something I noticed.

Given that this is about an average length post, and you've averaged almost 8 per day for a year and a half, you may have some insight into exactly where your dive business went.

Just an observation. Not trying to be cruel, but in your rants against PADI, and the dive business in general, it just hit me that spending this much time debating, and not running a business, would most likely be detrimental to said business.

I have responded to this comment before. I have a day job that's often slow. The shop has never made anywhere near what I need to live on. When the shop was open my wife was in the shop all day and I spent evenings and weekends teaching. Nights were spent doing all the other things that a business requires.

If you look you'll see that I haven't made many posts on weekends or even evenings for most of the time I've been here. Note that aside from placing orders and doing books the dive business takes place when people arent at work. That means being with customers from 6 to 10 every night and on weekends. We start when every one else is quiting.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

I don't think that's fair TJ.

If Mike was interested in running his shop like a typical LDS then maybe (and I mean maybe) he would have survived. I'm sure Mike has the where with all to do that. But his success would have depended on a lot more factors than just Mike himself.

I suspect that Mike did devote his total energies into his shop but found that given the industry and market no amount of effort and business acumen would produce a profitable business with his particular set of high ideals.

I find Mike's critisms of PADI to be pretty much dead on and come from a knowledgable, fair, and intelligent source who has had personal experience with the system.

Just keep in mind that he - and others of us around here - think that there should be more emphasis on finishing more a 'complete' student.

Mike would probably agree that the shortcomings of the PADI system are only a small part of the problem. If the other factors were more 'favorable' then it would be possible to have a profitable shop based on Mike's ideals even if one were bound to train within the standards presently given by PADI.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Stephen Ash once bubbled...

Mike would probably agree that the shortcomings of the PADI system are only a small part of the problem. If the other factors were more 'favorable' then it would be possible to have a profitable shop based on Mike's ideals even if one were bound to train within the standards presently given by PADI.

I would agree with that.

I'm one of those people who loves diving and teaching but dislikes the industry. Teachin the way I want to and running a dive shop (selling equipment) the way the manufacturers insist you do it are a direct conflict of interest .