jonnythan,
By all means do as you please. I am just telling you why the LDS employee is so useless and why there is so much poor instruction. Do what you want with what I tell you. There will not be good instruction untill it pays and it doesn't. You must sell equipment to teach. I didn't create the business model. On the contrary we are working very hard to create and promote something completely different. We are placing emphisis on training and trying to charge for it. If I can't make training a profit center I will quit.
Someone who cares about diving should use their consumer dollars to send the message of their choice. The message being sent is "we want it cheap" but don't complain about the useless DS employee because you get what you pay for.
All of you are correct in that when you buy at the LDS you are financing services YOU may not need. The model is simple. The only thing people pay for is equipment yet we must have a building and a sign and be there until late into the night providing the expertise (I'm assuming a competant shop) that it took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain. I could have baught one hell of a web site for that money. The only oportunity to charge money is on a sale. The reason you find so many incompetants in the LDS is they have not made that investment. There is no money in it. The money is in having a website and a warehouse, buying large quantities and shipping orders. I may do this someday, but why would the merchandise be dive equipment. Porn would sell better. Yes the model is flawed. However the companies recieving the largest rewards are controling the model. For now the dive shop does free sales and training to create a market for the volume merchant who knows nothing about diving. I give out a card the diver buys an online bc. We show a bc he sells it. He should pay commission. We create his market and provide the expertise so that he doesn't need to make that investment.
And... people do not realize that diving is dangerous and this is not why they do it. To sell enough equipment, we tell them that it is safe and easy and they can learn it in a hurry. We show pictures of colorfull reefs and fish. We do not convey the horror of an underwater mishap. Only the liability release says there is danger. That is how we sell the equipment and fill the resorts. BTW we tell prospective instructors the same thing.
If the consumer is happy with what they have it must be good but it makes me sad anyway.
You don't have to like my opinions or me but this is why you must go to GUE to learn to dive.
By all means do as you please. I am just telling you why the LDS employee is so useless and why there is so much poor instruction. Do what you want with what I tell you. There will not be good instruction untill it pays and it doesn't. You must sell equipment to teach. I didn't create the business model. On the contrary we are working very hard to create and promote something completely different. We are placing emphisis on training and trying to charge for it. If I can't make training a profit center I will quit.
Someone who cares about diving should use their consumer dollars to send the message of their choice. The message being sent is "we want it cheap" but don't complain about the useless DS employee because you get what you pay for.
All of you are correct in that when you buy at the LDS you are financing services YOU may not need. The model is simple. The only thing people pay for is equipment yet we must have a building and a sign and be there until late into the night providing the expertise (I'm assuming a competant shop) that it took years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain. I could have baught one hell of a web site for that money. The only oportunity to charge money is on a sale. The reason you find so many incompetants in the LDS is they have not made that investment. There is no money in it. The money is in having a website and a warehouse, buying large quantities and shipping orders. I may do this someday, but why would the merchandise be dive equipment. Porn would sell better. Yes the model is flawed. However the companies recieving the largest rewards are controling the model. For now the dive shop does free sales and training to create a market for the volume merchant who knows nothing about diving. I give out a card the diver buys an online bc. We show a bc he sells it. He should pay commission. We create his market and provide the expertise so that he doesn't need to make that investment.
And... people do not realize that diving is dangerous and this is not why they do it. To sell enough equipment, we tell them that it is safe and easy and they can learn it in a hurry. We show pictures of colorfull reefs and fish. We do not convey the horror of an underwater mishap. Only the liability release says there is danger. That is how we sell the equipment and fill the resorts. BTW we tell prospective instructors the same thing.
If the consumer is happy with what they have it must be good but it makes me sad anyway.
You don't have to like my opinions or me but this is why you must go to GUE to learn to dive.
