There is a good LDS out there!

[norcaldiver]

Mike, I agree, I'm planning on getting my instructor in a year or so, once I feel I'm ready for it. I just worked out these numbers. Keep in mind that the instructor that work at my LDS are contractors, not employeed or paid by the store.

Prices are within about $50 between shops in the area, depending on if they include the PADI OW books and video, but here’s my shops price. $229 for Open Water – all of it. No extra costs for ocean dives, or if you need an extra pool session, or if you can’t make the ocean dives and need to get pushed back to do checkout dives with another class/instructor.
What that includes is $25 to the store(which they actually loose money on because they have to pay “rent” to the pool for confined water), $79 for the rentals, and $100 to the instructor. What it doesn’t include is $50 for the OW pack, $30 for the video ($80 total) and your personal gear, which can run from $200-$500.

Now lets look at what the instructors make. $100 per student. Wow, if I could get about 10 students a week, I could make a pretty good amount. Unfortunatly, there’s more to it than that. Lets take a look at an average class – 6 people.
$100 x 6 people = $600
-$20 / pic = $480
-$50 for a DM = $430
-$16 for parking at the ocean = $414
-$25 for gas (2 hr rnd trip x 2 days to ocean) = $389
divide that by the 30 hours of pool/ocean instruction = $12.96 / hour
divide THAT by your 6 students = $2.16

So for a class of 6 people, I’d be raking in a whopping $2.16/hour for my time.

Now, do I wonder why some instructors are half-assed? Yup.

Am I rethinking going to IDC when I make $35/hour at my day job? Nope! I love diving and I love talking about diving with people and I love working with students, and I loved every minute of my DM internship-even setting that damned float…

Now, the Shop makes $79 on rentals, but they had to buy the rental gear inteh 1st place, eventually, it'st going to pay for itself and then make money for the shop, but $79 isn't a whole lot. They also make money on the personal gear, but there is the overhead (space, original purchase, salesman wages, etc.) and the PADI material. So really PADI makes, from what I can see IF EVERYTHING has 100% markup, is Material ($40) and PIC ($10). $50 a head. Still not great.

 

[jamiei]

how are you living if you don't make any money?

 

[jamiei]

it seems that your overhead is way too high for the volume you do. I don't make any money in my remodeling business either

 

[MikeFerrara]

jamiei once bubbled...
how are you living if you don't make any money?

I have a day job. The 40 or 50 hours/week I put in at the shop is my donation to the community. My wife is in the shop full time. I don't mind donating her. It appears as though I will never even make back my initial investment. I would have shut it down already except it's like any other investment you don't loose until you sell.

If I only knew then what I know now.

 

[MikeFerrara]

norcaldiver once bubbled...
Mike, I agree, I'm planning on getting my instructor in a year or so, once I feel I'm ready for it. I just worked out these numbers. Keep in mind that the instructor that work at my LDS are contractors, not employeed or paid by the store.

Prices are within about $50 between shops in the area, depending on if they include the PADI OW books and video, but here’s my shops price. $229 for Open Water – all of it. No extra costs for ocean dives, or if you need an extra pool session, or if you can’t make the ocean dives and need to get pushed back to do checkout dives with another class/instructor.
What that includes is $25 to the store(which they actually loose money on because they have to pay “rent” to the pool for confined water), $79 for the rentals, and $100 to the instructor. What it doesn’t include is $50 for the OW pack, $30 for the video ($80 total) and your personal gear, which can run from $200-$500.

Now lets look at what the instructors make. $100 per student. Wow, if I could get about 10 students a week, I could make a pretty good amount. Unfortunatly, there’s more to it than that. Lets take a look at an average class – 6 people.
$100 x 6 people = $600
-$20 / pic = $480
-$50 for a DM = $430
-$16 for parking at the ocean = $414
-$25 for gas (2 hr rnd trip x 2 days to ocean) = $389
divide that by the 30 hours of pool/ocean instruction = $12.96 / hour
divide THAT by your 6 students = $2.16

So for a class of 6 people, I’d be raking in a whopping $2.16/hour for my time.

Now, do I wonder why some instructors are half-assed? Yup.

Am I rethinking going to IDC when I make $35/hour at my day job? Nope! I love diving and I love talking about diving with people and I love working with students, and I loved every minute of my DM internship-even setting that damned float…

Now, the Shop makes $79 on rentals, but they had to buy the rental gear inteh 1st place, eventually, it'st going to pay for itself and then make money for the shop, but $79 isn't a whole lot. They also make money on the personal gear, but there is the overhead (space, original purchase, salesman wages, etc.) and the PADI material. So really PADI makes, from what I can see IF EVERYTHING has 100% markup, is Material ($40) and PIC ($10). $50 a head. Still not great.

Since i own a shop your numbers look good. The entire rediculas thing isn't even worth what I pay in insurance or the liability risk.

There are some bigger shops that do make money of course but many are in this business because they love diving.

But the kind of diving that makes money doesn't interest me at all. That is the one key piece of info I didn't have at the beginning.