Building value through continuing education

It’s no wonder PADI places such an emphasis on continuing education ratios for their Course Director Training Course: it is one of your best returns on investment while making your divers exceptionally strong.

Loss Leaders

In my experience, I saw myself and other new Open Water SCUBA Instructors come out of their Instructor Examination to immediately jump into private open water SCUBA classes. At most dive centers I’ve spoken with, private classes cost more and in turn pay the instructor more than group classes.

The problem I’ve run into and heard from many others is that sometimes the private class is complete in three days. Other times it takes three months. When it takes three days, your return on (time) investment is incredible. When it takes three months, you’ve taken a decent loss (or worked for pennies per hour).

High Margin SCUBA Classes

On the opposite side are continuing education classes such as Advanced, Rescue and Specialties. If properly scheduled, you can combine a specialty with a core class trip and pocket a decent profit quickly and easily.

Quality SCUBA Divers

Many people I ran into at DEMA were complaining that the new, more relaxed (I prefer to think of them as modern) are pumping out poor quality SCUBA divers. Many instructors I’ve talked to believe that divers aren’t “safe” until they’ve been through the Rescue level.

So why aren’t you selling new students on the Rescue Diver course?

Most dive centers sell people on one class at a time, starting with Open Water. Why not sell them on a package that takes them through the courses you think are necessary to make them safe divers? If you look at them on a per-class basis, your profit margins is low on some and high on others, but if you look at it as a complete package, your margins are far more attractive.

Tell your new SCUBA divers right off the bat they need to go beyond Open Water and see what happens.