Get Customers Diving

There is a direct relationship between how much your customers dive and how much money they spend with you. The more your customers dive, the more you can increase both sales and profits. When customers dive, several good things happen:

Customers who dive, spend

They buy new equipment.
They replace old equipment.
They get old equipment serviced.
They rent the equipment they are not able to buy.

This is in addition to the money you make from the classes, trips or other activities that get your customers in the water.

“That’s great,” you say, “Everyone knows that, but…”

But what? Is it too cold outside to go diving? Is your next scheduled group trip not for another several months? (You do have one or more group trips scheduled, don’t you?) What is your excuse for not choosing to be successful? Consider:

There are a lot of classes and activities you can sponsor that don’t necessarily involve getting wet and, therefore, do not depend on the weather. These include first aid/CPR, dive computer, equipment and fish ID classes.
There are many other classes for which you can at least do the classroom and pool portion, even if you must postpone open-water training until later. These include rescue and leadership courses, Nitrox Diver training, and a host of specialties, such as underwater photo and video.

Who says you can’t travel on short notice?

So your next week-long group trip is still months away. Who says you can’t put together a long weekend trip on comparatively short notice? Much of the eastern USA is within an overnight drive of the Florida Springs and Panhandle. On the West Coast, dive boats operate year round. In the central USA, dive sites such as Homestead and Bonne Terre Mine are completely unaffected by weather. And you probably have a surprising number of customers who will pay to fly to destinations such as the Bahamas or Cozumel for three- or four-day weekend trips. Trips such as these tend not to have the space commitments associated with longer trips and, because they cost less, you can fill them on shorter notice.
Don’t overlook the money to be made booking travel for individuals, couples and small groups. Many dive travel wholesalers are eager to help you with this.

The bottom line is, you won’t achieve greater profitability by sitting around waiting for it to happen. There are steps you can take right now that can help put money in your pocket immediately. You only have to choose to take them.