Take Control of Your Classroom

As I said earlier, your part-time instructors probably mean well — but you can’t rely on them to get the message across. That’s why you need to seize control of what your students see and hear in the classroom. The question is, how?

The hit of last year’s DEMA Power Up breakfasts was a presentation by Scott Taylor of A-1 Scuba in Englewood, Colorado. Like most stores, Scott’s instructors use a PowerPoint presentation supplied by their training agency to conduct classroom sessions. The PowerPoint presentation (as you would expect) does a good job of covering physics, physiology, equipment and the environment. It even promotes continuing education (but in a generalized way). It just does nothing to promote Scott’s store, the equipment he sells, his continuing education program and his travel opportunities.

Fortunately, Scott did not settle for that. He deconstructed the PowerPoint presentation and rebuilt it (“We have the technology…”), inserting images of his store and additional slides that promote his sales and service department, his continuing education program and his store-sponsored trips.

Now Scott’s instructors have no choice but to promote what they should have been pushing all along — which helps explain why Scott, his wife Lynn and their partners, Frank and Becky are considered four of the best dive retailers in the country…and why their store is so phenomenally successful.

Bear in mind, everything you’ve read here have been short answers to a very complex set of questions. They provide a starting point. Where you go from here is up to you.

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