Does what your training agency charges for its products and services leave room for you to make a profit? At least one agency charges up to twice what SDI does without delivering anything of commensurate value. This can impact you in one of two ways.
- If your course prices are competitive with what others in your market charge, it will either eat up what little profit you make or force you to teach at a loss.
- If you increase course prices to fully cover expenses, you will end up with courses that cost considerably more than what others charge. This will cause you to lose business to more reasonably priced competitors.
Neither is something you can afford.
Friends of ours used to operate one of the largest and most successful dive centers in the Mid-Atlantic region. After they sold their business to a group of their instructors, someone convinced the new owners they should drop SDI and switch to the high-priced agency.
“You will get more business,” they were promised. That increase never materialized. What happened instead is that they closed their doors within a year. Later, one of the now-former new owners confessed that, “Had we stayed with SDI, we’d still be in business.”
Don’t spend money needlessly. Discover the value in SDI.