It’s All About Time
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Time is an equal opportunity element.  Everyone gets 24 hours each day.  No more.  No less.  We have to use every hour given to us because we can’t save it.  You can spend it wisely or waste if foolishly.  The choice is up to you.  Time is a gift.  That’s why they call it the Present.

Time is also relevant.  One year to a one-year-old is a lifetime.  It’s equal to 100% of the time they have spent on earth.  A year goes by so slow for children.  However, one year for someone who is 100 years old is only 1 % of their lifetime.  That’s why time goes by more quickly for older people.

In Marketing 101 we learned that timing is everything.  I wished I had given that simple phrase the respect it deserves when I was younger.  Timing is a tool and a powerful one at that.  When you realize that we are the Masters of Time and not its Whipping Boy, you understand that we have the most powerful tool at our disposal to accomplish wonderful things, for ourselves, our families, our business, and our community.

As a master of time, we can use our present-day moments to live a productive life.  That goes for our personal life and our business life as well.  Creating positive moments in the present time can affect our past, present, and future.  We may not be able to predict the future, but we can create a more positive future by the decisions we make and the actions we take today.  As far as the past is concerned, we may not be able to change the past once it is in place, but we can create a more pleasurable past also by the decisions we make and the actions we take today.  So in effect, we can create the past, present, and future by what we do today.

The Dive Industry Association has been Building a Better Industry, One Member at a Time for over 23 years now.  As Industry Planners and Business Advisors, we have helped dive businesses gain market share and increase sales as a result of being aware of business opportunities their competitors didn’t realize.  A lot of that has to do with timing.  Of course, success in the recreational diving industry has a lot to do with understanding the flow of goods and services through the supply and demand chains, or what we call the industry’s channel of distribution.  When you understand the market and its components, positioning your company to be in the right place at the right time is critical to your success.

The recreational diving industry is getting ready for their annual trade show in November.  Over 500 exhibitors will be introducing their programs, products, and services to prospective buyers.  Based on over 40 years of exhibiting and attending experience at shows & events, I can safely predict that some exhibitors have done zero planning for the show.  They will just show up and hope for the best.  The vast majority will be prepared for a hopefully successful show.   They will have their booth, show samples, catalogs, dealer price sheets, and marketing materials ready to go.  Many will have surveyed their current, former, and future customers to see if they will be attending the show and will have made every attempt to schedule an appointment with the ones who will be attending.  A few will take it to the next level by focusing on the 2025 season and not calling the show an end-of-the-year event.  Forward thinking businesses will have their 2025 catalogs on display.  For them, and us, this annual trade show is all about next year, not the past year.

Exhibitors who come to a trade show prepared for a positive show experience are more likely to succeed than those who don’t.  But if you really want to be in the upper percentile of successful dive businesses you have to realize that the 2025 Season started on September 1, 2024.   Our association has written extensively about the Global Diving Business Network and its seasonality curve that many of the top diving companies subscribe to.  To many of them, a trade show is more than a four-day event.  It is part of an annual process.  Trade shows actually have pre-show, at-show, and post-show segments to them.  It’s about the timing, as we have been talking about.

While the 2024 diving season was well underway, the suppliers of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products were busy getting ready for the 2025 season.  Although product management professionals across the industry are working year-round on developing new products, they usually have a deadline of mid-august to have their new lines ready for an August sales meeting.  That means, if everything goes well, their sales reps can be on the road with their new samples by September 1, or right after Labor Day.  I guarantee that their catalogs and dealer price lists won’t say 2024 on the front covers.  Professionals believe in the WHAT’S NOW, WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT concept.  Their marketing materials will be labeled 2025.

The primary reason for a September Season introduction is to fill the retail pipeline with new products for the biggest buying season of the year – Christmas & Holiday Shopping.  This allows the retail sector to conduct end of year sales for 2024 products while they promote and sell WHATS NEW for the coming year.  Of course, you and I both know that it’s all about getting a jump on our competition.  With sales orders locked up for the coming year, vendors and their dealers can now focus on the social aspects of the upcoming trade show in two months, instead of major orders.  Granted, most buyers who ordered in September will still need to look around for fill in orders and any new items that catch their eye.

Following a September New Season Launch, Industry Planners will suggest that we all focus on a pre-show, at-show, and post-show trade show campaign.  It’s really one campaign with three parts, not three separate campaigns.  Proper timing will dictate when each phase begins and ends.  There we go with that timing thing again!  With a good trade show campaign, different parts of your company can be working on different tasks and assignments in the three phases, but the planned outcomes and task assignments will all go into one document, in its proper order.

It seems that in the recreational diving industry we have a time and a season for everything we do.  It all starts with a good plan, filled in with details about planned outcomes we hope to achieve, and the timing and tasks it takes to achieve them.   With a good written plan that is based on the ebb and flow of the industry, it is easy to see errors and omissions in our planning process.  Tweaking an imperfect plan to give you better results is better than having no plan at all.

I hope to see you at the Dive Industry Foundation Booth # 2050 in November.  I’ll be there with Jennifer King, co-founder of the Women Divers Hall of Fame, and Makayla Wheeler, Founder, Creative Director and Video Producer at MGW Productions.  Stop by, introduce yourself, and pick up a link to our 2025 Dive Industry Trade Directory & Buyers Guide.

For more information about the Global Diving Business Network, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director of the Dive Industry Association, 2294 Botanica Circle, West Melbourne, FL 32904.  Phone: 321-914-3778.  Email: gene@diveindustry.net  Web: www.diveindustry.net

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