What’s Important In Your Business?
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Every business has a purpose.  The purpose of a business is what the business does or was started up to do.  Was it designed to teach diving, make diving equipment, sell diving equipment, or provide travel services to vacationing divers?  I can always tell if a business is being true to its original purpose.    I look at the business revenue streams and nine out of ten times, the highest source of revenue is why the business was started.  But not always.   Whatever the business was created to do, that should be the most important thing to the individuals who run the business.  So, what is important in your business?  If you can’t rattle off a quick one, two, or three things, It’s time to sit down and give it some thought.  Some very serious thought.

We can give you a few examples that help us define the original purpose and design of a few companies in the diving industry.  A Trade Association that is operating in its original design purpose should generate most of its revenue from members’ dues and subscriptions.  A Shows & Events Organization should make most of its money from exhibitor and attendee fees.  A Marketing Consulting Company should bring in mostly consulting fees and commissions.  Not all businesses in the diving industry receive their major revenue streams from only one or two sources.  A Retail Dive Store in our industry typically has numerous revenue streams and the percentages may vary from store to store and state to state.  Dive Stores have multiple profit centers including those from equipment, training, service, and travel sales.

Another good indication of whether a business is operating in its original design purpose or not is if their revenue percentages are in-line with their expenditure percentages.  When the percentages don’t line up or if there is an unbalanced expenditure of labor involved, you can suspect that something doesn’t meet the small test.  These are things that Industry Planners look at to see if a company is operating according to its publicly advertised purpose.

Considering there is a distinctive gap between what a company’s original design purpose is and what it currently is focusing on, an overwhelming need to reevaluate what is important in our business is certainly called for. The most important thing a business can do is be truthful to its purpose.  Have you created a mission that supports your purpose?  Do you have a plan to complete your mission?  What are the important components of your mission plan?  What activities must you initiate to accomplish each mission component?  Your strategy will be to develop an action plan that does the necessary things to achieve successful outcomes that will lead to the successful completion of your plan.

That all sounds like a lot of work, and it is.  But if something is important enough to your business, then it is worth the time and effort to plan, initiate, and review the achievable outcomes that lead to your company’s success.  The alternative would be to keep doing the things you have always been doing while not knowing if what you are doing has any real value or is producing any kind of progress toward the fulfillment of your company purpose.

Defining what is important in your business allows you to focus on what needs to be done to create the results you need to move the company forward.  In today’s face-moving business economy, it pays to focus on what is important in your business so you can achieve maximum results for the minimal investment in time, money, and manpower. Of course, anything that is important in your business needs to be researched, studied, strategized, planned for, included in your action plan, and analyzed for results afterwards.

Once you figure out what is important in your business, it’s up to your owners, directors, and key executives to decide if the company wants to stay the way they are right now or make a plan to grow.  This may sound strange to some of you, but you would be surprised by how many companies in the diving industry don’t actually have a plan to grow.  They just keep on doing what they are doing and are satisfied to accept all of the default outcomes, caused by their actions or lack of action. Sometimes it’s because their management doesn’t know how to run a business, but mostly in a small business scenario, it’s because the owner-operator is too busy doing what the business does, and they don’t have time to properly manage their own business.  Hopefully, this is a gap our trade magazine, The Dive Industry Professional, can fill in for them.  Our business articles can be very helpful to small business owners in the diving industry, showing them how to be more professional, proficient, and profitable in their business.  Being in business for yourself doesn’t mean you have to be in business by yourself!

Become a Member of our Global Diving Business Network: Annual Membership in the Dive Industry Association is $125 and includes placement in a number of Trade Directories and websites.  Our organization uses websites and directories in advertising and marketing campaigns to refer business to our members.  By joining our network, you are becoming part of a network that works actively on your behalf to bring buyers and sellers together for the benefit and growth of the Global Diving Community.  Download a Membership Application today.

For more information about the Global Diving Business Network, contact Gene Muchanski, Executive Director, 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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