Dive Instructors – U.S.

Posted on October 8, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

DIVE LOCAL
U.S. Dive Instructors
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Diving Instructors play a vital role in the development of the global diving community.  As qualified scuba diving instructors, they have introduced millions of people to the joys of underwater activities.  The necessity for safe scuba diving training is written into our industry’s DNA.   Without diving instructors, there would not be a diving industry.

Diving Instructors are one of the four pillars of their local diving communities.  The four pillars being dive stores, dive boats, dive clubs, and dive instructors.  These industry stakeholder groups are the ones responsible for building, growing, and maintaining not only their local diving community, but the global diving community itself.  These full-time, part-time, and volunteer Dive Industry Professionals teach people how to dive, sell and service diving equipment, take people diving, and keep them active in our recreation.  Dive Instructors are the rainmakers of our industry.  They create the market for the programs, products, and services that are created, distributed, sold, and serviced in the diving industry.

Definition of a Diving Instructor: Before we start our global search for instructors who are actively teaching diving, let’s first define the parameters. A Diving Instructor is a person who has been certified or licensed to teach people how to dive.  When the diving industry first began, people who had diving experience started to teach their friends and family how to dive.  These people were for the most part, former Navy Divers, Lifeguards, Spearfishermen, and Free Divers.  They were self-appointed skin-diving instructors, and they wanted to share their activity with others.  Thankfully, early in our industry’s history, these skin-diving enthusiasts realized the need to develop an educational curriculum for teaching and certifying people how to scuba dive safely.  Of course, to do that, they had to develop a curriculum to teach divers how to become scuba diving instructors.

Over the years, a number of Training Agencies were formed to teach and license scuba diving instructors.  I believe we called them Certification Agencies back then.  At last count, there are over 40 training agencies in the United States.  Their affiliated instructors teach and certify a plethora of scuba diving and diving related courses and the practice has become an industry standard.  This industry stakeholder group has grown its course offering from basic scuba diving to advanced scuba diving, specialty courses, technical diving, rebreather courses, rescue training, divemaster programs, instructor courses, and beyond.  They have even included courses in swimming, lifesavings, first aid, water safety, free diving, and mermaiding.

Diving Instructors Are Important: For safety purposes sake, becoming a certified diving instructor has become a prerequisite for being able to teach diving programs.  It is considered an industry standard practice, and that’s a good thing.  For the over six million certified scuba divers in the world, obtaining a diving certification from a certified, licensed diving instructor has been their door opener to our industry.  And it is all because of the Diving Instructors.

Types of Diving Instructors: I have held a diving instructor certification for over 52 years.  In that time, I have taught many types of diving programs, in different types of training facilities, environments, and situations, and have certified my students through different training agencies.  I realize and appreciate the diversity in the kinds of dive training a person can receive, and the differences in the agendas that various training centers and facilities have.  To many in our industry, these differences have created an enormous amount of channel friction and a contentious source of debate and disagreement.  That is certainly a true statement, and I have to say that this type of behavior does not reflect well on our fellow dive industry professionals or their affiliate vendors.  On the other hand, I see this as an opportunity to appreciate the diversity and the differences in dive training focus and the industry’s need to integrate them under a much larger industry umbrella.

Dive Instructors & Stakeholder Groups: Dive Instructors need to have their own stakeholder group to understand their role in the diving industry and advance in their profession.  I am not suggesting that dive instructors band together and start another certification agency.  Far from that.  Training Agencies fall under their own stakeholder group and the purpose for which they were formed is critical to the function and stability of the global diving industry.  Training Agencies develop Dive Training Professionals.  They develop the course content that is used to teach and certify instructor candidates enrolled in their instructor training programs.  Training Agencies develop the curriculum, standards, and procedures their instructors use to teach safe diving courses.  They govern their own associations and maintain their own corporate cultures by conducting periodic professional development programs in dive education and training.

Dive Instructors need to participate in professional development training that focuses on the business of diving issues.  Managing a career as a Dive Industry Business Professional is the other half of being a Dive Industry Training Professional.   Business training and the Business of Diving issues are different for the different categories of job descriptions that diving instructors work under.  Within the Dive Instructor sector of the diving industry, we have instructors who teach at a dive store.  Others teach in an academic setting like a high school, college or university.  Many instructors teach independently, while others are paid employees of a dive business that hires Instructors and Divemasters.  Teaching diving at a dive resort or on a liveaboard is different than working for a contracted Diving Operator who has multiple clients from several hotels and resorts.

As mentioned before, professional business development programs would not be the same for an instructor working in a dive store as for an instructor teaching diving at a college or university.  Sure, they may have many business training needs in common, but a good professional development program should have tailor-made content for the specific audience.

Building a Global Diving Community: Teaching entry level scuba diving programs and certifying them as scuba divers does not guarantee that the Global Diving Community will grow or even continue.  There are four things that need to happen to ensure the creation, growth, and sustainability of our industry.  Dive Industry Professionals employed in the Global Diving Business Network must unanimously make this our industry message to the general public:

  1. Learn to Dive
  2. Buy Your Gear
  3. Go Diving
  4. Stay Active

As we mentioned before, not all Diving Instructors have the same goals and objectives for teaching diving.  That is a topic for future discussion. Our purpose for bringing it to your attention here is that we feel the industry needs to bring awareness to the topic, discuss its pros and cons, think about possible and probable solutions to the problems, choose actionable items that will address this conundrum, implement an action plan, measure the key results, and evaluate our progress.

Creating Active Divers: While teaching diving may be the goal and ultimate objective for some diving instructors, our goal as Dive Industry Professionals should be to create active divers.  Active divers give sustainability to the Global Diving Industry. I believe this is a much higher goal than just trying to create more divers or more business.  Our purpose as recreational professionals should be to create a recreational activity that people could enjoy for a lifetime.  Scuba Diving is an enjoyable activity that can be socially shared with friends and family, and it often leads to new activities and adventures.  As Dive Industry Professionals we can teach people how to dive so they have a good experience and want to continue doing it.  As Diving Equipment Advisors we should continually educate and update ourselves on the proper use and purchase of diving equipment and accessories.  New divers look to us for advice on the purchase or rental options that are available to certified divers.  We know from experience that certified divers who purchase their own equipment will use it more often.  As Dive Travel Specialists we are in a position to share our dive and adventure travel experience with new divers.  We can make recommendations to visit dive resorts and liveaboards we have experience with.  We can also put together a group of divers and escort them to our favorite dive destinations.  To keep divers active in the Global Diving Community, we can recommend membership in our local dive club or put together a social event at the Regional Dive Show in our Local Diving Community.  There are so many things we can do after teaching someone to dive.  It all starts with taking our dive instructing passion to the next level.

Dive Instructor Listing: Based on the successes we have had with our directory listings for dive stores, dive boats, and dive clubs, we are building a directory listing for dive instructors on our DIVE LOCAL website.  Check out Dive Instructors – U.S. on our DIVE LOCAL website.  Of course, this is going to be one of the most difficult directories in our industry to create and maintain but we are willing to start the process.

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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Editorial – October 2025

Posted on October 6, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

The Business of Diving
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Every business has, or should have, their own unique selling proposition.  Some people call it a unique selling point.  Probably because they can’t spell proposition.  A unique selling proposition is a short statement that defines your company’s uniqueness.  It’s what makes you different or better than your competitors.  If you haven’t given USPs very much thought for your company, do yourself a favor and scan the youtube channel for some interesting videos on USPs.

Our industry trade magazine, The Dive Industry Professional has been around for twenty-five years.  First as a newsletter and then as a magazine in the last four years.  Our Unique Selling Proposition is that we are dedicated to bringing Business of Diving issues to Dive Industry Professionals across the globe.  To give relevance to our articles about the business of diving issues, we often have to include content from the vast array of diving issues from the global diving community.  Hence, our readership tends to be very diversified in terms of their diving industry education, experience, and interests.

The global diving community is an integrated organizational matrix of every type of diving and diving related discipline with the common denominator being diving activity, which grew out of the original skin-diving activities of the 1950’s.  To be clear, we are not talking about or including board diving or skydiving activities.  What we now define as the global diving community includes diving activities such as skin diving, free diving, scuba diving, CCR diving, surface-supplies diving, tech diving, and mermaiding.  It’s also interesting to note the high degree of interest this group has in swimming, general watermanship, health and safety activities, marine and environmental issues, as well as adventure travel and exploration.

Definition of Diving: Diving is an activity.  Divers participate in it as a hobby, profession, job skill, occupational requirement, or as a business.  Diving is used in the recreational, commercial, military, academic, scientific, environmental, or public service sectors of the economy.  The way we employ diving activity in these different situations can be on a personal level, a trade level, or in the conduct of business.

Definition of The Business of Diving: When we discuss business of diving issues, we are referring to the manufacturing, distributing, buying, and selling of diving equipment, training programs, travel opportunities, and lifestyle products.  The two major players in this equation are buyers and sellers.  The buyers make up the Global Diving Community.  They are the market for diving and diving related goods and services.  They are the people we serve.  The sellers make up what we call the Global Diving Business Network.  They create the programs, products, and services the market needs to actively engage in diving and diving related activities.  If you work in the Global Diving Business Network, you can function as a business owner, employee, or private contractor.  Of course, private contractors are really business owners in their own right, but they perform for and are paid by other business owners.  Technical point.

Managing a Global Diving Business Network: Our Purpose for creating the Dive Industry Association was to build a better, more sustainable industry capable of further growth and advancement.  An industry that is unified, professional, progressive, innovative, integrated, profitable, and attractive to talented professionals as a suitable career opportunity.  We are the stewards of the Global Diving Community’s future resources and reputation.  Our Mission is to bring Buyers and Sellers together for mutual benefit.  Our ultimate Objective is to build, service, and grow a sustainable global diving community.  To achieve our goals and objectives for a sustainable global diving community we need to research, analyze, work with, and promote the Global Diving Business Network that produces, distributes, sells, and services the diving and diving related programs, products, and services, divers need.

Managing an industry is just like running a business.  Someone has to work in the business, doing what the business does, and someone has to work on the business to ensure it stays in business.  It’s the same with an industry.  Specifically, the diving industry.  While equipment manufacturers are building diving equipment, training agencies are creating training programs, and travel businesses are operating dive resorts, the industry needs a trade association helping its members navigate the world’s economic landscape.  That is the Business of Diving.

The Business of Diving is not about diving.  It’s about running a business.  If you want to go diving a lot, get a job and pay for your diving.  You’ll probably go to more exciting dive destinations and do a lot more diving.  With the exception of dive instructors who work at exotic dive resorts or liveaboards, too many Dive Industry Professionals are diving the same location every weekend.  I know.  I’ll show you my log book from the 1980’s when I was teaching openwater classes at Corona del Mar, California, every weekend, for years.  That wasn’t diving – that was work.  I didn’t make a thousand dives.  I made one dive, a thousand times!  Now, after many years of doing it wrong, we are focusing on the business of diving issues by showing diving instructors and store owners how to balance their activities and implement smart hiring practices so they can get the job done and make some time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Working 80 hours a week in a dive shop and not having the energy or time to go on fun dives is not the answer.  Neither is closing the shop so you can hang a sign on the door saying – GONE DIVING.  There is a better way and the better way is to take the business of diving issues more seriously.  I do want to caution Dive Industry Professionals about advice they get from dive business consultants who are often just salespeople for some kind of marketing tool or technology.  Business professionals use business tools to get their business work done quicker, more efficiently, and more professionally.  It’s about running your business better – not so you’ll have more time to go diving.  Capturing your customer’s sales history and contact information is absolutely the right thing to do, but if you don’t take the time to use the data to generate more business, it does you no good at all.  The business of diving issue is not just about creating a customer list.  More importantly, it’s about how to effectively use one.

Better run businesses do a better job at serving their customers.  You don’t go into the diving business so you can go diving more.  You go into the diving business so other people can go diving more.  It’s all about making the activity safer and more enjoyable for your customers.  If it also helps you, that’s great too, but it should not be your main goal.

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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Adobe Express for SCUBA Branding

Posted on September 30, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

The Non-Designer’s Playbook for Scuba Branding That Converts

Photo via Adobe Stock

Whether you’re running shore dives in the Keys or training rescue divers in Puget Sound, your brand has a job to do long before someone zips up a wetsuit. Most small dive shops underplay this — until they realize people are skipping their business not because of price, but because their marketing looks like it was built in 2008. The good news? You don’t need a design degree or an agency retainer. With Adobe Express, you can build a shop that looks like the pros, without sinking time or money.

Your Logo Is Your Liability

Most divers don’t read your certifications — they judge your brand in five seconds flat. If your visuals feel outdated, cluttered, or off-kilter, they assume your operation is too. Perception is performance. That’s why strong branding builds trust — it lets customers feel like they’re in expert hands before they’ve even booked. Adobe Express gives you an easy way to unify your visuals across your website, printed forms, storefront, and Instagram. No guesswork. No “good enough” graphics from that friend who dabbles in Photoshop. Just clear, sharp branding that makes people take you seriously.

Don’t Let Sloppy Files Kill Your Cred

Your shop logo shouldn’t have six versions floating around — or worse, no real version at all. This is where Adobe Express becomes less a design tool and more a rescue rig. It lets you create locked templates that your whole team can access. That means your logo stays where it belongs, your color palette doesn’t drift, and nobody stretches your font into oblivion. Features like lock elements to enforce consistency give you total control without micromanaging every single post, flyer, or promo someone tries to make on your behalf.

Reuse the Ocean of Content You Already Have

You don’t need to keep cranking out fresh content. You already have it — it’s just buried in old phone galleries and forgotten Dropbox folders. That group photo from last summer’s wreck dive? Turn it into a fall promo. That GoPro clip of a dolphin encounter? Slice it into an Instagram Reel. Adobe Express lets you leverage old images into fresh content without complex editing. Crop, resize, slap on a quote or tip — done. You’re not just being efficient; you’re giving that one perfect shot the five lives it deserves.

One Design. All Platforms. No Drama.

Here’s the real pain: you make one great visual… and then need to resize it for your homepage, your Facebook cover, your email banner, and that weird little ad spot on the local tourism site. Adobe Express handles all of that without you needing to start from scratch each time. Resize, remix, repurpose — in one workflow. That matters because dive shop marketing strategies include social media, chamber spotlights, booking engines, and more. Each one has different dimensions, and the faster you adapt, the more you stay visible.

No Budget? No Staff? No Excuse.

Most small shops think real design requires real money. It doesn’t. What you need is software that doesn’t talk down to you and doesn’t bury everything behind a paywall. Adobe Express gets you polished designs without the complexity. You don’t need to understand layers or vectors — just drag, drop, and go. This is how thousands of small businesses design content without graphic expertise and still look like they hired a creative team. You’re not cheating — you’re just finally using a tool that respects your time.

Look Consistent Even When You’re Not

One week, you’re promoting a couples snorkel tour. The next, it’s a deep tech dive. Your offers are all over the place — but your branding shouldn’t be. Customers need to feel like every flyer, post, and promo still belongs to you. That kind of consistency isn’t just about looking clean — it’s about being recognizable in a crowded feed. Adobe Express helps you balance brand recognition and flexibility so each campaign adapts to your message while sticking to your visual identity. You evolve. The trust stays locked in.

What You Hand Out Still Matters

Digital gets all the attention, but paper still closes the deal. When someone asks what you do on the pier, in the bar, or at a chamber mixer, you need to be ready. Adobe Express makes it easy to manage your business card design flow without hiring a print shop. Just pick a template, match it to your brand, add your info, and print locally. It takes ten minutes and looks like you paid for it. This stuff still matters — because the one card that survives a wallet usually leads to a real booking.

Your diving skills are solid. Your trips are tight. But if your brand looks like a last-minute PowerPoint, you’re bleeding credibility — and customers. Adobe Express helps you flip that script. You don’t need to master design. You just need to stop looking like you ignore it. Whether it’s your latest underwater package or your new certification track, your visuals should carry the same weight as your gear: reliable, professional, and built for repeat use. With the right tools, even the smallest dive shop can market like a big-time operator — and still keep both feet in the sand.

Join the Dive Industry Association and stay seen where it counts — above and below the surface.

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The Argument for a September Launch

Posted on September 21, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

Argument for a September Launch
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

We opened the September Issue with our Editorial, Preparing for the New Season.  We discussed seasons and seasonality curves to some extent, and we reminded our readers that different stakeholder groups in the diving industry follow different new season beginning dates.  Some prefer January, some like September, and some think that November is OK with them.  The conundrum is that there are multiple major stakeholder groups in the industry and there are good reasons to start the new season on different dates.  Each start-up date benefits a different stakeholder group.  But that logic only makes sense if you look at this problem from a supplier’s point of view!  The viewpoint of the vender as I like to call it. 

Allow me to introduce a viewpoint from the demand side of the industry’s channel of distribution.  The BUYERS side of the equation.  The side with the checkbooks.  The ones who buy the stuff we sell.  I know I have your attention now.  As a Trade Association, we represent, advise, and serve the supply side of the diving industry.  We do that for the benefit of the demand side of the recreational diving industry.  We are the bridge that connects buyers and sellers of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products.  We are the watch-dog group of the industry’s channels of distribution.  We are the consulting organization that helps diving business entrepreneurs acquire, maintain, and increase market penetration, market share, and the ever-elusive competitive edge.  We do our best to see that both buyers and sellers in the global diving industry have their needs met.

Definition of a Season: A season in the recreational diving industry is a specific period of time when diving activity or diving related sales are at its highest.  That of course, depends on whether you are a buyer or a seller.  Different geographical areas across the globe have different seasons.  Seasons are also based on weather, national holidays, or public activity such as the local school calendar.

Diving Shows & Events: Diving shows and events do not dictate the beginning or end of a season.  They reflect it.  There are three types of shows and events that were created to take advantage of local, national, and international seasonality curves.  They are dive shows, trade shows, and professional development conferences.  Their purpose, function, and agenda are obviously not apparent to everyone in the global diving community.  Let’s review. 

Dive Shows are regional events that cater to local divers who are buyers and end-users of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products.  Dive shows consist of an exhibit hall with vendor booths that are designed to inform and educate, using a show and tell concept model.  Regional dive shows usually have seminars and workshops that educate or entertain the local diving community.  Dive shows ae usually conducted during the peak of the diving season, because that is when interest in scuba diving and adventure travel is the highest.

Trade Shows are industry events that focus on the wholesale buying and selling of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products which enable the wholesale buyers to order products, in order to be ready for the beginning of the next season.  Vendor booths in the exhibit hall should be set up to showcase products for sale and have adequate floor space for vendors to write orders with their wholesale customers.  Seminars and workshops are kept to a minimum so as not to reduce floor time attendance in the exhibit hall.  The purpose of trade shows is to introduce new products and write orders for the vendors. The reason qualified retail buyers attend trade shows is to see new products and order sufficient inventory to be ready for the next new season. 

The best example of trade show design for the watersports industry is the Surf Expo in Orlando, Florida.  Qualified Retail Buyers attend their trade shows for free.  The September Expo prepares the retail buyers for the Fall and Winter Seasons and the Christmas Holiday.  The January Expo allows retail buyers to order for the Spring and Summer Seasons.  So, when we look at the rational for when to launch the next season for our industry, we have to take in consideration that our wholesale launch is a few months prior to the retail beginning of a new season.

Professional Development Conferences: There is nothing more important to Dive Industry Professionals than professional development.  Continuing education is a must-have process for anyone employed in the diving equipment, dive training, and dive travel sectors.  Diving equipment manufacturers conduct annual training in new product design, and equipment maintenance and repair.  Initial training and annual updates are a significant, and time-consuming process, for the Diving Equipment Specialist.  Continuing education and annual training updates are the foundation to the qualification and professional integrity of Dive Training Professionals.  The Dive Travel sector needs continuing education courses and annual updates for their dive destinations. The best places to conduct education and training for Dive Travel Specialists are Regional Dive Shows and Professional Development Conferences.  The best time for an annual conference would be when it is convenient for the dive equipment, training, and travel stakeholder groups.  The time of year when activity and revenues are at the lowest point of the year.  Many in the industry currently favor mid-October through mid-November for an annual professional development conference. 

September is the Best Month: Diving equipment manufacturers have historically used a September launch.  Good marketers plan six months ahead of current day operations.  Most planning and prep-work is completed during the dog-days of summer. Sales meetings are conducted in August, and sales calls begin the day after Labor Day.  Retail buyers are in prime position to purchase new inventory after depleting their summer stock.  While the retail teaching staff is busy with the new fall classes, the store’s retail buyers can slip away for a few days to place their orders for the Christmas Holiday.

The Travel industry uses a September launch quite effectively.   During their slow time in September, Caribbean Buyers attend Surf Expo to place their apparel orders for the fall.  Taking care of diving equipment and travel orders in a September wholesale launch frees the global diving business network up for a larger and more comprehensive Professional Development Conference in mid-October or early November.  Introducing next year’s equipment lines in September and updating our Teaching Professionals in October allows the global diving business network to take full advantage of the fall and holiday shopping season, allows everyone to enjoy the holidays, and prepares the Retail Business Sector to be ready to introduce the new year and new dive season to the buying public.  It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN for everyone.

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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DIVE LOCAL – U.S. Dive Boats

Posted on September 7, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

DIVE LOCAL
U.S. Dive Boats
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Dive Boat Operators are one of the four pillars of local diving communities.  The four pillars of most every local diving community are the dive stores, dive boats, dive clubs, and dive instructors.  These four industry stakeholder groups are the ones responsible for building a local diving community, growing it, and maintaining it.  These full-time and part-time Dive Industry Professionals teach people how to dive, sell and service diving equipment, take people diving, and keep them active in our recreation.  Dive boat operators keep divers active.   

Although dive boats are an important segment of the recreational diving industry, we don’t feel that the industry has spent a sufficient amount of time or talent developing and managing this important and often ignored, stakeholder group.  The Dive Industry Association and the Dive Industry Foundation are committing our resources of time, money, and manpower to research, organize, and manage this important industry group.  We are not saying that the global diving industry has done nothing for dive boat operators during the past 60 years.   We are just saying that the industry has not done enough.  Especially in recent years.

Acknowledgement: The first thing we want to do is acknowledge the importance of boat diving and dive boat operators.  This sector of the recreational diving industry is an important industry segment and should be considered its own stakeholder group. While we are willing to provide industry research and our organizational talents and administrative expertise, the information collected, and the data that we analyze must come from active dive boat operators, who actively work in and operate dive boat operations.  The subjects that are important to this industry sector should be the focus of this stakeholder group.

Geographical Differences: Using the DIVE LOCAL concept that we created for organizing the Global Diving Business Network, we understand that boat diving operations vary tremendously, depending on their geographical location.  Hence, the necessity of segmenting the global territories into continents, countries, islands, territories, and states is absolutely necessary. 

Boat Diving Categories: When we look at boat diving across the globe, we need to point out the specific categories we are focusing on.  We are looking into boat diving as a personal recreational activity and commercial diving operations that are set up as a business.  Another differentiation should be day boat operations versus multi-day trips.  The size of the dive boats is important to consider, as is the different licenses and training that are required, such as a 6-pack license versus a 100-ton Captain’s License.  With the help of a handful of advisors that will make up our all-volunteer Board of Advisors, I am confident we can build a good foundation for this stakeholder group.

We also want to differentiate independent dive operators from resort owned dive operations.  We believe there is a significant operational difference between the two.  We want to put Liveaboard Dive Boats in a special category of its own so that we can research and manage the difference between a day boat operation with that of a muti-day charter.

Historical Dive Boat References: There are a number of dive media references we have available in our Diving Industry Business Reference Library that we use, to see what the global diving industry has done in the past for the dive operator’s stakeholder group.  One of the best media resources for dive boats and dive operators was Florida Scuba News.  In the 1990’s, the magazine listed their annual Florida Dive Operator Directory in every January issue.  According to our research, Florida Scuba News, and then Scuba News produced published 12 issues per year in 26 annual volumes from 1984 – 2009.  Our non-profit diving business research library has a total of 38 issues and are looking to complete our collection.

Eastern Dive Boat Association: The Eastern Dive Boat Association was founded in the Bronx, New York in 1975.  According to its association brochure, its mission statement is:  “The Eastern Dive Boat Association is an organization of dive boat owners, operators and members dedicated to providing cooperation among all dive boats, while promoting education, recreation, self-reliance, and responsibility in SCUBA diving.  Paramount to the accomplishment of its mission is the concurrent obligation to promote the conservation of the oceans, and assist in uncovering and preserving Earth’s history found in the world beneath its waters.”  In a recent phone call to the association, its President stated they were still active as association, although their membership is slowly declining and their website may not be as current as it should be.

Dive Boat Trade Associations: There are two trade associations that were instrumental in working with dive operators.  They were KADO – Keys Association of Dive Operators, Inc (1982) and FADO – Florida Association of Dive Operators, Inc (1993-2005).  We are hoping to interview a few of the pioneers who were active in those associations and record their accomplishments to our industry, and learn from them for future use.

Florida Dive Boat Listing: Based on the success we had with our U.S. Dive Store Directory on our DIVE LOCAL website, we started listing Florida Dive Boats  on its Florida page.  As we did with the dive stores, we began by listing known dive boats in Florida.  Unfortunately, not all dive boats are registered businesses and many of them do not have a current website or active mailing address.  We will continue our research of the dive boats that are active in the local diving community and list them by business names, city, state, and website address.  If one of our listings does not have a website url, we will delete it from our directory.  Our recommendation to dive stores that own and operate a dive boat, would be to create a separate page for their boat and use the page url to advertise their boat charter service to their customers.

U.S. Boat Diving Directory:  Once we complete our Florida Boat Diving Directory, we will expand or directory to include all the dive boats for charter in the United States.  After that, we go worldwide.  Our listings are free to Dive Boat Operators.  It’s our way of bringing more business to the Global Diving Business Network.

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   Ask about our Dive Industry Marketing & Consulting Services.

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Editorial – September 2025

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

Preparing for the New Season
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Every season has a beginning and an end.  When your season begins and ends is up to you.  In the global diving community, seasonality curves may differ, based on your geographic location, the stakeholder group you are associated with, or your sales and activity history.  Your season could begin or end on a calendar basis, coincide with a social event like the beginning of the school year, or be aligned with an industry trade show, like Surf Expo or the DEMA Show. 

Regardless of when your season begins and ends, your beginning should be signaled as a fresh start for both your company and your customers.  Starting fresh gives us the optimistic feeling that things are going to be better in the new season.  It’s a brand-new day and a new beginning kind of feeling.  I learned a valuable life lesson while reading a book called Holy Moments by Matthew Kelly.  I learned that every day is a new beginning and according to Kelly, “What matters most is what you do next.”   I took that advice to heart and now apply it to every new beginning, regardless of whether it’s a new day, week, month, or year.  Applying it to the beginning of every new season gives me a great psychological heads-up when I am starting a new season.

So, how do you get ready for the new season?  When we (my brother and I) started a new school year, my parents made sure we were physically ready and had seen our doctor, dentist, and barber.  Then we went shopping for new school clothes and school supplies.  When we arrived at school, we got our new books and study materials.  Today, getting ready for the new season is going to be a lot more involved than what it was as a child.  Maybe this is a good time to create a check list or a to-do list.  You may also want to create a not-to-do list!

Start with your business tools: Business is conducted by using business tools and marketing technologies.  Needless to say, our business tools get old, stale, and lose some of the speed and productivity they once had.  If we haven’t used a tool or technology frequently enough in the past season, they may or may not be operating at 100% capacity.  Now is the time to check them.  You should have listed all of your business tools and technologies in a company asset file.  I have them listed in our company’s “Playbook.”  Make sure you have the company and its contact information and any account numbers and user-names and passwords that belong to you.  It’s a good idea to log-in the date you first purchased the tool or program. 

Hardware & Software: Businesses are like people.  The older they get, the more baggage they have.  Baggage, unfortunately, gets worn, torn, and tattered with time.  Some of it becomes less effective or even useless with age.    Much like a boat, the less it gets used, the more maintenance it needs.  All of the hardware you use in operating your business should be checked.  That includes computers, monitors, printers, desk phones, mobile phones, iPads, and all of your electronic devices and accessories.  Make sure all of your software is current and in proper working order.  Is it the latest version or no more than one version less than the latest?  Much of the computer programs and mobile apps are offered in a monthly lease program.  This ensures that we are always using the most current software version available.  But you still have to check that you are familiar with and understand the current version.

Internet Accounts:  Internet accounts are something that business owners need to stay on top of.  Internet companies come and go, and in this day and age can be almost impossible to keep up with.  You don’t have to use all the programs that are available to business owners. You only need to use the ones that are a benefit to you.   As an example, if you use Facebook, make sure that your profile or business page is up-to-date and that you are posting to it often.  The last thing you want is a facebook page that hasn’t been used in two years.  Look at your account and try to see it through the eyes of your customer base.  Will your facebook page make you look good or bad?  If you haven’t posted to it in years, would people think your company is out of business?  The same thing goes for all of the other marketing and social media accounts.  If your not using it to its full extent, you may rethink using it at all.

Industry Contacts and Databases:  Before you do any business in the new season, make sure your contact databases are current.  Check to make sure the Key People in your supply chain are still your immediate contacts and that you have their current contact information.  People in the diving industry do switch companies, retire, and die.  Make sure you still know who’s who.  Most importantly, make sure your CRM database is current.  Your current customer list should be up-to-date.  If it isn’t, you have not been doing a good job of staying in touch with them.  Next, look over your former customer list and make any adjustments that are necessary.  Hold off on new customer contacts for now.  You’ll have plenty of time for that as the new season gets underway.

Give your Daily Operations a Once-Over:  Now that you have checked your tools and your contacts, it’s time to dry-run your daily operations.  This is your pre-season dress rehearsal.  Do a clean sweep of your physical location and make sure that the entire sales process of order entry, receiving, storing, merchandising, sales, shipping, and inventory control are in place and working as designed for peak performance.

Last But Not Least:  Before you start a new year or a new season, make sure you have closed the books on last year’s plans and have set new strategic goals and objective for the coming year.  But I am confident that if you have read this article this far and have prepared for the new season as recommended in the above text, you have already dealt with the pain and pleasure of strategically planning your new year.  If you have – You are my type of Dive Industry Professional.  If you have not – Please use our contact information below and call for an initial free consultation.  Have a great next season, and a successful one at that.

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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Editorial – August 2025

Posted on August 18, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

Be The Center of Your Universe
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

I used to say, “It’s your world, I just live in it.”  Not anymore.  After being a student of the recreational diving industry for fifty years, I’ve come to believe that there are two parts of the industry that every Dive Industry Professional needs to understand, so they could properly make plans to strategically conduct their business as it benefits them the most.

Number One: The Global Diving Community is what it is.  We study it. We understand how it works.  We know who the players are.  Big, small, and wannabe.  We know who has been, is now, and may in the future be successful.  And we have a pretty good understanding as to the reasons why.  It may be “their world” but it’s our sandbox.  The same sandbox we all play in.  To beat the odds, and remain competitively significant, we developed a strong Global Diving Business Network to help us gain and retain significant market penetration, which leads to sizable market share and a strong competitive edge.   It’s like traveling the Atlantic in a convoy instead of a solo crossing.  The larger our network grows, the more business we bring to each other.  There is safety and growth in numbers.

As students of the industry, we understand the annual seasonal flow of goods and services through the industry’s channels of distribution, and what economic criteria are responsible for its ebb and flow.  We have studied and analyzed variances in global seasonality curves.  We are aware of the significant events that shape the focus and priority of industry economic development activities.  And mostly, we understand how this industry world-view affects us.

Number Two: You Got To Know Yourself: Every boat is responsible for its own crossing.   A good ship has a Captain who knows the way and a crew that is all rowing in the same direction.  Each vessel (business) should have a purpose, a mission, a plan, and a strategy.  Everyone onboard should support their mission with 100% company-wide enthusiasm.  They have to believe in themselves and that, together as a team, will lead their company to a successful and sustainable future.

A wise business owner builds their business from the inside and plans strategically outward.  Start by establishing your purpose for being in business.  What are you trying to achieve?  Create a mission that can be completed by well-designed goals and objectives.  Employ actionable items that are known for producing results.  Learn to measure your actionable items and their results.  Always employ the right people to work with you.  Build your own universe and always try to be the center of that universe.

As a Dive Industry Professional, you must realize that your company is not the only company in the industry.  If you are a scuba retailer in the United States, there are 900 other dive stores in the market with you.  Manufacturers know what it is like to call on the same small group of qualified retail buyers, within a short, pre-selected time frame. And Dive Resorts have their own challenges, differentiating themselves from a thousand other competitors in the dive and adventure travel industry.   But the wise seek counsel and we are glad you are here.

To become a great company in the diving industry, you need more than to have a good product made by a good company.  After you become the center of your own universe, remind yourself that you are still only half the way there.  You’ll never make it out of your inner circle of influence if you continue to beat your chest and shout, we are the best, we are the best!  You have to look outward and convince potential buyers that you are better than your competitors.  You have to give them a reason to believe in and buy from you.  You have to get them to beat their chest and shout that you are the best!

Selling to the market is what the art and science of marketing are all about.  Your Marketing Team needs to understand the market.  The market is made up of buyers and sellers.  It’s also made up of places where business is transacted.  They are called marketplaces.  You have to know who the buyers are and who the other sellers are in these markets.  There are many roads (channels of distribution) to many markets, carrying an abundance of marketing vehicles, usually with similar, if not the same, marketing messages.   Your job is to recognize the best marketing routes that lead to the most productive markets.  A major mistake made by many vendors in our industry is that they default to using the most commonly trafficked roads to an exhausted, declining, and unproductive market.

As a Trade Association, our mission is to bring Buyers & Sellers together.  We spend a lot of our resources (time, money, manpower) building a unified Global Diving Business Network.  One of our primary research programs is to identify potential buyers of diving equipment, training, travel, and lifestyle products.  Understanding consumer behavior is more than just knowing about the demographics, geographics, gender-graphics, and psychographics of potential buyers.  It’s about finding fresh, new markets and building new bridges, roads, and channels of distribution that connect Buyers with Sellers.   

Becoming the center of your universe doesn’t end inside the confines of your business.  It extends into the market where you develop alliances and partnerships with your vendors, business associates, and customers.  It’s analyzing the way your internal operations and corporate culture function in the industry.  Are the established marketing channels of distribution working for you?  Are the predominant seasonality curves in line with your buying and selling activities?  Are the current industry shows and events bringing you a satisfactory return on investment?  Does their annual and geographical scheduling still work for you?

Being the center of your universe is about being in control of the industry variables that you can control and working productively with the elements you have no control over.  It’s also about changing or fine tunning how you do things inside your company walls and outside in the marketplace.  It’s knowing how to work in and around the industry at maximum performance.

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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Editorial – July 2025

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

Being Results Oriented
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

Welcome to the New World of Work.  21st Century businesses are not looking for employees based on what they know or what they can do anymore.  They want team members who get things done.  They want team members who focus on results.  The best way to consistently achieve your company’s planned objectives is to be results oriented.  Are you?   In today’s fast-paced business environment, it’s all about actionable inputs that achieve productive outcomes.  It’s exponentially more than, What have you done for me lately?  As an employer I want to know what you are going to do (actionable items) to achieve our planned business objectives, and how long it will take you.  Your company needs to be able to measure your results so that everyone in the company will know when you have achieved your objectives.

We don’t live in a fantasy world of reaches, likes, and clicks anymore.  Our professional net worth and career longevity is now based on our ability to convert actions into achievements.  Now, I have to stop here and remind our diving businesses that achieving successful outcomes in support of our goals and objectives is everyone’s responsibility.  As a unified team of Dive Industry Professionals, we have to agree on what is important to our business.  We have to prioritize or goals and objectives and allocate adequate company resources of time, money, and manpower to do the things necessary to achieve them.  We have to know how we are going to achieve our objectives and have an action plan to implement our actionable items.  It’s important to be able to measure our results so that we know when our planned objectives are effectively achieved.  None of this is remotely possible unless we hire the right people who know how to focus on results and know how to get the job done.

Hiring the right people to manage your company is important, but management can only go so far if they don’t have a solid vision or mission statement that guides them.  I was speaking with a training agency executive about his lack of competitive market penetration in the dive store and dive resort sectors of the global diving business network.  I was trying to convince him how important market penetration is in gaining acceptance for his brand, capturing market share, and providing employment opportunities and student referrals for his Instructors.  I also tried to drive home the point that without a decent market penetration strategy, his training agency would never get the opportunity to show the global diving community how beneficial their integrated program could be.

When Dive Operators and Diving Resorts are looking to fill a Divemaster or Instructor vacancy, they are looking for more than a qualified candidate to do a job.  They are looking for an individual who is well trained, currently qualified, and ready to perform their skills as a functioning member of their dive staff.  When a dive staff candidate realizes they will be held accountable for the results they produce, they will give more thought to what they are bringing to the table in a job interview.  It helps the candidate prepare for the interview if they know in advance what their employer’s priorities are and what they focus on as their unique selling proposition.  It could be conducting guided tours, teaching diving programs and specialty classes, conducting instructor training programs, or simply conducting open water referrals for their network of dive store customers and agency affiliated Instructors.  Whatever is important to the dive operation, now becomes important to the dive operation manager and their staff.  So, my question to our training agency executive is, “How does your brand fit into this Dive Resort’s business strategy?” 

There are a lot of good companies in the diving industry.  Most of these companies have good people working for them.  But being a good employee in a good company is not enough in our 21st century diving industry business environment.  Just being good does not give us the competitive edge we need to become great.  I believe that becoming great can only happen when we unleash our good employees by giving them challenging goals and holding them accountable for their achievement.  When we create aspirational goals that are bold, yet achievable, we unleash the greatness in our employees that enables our companies to transition from good to great.  When the company works together to achieve their goals and objectives, they have a much higher propensity to grow their company.  And a growing company is an inspiration to the rest of their industry because if one company can become overwhelming successful by being results oriented, the rest of the industry can too.

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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Editorial – June 2025

Posted on June 29, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

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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Measuring What Matters

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Gene Muchanski

Measuring What Matters
 by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional

There is an old saying, “What you watch, grows.”  And yet, any Chef will tell you that a watched pot never boils.  So, who are we to believe?  I believe we should take “old sayings” with a grain of salt.  In the business world, we need to do more than watch our business.  Much more.  We need to understand what our business was designed for, what its purpose is, what is does to achieve its goals and objectives, and measure how well it is performing its mission.  But it doesn’t end with just measuring our performance.  Good business management is about analyzing our performance and modifying our action plan to achieve the results we had originally planned for.

What a Business Does: Businesses sell programs, products, and services for compensation. I know that comes as a shock to all of you who hate business, but the truth is that; The art and science of business is an exchange of something of value between a buyer and a seller. Think about all the companies you know in the diving industry that create, provide, distribute, or resell programs, products, and services.  They are all sellers of their wares, looking for people who need, want, and can afford what they are selling.  Even non-profit organizations are considered businesses because they provide services in return for donations from donors.  In fact, the non-profit industry is BIG Business.  Same thing with Colleges and Universities.  They are in the business of educating our students and consulting our businesses.  So business is a good thing because it provides a valuable service to its customers while providing jobs for our population.  But even if a business is not totally focused on profit above all else, it needs to operate sensibly enough to stay in business in order to continue to perform its purpose and mission for its people.

Purpose & Mission of a Business: We know that businesses have a purpose, and they execute that purpose by performing their mission.  We can safely say that business owners define the purpose of their business, and they hire management to define and execute their mission.  A good owner needs to do the right things, and a good manager needs to do things right.  The company management hires employees to do the work that needs to be done in accordance with the purpose and mission of the company.

A Five-Point Strategy for Successful Business Management: Good businesses plan their operational strategy and execute their strategy as planned.  (Plan Your Dive – Dive Your Plan).  Sometimes it brings in the results that were anticipated, sometimes it does not.  Here is our recommended 5-point strategy for completing your company mission. 1) Be aware of your situation.  2) Educate your owners, directors, management, and employees.  3) Plan your strategy based on your available options. 4) Execute your plan using the best business tools and marketing technologies available.  5) Review and analyze your outcomes and revise as necessary.

Awareness: Dive Industry Professionals need to be aware of what they are doing from a business perspective as well as from a diving perspective.  First of all, you have to be aware of all diving related subjects that pertain to your specialty.  That could be manufacturing, retailing, instruction, travel, or non-profit management.  Second, on your list of awareness should be the diving industry and its niche market.  Last, but certainly not least, is your awareness of the art and science of business.  If you are going to be in business, selling what you love, you have to know how to run a business.  Allow me to drive this point home for you.  In the 50 years I have been studying the Retail Dive Store industry, I have compiled data on over 4,000 dive stores in the United States that have opened for business at one time or another.  Our current count of dive stores open for business in the U.S. is approximately 900 dive stores.

Education: Education and Experience go hand in hand.  The more education you start with, the more likely you are to avoid the pitfalls of experience.  Or so they say.  This should not be a difficult concept for scuba instructors to appreciate. Most of us learned to dive from a certified instructor before we started diving on our own.  Educating divers before allowing them to dive or purchase diving equipment has made our recreation as safe as it could be.  It should be that way for aspiring business owners too.

Planning: It’s foolish to romanticize winging it or flying by the seat of your pants when it comes to operating life support equipment in a potentially dangerous environment.  That goes double for starting a business.  Especially a business in a small niche market, with low or declining revenues and a declining client base!  Good planning is a wise thing to do if you want to increase your odds for success in this market.  I have always preached that it is better to plan your business start-up on paper before you invest your hard-earned time, money, and manpower in a business enterprise.  Good planning will make you aware of what you are getting into, and it will teach you what you need to know beforehand.  Not everything, but more than if you didn’t do any planning.  I’ve always said that it doesn’t cost anything to fail on paper, but a real-time business loss can be devastating.

Action: With a good written plan in front of you, blazing new trails is less intimidating and more inviting.   Especially if you have an experienced businessperson on your team that has been there and done that before.  More than once is even better.  A good Action Plan may help you hit the ground running in business and give you increased motivation and perhaps some degree of a competitive edge.  I know that some of my military peers would say that every battle plan goes out the window at the sign of first conflict, but we’ll leave that discussion for another day.  The whole reason for creating a good action plan is to increase your chances of success by contemplating as many likely scenarios as possible before actually going into business.

This is the point where most good managers stop.  Awareness-Education-Planning-Action.  Now, let me tell you about Step 5, where all the magic happens.  It reminds me of the “Missing Chapter” of the business planning book that only Great Managers read.  This step that brings all of your work out in the open, where you can see the cause and effect of your actions, and where you can see improvement and success happening at every turn.  It’s called:

Review, Analyze, & Revise: Step 5 is where the rubber meets the road.  It’s the step that transports you from theory to reality.  It’s the point where academia meets real business.  It’s the point where you will find great business leaders getting things done.  It’s the point where you need to be.

Begin to Collect Data: Step 5 is all about analyzing the outcomes that are created by what your business does.  Before we begin to analyze everything we do in business, we have to determine what is important to us.  Every industry is different and every business within an industry may have different things that are important to them.  Start with your business purpose.  What does your business do? What brings in your greatest source of revenue?  If you teach diving classes, start to collect data on the types of courses you teach and the number of students you enroll in each class.  I would label this “Sales in Units.”  Next, I would record the dollars brought in from teaching these courses.  Call this “Sales in Dollars.”    If there are direct costs involved in these courses, record the data as “Cost of Units Sold.”  Now you are in a position to plan your sales strategy, to increase or decrease activity.  Decide how you are going to accomplish your strategy, give it a time limit, and then analyze the results from your campaign.  You can do the same thing for tracking sales, dive trips, charter dives, club members, etc.  Whatever is important to you, and your business needs to be tracked, recorded, reviewed, analyzed, and revised as necessary.

I have been recording our daily sales for years.  We usually compare this year’s gross sales to those of last year.  At any point in time, I can tell you if we are up or down in sales and by what percentage.  We’ve outgrown the lazy response of better, the same, or worse than last year!  Our company has been tracking exhibitors at dive shows and trade expos for 20 years.  We can tell just by looking at our graphs, which shows are heading for extinction.  You don’t need a crystal ball to tell which shows & events are not analyzing their exhibitor data.

To stress the importance of recording your activity and using it to increase your awareness, education, planning, and action strategy, let’s look at a simple weight management exercise.  Rather than have a goal of “weight loss”, let’s make our goal “healthy weight management.”   Our awareness starts off by knowing that weight management is simply “calories in minus calories out.”  In other words, if you consume more calories than you use, you gain weight.  If you consume less calories than you burn, you lose weight.  We start off by increasing our awareness of food and activity.  That leads to our education about food and exercise, which helps in our planning a strategy of eating less calories than we burn, if we want to lose weight.  To be successful at this exercise we have to record everything we eat and record all of our physical activities.  (This is an over-simplification).  The magic happens as we enter Step 5 to record what is important to us.  We learn about calories, carbs, proteins, etc. and we learn about various forms of activity that burn the calories we consume.  The more we learn, and the better we get at planning our strategy, the more our actions will produce outcomes that result in weight loss and other benefits.  You can actually get to a point where you are simply “tweaking” variables and components to your action plan when you are in Step 5.  An additional positive outcome from a healthy weight management program is that you may realize additional benefits that correlate to a balanced blood chemistry level. (Again, an over simplification).

My whole point is that business activity has a cause and effect on outcomes that are produced by your strategy.  By measuring the results of your action plan and analyzing the data, you can fine tune your planned outcomes for maximum effectiveness.  If you are a good manager who wants to be a great manager, you’ll find what you desire in Step 5.

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   Ask about our Dive Industry Marketing & Consulting Services.

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