Monthly Archives: September 2011
Use changes to Enriched Air Diver standards to enhance your business!
Are you missing a marketing opportunity following recent changes to the Enriched Air Diver standards?
The minimum age for the PADI Enriched Air Diver course has been revised and amended to 12 years old. This standards change took place in the third quarter 2011 Training Bulletin and is effective immediately.
With the proliferation of effective, economical dive computers on the market, an increasing number of divers are using dive computers to plan their dives. The Enriched Air Diver Specialty course has been updated and revised to now allow instructors to teach the use of nitrox using dive computers, ensuring this popular course remains updated and cutting edge.
As part of this update, the minimum age for students enrolling into the PADI Enriched Air Diver course has been amended to 12 years old, making it a training option for many more families of divers, on holiday or at home.
Instructor Level Courses – Promotional Materials
We’ve talked about PADI Go Pro nights at PADI Course Director Updates and Member Forums in previous years, and also covered the ’7 Warm Touches’ marketing and sales approach during the PADI Member Forum 2011.
Many of you are already contacting your customers with enhanced emails using the EVE Auto Email Agent, and some of you are producing very high quality promotional material to send to your divers (remember; warm touches isn’t just about emailing people).
PADI produce some very high quality promotional material to assist you in Professional Level Course aquistion, and we’re now offering two products to help you out, as a stupidly low price (I argued with Blaize and Matt that the price should be higher…).
The ‘Get a Life DVD’ is now retailing for £1.00 + VAT
The Go-Pro Planner is now retailing for £0.50 + VAT.
Both of these items fit nicely together to create a unique direct marketing pack that you can send along to prospective IDC candidates, and include your own unique message and sales proposition.
Minimum order quantity is 10 of each, and they’ve already started to be bought up by larger centres wanting inexpensive promotional material. I’d recommend you don’t hang around and get in touch with Matt (0117 300 7318), Barry (0117 300 7322) or Blaize (0117 300 7317) to order your promotional items now.
Time Management
Without a doubt, most of us seem to have very little time, and what we do with that resource is critically important to our business.
In this webinar, we’re going to look at some symptoms of poor time management, and a couple of case studies. There will be a tiny amount of homework (we mean miniscule!), and some interaction from people who have suffered as a result of bad time management.
The webinar will be held on Wednesday, September 28th at 7:30 PM (we’re scheduling out of office hours so everyone can eat, feed children, close dive centres and then sit down with a clear head).
Register for the webinar here:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/737060169
Remember, you can send this link along to non-PADI Members who may work for you, so feel free to share. All attendance will be kept confidential (your staff won’t know you’re online, and you won’t know they’re online, unless you expressly want us to share the information).
We look forward to meeting you online.
Google + (Plus)
Google + is now out of beta testing and available for anyone to register. Head on over to http://plus.google.com and we’ll see you there for a hangout or a huddle.
Deal or no deal?
Deal or No Deal – the ‘How to Guide’ for voucher deals
We have already written an information document about the potential positives and pit falls for running a ‘voucher deal’ campaign for SCUBA diving courses. But have YOU really thought about what effect it is going to have on the profitability of your business?
We have designed simple Microsoft Excel documents called the ‘voucher deal calculators’ which will help you think about the direct costs (pool, entry fees, training materials and staff wages where applicable) and potential profitability. This will help you make a more informed decision as to whether to run a specific voucher deal or potentially measure one you are already running.
There are 3 ‘voucher deal calculators’ for you to choose from:
a) Voucher deal calculator 1 (for courses with academics, confined and open water dives)
b) Voucher deal calculator 2 (for courses with academics and/or confined water dives only)
c) Voucher deal calculator 3 (for courses with academics and/or open water dives only)
They have been designed with several work sheets. The worksheets which have blue tabs require you to fill in information about your deal including the direct costs, the yellow tab looks at the potential income and the green tab shows you the potential net profits for the voucher deal.
On each of the worksheets with a blue tab, there are cells with blue writing in which indicate that you have to put in information
(numbers) into the box next to it. The voucher deal calculator will then fill in the other sections as appropriate and you can then see if the proposed or current voucher deal is profitable or not for your business.
Be aware that the voucher deal calculators do not factor in any indirect costs to running these courses such as equipment wear and tear, insurance etc. It is important to note these voucher deal calculators are to be used as a guide only and you should do further research before you agree to any contracts or deals with a company. PADI are in no way responsible for any decisions you make.
The most important information however is contained on the final worksheet surprisingly titled ‘IMPORTANT INFORMATION’ which shows the importance of converting a ‘voucher’ customer into a ‘standard’ and loyal customer who continues with their diving.
The conversion of a ‘voucher’ customer to a ‘standard’ customer can be done by setting up a promotional ‘warm touch’ campaign using
pre-formatted email templates and if you are an EVE user this can be done in conjunction with the EVE Auto Email Agent.
Click on the ‘voucher deal calculator 1’, ‘voucher deal calculator 2’ and ‘voucher deal calculator 3’ links to see them in action with Google Docs using some fake data. In these test ones the worksheet tabs are not colour coded and you will not be able to make any changes but at least you get the idea!
If you like what you see then click the ‘download voucher deal calculators’ link which will take you to an eSurvey (only takes 60 seconds) which you need to complete and then once you submit it we will then respond with an email that has the links to download all three.
