Wages for Diving Instructors: Paid Enough?

[wreckweasel]

Originally Posted by chrisch

Bout time to change technique then mate....

Chris

Apparently I have to spread it around before 'giving it to you again'... woof!

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by wreckweasel

Apparently I have to spread it around before 'giving it to you again'... woof!

Oh bugger...

[Early Rub-up]

lets look how much is spent in time and materials lets see some figures for books and envolopes padi fees (if there paid upto date) insurance air fills equipment repair and maintenance then the course price and how many students on average a year then run the poll again
average ow is between £250 - £300 per person and that should include book and the form that gets sent too padi

[Martin Burnard]

If people know no better, then you do not have to compete on price.
I agree you cannot be silly with your pricing (actually you can, target the rich who wish to be pampered, one to one, turn it into an adventure, but thats another issue).

What it does require is a salesperson working for you. I do not mean somebody who answers the phone, works the till, puts stuff on the shelf, I MEAN a SALES person!!!!

When was the last time a dive centre took the telephone number of somebody who enquired and asked them where they got thier number from. If they didn't book a course over the phone, then followed up by phoning them back to "help if possible", ascertained why they have not booked yet, over come the persons objections, re-iterated the features/advantages/benefits of booking with this dive centre.

Sales people take longer to train properly than managers think, some sales people are good naturally, but 99% need training.

How much money does the average dive centre spend on training their sales staff to sell...... I suspect nothing.

I often encounter people in dive centres who can give information (excellent!), but unless I ask to buy it, they do not take my money.

There is nothing wrong with asking people for their money (They are in a shop!).

At the end of the day if the only reason you give for somebody doing a course with you and not somebody is "because I want you to" then thats probably more then anybody has said!!!

OK back to a dark corner.

[eddy]

Originally Posted by Janos

it can lead to fakeness and insincerity. "Have a Nice Day"

Agreed it might sounds fake but its just the way the yanks are, i lived in the midwest for a year and i got it every day by people older, younger even the same age as me and its was normal. I've even taken to doing it myself in the UK, although if you show respect in the sence of calling someone "sir" people think you are being cheaky.

My DM on holiday was great and i tipped him what i thought was just for the work he did. I also tip in the UK if i think i get good service whether or not i know the person is paid well or not, because its a personal touch which shows you appreciate that the person has done a great job.

Take pride in what you do and you will (most of the time) be appreciated.

Eddy

[duff]

Heres some figures for you to think about.
i am an independant instructor and i have just started an open water course with 2 students. the costs are as follows:
pool fees: 2 students,dm, inst =£50
Equipment for studnets: =176 inc air fills
PADI Crew pacs and dvds:57
Cert cards: 27.02
travel to pool: 20
air for inst: 21
travel to open water site: 50

total: 401.02

course cost £300 per student
leaves 198.98

pool session and knowledge dev hours: min 12.5
open water hours: min12
total: min 24.5
8.12 per hour

however that doesnt factoring in the ongoing costs of instructor fees, insurance, maintenance etc and also assumes that students have no problems requiring extra theory or pool sessions.

duff

[yellowduke]

I am going to be training to be an instructor myself soon, DM to OWSI. Once qualified I will be looking at £60 a day in London. Fortunately I am not looking at doing this for a living but as a way to finance my diving so I can progress onto some tech courses in the future. I also want to teach my brother who is interested but hasn't quite the time or the money free to do it right now. It is always handy to have an alternative career to fall back on too!

Jim

[Terrible_Ivan]

Originally Posted by Martin Burnard

What it does require is a salesperson working for you. I do not mean somebody who answers the phone, works the till, puts stuff on the shelf, I MEAN a SALES person!!!!

When was the last time a dive centre...

Martin, I fully agree with you. The majority of shop staff that I have come across in diveshops in Australia, Singapore, Norway and UK are really bad salespeople. It is my impression that most shop staff are people who really like diving and who works in the store to work close to things they like. Actually selling gear, courses and trips are the last thing on their list of priorities.

I walked into a diveshop in Central London yesterday and told the guy behind the counter that I just moved to UK after living the past 7 years in the tropics. When I asked about UK trips, I was told that UK is pretty lousy compared to where I used to live and it wasn't much recommended. Drysuits were all pretty much sold out. I have a slightly unusual shape (tall but not fat) the guy missed the point and pointed out that few suits would fit me, instead of telling me about the suits that actually would fit me. I asked about what reels were recommended (I don't have one) and was told that it all depends on the type of diving, couldn't really give any recommendations, although they had only one type in the shop.

Being a bit more switched on to sales, the guy should of course have told me about their intro to UK diving short courses, UK diving trips, tried to find a drysuit that would fit, and told me that the reel they have in stock is suitable for most types of diving here and recommend it to me.

Perhaps introducing commissions would work. I worked part-time as DM in Singapore/Malaysia on 100% commission based myself. It's a bit uncomfortable to call around to people I've got fairly close to and nag at them to come along. We all know that diving is also about the trip itself, and sometimes it feels as if I'm calling the people just to get money from them and not because I want to hang out with them. But this is the way it is when you work with something you actually like to do.

What needs to be communicated to the staff is that although you are working in an industry you like, your real job is to bring in money for the company - through trips, courses and gear. Get people on trips and courses and they will buy gear.

Perhaps another problem is that most diveshops are run by divers who love diving, and who are not really that hardcore business minded themselves. If the owner isn't focused on selling, the staff won't be either.

A shop to learn from is the Halcyon importer in Singapore. They are keen on taking your contact details on the first visit to their shop. After that, they will stay in touch and updated you very frequently on new product arrivals, new trips and new courses. They employed a pretty girl who actually know how to sell, but is not a hardcore diver herself. She'll not just send out mass emails, but also be on the phone once in a while to stay in touch. This is about the only shop I've been to that actively tries to sell to me.

This got a bit long... hopefully not everyone are asleep by now

Cheers
Ivan

[Scuby]

With all these people adding up the costs and saying "ooooh look, it costs £xxx to run a course" and "the instructor needs to earn something"... well yes, possibly! I'm basing this mostly on duff's post, but same principles apply to everyone.
If you're doing a few students in your spare time then of course you can't expect to earn your first £million from it. If you used a pool every day or whatever then you'd no-doubt get discounts on that. Equipment costs of £176 for 2 students is just silly - I could run a course for one person, buy the kit and say that it cost me £4000 per person to teach them to dive, but we can all see thats rubbish. Similarly if you have to rent equipment at commercial rates for your students then the cost is going to be huge: the solution, is to teach more students and kit maintenance / replacement will be a tiny fraction of the figure you quote. PADI costs won't change much I don't expect. Not entirely sure where you're based, but the costs for travel seem very high too - £20 to get to the pool a few times? Thats around 200 miles worth of travel, maybe a closer pool would help! Air fills, like equipment, would be far less if you were doing this full time, based in a shop or whatever, and had your own compressor instead of again paying commercial rates for air fills.

The point of this is that there are always lots of people saying that they don't earn enough as an instructor, trying to justify why they charge £xxx more than anyone else for a course, when the problem is not PADI, diving, or anything else. The problem is expecting to earn money doing something without the commitment that many others may put into it (not referring to anyone inparticular now...). Simple business, economies of scale.

If you want to make money from diving, then you need to be good, you need to be committed, and a bit of business sense. I've seen lots of posts from people who complain that wages in diving are too low. If thats the case, then do something else - simple! If you don't want to do anything else because diving is what you enjoy, then you'll have to accept that diving isn't going to be the big money spinner you thought, or otherwise find something that you can offer that others don't - whether thats just being a good instructor, clever management to minimise costs or whatever.

David

[Martin Burnard]

I agree with the last 2 posts in that they are saying the same thing in a round about way...

I shall keep this short

Enjoy diving? Work in the dive industry teaching and selling..
Not earning enough?... increase your value..
How? cann't teach more so sell more!
Earn more? You push up the stores takings and show its you... ask the store owner for a % more money... if store owner says no then go else where because the owner is stupid!!!
BUT if business is quiet play ball keep your head down work hard and keep your job when somebody else looses theirs.

Thats life!