Yet another advantage of being an International Training member.

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wnl safety and first aid equipmentProfessional level members of Scuba Diving International™ Technical Diving International™ and Emergency Response Diving International™ can now enjoy the very best pricing on the very best safety products and supplies from WNL Safety Products of Massachusetts. These supplies include a full inventory of items to run effective CPROX1st AED programs (among others) as well as supplies for on-site, on-board, and in-store emergency first-aid kits.

The formal agreement between International Training and WNL was announced jointly today by Sean Harrison, V-P Training and Membership Services for International Training and Wayne Eddy, owner of WNL, and is effective immediately.

“We are very happy to be able to offer WNL products to all our members across all three agencies,” Harrison said. “WNL Safety Products is synonymous with quality and its award winning products such as the Family First Aid Kit and the Ready-To-Go Emergency Preparedness Kit. WNL has experience delivering precisely the supplies and support equipment that dive operations need in a timely no-nonsense fashion.”

Harrison added that ITI members will enjoy special pricing and that supplies can be ordered from TDI/SDI/ERDI website. Once members log in to https://www.tdisdi.com site using their normal username and password, they will be provided a coupon code to enter when they check out to receive a 10 percent discount on their purchase.

WNL Safety Products has been a leading supplier of first aid and CPR training products to both independent and national training organizations since 1995. In that time, WNL has become one of the largest original equipment suppliers in the United States. Since 2000 the company has served the health and safety training market, providing OEM Products to some of the largest and most respected training organizations, including The American Red Cross, The American Heart Association, National Safety Council, and others.

 

For more details, visit https://www.tdisdi.com

Effective Business Management is about balance

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I was asked yesterday to give some thought to exactly what it takes to run a successful retail operation. Any retail operation, even a candy store at the main gates of the largest public school in the state, takes a special mix of skills, but I have to think that running a retail store in the dive industry is a special case.
 
One disadvantage for me is that I have owned a share of a retail store, but never worked in one, so my list is probably going to be short a skill or two. But after less than two minutes, I had come up with a list of close to 20 hats that the average dive retailer may be asked to wear from day-to-day! See how it compares to yours.
·                     Product Buyer
·                     Merchandiser
·                     Human Resources Professional + Baby-sitter
·                     Marketing Guru
·                     Salesperson
·                     Customer Relations Manager
·                     Bookkeeper
·                     Cleaner and Coffee Boy/Girl
·                     Motivational Speaker
·                     Community Advocate
·                     Underwater Photographer
·                     Travel Advisor
·                     Equipment Specialist and Service Technician
·                     Educator and Mentor
·                     General Contractor
·                     Welder and Metal Fabricator
·                     Mechanic
·                     Website Designer and IT manager
·                     Father Confessor
 
Now the majority of those are self-explanatory; and some less so. But for the record, here’s my take on each of them.
 

 

hatsClean.jpgProduct Buyer / Merchandiser

 

Making the right choices about what gear to sell, has to be right up there with how to display it and how much of it to have sitting around gathering dust out in the stock room; so savvy buyer and display artist is right up there as hats one and two.
 

 

Human Resources Professional + Baby-sitter

 

Opening a shop and keeping it open to suit customers needs, translates into hiring staff in most cases, hence the HR hat. The mention of baby-sitting may simply be a product of my past and experience, and your mileage may vary so we can take that as an optional extra under consideration. At very least, hiring staff, training staff, motivating staff, retaining staff can eat a serious hole into a work week. At worst it can be a bona fide full-time ticket to despair. Certainly it deserves a place on the list.
 

 

Marketing Guru / Salesperson

 

Marketing and Sales are probably two listings that would get the greatest buy-in from anyone in retail. The process of building a marketing plan and the art of closing a sale, are essential to remaining in business… any business! In truth, many would argue that marketing includes sales, but I vote for listing them individually.
 

 

Customer Relations Manager

 

According to most of the textbooks, marketing also includes customer relations since one of the five P’s of marketing is People. Most business people subscribe to the adage that it is easier and more cost effective to keep an old customer than find a new one, and retention is mostly about managing the personal relationship we have with our customers, and since this skill is key to building a loyal following and growing a business, it deserves its own listing.
 

Bookkeeping

Well, it’s late April as I write this and the after-effects of the panic to get tax returns in on deadline is still fresh. With all that in mind, bookkeeping and its attendant filing, paper work, basic knowledge of federal tax law, state or provincial tax regulations and local fees and licensing , is a strong enough incentive to add it to the list.

 

 

Cleaner and Coffee Boy/Girl

 

Small to medium-sized business: cleaner (decorator) provider of coffee, hot tea, doughnuts and other refreshments… yep, sounds about right. Even the divisional head of IBM Europe used to arrive with a couple of boxes of muffins for “the team” most Friday mornings. Perhaps a trivial touch but a little boost for morale which can never be a bad thing, so this ‘skill’ is absolutely on the list.
 

 

Motivational Speaker / Community Advocate

 

Including Motivational Speaker and Community Advocate may be a bit of a stretch but I put them in the listing because both are important aspects of growing a business in any sized town or city. Both offer great opportunities to recruit new customers and to increase community awareness of diving; the adventure sport and tech diving represents, as well as the commitment to serve that is part of Public Safety Diving. Presentation made to service clubs, social groups, schools and colleges and the like are hugely effective marketing tools. Because of this, they are on the list.
 

 

Underwater Photographer / Travel Advisor

 

One of the real joys of diving is the visual impact of what is down there under the waves. I’ve read poems about coral reefs and read stories about marine wildlife, wreck diving, exploring caves and lots of other underwater activities, but they all pale beside the photograph that’s on the wall behind my computer. (It’s a picture of a diving flying a scooter over the second breakdown at Jackson Blue Springs.) Photography sells diving.
 
And while local diving were you are is probably stellar, travel to prime dive destinations, is part and parcel of closing the sale for many dive ops. Actually, the travel advisor hat should really be two; one for being an out-bound operator (sending groups to remote destinations); and one for acting as an in-bound operator welcoming groups to your area. So one hat but it has to be big enough to cover a lot of territory.
 

Equipment Specialist and Service Technician

Since diving is an equipment-intensive pastime, the next item on the list is a given. Equipment set-up and maintenance is, or should be, a big item on the year-end revenue statement for a successful dive store, and so we have one more hat to wear.

 

Educator and Mentor

Does your store offer diver education? Of course you do. Formal education and less formal mentoring are part and parcel of being a member of SDI, TDI and ERDI so now issues with this list item.

 

 

General Contractor / Welder and Metal Fabricator / Mechanic

 

I added general contractor because when I owned a share of a retail store, I spent countless hours building stuff and then repairing it. This ran the gamut from replacing slate roof tiles to insulating a crawl space, building a display case, plumbing in a shower and washtub, and converting a Harry Potter sized broom cupboard into an oxygen clean workroom.
 
I threw in welder and metal worker just in case there was a boat involved in the operations. Same goes for mechanic. Strike these two off the list if they do not apply, but leave them in if there is a charter boat in your future.
 

 

Website Designer and IT manager

 

Probably most of you do some degree of your business over the Internet. Internal networks, public websites, commercial secure servers and generally being wired have all become woven into the fabric of doing business in the 21st Century, so much so that I included website designer and IT manager in the list.
 

Father Confessor.

I mentioned earlier I’ve never working over the counter in a retail business, but my grandfather owned and ran a couple of pubs and one of many “life lessons” he passed on was about having a willingness to listen to customers and staff when they had to get something off their chest. Never sure why the service industries seem to extend to being asked to comment on everything from finding a suitable university for Junior, to tips on training a new puppy not to pee in the house; but it happens apparently. In a recent study in small businesses operating in the Euro Zone by the Chartered Management Institute, an average of close to an hour of management time each day is spent dealing with personnel issues that fall way outside the purview of business. Add one more hat.

 
I suspect that if we took apart the required skill set for running almost any business, the listing would be as long as the one above. There is no secret to being successful in business, it takes adaptability and a willingness to roll up your sleeves and try something new. However, there are a couple of things that business people have to face up to if they want their business to truly grow.
 
Firstly, and probably most importantly, as the business owner, you cannot hope to be good at every skill. You have to balance your core strengths with what your business needs and leave the rest to someone else.
 
This is one of the most difficult truths for business owners to accept. Getting a small business off the ground often requires its owner to be a jack of all trades. New business owners have to wear a lot of hats and have to present a convincing picture with every one of them on their head. But the really smart entrepreneurs learn to delegate as many tasks as possible as soon as possible, and then stand back and not get in the way.
Perhaps the primary failure point of growing any business is the owner’s inability to hand responsibility AND authority to his managers. Staff who thrive on responsibility (and do not shirk from accountability) are a company’s most valuable asset. Owners who decide which hats they like to wear and “look best wearing,” and who can then delegate responsibility and authority for all the others to others, grow themselves and their business.
But, the best way to mess up this scenario is to miss the second half of the equation; Authority. Giving staff the responsibility to undertake a task but leaving out the part about authority, defeats the object.
Not giving authority is the same as saying “I don’t trust you with this hat… you can wear it but it is mine when I want it back.”  This message is loud and clear to your staff, and to your customers too. Once they understand that you don’t trust your staff, and they will find that out, they will not trust them either.
Most small business owners are skeptical about giving authority. They know there will be mistakes, outright failures, and retrenching periods. The seed change is letting these events pass and writing them off as part of the process of moving the company forward.
The second point is that as the person managing the business from the highest seat in the house – president, CEO, Chairman, call it what you will – you do not need to be an expert in anything; you simply need to recognize one when you see one.
 
But human nature being what it is we all want to know which skill is the most important for a senior manager / business owner and which hat is the most prestigious. When the head of a large industrial manufacturer was asked to name his most important job, he did not hesitate for a second in answering: “I only have one job, the ability to listen and actually hear what was being told to me. Everything else I leave to the team I work with.”
 
Now that is a fine looking hat!

 

Value of Using the Online Leadership Training Programs

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 By Dennis Pulley

 

In 2009 SDI completely revised the divemaster, assistant instructor and open water scuba diver instructor leadership training programs. In addition to updating all of the information presented in each program, SDI achieved another industry first by offering online academics for each of these leadership courses.
The use of online training has been used extensively in many various training settings such as higher education, employment training as well as recreational areas. Attending a class and sitting for hours on end to learn the required information is not always the best option for many students these days. Using the online system, candidates can complete all the pre-course studies online and as such, they will be better prepared to participate in the class.
Some instructors see online training as a potential threat that diminishes the quality of the candidates’ skills and abilities. The reality is that online training simply trades printed material for digital material.
For each of the programs listed above, candidates can sign up anytime and begin their training at their leisure thereafter. Depending on the course structure, the instructor may assign specific sections — or the entire program, to be completed before the first face-to-face academic session. After a candidate has begun a course the instructor can track the student’s progress and detect if he is having difficulties with any of the information. This allows the instructor to target his one-on-one time with the candidate to help improve the student’s knowledge in the areas identified as below average.
Another benefit of using the tracking system is that the instructor can determine if a candidate has any weak areas. Should the instructor determine that a candidate does have a weak area, the instructor may have the candidate prepare a short presentation covering that information. This will require the candidate to learn more about that subject and be able to explain it in terms they are comfortable with.
Since the instructor will not need to spend countless hours in the classroom, more time is available for the practical application, skill training, classroom and water presentations and the “how-to” of working with students and divers.
Trading time normally spent in the classroom for practical time with the students allows the instructor to focus more his attention on helping the students develop their leadership skills. The consequence of this is new dive leaders that are better prepared to lead and train divers.
Dive stores that pre-purchase online training codes have the flexibility to package and price the entire course to meet their needs. For instance, if a candidate is to be hired as an employee, or already is an employee of the facility, the package can be minimal. This may be applied as an employment benefit on contracted based on a specific amount of work after the candidate has completed the course. In comparison, the package for a non-affiliated candidate may include the fees for online training, printed materials, water use fees, gas, training fees and any additional fee. In this scenario, candidates get a single, upfront cost for the entire program.
Dive leaders that enroll in the online academic training also receive a copy of the printed  SDI training materials for the program they are completing that can be used for  future reference.
“The SDI Online Divemaster program revolutionized the way I teach the DM course!  The candidates come to the first session fully prepared, and we spend our time together developing leadership skills and abilities rather than delivering lectures on background knowledge and dive theory.  In the past, I commonly spent 3-4 days in the classroom with a candidate before getting them to the pool.  With the online course, we spent about 6 hours in the classroom, then off to the pool. Best of all, it seems the candidates really learned the material, rather than studying it simply to pass a test.
Brian Shreve
SDI IT-9016
Heartland Scuba
Lincoln, NE

“The online program allowed me to work at my own pace and review the information without someone looking over my shoulder. I especially liked the way the program allowed me to work on my own time schedule vs a typical classroom setting. I was able to complete the pre-course studies according to my personal schedule whether it was two hours a day or six hours a day. The quizzes at the end of each chapter confirmed I understood the material and could not just can skip through it.”

 

Dan Erickson
Divemaster Candidate
Heartland Scuba

Lincoln, NE

 

Remember, by using the online training programs an instructor has more tools available to help them follow the academic progress of each student which allows them to tailor the training program to each candidate’s specific needs.