Frequently Asked Questions

ScubaLife is a turn-key business opportunity that enables ScubaLife Regional Business Managers and their Affiliates to sell training, equipment and travel on line. ScubaLife helps these dive professionals attract and keep new customers by providing a custom branded, ready-to-use website. By making the process easy and affordable, ScubaLife helps its members compete effectively against larger online retailers.

A

ScubaLife Regional Business Managers are usually dive store owners — but they can be any individual, company or organization that can provide ScubaLife Affiliate instructors with access to confined water for training, rental equipment and air fills.

ScubaLife Affiliates are professional diving educators. They can hold Instructor ratings from multiple agencies, but must also be able to offer diver training through NASE Worldwide. (Don’t worry, crossing over is both easy and affordable.)

A

Each ScubaLife Regional Business Manager and Affiliate gets his or her own custom branded ScubaLife website (see example). The website makes it easy for visitors to:

• Sign up for training.
• Purchase ScubaLife equipment.
• Book dive travel.

Customers pay on line using any major credit card. Equipment purchases are shipped directly from ScubaLife (no need to tie up money in inventory). Commissions are split between the Regional Business Manager and the Affiliate.

A

If you can continue to make these sales profitably, by all means do so. (Not every dive retailer has been so fortunate.) What you need to be asking yourself, however, is how do I reach the customers who are not coming into the store?

You know you are losing sales to the big online box stores. You may think the reason you are doing so is price. As often as not, however, the real deciding factor in whether or not to buy on line is convenience.

Time is today’s consumer’s most precious commodity. They just don’t have any to spare. They may want to be able to shop in person, but factors ranging from traffic to the high cost of gasoline may make doing so a luxury.

If you don’t offer customers the opportunity to shop on line, they will simply go to someone who does.

A

What many dive retailers don’t realize is just how much time and expense is involved in creating an effective online sales presence.

• Even the simplest of shopping cart websites can require hundreds of hours to create and maintain. You not only need at least some degree of computer literacy, but also the ability to take and manipulate product photos, using programs such as Photoshop.

• You also need to invest money in additional inventory. One thing you cannot afford as an online retailer is to be out of stock on key items. The customer you disappoint once will most likely never come back…ever.

• There is also the fact that many of the high-end brands you sell in your store cannot be sold on line, or without substantial restrictions.

Finally, once you have your shopping cart site up and running, can it really be competitive? Can you match the big, online box stores in terms of price, selection and advertising?

A

You don’t have to lift a finger. Your custom-branded ScubaLife website is already waiting for you.

You don’t have to tie a dime up in extra inventory. We handle all orders, payment and shipping. You just collect your commission checks (which, by the way, are generally more generous than your net profit before taxes on in-store sales).

Because ScubaLife equipment is available exclusively through ScubaLife Regional Business Managers and Affiliates, you never have to compete with another ScubaLife member (or any online competitor) on price, availability or selection. You also don’t compete with the brands you offer in store.

A

You know you must be doing the right thing when your competitors start making up stories about you. Seriously, how many dive instructors can afford to operate independently of the support their local dive store provides?

Nevertheless, let’s say you actually have a local instructor who is trying to make it on his or her own. Right now the big online box stores are offering this person a paltry commission (typically five percent or less — and seldom in cash) to take business away from you. ScubaLife gives you a way to reach out and bring this instructor back into the fold so that you both profit from his or her efforts.

We frequently hear dive store owners complain that their part-time instructors don’t do enough to promote sales in the store. But, realistically, what incentive can you offer them to do so?

ScubaLife provides a means for you to incentivize your instructor staff in ways that simply weren’t possible until now. It lets you offer each instructor his or her own personal ScubaLife website to promote through their Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, personal websites and other social networks. They will make money doing so and you will too.

A

‘Sorry. That ship has already sailed. In just the last twelve years, over two thirds of the dive stores in the USA and Canada have closed their doors — 750 in the last five years alone. Clearly, the traditional model for dive retailing isn’t working.

Is ScubaLife the answer? It may well be part of it. One thing is for certain: ScubaLife is the only entity trying to find new and more profitable ways for dive professionals to keep making a living doing what they love.

Perhaps you should ask your training agency or equipment vendors why they aren’t doing more to help you survive in a tough economy with a rapidly-changing consumer base.

A

We must really have these guys running scared. No, there is no truth to that at all.

• Multilevel marketing schemes typically depend on what is called downline. That is, turning your customers into distributors, in hopes that they will do the same.

• In contrast, ScubaLife severely limits who can be Regional Business Managers and Affiliates (we even offer territorial protection for our Regional Managers). The only way RBMs and Affiliates make money is when their customers purchase training, travel or equipment.

That having been said, we do offer cash incentives to consumers who refer their friends. That’s as far as it goes.

A

Less than you may think, considering all you get.

• Annual membership for Regional Business Managers is $499.

• Annual membership for Affiliates is $299.

We also offer a variety of attractive packages that include equipment, training materials and crossover fees. Ask us for details.

A

That’s up to you.

• You can use this link to sign up on line, or…

• Call us, toll-free, at (888) 903-6273.

The only way you won’t get results is to do nothing.

A