The Profit is in the Follow Up.

Don't lose out on a potential customer because you forgot to follow up.

The hourglass concept is essentially a map of your customer’s journey with your dive store. In this analogy, you get to choose how well marked and easy to follow that path is. Once you have captured contact information on new prospective clients, and welcomed them into your store with a welcome series, the next step is nurturing your leads.

1. Educational Content (Training Philosophy, PADI/SSI/NAUI/Etc, Scuba Quality Equipment)

2. FAQs & Objections (Swimming Skills, Cost, Time, Age, Ears)

3. Up to 27 interactions (email marketing, social media, welcome series, orientation)

Educational Content (Training Philosophy, PADI/SSI/NAUI/Etc, Scuba Quality Equipment)

Once you have captured new leads, you have a captive audience that is interested in scuba diving and your business. They have already invested in you by giving you their contact information. The next steps from lead capture to close may happen quickly or they could take some time.

Because scuba diving lessons are expensive and time intensive, there are many barriers to enrollment. When it comes time to sign up for classes, there are hesitations, there is confusing jargon to define and there are schedules to coordinate.

There are several ways you can handle these items. You can field phone calls, you can schedule appointments, or you can provide free content on your website that addresses the major hurdles. Think of common questions that you recieve all of the time and create content that addresses those questions.

(Hint: These same content pieces can be delivered to new leads in your welcome series.)

FAQs & Objections (Swimming Skills, Cost, Time, Schedules, Age, Ears)

Use each answer to highlight your unique selling proposition.

For example, the minimum age to get certified is 10 years old. (Don’t stop here, expand on the classes for kids.) We understand that a 10 year old learns differently than a 40 year old so we ensure these classes have fewer students so our instructors can be more attentive to each student.

Set up your FAQ section to help sell your dive center. Each answer should relate back an advantage of your dive center.

FAQs should not just live on your website. Make them front and center and accessible. Add them to your Google Business page. Add them to your Facebook and Instagram Messenger. Add them to your website chat widget. Make these FAQs prolific so that your customers don’t have hunt to find them.

(Bonus: Address FAQs with videos to upgrade the experience. You can do this on Youtube and them have those videos on your website as well.)

Up to 27 interactions (email marketing, social media, welcome series, orientation)

Consistency is the key to success.

You must continue to invite your customers to interact with your store’s content across social media, email, your website, and your events. In this day and age the profit is in the follow up.

It can take up to 27 interactions with your business before a new leads converts into a customer. Don’t miss out on a potential customer because you stopped interacting with them.

After your initial welcome email series, you should be intentional about adding these new leads into your social media following and onto your regular email newsletter list so that they stay in the know of what is happening at your store.

It’s okay if some of them unsubscribe. No communication or follow up is worse than an unsubscribe.

I encourage you to take some time and evaluate where in this “hourglass” you are winning and where you may need some extra focus.

Over the next 8 weeks, I will be diving deeper into each of the above sections. I will provide examples and activities that could take place in each of the different sections.

One simple way to be thinking of about this concept in your business is to answer the following the question:

Where do I currently need more customers? Open Water? Advanced? Specialties? Travel? Equipment?

This question alone will tell you a lot about what is going well and what area you need more focus. Please reply to this email and share with me the answer.