Barry K. Shuster, Author at Dive Center Business

Customer Service Employee Development Retail Selling 101 Selling Staff

Retail Salesmanship Skills for Challenging Circumstances

Retail salesmanship is seen different ways by different people. Ask an instructor who just wants to teach. True retail salesmanship is the heart of the business. It involves discovering and answering needs. It often involves solving tricky problems and dealing…

Barry K. ShusterAugust 24, 2021

Customer Service Dive Instruction Management Management 101 Selling

Managing Your Dive Students’ Expectations: If You Don’t Ask, You Can’t Tell

If you've been in retailing or any service-based business for a while, you realize that you can control many of the facets of your business that influence customer satisfaction. You can set and demand a level of professionalism, courtesy, and…

Barry K. ShusterJuly 8, 2021

Classifications Management Staff Staffing

Employee or Independent Contractor? Scuba Instructors, Workers’ Compensation and Worker Classification — The ABCs

It isn't a stretch of imagination for dive operators to justify in their minds classifying instructors as independent contractors, particularly if their only relationship with the dive store is to teach students. The problem is, it is difficult - if…

Barry K. ShusterOctober 28, 2020

Employment & Staffing Operations Staff

Getting the Word Out: Managing Dive Store Staff Communications

In Scott Adams' comic strip "Dilbert," staff meetings are often the butt of humor -- sometimes well deserved. At their worst, meetings become perfunctory time wasters, held because managers think that's something they are supposed to do. Anyone who has…

Barry K. ShusterJanuary 23, 2014

Continuing Education Dive Instruction Specialties

All You Need Is a Plan: Selling Continuing Education Revisited

Editor’s Note: In 2004, this magazine published the following article on how to promote continuing education. With some updates (for example, Internet marketing has advanced significantly in the past eight years), we are revisiting this topic in this issue. Why?…

Barry K. ShusterAugust 16, 2012

Retail Selling 101 Selling

What Are We Really Selling?

You've probably heard the old sales adage about selling the sizzle, not the steak. The lesson is the steak is just a product. It has features, to be sure, including the quality of the cut, its fat content, and its…

Barry K. ShusterFebruary 1, 2009

Insurance Legal Management Operations

Things That Go Bump in Your Store: a Premises Liability Primer for Dive Store Owners

On a typical Saturday afternoon at your dive store, you're helping a new diver select her first dive computer. Several customers mill about the sales floor, admiring gadgets, pricing equipment, chatting with store staff, and making purchases. These include a…

Barry K. ShusterJanuary 27, 2009

Operations Owner Life Owner Life

Asset Vs. Entity: the Benefits Of ‘Knowing the Score’ when Buying or Selling a Dive Store

If you are already a dive store owner, there may come a time when you are ready to sell your dive store. If you are a dive instructor or dive store employee, you might have an eye on the day…

Barry K. ShusterJanuary 22, 2009

Legal Management Marketing 101 Merchandizing Selling

Gift Cards and the Scuba Retailer

It's a pretty good bet that if you gave us a list of topics that you would like to see covered in this magazine, an article about gift cards would be way at the bottom of your list, if at…

Barry K. ShusterJanuary 13, 2009

Employment & Staffing Legal Management Management 101 Staff

Don’t Leave Mad, Just Leave! Firing Legal Pitfalls, and How to Avoid Them

"What the…" cried Barney, manager of Mayberry Scuba Center, as he read the lawsuit just served on him by the sheriff's deputy. "Wrongful termination!" he bellowed into the telephone at his attorney Andy. "Why that lazy, good-for-nothing Otis was the…

Barry K. ShusterJanuary 6, 2009

Barry K. Shuster