Create your own dive tribe | Make an extra buck in dive jobs

Create your own dive tribe | Make an extra buck in dive jobs

Have you ever wondered how it would be to create your own dive tribe?

After a few seasons in diving I started wondering how a few dive buddies managed to get the same diving guests coming to dive with them year after year. They all got some nice commission on top of their salaries because they brought their own guests.

After observing and listening to some advice from others I got the hook of it. It turns out that it is not that hard to create your own dive tribe after all. Actually it is super fun to do that because many guests love to stay in touch with you and follow your adventures.

Today I share ideas with you how you can create your own dive tribe.

Give a freebie first

Also here, the law of reciprocity works very well.

If you don’t know the law or reciprocity, read the article how to support a local business and make an extra buck in your dive jobs.

Photo by Jason Blackeye on Unsplash

Stay in touch

At the end of a day of beautiful diving you probably write your log book with your guests. Now is the perfect time to make sure you stay in touch with your guests.

Why to stay in touch?

There are many reasons to stay in touch with your diving guests.

• You can send them photos of your diving adventures (or links to your Instagram)
• Guests can recommend you to their friends, the word of mouth is very powerful
• Inform them if you move to another country
• Invite them to join you again as a guest
• Get a commission for brining your own guests with you
• Organize more than diving for them -> more commission
• Built a list of personal followers — create your own dive tribe

How to stay in touch?

There are mainly three ways.

• Add them as a Facebook friend
• Share your email address with them
• Get a review on your personal fan page online

Photo by timothy muza on Unsplash

Adding your guests as a Facebook/Linkedin friend

This is probably the easiest way for young people. However, Facebook gives you a lot of restrictions to stay in touch with guests. You can’t really add them in a messaging group because they don’t know each other. Sending them individual messages later on is way too complicated.

Share your email address with your divers

This is the absolute best way to go. Via email you have a direct contact to your guests. You are in no ways restricted, no matter how Facebook will change their guidelines. An email is considered quite personal nowadays.

Make sure to add multiple email addresses to the “BCC” field of your email provider and NOT the “To” field when you send an email to more than one person. This makes sure the individual recipients will not see who else you are writing an email to.

Photo by Anete Lūsiņa on Unsplash

Get a review on your personal fan page

Create your personal Facebook page. This takes just a few minutes. On this page ask your guests to leave a positive review. If you are a couple you can even consider getting your Facebook page together.

This has one great advantage. You also built up your personal marketing image. Whichever dive jobs you are after in the future you can use your own dive tribe to showcase your happy guests.

However, there is one large down side. Facebook makes it impossible to see who has liked your page after a certain number of page likes. This way it is impossible to approach all your previous guests in the future.

Photo by William Iven on Unsplash

How to share the contact details

Optimally you get the email address, a new Facebook friend and a personal review on your fan page. If that is too much in certain situations or they are not in the generation Facebook I would always prefer the email address. There is nothing more personal.

Well, writing a letter. But that is not my generation.

Decide on the spot if it is a good idea to ask them for any of these. Don’t be pushy. If they are happy with you they probably want to stay in touch with you. It might be a good moment to give out the freebie just before you start writing the log books.

Especially if you work as a Cruise Director on a Liveaboard you have the chance to built up a personal relationship over a couple of days. Usually happy guests are happy to stay in touch.

If they are unhappy maybe better don’t ask for anything.

Benefits

Because you know you want to stay in touch this will drive you to give them the best ever experience.

Get into the newspaper

Yes this sounds strange. But just recently I saw a great idea.

Photo by Mike Ackerman on Unsplash

Contact the local newspaper of your area in your home country. For all the people at home you are the world nomad. You are the one having the guts to step out of the nine to five job. It could be quite interesting for them to publish an article about you.

Offer the newspaper that they can write an article about you and what you are doing. People in your home area might not know you but they will keep this in mind for their next holiday. Make sure the newspaper writes your email address at the bottom line of the article with a phrase like.

If you plan your next holiday contact ‘divername’. He/she knows the area like her/his own pockets.

This could be the next option for new friends and more commission.

If you speak more languages than English and your mother tongue it might even be possible to get into more newspapers. Contact some small news agencies from areas where you lived for a while and you speak the language of.

How to make your guests UNhappy

• Give a freebie that falls apart in four weeks
• Misuse an email list
• Send them emails or Facebook messages every 2 weeks. Every four to eight weeks is enough
• Be dishonest with you audience if you screwed up something

Takeaway

After figuring out how and when to do the freebie and the contact exchange it became quite natural. I still have guests contacting me from my very first Open Water Diver Course I taught many years ago.

Take 10 minutes today and start your Facebook page. In a few days you can have your first personal review on your own fan page to start your own dive tribe.

If you miss out on these opportunities you miss out on a fun and great dive tribe as well as some nice commissions that could pay your next flight.

If you work in Australia you can get ten students per week. Let’s say you work only forty weeks in one year. This makes 400 possible new members of your own dive tribe.

I really hope this article helps you to find dive jobs with great dive shops.

Share your expertise, experience, and questions in the comments.