I’ve talked about the extraordinary abilities that diving gives us, enabling us to be better people and to better serve others. To fulfill our mission to create one billion Ocean Torchbearers to explore and save the ocean, we need new divers to join our tribe. Please take personal responsibility to recruit new people into diving to become certified divers.

This starts with establishing rapport – face to face, on social media, websites and in community and friend groups. Your compelling two-minute “elevator pitch” about the transformational power of diving is a good place to begin. Here are some recruitment tips:

Your persona and diver identity are a powerful start to recruiting new divers, to become buddies, and to join the ranks of people who choose to seek adventure and save the ocean. Elevate what makes you unique and passionate about your commitment.
Ask others to join us in serving the PADI Mission – the strong and clear mission statement is an excellent way to show your friends and community who you are, what you believe in, and how they too can make a constructive choice with their lives to make a difference in the world and community by becoming a diver.
Encourage your friends to also bring a friend to share the life-changing gift of scuba diving and to choose to serve our mission. Feature this sharing on your social media – the compounding effect of this is powerful.
Also on social media, give potential new divers a sneak peek of what they can expect by posting short, inspiring videos. Feature your passion for diving and how it brought you closer to nature. Elevate other divers by having them talk about their adventures and encounters with marine animals, and the work they do to help save the ocean.
Get personal with text messages to your friends and family, inviting them to join the ranks of certified divers around the world, and join us all to seek adventure and help save the ocean as torchbearers.

Recruiting people into diving is our collective responsibility to bring more Ocean Torchbearers into the fold. The more divers there are, the greater our unified strength will be in making a constructive difference through actions that will secure a positive ocean future. Your ability to influence and recruit others as new divers will propagate diving’s culture today and tomorrow – ocean preservation, exploration and healing powers are powerful recruitment vehicles.

Find the Flame

Every successful PADI diver-recruiter and leader will have two qualities: 1) our mutual values regarding safety, ocean preservation and sharing diving, and 2) a passion for something about diving – that’s the fire I’m talking about. You mention exploring wrecks and someone’s eyes light up? That’s a future diver in wreck exploration, preservation and documentation. At adaptive techniques, an ambassador taking diving’s healing powers to those who might benefit from them. Seal Team? A leader for youth divers. The passion you’re looking for as a recruiter can be anything about diving. Diving offers so much to so many that we need a cadre of new divers to develop a global tribe of much-needed Ocean Torchbearers.

Fire Them Up, Build Them Up, Lift Them Up

When you see flames of passion in others, fan it – in Discover Scuba Diving participants, kids’ scuba courses and adult learning. Fire up their passion by serving them more. Think broadly and link, places, experiences, people, nature, events and projects.

Legacy

Investing our diving superpowers into recruiting new divers is an urgent and ongoing effort. We have seen diving transform thousands of lives. So, what will you personally do to ensure the legacy of a future for diving continues, and to motivate people to seek adventure and save the ocean? This is the choice we all have, and the opportunity to instill positivity, purpose and meaning into the lives of others. I think the world could use a lot more of that. How about you?

Sincerely,

Drew Richardson
President & CEO

The post Straight Talk From PADI CEO: Become a Diving Recruiter – Diving and the Ocean Need You appeared first on PADI Pros.

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