We are a full-service dive shop serving Western New York State. That's the area near Buffalo -- we're 21 minutes south of Buffalo in Derby, New York. Point Breeze Dive Shop has been in business since 1970. Tony Anderson is the owner, and he's been an instructor since 1970. I've worked here almost a year, and have been diving for just over three years. Our attitude at Point Breeze is that we are here because we love what we do and we want to share that with everyone who walks in the door. That's demonstrated in some of our core beliefs here at Point Breeze.

Here are some concepts important to us:

Smile. I love what I do, and I can't wait to share it with everybody. In fact, I tend to go overboard sometimes in my enthusiasm. When you smile over the phone, people hear it -- it changes the tenor of your voice. What's more, it's hard to be boring when you're smiling ear to ear. I smile whenever I answer the phone -- and not just for customers. I smile with every single phone call -- even hang-ups! I've been involved in customer service for 35 years and I try to treat people the very best I can.

Customers are not numbers. We also firmly believe that a customer is not a number. If you come to us to take an Open Water Diver program and the program says it should take you six pool sessions and six classroom sessions, and you need eight classroom sessions and 12 pool sessions to get it, that's OK. We want our customers to be comfortable, confident divers -- we want them to be more than a diver with a certification card. We consider ourselves successful in this when our customers feel that they just can't wait to go diving

Dive prospects are everywhere. We don't limit ourselves. Instead we find customers in nontraditional ways. Recently, a gentleman came in to sell us an ADT alarm system. He walked out with an Open Water Diving Course. I had talked to him for an hour about our diving experiences and he got wound up. A few days later, he came back to me and said that diving would be a great activity for his church's "Boys to Men" youth program. He said that diving could show young people the other 70 percent of God's creation they wouldn't have an opportunity to see otherwise.

Now we are working with four inner-city churches in Buffalo. We go to the Buffalo Christian Center and we hold Try Scuba events and the young people get a chance to try it out. If they like it, we've worked out a deal at a special price to take a course or, if they're under 12, we get them set up in the Scuba Rangers program.

By the way, this isn't the first time I've turned the tables on a salesman. I've done it four other times where they come to sell me, and they walk out signed up for a class.

Try something new. We just announced that we could hold a scuba office party for nondivers. We got the idea from team-building programs that are so popular in the corporate world where you're supposed to learn to trust your co-workers. We thought that diving teaches trust -- how you have to trust your buddy. We also thought it would be fun for co-workers to see another side of each other.

The office scuba party is another attempt to introduce the people in Western New York to diving. I want them to see that you can go scuba diving in our area lakes and in the Niagara River. In fact, the Niagara River is one of the top 10 drift dives in the world. It's got a kick-ass current! Quite truthfully, it is flying with the fish and it absolutely makes me crazy that people think you have to be in the ocean to go diving. We have amazing critters here, too.

For our office scuba party, we'd gather an office group with an instructor and go through a training session with a video, do some paperwork, of course, and then we take them and show them the equipment, tell them why it works and then let them try it. We try to make it as easy as possible. In our announcement, we call it the "ultimate pool party" and say, "We bring the instructor and equipment; you and your friends bring a bathing suit and towel." We've just announced it so we don't have any takers yet, but we will always try different approaches to attract people to diving.

Give something back. This is very important to us, and we just had an opportunity to give something back, working through our local Make-A-Wish Foundation of Western New York. My favorite radio station has a telethon each year for Make-A-Wish, and in September of 2002, the station announced it had a 14-year-old girl with leukemia. Her wish was to learn to dive with her family -- her mother, father, 22-year-old sister and 13-year-old brother, and to go on a dive trip. When I heard this on the radio when I was driving home, I quickly called Tony who said "yes." I called the radio station and they put me right on the air.

I said, "We want to help make this wish happen. We'll teach them how to dive." We started on January 4, and the remarkable part is that Mom had never learned to swim, so teaching her water skills became my priority. Now she's the best swimmer in the family -- she really took off!

We went with them to Key West to finish their training and we dove with Dive Key West, and Atlantis Dive Center in Key Largo. I can't say enough about them. They are awesome, with the best crews ever. We finished their open-water dives on April 15 and 16. We now have a family of certified and confident divers -- an amazing transformation.

The Make-A-Wish girl is Brittany Cooper, and the last thing I said to Brit before leaving her and her family for an overnight visit in the Jules Undersea Lodge was, "Brittany, this is the last leg of your wish, I hope it has been all you anticipated." She shook her head no, and said, "Nope, it was better. Thanks." I left before I got all mushy. Tony and I waved to the whole family through the 42-inch windows, and left them to enjoy the world's only underwater hotel! I thought it a perfect ending.

By the way, the folks at Jules had other ideas. Before breakfast was served, Don put on a lime-green leopard print dive skin with bunny ears and proceeded to set up an Easter egg hunt for the family. I am so bummed that I had to catch my plane and miss that extraordinary sight! And…they found eight of the 12 eggs.

My grandmother taught me you reap what you sow, but if you love what you do, you reap so much more.

What works at your dive store? Have an idea, an attitude or a program that is working well for you? Help another store by sharing your success and expertise. If you have something in mind to contribute, drop us a note at dcb@dtmag.com.