Douglas Smith is CEO/President, and Guest Relations Associate at Chicagoland Skydiving Center. He has owned and operated the business since 2000. He has been skydiving since 1994, and in addition to leading the CSC Team, is currently an instructor, videographer and pilot for CSC.
Let's have a conversation about price vs. value.
Skydiving operators throughout the country are concerned about the decreasing price trend for tandem skydives. Many point to the prominence of daily deal websites for this decline. Groupon is the most popular in this category, and many dropzones rely on it as their core marketing strategy these days. It's a problem, pushing our industry to circle the drain and price ourselves out of business.
How did we get here? Why can't we break the cycle? Well, I may have started this mess, and I'm truly sorry.
Most people probably don’t know how Chicagoland Skydiving Center (CSC) transforms literally the day after we close down skydiving operations in late October/early November.
This company has evolved quite a bit since I launched it back in December 2000. Back then, I had a business partner, we were leasing aircraft, we were operating out of a different airport, we had virtually no facilities to speak of, we employed only seasonal staff (usually different people each year), and no idea how to actually run a business - clearly, all of the key ingredients for a successful endeavor!
Chicagoland Skydiving Center relocated from its original location in Hinckley, IL to the Rochelle Municipal Airport in Rochelle, IL in the spring of 2011. This move marked a major shift in the business. The fresh start in a new location provided the opportunity to realize a vision for creating the best place in the world to skydive.
