[Scotty]

Mark Smith" <mark@sse-franchise.com> View Contact Details
To: "Scott" <spargz7@yahoo.com>

First conversation is about buying a Diving company in Brisbane Australia.
This email is in April of 2003 from Mark.. before coming to 'study' with him.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Mark)

$1.200.000 is not a large amount of money and of course I don't know about it. Shall we do a business plan on a buy out? Save us building it up from scratch if it worked out? But Scotty this is as I suspected.

Big business, waiting for business people instead of divers. Now most business people are too busy doing business to study diving and see what we have seen. Now a buy out like this is a difficult negotiation.

Done right it can be win win. Done wrong...well a beginner would lose his money and me, well I would lose the opportunity as I walked away.

But if we could pull down the business and grab the set up then force feed it Japanese Divers...mmm could be fun. There are several approaches to Steve. I will discuss these with you when I see you. Remember, the aim is to make money for us and keep Steve satisfied. We have ways my friend.

Mark.




On 4 3, 2003, at 10:14 AM, Scott wrote:

> Mark,
>
You have just touched on what I have been thinking about for the last couple of months. Ref Scuba/Japanese and business..Anyway, as you will discover when you come to Brisbane, Businesses run by divers. The Monopoly of the brisbane system for openwater/advanced divemaster and instructor courses is far and away won by xxand xx xx of xxxx brisbane (as you know a franchise, with outlets in cairns, airlie beach, mackay, brisbane, sydney ,hongkong, fiji, vanuata etc).

BIg PADI sales push every time you walk thru the door, and xx and xx train their full time staff to push very hard. They have been in the industry for far too long and if not for xxx (General Manager), a lot of staff would not stand to work for them, due to their attitude and lack of real management skills. Basically, they treat their staff like children. xx and xxx own numerous properties and commercial real estate, and basically are still working because they haven't been able to sell (on the market for some time) xxx brisbane/bulimba and the xx boat. They negotiated with xx xx (xx, to sell for 1.2mill recently he told me, so you don't know about it. Basically, while the courses are good, I'm looking forward to going to japn to learn some real world skills.

More later, scotty




> Mark Smith <mark@sse-franchise.com> wrote:
>
Scotty,
>
I just read through this again and it is still agreeable. I have kept a large pice of actual teaching work at Kyobashi under part time teachers so as to be able to plug you in when you get here.

I have also reassigned Donovan back into the Kyobashi environmet as in his capacity as CEO he has lots you can learn in respect to the day to day of the business. Morimoiya and Senri Yama schools were good management opportunities but they both sold and so we will need to look at other projects you can sink you teeth into as well as Kyobashi.

I am also thinking of researching the dive profession at a little more serious level. The Japanese are keen divers and love Australia but from my vantage point I see very little in the way of serious effort going into capturing this market. In fact the diving industry in general seems to be run by Divers not business men. If so there is business in there. As we both share an interest in diving that may also be worth a research project and the building of a business model as part of the training within the mentorship.
>
OK see you soon.
>
Mark.
On 24, 2003, at 08:20 AM, Dave Scott wrote:
>
Dear Mark,
> >
Hope the family and the business are travelling well. On the weekend just got to the 61dives, was on a liveaboard for 3days, great experience and the most testing conditions yet to date with current.

Dived to 41 metres on the "St Paul" wreck off the coast of Moreton island. Almost lost two people in the current who couldn't make it back to the deco bar. Only the instructor and i got back to the ship, then back on deck, he promptly spewed everywhere and went to bed with a migraine. Seadog that he is....Was diving also with a xxx captain who motivated me by his conversation that i dont' want to be in the same position as him. Almost broke my hand as well, with a rachet at the back of the boat, yet all in all a good experience. Reference the written/verbal contract with the mentorship program, are we still
with the version below?

Hope all is well, scotty




Mark Smith wrote:

Hi Scotty,

Great to catch up on the telephone tonight. Glad to hear the diving is going well. Don't worry it will get a little more serious as he Master Course starts up.

They tell me the master is the one course which breaks the back of the study. From there on it's plain sailing and those mandatory 100 tanks till you called a licensed instructor.
> >
> >
I must say I am glad to see the approach you are taking to the business in Japan. I will hereafter outline our discussion.

1. You will arrive in June 2003. We can be a flexible on the start up within reason.

2. You will enter into a mentorship program run by myself. The focus of the mentorship program will be business management.

3. You will employ the skills taught on the mentorship program within a practical environment. This environment will be the Kyobashi head office school. You will take on the Profit Share Teachers role. This role requires the leading of the head office teaching team. Main concerns are to the marketing and supply of a quality product. Kyobashi will be a perfect enclosed and safe environment to test out your skills and make some money for yourself and the company. To increase the turnover at Kyobashi will be to increase your income. Help and support will never be further than the corner office away.

4. The mentorship program tied to the Kyobashi head office PST agreement will place you at the hub of the company and it's information. It is agreed for now that we do not know where this information and the opportunities it will provide will take you.
This company and it's subsidiaries grow too fast to focus on any one positionfor your future today. In other words, get the skills, get comfortable, look around and decide.

5. The price for the mentorship program will be JPY1,000,000. This will be paid upon agreement to go ahead. Mutual commitment. I must commit my schedule and path the way to your entry in Kyobashi. In return I ask you to commit with your payment. We are bound to go ahead together from then on.
> >
> > Thats about it.
> >
Please reply by return email to confirm or amend and we will draft
up an agreement, proceed to payment and then look forward to June.
> > Thank you and kind regards.
> > Mark Smith.