Most instructor courses I see are priced around $250–$350.
Darla Miller charges $1,900 for hers… and fills it.
In this SitRep Live, I talk with Darla Miller, the Founder and Training Center Coordinator at PumpLife CPR, an American Heart Association Training Center in Las Vegas. PumpLife is transitioning to Hovn, but this isn’t a product demo. It’s a look at how Darla actually builds a serious CPR business: pricing, corporate contracts, instructor quality, and time management.
Here are the main topics we cover and where to find them in the replay.
Follow Pumplife CPR: Website | Instagram | Facebook
1. Card hustle vs. real CPR business
13:39 – 21:37, 43:51 – 49:43
Darla is very clear about the difference between “selling cards” and building a real company:
Why she hates the phrase “side hustle” when it’s attached to CPR.
How she thinks about growing beyond public classes and one‑off cards.
Moving into corporate accounts, AED programs, LMS courses, and new offerings like wheelchair securement.
Why she wants instructors who are building businesses, not just picking up casual income.
If you feel stuck in the cheap‑class race, these sections are worth a listen.
2. Why her instructor course is $1,900
21:38 – 28:38
Most people in this space underprice the one thing that’s supposed to launch someone’s business.
Darla walks through exactly what’s inside her $1,900 instructor package:
Full Prestan kit: 2 adult manikins, 2 infant manikins, AED trainer, barriers, bag‑masks, knee pads.
Hard‑copy instructor manuals and videos (no one shows up to day one with only an ebook).
One full day in‑person + teach‑back and follow‑up online session.
Hands‑on help navigating the AHA instructor site so they’re not calling her for every small question.
Ongoing Zoom sessions focused on growing a CPR business (corporate contracts, AEDs, LMS, etc.), not just issuing cards.
She prices it for entrepreneurial instructors who want a serious business, not a low‑stakes side project.
3. Corporate training and internal instructors
31:23 – 35:55
Here’s where she explains how corporate work became her retention engine:
The story of a security company that was splitting staff between “fast cheap” classes and her longer ones.
How that turned into:
All staff training through Pump Life, plus
Training one of their employees as an internal instructor.
Why she’s happy to help corporate clients train in‑house instructors as long as she controls the standard and supports them.
If you want more stable, repeat B2B revenue instead of living off open‑enrollment traffic, this is the model.
4. Ensuring consistent quality across instructors & sites
35:56 – 43:50, 28:39 – 31:22
Darla spends a lot of time on network value and quality control:
How she monitors internal instructors and corrects drift (like misunderstandings around “hands‑only” vs full CPR).
Quarterly Zooms, newsletters, and her PumpLife Connect portal for keeping everyone aligned.
The structure of her team: medical director, nurses, faculty, and administrator, so instructors aren’t “joining a one‑woman show.”
This is where you see the difference between “I sell you cards” and “I run a network you actually want to stay part of.”
5. She piloted Hovn, left to DIY… and came back
43:51 – 49:43
Toward the end we talk about tech and time.
Darla:
Piloted Hovn.
Left to build her own stack on her website.
Came back later because of time management and material delivery.
Her DIY setup:
Created more questions for students, which meant more texts and calls.
Still left people showing up to class without books, no matter how she wrote the instructions.
Coming back to Hovn let software handle books and expectations so she could go back to being a full‑time Training Center Coordinator instead of a full‑time systems admin. Pump Life now runs its Training Center workflows (registration, books, rosters) through Hovn.
If you run a CPR training center or TC and you’re trying to move away from the “cheap card” race to the bottom, this conversation is worth a listen.
When you’re done, hit reply and tell me which part landed hardest for you.
Jon
Have questions? Ask in the community chat. Founders and other providers answer. It’s open. → Join the Chat
