By Peter Granata, president, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — Before history gets rewritten, I wanted to offer a glimpse into why new boats were introduced in July rather than September. Read more >>
Cam Collins, President and CEO, DockMaster Software — I anxiously awaited the arrival of my new iPad. It was the first time I pre-ordered new technology, ever! In anticipation of its arrival I was thinking about “focus” (one of my three words for 2010). The iPad can only do one thing at a time. You can’t surf the web while checking e-mail. It’s one or the other and there are advantages to this single-threaded interface. Read more >>
Tags: Marine Dealers
Jan Kelly, president, Kelly Enterprises – Many dealerships have downsized their personnel to the point of not having a dedicated F&I manager. Is that department just as profitable without the dedicated person focused on the task each day? Who is presenting the ancillary service policies, and working with the lenders to secure the customer financing? Read more >>
By Mike Davin, online editor, Boating Industry — Last year, Brunswick was one of several companies that decided to push back the introduction of its new model year to give dealers more time to sell the previous year’s inventory. At the time, the company said it would allow dealers to liquidate inventory in the heart of selling season, prevent inventory from being devalued by new product, reduce the risk of retail lenders lowering available credit on existing inventory and alleviate customer confusion with new model year product during the selling season. Read more >>
By Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC – Unless you live in a cave you have probably been over-exposed to Burger King’s ads that actually feature McDonald’s in them. Last quarter the focus was “BK’s Double Cheeseburger vs. Mac’s Double Cheeseburger.” This quarter they are running an ad that actually shows “the King” physically stealing Mac’s recipe for the Egg McMuffin. (Okay, note: Having two teenagers in our house means I have an unwarranted intimacy with these companies.) It would appear that by including Mac’s products in their ads, BK has resigned themselves to a “me-too” marketing message. Read more >>
Tags: Marine Dealers, Marketing
By Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC – Many years ago, before the Internet was “cool,” I was the Internet sales manager for one of the largest automotive retailers. This was a very interesting time because prior to this, no auto entities had really stepped out to try to market vehicles through this new budding medium known as “the Web.” To say that many of the old-school general managers in our dealer groups were skeptical would have been a tremendous understatement. They said over and over that this Web thing was a fad, and would never work to sell cars. Our team was often looked at as the “geek squad,” (no offense to the Best Buy’s guys) and as competitors to the retail sales team. Much of this doubt and fear was understandable as we were jumping quickly into territory that was undefined and unknown. Read more >>
Last week, I received a press release from BoatU.S. with the following subject line, “The Shocking Truth: More Recreational Boaters Having Battery Problems.” And I saw an opportunity. Or at least one I’d jump on if I was a boat dealer, marina operator or boating supplies store manager. Read more >>
Tags: Marine Dealers, Marketing
I was going about my normal boating news searches this morning when I stumbled across an article written by a stock analyst who had recently visited a handful of stores along Chicago’s Michigan Avenue. Like many of us, he has kids, and after being gone for a week on business, he was headed to the Disney store to pick up some “missed you while I was gone” presents before traveling home. Read more >>
By Gary Druckenmiller, Jr., co-founder, TheOpenSea.com – Within the last few years, social marketing has become completely mainstream. Connecting our world like never before, it has become an incredible, vast network. With a reported 67 percent of the global online population now visiting ‘member communities,’ including social networks/blogs[1], it is no surprise that social media is proving to be a powerful business tool. Read more >>
Sunday night, I watched an episode of Undercover Boss, the new “reality TV show” that takes a company’s leader and puts them “undercover” on the front lines with the employees. The show featured Joe DePinto, the president and CEO of 7-Eleven, Inc., who spent a week disguised as “Danny,” a guy starring in a documentary on entry-level jobs. During this period, he spent time at several 7-Eleven stores and a factory, working alongside employees while investigating the challenges they faced and successes they accomplished. Read more >>
