By Christo
pher Kourtakis, director of sales and marketing, 360° Industry Solutions — Karin Gelschus recently wrote a post discussing Social Networking Shortcuts. These programs are not only good for making posts, but to monitor what is being said about you, your staff and your facility. Read more >>
With the news this week that Grow Boating, Inc. has selected OLSON as its agency-of-record for the re-launch of the Discover Boating marketing campaign, here’s some more information on the Minneapolis-based marketing firm that will be helping direct the effort to get more people on the water. Read more >>
By Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC — I was fortunate to have the opportunity this past week to visit the famous Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. You may be familiar with the “Fish Philosophy” that has been the focus of many books, videos, and articles. This place is where it started. The philosophy extols the benefits and importance of having FUN at work, but really goes far beyond that. It examines the impact of what instilling a positive culture can do to revolutionize the lives of the employees, not just their business. Read more >>
As I write this, Matt, Mike and I are sitting in a cabin in northern Minnesota watching the sun go down as we take a break from reviewing our fifth Top 100 application of the day on our fifth day of the review process. Read more >>
Tags: Top 100 Dealers
By Fran O’Hagan – President, Pied Piper Management Co. – Are Starbucks baristas hired only if they love coffee, or only if they already have experience making a cappuccino? And does a Starbucks manager dread losing an employee since the departing employee’s “tribal knowledge” will be so hard to teach to a new hire? No. Read more >>
This week the National Marine Manufacturers Association released the results of an online survey of 178 chief executives of member boat, engine and accessory manufacturers on the effects of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on the recreational marine industry.
These numbers were the most widely reported:
– 3 of 5 recreational marine businesses have been affected by the oil spillage.
– Nearly 4 of 5 companies anticipate some effect from the oil spillage on their business through the remainder of the year.
– 68 percent of companies were told that a cancellation was directly due to the oil spillage.
– 76 percent of companies had forecast sales growth in 2010 prior to the oil spillage.
– 70 percent of companies have downwardly revised their 2010 sales projection as a direct result of the oil spillage.
But here’s a look at what else the survey found: Read the rest of Oil spill survey: a closer look »
By Peter Granata, president, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — This morning I was scouring the newspapers and came across what’s wrong with a lot of business. Read more >>
Tags: Solutions
With the Environmental Protection Agency soon to decide whether to grant a waiver that would allow fuel containing ethanol blends of up to 15 percent to be used in newer road vehicles, at least one company with a strong interest in the decision has a back-up plan in case the ruling doesn’t go its way. Read more >>
Tags: boating industry, e15, ethanol
By Karin Gelschus, Associate Editor, Powersports Business — With skeleton crews working overtime to keep dealerships’ doors open, social networking sites are often at the bottom of their To-Do lists. Here are some tools to make managing the sites less time consuming: Read more >>
By Gary Druckenmiller, Jr., co-founder, TheOpenSea.com – We’ve all been there. You spend hours putting together your marine plan for, well, something. Could be communications, operations, marketing, etc., and you come to realize that all those hours have returned very little. Now that you’re knee deep in execution, you sense something isn’t right. Not that you didn’t try your best, your plan just is not working — either in comparison to what’s out there across the marine landscape or what you expected going in. Read more >>
