By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
MARCH 12TH, 2010
By Christopher Kourtakis, director of sales and marketing, 360° Industry Solutions — In the past couple of months, I have been touring the country, visiting dealers at boat shows. It was a big surprise that a majority of the dealers I spoke with did not even consider a social media marketing plan to help promote their booth at the boat show. In fact, the most common response that I would get is “How would I use social media to effectively market my boat show booth?” Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
MARCH 5TH, 2010
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 >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
FEBRUARY 25TH, 2010
By Jeff Scherer, associate partner, Callbutton LLC – I just returned from a rather long trip where I attended the Miami Boat Show and the National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA) Conference in Orlando. (To satisfy some common questions, yes, the shows were a bit smaller than in the past, but exhibitors were very upbeat, not shaky and anxiously holding their breath like many expected). Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
FEBRUARY 23RD, 2010
By Peter Granata, president, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — Ever notice how some leaders look at things individually rather than as a whole? They look at the numbers of the business but not the business overall. They focus on the problem, not what is causing the problem. They look at the way things have always been done in their industry but not the way other industries are accomplishing their goals. It’s called “not seeing the forest through the trees.” Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
JANUARY 25TH, 2010
By Chris Kourtakis, Owner, H20 Limos Marine Service — As the marine dealership community enters a new decade, it will be looking back on the worst year of business in at least the last 50. Looking forward, dealers and OEMs need to share more information so they can do more with less. Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
JANUARY 21ST, 2010
Gary B. Druckenmiller, Jr., TheOpenSea.com — Forget the introduction. No more hand-holding. There are default steps you should be taking right now to either dive-in or prep for the onslaught of social marketing in the months and years to come. Many of you are trying to avoid it. You can’t. It’s time to join the party. Here’s a quick hit-list … from start to finish. Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
JANUARY 4TH, 2010
Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC – My 11-year-old son has grown up in a much different environment than I did. Ever since he could talk, he’s had access to a computer screen and mouse of some sort. He’s a gadget freak (OK, so is his dad), and is constantly indulged in PS3, PSP, MP3, DVD, LCD, HD, and all other acronyms electronic. Something surprising has happened to him in the past couple months, however. He has become very interested and (re)attached to his Legos. Aside from Lincoln Logs and maybe those cardboard bricks that they used to have in kindergarten, Legos might be the simplest toys ever made. I wondered what the sales and marketing discussions were in the Lego camps when the video game and Internet assaults started focusing on our kids a few years ago. I decided to take a look. Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
DECEMBER 29TH, 2009
Sean H. Griffin, account executive/marine specialist, Commercial Insurance Division, Cook, Hall & Hyde, Inc. — According to Association of Marina Industries (AMI) data, there are approximately 14,500 marinas in the United States, a large percentage of which have inadequate risk management procedures in place. Further, the current distressed economy has added new exposures to marinas in addition to the traditional risks. Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
DECEMBER 14TH, 2009
Jeff Scherer, Associate Partner, Callbutton LLC — In attending the recent Marine Dealer Conference and Expo conference, I agree with Mike Davin’s recent post that several of the presenters emphasized the need to review the overall business model by applying some simple math equations. This is certainly a critical measure that every dealer should do (if for some reason they haven’t done it yet). Read more >>
By CONTRIBUTING BLOGGER
DECEMBER 11TH, 2009
By Peter Granata, president, Granata Design and the Marine Design Resource Alliance — December 17 is National Regifting Day. For those of you not familiar with the practice of regifting it is described as the act of taking a gift that has been received and giving it to somebody else, sometimes in the guise of a new gift. Read more >>
