Hi, I’m Bob and I’m a chocolate milkshake-aholic! Because of this addiction, I frequent places that serve such divine pleasure. One place that got my attention this week promotes a Happier Hour and offers milkshakes at half price. They are hand-dipped, old-fashioned shakes topped with whipped cream and a cherry, all for $1.61 including tax! […]

What’s most valuable to your dealership? Is it your customer database, physical assets, your boat brands? These are all important for sure, but none of them are more important to your business than the knowledge and know how of the people that do the work, which is captured in your dealership’s processes. Such valuable assets […]

When I first entered the marine industry in 1999 after a long and rewarding career in the auto business, we were designing and building websites for dealers at a company called BoatVentures, which later became Channel Blade. During that time, we worked closely with a great number of boatbuilders that had Vice President- or Director-level […]

There’s no doubt that there are aspects of the marine industry and the individual companies that make it up that are unique compared to other industries and businesses. But exactly how different the factors that drive success in a given marine business vary from a similarly sized business in another industry … well, that’s debatable. […]

In the year and half that has passed since taking on the roll as Lead Certification Consultant, I’ve witnessed a common misunderstanding among many dealers concerning the literal translation of the requirements for Certification. It was bestowed upon me by the MRAA staff and the dealers who sit on our Board of Directors that each […]

During my early days running a dealership and then later at Channel Blade, we constantly made or heard the excuse: “We don’t have time for training. We need to work the phones or sell or fix something.”  We learned later that not dedicating time to training cost us a ton in wasted time! Not to […]

Amidst the monotony of the ongoing political banter and the optimism of a growing economy, you may have missed a troubling report coming out of CNN Money. The report, published just last week, suggests that the American economy may be experiencing the bursting of a retail bubble. Dispute the concept of a retail bubble if […]

Good people are hard to find. This statement is as old as any other business cliché, but it has never been more of a slap in the face for me than it is today. I’m writing this blog as I wait for an interview candidate, who is now more than five minutes late for his […]

Whether you believe in coincidence or not, you’ve probably had an experience like this. A topic comes up. Maybe it’s in conversation, a video or a podcast. You might read it in a book or on a website. And then it comes up again and again and again in the following days and weeks. In […]