MRAA Now Taking Applications for Fully Funded MDCE Scholarships

Attend MDCE, at no cost, thanks to partnership with Soundings Trade Only.

MINNEAPOLIS — In partnership with Soundings Trade Only, the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo will offer scholarships for three dealers to attend the three-day educational event, to be held Dec. 10-13 in Orlando.
 
“We are honored to partner with the MDCE to provide three recipients with access to the incredible educational programming that the event offers,” says Dean Waite, publisher of Soundings Trade Only. “We see how important the conference is for the industry and want it to be accessible to all who see it as an opportunity to be better. That’s why, for the third year, we have chosen to partner with MDCE to support these scholarships, as a chance to learn and grow. Because in the end, it’s the power of education that helps our industry flourish.”

Each scholarship includes an MDCE Standard Dealer Registration, up to $450 in travel reimbursement, and a three-night hotel stay at the MDCE’s host hotel, for a total value of $1,396 per scholarship.  

Marine dealers can apply for the chance to receive an MDCE scholarship by completing an application at www.mraa.com/MDCEScholarships. The scholarship committee will meet to consider two important aspects of the application: how candidates plan to put what they learn at MDCE to work in their business as well as their financial need. The recipients will be selected and notified in early November.

This year’s event will take place Dec. 10-13 at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. MDCE boasts increasing registration numbers year after year with the 2017 event featuring nine Pre-Conference Workshops; four concurrent Educational Tracks, including Leadership, Sales, Marketing and Service Plus; three dealer-to-dealer roundtable discussion sessions; an opening and closing keynote; an expo hall filled with 100 exhibitors and special events sprinkled throughout the conference.

In total, MDCE 2017 includes more than 30 educational offerings, and attendees are invited to choose whichever combination of sessions best fits their needs and desires. All of these educational offerings are included with a standard MDCE Registration, with the exception of the Pre-Conference Workshops, which require a separate registration fee.

“We are grateful to Soundings Trade Only for continuing this partnership to provide some deserving dealers with a chance to attend MDCE,” Matt Gruhn, President of the MRAA, which produces the annual event alongside Boating Industry. “We hear the impact straight from the dealers after each conference. It remains a consistent theme in the eyes of the dealer community that MDCE is powerful, inspiring, and an undeniable value-add in their business, so what’s inspiring to us is to present this opportunity to those who actively desire to participate, but wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend.”

About the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo
The marine industry’s only dealer-specific educational conference, MDCE offers an in-depth lineup of educational sessions, a full-featured expo hall and a series of fixed networking opportunities, all of which are designed to help marine dealers connect with and learn from others who can foster their success. MDCE is co-produced by MRAA and Boating Industry, and it features four Educational Tracks, Pre-Conference Workshops, Keynote Presentations, a Learning Lab, Dealer-to-Dealer Roundtable Discussions, and an Innovation Spotlight. For more information, visit MarineDealerConference.com.

About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas has been delivering powerful educational programs for marine dealers since 1977. At the MRAA, the team of professionals believes that for the marine industry to thrive, the dealers on the front lines of the industry must first find success. So MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by providing dealers with tools, resources and educational programs, such as its annual conference, and by representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com.

About Boating Industry
Boating Industry is the leading trade magazine serving the marine industry. From award-winning editorial to awards programs including the Top 100 dealers program, Movers & Shakers, Top Products of the Year and more, Boating Industry serves all aspects of the marine industry. For more than 85 years, boating professionals have turned to Boating Industry for market intelligence, product updates, best practices and industry news. For more information, visit BoatingIndustry.com.

Young Leaders Advisory Council Seeks Applications

Be a voice in the Marine Industry by applying or nominating young leaders to join for 2017

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.— The Marine Retailers Asosciation of the America’s is currently accepting applications and nominations for its Young Leaders Advisory Council through November 3, 2017.

The mission of the MRAA is to support and grow the marine industry, and YLAC plays a crucial role in making this possible. YLAC is made up of a group of experienced marine professionals under the age of 40, who are driven by the association’s mission. The group plays a large role representing the needs and ideas from the next generation to the MRAA’s Board of Directors.

“This group is a valuable voice for our work here at MRAA and for the industry at large,” says Matt Gruhn, President of the MRAA. “We’ve always been a firm believer in taking a step back to listen to different ideas and perspectives on how we approach our industry and our businesses, and that’s never as critical as when it comes to the next generation, the very future of our industry.”

Four one-time YLAC members — Martin Boyer, Austin Boats & Motors (Texas), Carly Poole, Buckeye Marine (Ontario), Chad Taylor, Taylor’s South Shore Marina (Ohio) and Jake Jostand, Oak Hill Marina (Iowa) — currently serve on the MRAA Board of Directors; a fifth former YLAC member, Liz Walz, has since joined the MRAA staff as vice president and director of education; and three other former YLAC members have also sat on the MRAA board.

For the immediate future, the YLAC group expects to continue its focus on helping provide solutions to the dealer body’s workforce development challenges.

Applicants or nominees should be willing to meet face-to-face with the group twice a year and provide their ideas and insights, in addition to working jointly with other council and MRAA Board of Directors members on subcommittees. Candidates must be under 40 years of age, hold a position of significance in a dealership and have a minimum of five years of marine industry experience.
If you would like to receive an email when the application and nomination form opens in the fall, please email sarah@mraa.com.

About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.

Taking on Dealers’ Challenge, Part Two

Certified Dealers challenged us to make Recertification as valuable for them as Certification. So, we’ve spent the past year formulating a plan for how to do that and gaining industry insight into our plan. Read more about how we went about that in my last blog: Time for a Professional Change.

Now, we’re focused on execution. Our mission? Design relevant, timely and high impact education developed specifically for Certified Dealers and designed to drive continuous improvement in their dealerships. We call it Continuous Certification.

As we sketched it out, we knew the education needed to feature the topics that are most important now. Like how do you get a return on the CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software you pay for each month? Or maybe even more importantly, how do you get a return on all the time and money you invest in getting people to contact and ultimately do business with your dealership?

That’s why the course we’re featuring in the first quarter of 2018 is: Taking Your Dealership from Good to Great, by Sam Dantzler of Garage Composites.
 
This session would be best learned when you need it the most – during prospecting season, also known as boat show season. When you execute a perfect CRM strategy, your CRM efforts will bring more traffic to your boat show display, traffic that you have a greater chance of selling at the show. More importantly, you will learn to start the follow-up process for those who don’t buy at the show and, as a result, sell more boats all year long.
 
Of course, boat show season is what makes this topic so timely. But relevant? How is this for relevant? Garage Composites estimates that dealers are letting 40 percent of their potential unit sales slip through their fingers, which could be solved through disciplined use of a CRM strategy. Get ready to learn from this session because Sam Dantzler takes this subject personally. He is going to show you how to adopt the core principles to make any CRM system work, including how to generate team buy-in, what data to capture, what to do with that data, and how to use your CRM to increase your customer satisfaction and loyalty.

I’m equally as excited about our second quarter course topic: Improve Loyalty with a Customer Experience Mindset, by Theresa Syer of Syer Hospitality. This is a perfect course for Certified dealers who are always looking for ways to exceed customer expectations.

Let’s get real: We serve customers with very lofty expectations. We are meeting and greeting prospects, many of whom likely drive two or more premium luxury cars, own large well-appointed homes, and have enough money left over to buy a boat that cost as much as a house! What do you think their service expectations might be? 

The NMMA CSI scores show that Certified Dealers already outperform dealers those who are not Certified. Is measuring the buying experience with other boat dealers using the right watermark? Should we look further?

Many of these prospects enjoy vacationing at hotels and resorts managed by the Four Season or Fairmont Hotels. I’m betting we can learn a thing or two from someone who trains and consults the upper end of the hospitality industry – not to mention several marine industry leaders. Someone like Theresa Syer.

Armed with the training this course provides, you will learn to provide a better retail experience, thus positioning yourself to sell more boats with improved profitability and retain more customers.

Stay tuned to this blog for information on the two other high impact topics for 2018: Accountability and Dealership Strategy.

In the meantime, have you and your team taken our Pilot Course, Buyer Motivation: The Key to Building Value? If not, it’s time! Simply sign into MRAATraining.com with your MRAA username and password, and scroll down to New & Popular Courses at the bottom of the homepage. Don’t have a username and password? Email us at info@mraa.com or call 763-315-8043 to receive a username and password today.

The only investment required for this course is your time. We have opened our new learning system to you at no charge so you can experience this interactive, online course firsthand.

This training is sorely needed in our showrooms to make sure that our salespeople are effectively presenting a boat’s features and benefits to each customer. We know that Certified Dealers already have a documented, well-followed sales process. This course will complement your sales strategy and help you close more deals sooner.

Spring Brook Marina- Letter From the Thorpe Family

Jim Thorpe and family, of Spring Brook Marine sent a letter to friends and business partners announcing the sale of their family business. Spring Brook Marina is a longtime MRAA member and Jim served on the MRAA board for 17 years.

TO ALL OUR VALUED CUSTOMERS:
In 1960, when my mother, father, and myself put the first shovel in the ground, we never imagined that we would build such a successful family business. From the beginning until now, Spring Brook Marina has grown from 7 acres of land and 15 small boat slips to 50 acres of land and over 200 boat slips. We went from hand building Chris Craft kit boats in our basement to one of the largest yacht dealers in the country. After purchasing the first 7 acres of land, we started digging the first of 3 harbors. My father and I built the docks by hand and installed them in the spring of 1961. We quickly sold out of docks the first year, built a workshop, and purchased a travel lift. Our family business was off to a great start.

In 1988, my son, Steve joined the team full time, and in 1989, my daughter, Tammy joined in making for an even clearer path to success. In 2003, we hired Kyle Stenzel. Even though Kyle was not from the marine industry, he learned very quickly and sold his first boat at the 2003 Racine Boat Show. In 2007, Kyle received the Number 1 Salesperson award from our yacht manufacturer. After several years, he took over the responsibility of sales manager, and in 2012, was instrumental in signing on with Prestige Yachts, which has led us to selling and servicing over 55 of these beautiful yachts. Now in 2017, Kyle will be introducing Fairline Yachts, with the first one coming this winter.

We have grown this family business in leaps and bounds over the past 56 years, and now we have decided it’s time to release the reigns and sell this family legacy to Kyle Stenzel. Myself and the current Spring Brook crew are confident and totally onboard with supporting Kyle in this new venture. We can assure you Kyle, along with Tammy and Steve, will continue to offer and provide the exceptional customer service and support that you are accustomed to from Spring Brook Marina.

I will still be around, helping out at boat shows, flying the crew to where they need to go, and providing advice, if needed. I plan to do some traveling, play some more golf, and relax a little more.

I would like to thank my family, our employees, and all of the Spring Brook customers for making Spring Brook Marina the success that it is today, and for your continued support in the future.

Sincerely,

Jim Thorpe
Tammy Murphy
Steve Thorpe

MRAA Introduces Certification Program at SeaArk Boats Dealer Meeting

Monticello, ARK.  – The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas participated at the SeaArk Boats dealer meeting last week, presenting opportunities for dealership growth and success through the Marine Industry Certified Dealership.

At the meeting, MRAA Lead Certification Consultant Bob McCann presented twice to the dealers in attendance, offering them insight into a proven path for growth and success. The Dealer Certification Program, endorsed by SeaArk Boats and parent company Correct Craft, Inc., provides dealers with a blueprint for building an industry-leading dealership operation.

“We work with dealers on a daily basis to help them strengthen their competitive advantage, and we had an engaging conversation with SeaArk’s dealer network on how to instill a culture of continuous improvement,” says McCann. “We believe the roadmap that Dealer Certifciation offers them leads them down a path of stronger operating systems, greater employee engagement, and higher levels of customer loyalty, which all add up to greater profitability for SeaArk Dealers.”

As part of a broad campaign to fulfill its mission, MRAA has been working closely with a number of manufacturers throughout 2017 to help extend such opportunities to their networks in custom programs. Additionally, MRAA has evolved the Dealer Certification Program to create much greater value for Certified Dealers and their staffs. Today, not only will the process of becoming Certified help dealers stay focused on continuous improvement, but it will also share real-world strategies, best practices and insights from world class experts.

“We believe the Dealer Certification Program is an ideal resource for our dealer network to tap into and use to grow their businesses,” says Steve Henderson, President of SeaArk Boats. “As SeaArk looks to strengthen its position in the market, we wanted to give our dealers access to tools and educational programming like that which the MRAA offers to help them strengthen their competitive advantage, as well.”

About Dealer Certification
The MRAA’s Dealer Certification Program provides a blueprint for boat and engine dealers to create a culture of continuous improvement within their businesses. Dealer Certification focuses on enhancing dealership performance through three key pillars of building a competitive advantage: Operations, Employee Engagement, and Customer Satisfaction. The program unites the best and most effective tools, resources and educational programming offered by the MRAA into one package that offers dealers the most direct route to growth and success in today’s market. For more information, please visit MRAA.com/Certification or contact us at 763-315-8043.

About SeaArk Boats
With over 59 years of experience in boat building, SeaArk Boats (owned by Correct Craft) is the industry’s premier aluminum fishing boat known for outstanding product quality and excellent customer service. Mostly known for heavy-duty aluminum boats built specifically for cat-fishing, SeaArk also builds bass- and crappie-fishing boats, jon boats, duck boats, and bay boats, offering a wide variety of tunnel and jet tunnel hulls. For more information visit www.seaarkboats.com.

Forest River joins MRAA as Platinum Member

Forest River Marine, makers of Berkshire, South Bay and Trifecta pontoons has joined the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas at the highest level as a Platinum Partner Member.

 

“We believe in the importance of a strong and effective dealer body,” says Tom McCuddy, General Manager of Forest River Marine. “We are proud to have a strong network of dealers, and we believe that supporting the work of our industry’s dealer association is an important contributor to the overall health of our industry and our boating community.”

 

Forest River Marine’s three boat lines: South Bay; Berkshire and Trifecta offer many different floor plans to appeal to all types of boaters. John Sweeney, Marketing Director, states; “We have a boat for every on-water activity, from cruising and fishing models to luxury entertainment and triple tube performance models. Quality is engineered into each boat’s DNA. You can see it in the styling, feel it in the performance and experience it in the excitement of owning one of our pontoons!”

 

“The Forest River team has shown a great desire to strengthen its dealer network in support of their customers,” says Matt Gruhn, President of MRAA. “From their participation at our annual conference all the way through to their communications with the Forest River dealer network about programs and opportunities that our team here at MRAA has to offer them, they continue to invest in and lead the way with dealer development.”

 

Forest River joins a continually growing roster of boat manufacturers, vendors and suppliers that have chosen to support the dealer community through partnership with the MRAA. The support of these organizations enables MRAA to expand the products and services it offers to dealers, with the goal of providing them with more tools, resources and educational opportunities to fuel their success. Find a full menu of partner benefits here.

 

About the Marine Retailers Association
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.

 

About Forest River Marine

Based in Middlebury, Ind., Forest River Marine is a top-tier pontoon boat manufacturer, building entry-level through luxury performance boats powered by up to twin 400 H.P. motors.  Brands include: South Bay, Berkshire and Trifecta. Product offerings include; cruise, entertainment, fish, and sport models.  Forest River Marine, a division of Forest River, Inc., has been building high quality pontoon boats since 1998. Founded in 1996, Forest River, Inc. employs over 10,000 people in multiple manufacturing facilities throughout the Midwest, south, southwest and west coast, producing motorized class A, B and C motorhomes, travel trailers, fifth wheels, pop-up tent campers, park model trailers, commercial vehicles, buses, pontoon boats and restroom trailers. Forest River, Inc. was acquired by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc. in 2005. For more information please contact ForestRiverInc.com or 574-825-8696.

MRAA to Host Opening Night Awards Celebration

The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas announced today that it will host an Opening Night Awards Celebration at the upcoming Marine Dealer Conference & Expo.

The MRAA Awards Celebration will shine a spotlight on marine industry workforce efforts, showcasing a series of awards and scholarships to be presented by both the MRAA and the MRAA Educational Foundation. Other recognitions will include Marine Industry Certified Dealerships, as well as an all-new MRAA Lifetime Achievement Award.
“In bringing this exciting event to the marine industry, we’re looking to not only kick off our annual conference in style, adding a sense of entertainment and flare to our awards program,” explains Matt Gruhn, President of MRAA, “but also to recognize the men and women who work tirelessly to make our industry such a great place to work.”

The MRAA Educational Foundation will present several great scholarships, totaling more than $30,000, including Technical Scholarships, the Marine Industry College Scholarship, the Kevin Lodder Scholarship, and the Duane Spader Leadership Development Scholarship. Additionally, the Foundation will recognize the Darlene Briggs Woman of the Year. The MRAA itself will recognize Marine Industry Certified Dealerships, in addition to introducing the inaugural MRAA Lifetime Achievement Award. All MRAA Members are encouraged to apply for the Lifetime Achievement Award.

As part of the build-up to the recognition of these outstanding individuals, the event will feature a professional emcee as well as the “Fork It Over” Marine Industry Talent Show, aimed at benefitting the MRAA Educational Foundation.

“We are looking forward to an incredible evening of fun, excitement and recognition of the passion and hard work that goes into helping our industry prosper,” says Liz Walz, Vice President & Director of Education at the MRAA and Executive Director of the MRAA Educational Foundation. “We not only want to hold the individuals and organizations to be recognized up as examples to be emulated, but we also are honored to support their efforts to advance their boating business careers.”

The MRAA Opening Night Awards Celebration is sponsored in part by Priority One Financial Services, SeaDek Marine Products, Protective Asset Protection, Barletta Boats, Boating Industry, and Soundings Trade Only.

To be held Sunday, Dec. 10 from 6 to 10 p.m. in the Executive H Ballroom of the Rosen Centre Hotel, the MRAA Awards Celebration will immediately follow the MDCE’s regular opening night poolside reception. That reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m., and the doors to the Awards Celebration will open to all MDCE attendees for entertainment, awards and scholarships presentations. There is no need to RSVP for the event, but for those people or companies looking to guarantee a great seat, reserved tables can be purchased here.

About the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
At the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, we believe that for the marine industry to thrive, the retail organizations that interact with the boaters in their community must thrive. With that in mind, MRAA works to create a strong and healthy boating industry by uniting those retailers, providing them with opportunities for improvement and growth, and representing them with a powerful voice. For more information, visit MRAA.com or contact us at 763-315-8043.

Time for a Professional Change, Part One

Accountants, Architects, Construction Contractors, Cosmologists, Doctors, Engineers, Firefighters, Insurance Agents, Loan Officers, Nurses, Police, Real Estate Agents, Safety Personnel, Teachers.

What do these pros have in common? To keep their jobs and remain in business, they each need to stay updated on their profession by completing continuous education. 

 

And let’s be honest. Whether your industry requires it or not, just about any professional can say the same. That’s why I’m so fired up to share the latest development that we’ve been working on at the Marine Retailers Association.

 

Since joining the MRAA staff nearly two years ago, I’ve heard from many Certified dealers that the ReCertification program is not delivering the same impact that the initial Certification process did. The first time through was game changing, they said, and truly helped them fine tune their dealership for long-term success. They also liked being able to flaunt, “We’re Certified!” as a competitive advantage. They told me how much they learned about their own company during the Certification process by mapping out their processes for sales, service, parts, CRM, and other areas of the dealership.

 

But putting a check in the box showing that they still conform to all the requirements for Certification isn’t challenging them and doesn’t add the same kind of value it did the first time through. So, the MRAA leadership and I came up with a new ReCertification plan that would keep some of the dealer favorites of the current program, such as the Employee Satisfaction component, while integrating forward-looking learning strategies and content through continuous education.

 

We made our case to the Certification Committee and the MRAA Board of Directors, and the concept was overwhelming approved by those dealers and manufacturers, with one little caveat.  They wanted to change the name of ReCertification to Continuous Certification.

 

Frankly, the term ReCertification hints that the dealer fell from Certification graces and needs to be recertified, which couldn’t be further from the truth.  Rather, this program aims to help dealers continually improve the customer and employee experiences to create a more professional, more successful marine business. By providing relevant, timely and high impact education developed specifically for Certified Dealers, Continuous Certification is our answer to the challenge posed by participants. It is designed to drive continuous improvement while raising the bar of marine dealership professionalism.

 

Want a sample? Check out our free Pilot Course, titled, “Buyer Motivation: The Key to Building Value.” It’s available now at MRAATraining.com.

Raising Our Game Together

Over the past four or five years, we’ve had a lot of conversations with dealers like you about how you approach improving and growing your business.

Your commitment to continuing to get better at everything you do is inspiring to us. Especially when we consider all that you’re juggling.

Most dealers are running four or five different kinds of businesses under one roof, each of which has its own unique set of factors that need to be considered and managed to be successful. Add into that the challenges that come with seasonality, economic ups and downs, workforce shortages, the unpredictability of Mother Nature … the list goes on and on.

You are not only making the best of all of the uncertainty of running a business, but we can feel your passion for serving your customers, caring for your team and contributing to your community. You want to be among the best of the best in this industry. We can’t help but respect you and want to help.

As MRAA has worked to serve the marine retail community, our goal has been to offer tools, education and resources that can be quickly and easily put to work in the dealership.

The wake-up call for me has been the realization that, despite the best of intentions, most training and education out there doesn’t go far enough to make a real difference for dealers and their employees. And most dealers don’t have a training or human resources department that can pick up where the trainers and educators leave off.

So, the MRAA team has been working hard to ensure the educational tools, resources and content we provide ARE actionable, CAN be adopted by most dealers and WILL help them improve their performance.

The pinnacle of this effort is coming to life in what we introduced yesterday as Continuous Certification. Certified Dealers don’t just have the desire to improve and grow … they’ve made a commitment to laying down a foundation, a stable platform that they can build a better future on. Certification leads them through the development of this foundation.

Once they’ve built that foundation, it means that regardless of how big their business is, how many locations they have or how many people they employ, when they take on a new training initiative, they’re different from the average dealer. They have the processes in place to quickly and effectively adopt new strategies, and respond to changes in their prospects and customers, and in technology.

That’s why we’ve made the investment in developing a training curriculum just for Certified Dealers … One that we can be confident they can use to improve and grow. We’ve partnered with some of the best educators out there, those that are truly committed to our industry and have a track record for making a real difference. People like Sam Dantzler of Garage Composites, Theresa Syer of Syer Hospitality, John Spence of John Spence Inc. and David Spader of Spader Business Management.

We’re also working with Jim Million of Professional Research Group, Inc., an expert in designing dealer education that produces measurable results and a leading trainer and educator in his own right. In fact, if you’ve entered MRAATraining.com to take our Pilot Course on Buyer Motivation: The Key to Building Value, you’ve already had a chance to witness Jim in action as the course instructor.

All of us are really excited to see what we’re producing together pay off in spades for Certified Dealers, their employees and their customers.

At the end of the day, our mission with Dealer Certification, or any MRAA educational program, isn’t just to provide as much value as possible. That’s not enough. You trust us to help you and your team get better at what you do, to make a real difference in your businesses and in this industry, not just once, but on an ongoing basis. That’s what Continuous Certification – and everything we do at MRAA – is all about. And in order to keep up with you and your quest for continuous improvement, we have to keep raising our game too.

MRAA Launches All-New Continuous Certification

Program evolution replaces “Re-Certification” with exclusive educational curriculum.

MINNEAPOLIS — The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas announced today the launch of an exciting new evolution of the Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program, known as Continuous Certification. This all-new Continuous Certification approach will replace what has historically been known as “Re-Certification.”

The Continuous Certification cycle will provide Certified Dealers with a timely, relevant and impactful educational course every quarter, giving them exclusive access to training that helps their teams navigate the latest trends and strategies in an easy-to-digest format. MRAA designed the Continuous Certification coursework to assist dealers in further developing the core tenets of Dealer Certification — Customer Service, Operational Excellence and Employee Engagement — while simultaneously feeding them new ideas and opportunities to help them drive greater success.

“Since the kick-off of Dealer Certification almost 13 years ago, dealers have navigated a Re-Certification cycle that asks them to validate that they’re still executing the fundamentals they’ve already proven to be doing. We saw an opportunity to add more value for dealers with a new approach,” explains Matt Gruhn, President of MRAA. “We’ve spent the last couple years building the concept of Continuous Certification, and today, we are launching the most significant investment we’ve ever made in Dealer Certification — an investment that will add incredible value to the development, growth and prosperity of our dealers.”

MRAA has developed a pilot course, which is now available to any industry professional that would like to sample the program’s educational offerings. On January 1st, the first formal Continuous Certification course will be unveiled exclusively to those Certified Dealers who have registered for the program. Here’s an overview of the pilot and 2018 Continuous Certification Curriculum:

  • Pilot: Buyer Motivation: The Key To Building Value, with Jim Million
  • 1st Quarter: Take Your Dealership from Good to Great with CRM, with Sam Dantzler
  • 2nd Quarter: Improve Loyalty with a Customer Experience Mindset, with Theresa Syer
  • 3rd Quarter: The Essentials of Accountability, with John Spence
  • 4th Quarter: The Strategic Dealership, with David Spader

While the Continuous Certification curriculum will be made available exclusively to Certified Dealers, the courses themselves will be available to all employees at the participating Certified Dealership location. And the Pilot Course, which is accessible here, will be made available to anyone that is interested. The Continuous Certification curriculum will be re-loaded each year with four new courses that feature a hybrid approach to education, asking dealers to watch, listen, converse, test theories, and grow through what they learn.

“This is unlike any education we’ve ever offered,” explains Liz Walz, Vice President and Director of Education at the MRAA. “We’ve studied the latest research into performance improvement and how the brain learns, and we’ve built a series of courses that will not only share strategies, expert advice and best practices, but also guide dealers and their employees in implementing them.

“Our hybrid educational approach will include video, reading materials, exercises, dealer-to-dealer interaction, consultant interaction, as well as testing, to ensure those who participate in the course are truly learning from it and have the tools to act on it. These advanced e-learning principles have been proven successful in numerous educational settings. We’re applying them with maximum effectiveness by customizing these courses exclusively for Certified Dealers.”

While the concept of re-Certification is being left behind, some of the key elements of the program will remain intact. For example, Certified Dealers that are enrolled in the Continuous Certification Program will still have access to the popular Employee Satisfaction Surveys, and participating dealers will still complete items such as the Pre-Certification Business Assessment, Quarterly Management Reviews, CSI Tracking & Trending, Process Improvement Worksheets, and Performance Planning-style documents.

Continuous Certification enrollment is available only to those dealers who have achieved Certification status through the Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program. Dealers who have not yet achieved Certification status can enroll at mraa.com/certification. Upon becoming Certified, they can immediately gain access to the Continuous Certification curriculum. Dealers that were due for “Re-Certification” at any point during 2018 should enroll in the new program by January 1st to maintain their Certification. The annual curriculum for Continuous Certification is available for only $999 as a standard rate and only $899 for MRAA Members.

Visit www.mraa.com/certification for more information.

About the Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program
The MRAA’s Marine Industry Certified Dealership Program provides boat and engine dealers with a blueprint for running a successful dealership. Covering a broad range of requirements designed to cultivate a high level of customer satisfaction, employee engagement and operational efficiencies, Certification helps dealers elevate their performance and grow by instilling a culture of continuous improvement throughout the dealership. To learn more about the MICD Program, visit www.MRAA.com/certification.