Corps of Engineers issues lifejacket recommendation

In early May, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ended its four year study of a potential lifejacket wear requirement for adults on all its lakes. The study looked into the feasibility of establishing a mandatory life jacket policy on Corps-managed waters. According to the policy study, wear rates at the test lakes significantly increased and fatalities decreased.

However, the study recommends that no additional regulation be added that would require life jackets be worn while recreating on all Corps-managed waters at this time. Current authority allows the District Commanders to set life jacket requirement policies. The study states many Corps areas are patrolled by other agency personnel and state authorities who would not necessarily be able to enforce Corps policy. Combined with staffing concerns in some Corps regions, this could result in inconsistent enforcement and greater confusion by the public. Ultimately, the study found that while life jacket policy can be an effective tool for increasing survival rates on Corps waters, the policy rapidly loses its value if not regularly and aggressively enforced.

Instead, it suggested that a “selective expansion” of policy should be considered in Districts where boating fatality rates run high, including field water safety education that focuses on the greatest at risk age/gender group.

MRAA strongly and aggressively opposes a mandatory adult life jacket wear policy.

Massachusetts passes Trailer Amendment

The Massachusetts Marine Trades Association applauds Governor Deval Patrick and the Legislature for the inclusion in the final version of the FY2013 state budget of a practical, business-friendly provision that allows the use of one license plate on any trailer owned by a boat builder or repairer transporting vessels on public ways. Introduced during the House budget debate by State Representative Daniel Winslow, this common sense amendment was also embraced by the Senate under the leadership of Senators Anthony Petruccelli, Bruce Tarr , Daniel Wolf and ultimately by Governor Patrick and Registrar Rachel Kaprelian. 

Prior to the Trailer Amendment being signed into law, marine businesses were required to register every trailer used to transport boats on public ways. This costly, duplicative process was detrimental to boating businesses statewide, the majority of which are small, family-owned operations. Thanks to the collective efforts of state leaders, those in the business of building and repairing boats in Massachusetts have one less financial hurdle to overcome as they endeavor to continue operating in the most challenging economic environment in recent history. 

Going forward, boat builders and repairers will be relieved of registering multiple trailers and instead be allowed to maintain one transferrable plate. “The Trailer Amendment is a terrific example of what can be accomplished by our elected officials when partisanship is set aside and a common sense approach is applied for the common good. Massachusetts marine businesses confront the everyday reality of being surrounded by the extremely boat-tax friendly states of Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Any relief is deeply appreciated by the Commonwealth’s boating industry,” stated Jack Kent III, President of the Massachusetts Marine Trades Association. 

The mission of the MMTA is to advance the marine trades and the interests of the boating public by participating in the legislative process and providing and advocating for professional improvement and educational programs.  For more information, visit www.boatma.com.

SOURCE: Massachusetts Marine Trades Association, July 9, 2012

MRAA and LMS launch video packages for members

MINNEAPOLIS — The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas (MRAA) and Lighthouse Media Solutions (LMS) have partnered to design video production packages available exclusively to MRAA members.

“Video has become an essential piece of marine dealers’ marketing strategies,” says Matt Gruhn, MRAA President. “The video production packages being offered by Lighthouse Media Solutions allow our members access to their remarkably skilled team of experts at an incredible value.”

Lighthouse Media Solutions is an MRAA Platinum Partner, the highest level of support for the association, and has been named its preferred marketing agency. Video production is among the many products and services it provides to marine businesses, including e-mail marketing, website development, social media management and print publications.

“While just about any dealership employee can produce a video and post it on YouTube, the dealers generating real results through this medium understand the expertise required to create and deliver an effective message,” says Mike Alleva, Vice President of Marketing & Client Strategy. “We are thrilled to work with MRAA to develop video for its members that meets and exceeds their goals.”

Through this members-only offer, Lighthouse is offering two video production packages: a basic package through which dealers will receive a three-minute, high definition video placed on their website, an e-mail blast to their database to announce the video, and one featured boat video; and a premium package, which includes the basic package plus four departmental videos, three customer testimonial videos and one featured boat video. Also included in the premier package is a training session for dealership staff members on how to properly shoot boat videos.

Both video packages include at least one full day of shooting, travel costs and post-production work, and are offered to MRAA members for $3,000 and $4,500, respectively, a 50-percent discount. For more information, contact Mike Alleva at 857-400-7888, ext. 128 or malleva@lhmediasolutions.com.

About Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
Celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2012, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas is the only North American association dedicated to furthering the interests of boat and engine dealers and other marine-related retailers throughout North America. Under the umbrella of MRAA Rewards, the MRAA offers a host of cost-saving, revenue-generating, business-improvement, and professional-development benefits exclusively for its members. MRAA is the united voice of marine retailers. For more information, visit About Lighthouse Media Solutions
Lighthouse Media Solutions is a forward-thinking integrated media solutions and creative design company that specializes in identifying and executing strategies that leverage traditional and emerging technologies. With core competencies in e-mail marketing, website development, social media management, print publications and video production, its team of creators, technologists, artists and strategists have the experience and technical abilities to deliver cutting edge solutions. For more information, visit http://lhmediasolutions.com.

Volvo Penta signs on as MRAA Platinum Partner

MINNEAPOLIS — Volvo Penta of the Americas a leading global manufacturer of marine engines and power systems, has been named a Platinum Member of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, the highest level of support for the association.

“Like MRAA, Volvo Penta is dedicated to providing dealers with products and services that contribute to their long-term success,” says Matt Gruhn, President of MRAA. “We are delighted to be supported by a company with such an impressive record of support for dealer programs and events.”

Volvo Penta is committed to partnering with marine dealers and boat builders to deliver the best products and service to boaters, while creating a competitive advantage for its partners. For example, its innovative Volvo Penta 2+3 Factory Protection Program, helps dealers secure service revenue streams and create lasting relationships with their customers, ensuring those customers will never be away from the water for very long.

“Volvo Penta understands the important role dealers play in creating positive boating experiences for our joint customers and seeks out opportunities to work with independent dealers to enhance that experience,” says Marcia Kull, Vice President – Marine Sales of Volvo Penta. “Our involvement with the MRAA allows us to help build a more successful dealer community, which leads to a more satisfied boater and a stronger industry.”

About Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
Celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2012, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas is the only North American association dedicated to furthering the interests of boat and engine dealers and other marine-related retailers throughout North America. Under the umbrella of MRAA Rewards, the MRAA offers a host of cost-saving, revenue-generating, business-improvement, and professional-development benefits exclusively for its members. MRAA is the united voice of marine retailers. For more information, visit About Volvo Penta of the Americas
Founded in 1907, Volvo Penta has established itself as the undisputed leader in innovation in marine propulsion. The company introduced its first outboard engine in 1922 and the first in-line 6-cylinder diesel in 1946. In 1959, Volvo Penta introduced the world’s first sterndrive engine, followed by the invention of , the DuoProp® in 1982 and Electronic Diesel Control in 1995. In 2005, Volvo Penta again changed the face of marine propulsion forever with the Volvo Penta Inboard Performance System (IPS) and the Volvo Penta IPS Joystick. With the addition of four new power classes in 2008 and 2009, Volvo Penta IPS is now available in more than 130 boat models ranging from 30 to 100 feet. It’s 4,000th North American IPS package was delivered in July 2011. For more information, visit http://www.volvopenta.com.

MDCE’s NEW Powering Profits Track

What Can This Track Do For You?

The Powering Profits Track includes 6 different sessions. Check out 2 of them below:

The Improvement Engine, by David Veech
You will learn practical ways to create a work environment that will drive continuous improvement throughout your dealership. David’s presentation will share techniques that you can use to build confidence in your people to give them real tools and strategies to solve problems, set goals and build skills. You will also learn ways to establish trust, build teams and create an exciting, challenging, aggressive and satisfying workplace.

Learn from the Leaders in F&I, by David Parker
Some dealers have given up on the opportunity represented by finance and insurance. Are you one of them? Well, it’s time for that to change. In today’s marine market, a focus on F&I can drive up profitability, sell more boats and improve the customer experience. In this session, you will learn new strategies for success from a panel of experts leading the way in this area of dealership operations.

Look for more detailed information on this track (and four other sessions) in future e-newsletters!

The event brochure, complete with individual session info, is available here.

To take advantage of the Early Bird* rate — that’s $349 for MRAA Members and $399 for everyone else — click here to register.

*Valid until September 14, 2012. Beginning September 15, 2012, standard registration rate is $449.

Grow Boating one video at a time

Thanks
to Tropical Storm Debby dumping tons of desperately needed rain on our
dealership I had some time this afternoon to catch up on my to do list. As I
write, Discover Boating’s Facebook campaign has reached another milestone — we’re
over the 450K fan mark and closing in on our goal of a half million “likes.”I
believe we’ll make that mark with a few thousand to spare before the ad program
is scheduled to end after July 10th.

By now
I hope you’ve all heard about our new Movie Maker App.It has received
some pretty good reviews from folks who’ve used it.With an easy-to-follow,
three-step process of downloading some photos, typing a caption or two and
selecting one of the five music backgrounds you can create your own boating
videos.Once done you can download to e-mail or post it directly to your
Facebook page. The hardest part of the whole process is deciding which pictures
to include. What’s the old commercial tag line, “Try It … You’ll Like It”? Try
it, and you will.

There’s
a number of people using this app but to ensure success we’d really like the
industry to get on board, make some videos and share them with their own
friends.To quote Carl Blackwell, the president of Grow Boating, “This is
an industry self-help promotion that doesn’t cost anything.”

With
just 100 or 200 industry stakeholders making one video, that would in essence
be 100-200 Welcome to the Water commercials seeded throughout the internet. The
more people see these, the more they’ll create their own. This could help
tremendously after our ad program ends next month.

Another
benefit of the MovieMaker is that it’s versatile. Got any special events
planned for your customers over the summer?Promote it through the
MovieMaker. In the attached video, you can see how Mount Dora Boating Center is
going to use it to promote our annual July 4th Cook-up and Fireworks
Display. Once it has been created and downloaded, we can send it to every
customer on our e-mail list in addition to posting it to our Facebook page. Just
an idea you might want to try.

If you
have any questions or comments, I would welcome either.Any of you who’d
like to embed Movie Maker on your own Facebook page so that your customers can
create their own movies, click here (http://www.growboating.org/toolkit/webcontent/facebookapps.aspx).

As always
thank you for the time and your continued support,

Joe

What’s happening at MDCE 2012

What’s Happening at MDCE This Year…

Keynote Presentation: “How the Best Get Better”
To be the best in today’s marine marketplace, you have to excel at turning leads into sales, generating repeat business and inspiring powerful referrals.

In this session, author and internationally recognized speaker Robert Stevenson will provide concrete strategies to help you improve sales, customer loyalty and referral business by delivering an excellent customer experience.

3 Tracks of Content

  • Powering Profits Track – a well-rounded package of educational sessions designed to appeal to strategic decision makers.
  • Sales & Marketing Track – timely sales topics and in-depth presentations on driving more sales through marketing.
  • Service & Marina Track – sessions facilitate idea sharing and provide perspectives for those who work in the service department.

The event brochure, complete with individual session info, is available here.

To take advantage of the Early Bird* rate — that’s $349 for MRAA Members and $399 for everyone else — click here to register.

*Valid until September 14, 2012. Beginning September 15, 2012, standard registration rate is $449.

Marine Industry Association of Central Florida to host Marine Retail University

MINNEAPOLIS – The Marine Retailers Association of the Americas and Dominion Marine Media announced today that the Marine Industry Association of Central Florida has become the third state marine trade association to sign on as host of a Norman-Spencer Marine Retail University event this year.

The event, scheduled for Nov. 10-11, 2012, will be held at the Rosen Plaza Hotel in Orlando, Fla., in collaboration with the Marine Dealer Conference and Expo, the national dealer event. MRU will kickoff with a networking reception on Saturday, Nov. 10, and will offer a full day of market-specific education for Florida dealers on the 11th before flowing into the MDCE opening night cocktail reception.

“We are thrilled to partner with the MRU to create new opportunities for our members and our association,” says David Ray, executive director of MIACF. “The market-specific intelligence to be offered makes this a unique educational event that will provide great value for our attendees.”

This Norman-Spencer Marine Retail University event will feature four targeted educational sessions, an expo hall, and a series of networking sessions, including a welcome reception on November 10th. The educational sessions will offer market-specific sales and dealer-performance data that will help attendees make better business decisions. Specifically, GE Commercial Distribution Finance will lead a session on economic trends and dealer performance; Statistical Surveys will provide detailed insights into sales trends and market performance; and Dominion Marine Media will present best practices and expert advice on how to develop your market in today’s economy. A fourth educational session will be incorporated based specifically on the interests of MIACF’s dealer members.

“We are delighted to welcome the Marine Industry Association of Central Florida to the Marine Retail University,” says Courtney Chalmers, director of marketing for Dominion Marine Media, “By kicking off the terrific educational opportunity represented by MDCE with the customized program featured at MRU, attendees will be positioning themselves for great success in 2013.”

“The attendees of this event will walk away with an in-depth understanding of what’s making their market tick and how they can capitalize on it,” says Matt Gruhn, president of the MRAA. “We’re extremely excited to be able to partner with MIACF to create such opportunity for its members because the data and information the MRU provides – combined with the powerful education awaiting them at MDCE – will give them an incredible competitive advantage as they begin selling their 2013 product lines.”

About Marine Retail University
The Norman-Spencer Marine Retail University is a series of regional dealer educational conferences. Launched in 2012 as a partnership between the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas and Dominion Marine Media, these regional events seek to provide attendees with in-depth market knowledge and the tactics to capitalize on those insights. The partners work closely with regional and state associations to deliver additional value to their members. Norman-Spencer Marine Insurance Services supports MRU as the title sponsor of the event series. To bring an MRU event to your association, to support an MRU event or for more information, please contact Matt Gruhn at 763-315-8043 or matt@mraa.com.

GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance named MRAA Platinum Partner

MINNEAPOLIS — GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance (CDF), the boating business’ leading provider of inventory financing, has renewed its position as a Platinum Member of the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas, the highest level of support for the association.

“The deep insights a company like CDF can provide into the health of the dealer body and the incredible resources they have to offer make them an invaluable partner for our association,” says Matt Gruhn, President of MRAA. “We appreciate all that they have contributed to our members in the past, and look forward to exploring new ways we can work together to help our members meet and exceed their financial goals.”

During the past 50 years, CDF has served as a source of financing to more than 3,000 marine dealers. In addition, they have provided data and tools to help dealers manage their inventory and benchmark their success. CDF also shares best practices, insights and resources to help customers tackle their biggest challenges.

“CDF contributes much more than financing to the industries we serve,” says Bruce Van Wagoner, President of CDF’s Marine Group. “Through our partnership with the MRAA, we can help dealers overcome their challenges and build strong businesses suited for today’s marine marketplace.”

About Marine Retailers Association of the Americas
Celebrating its 40thanniversary in 2012, the Marine Retailers Association of the Americas is the only North American association dedicated to furthering the interests of boat and engine dealers and other marine-related retailers throughout North America. Under the umbrella of MRAA Rewards, the MRAA offers a host of cost-saving, revenue-generating, business-improvement, and professional-development benefits exclusively for its members. MRAA is the united voice of marine retailers. For more information, visit About GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Financing
GE Capital, Commercial Distribution Finance provided nearly $32 billion in financing for more than 30,000 manufacturers, dealers and distributors across North America in 2011. Programs include inventory and accounts receivable financing, asset-based lending, private label financing, collateral management and related financial products. Customers have access to exclusive online tools and analytics to manage their accounts and inventory. For more information, visit www.gecdf.com or follow company news via Twitter (@GEInventoryFin).

Small-business optimism remains at historic low

Small business optimism, as measured by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Index of Small Business Optimism, dropped a tenth of a point in May, thus remaining at a historic low.

This reading of 94.4 is “consistent with the sub-par performance of GDP and employment growth,” according to NFIB. Business owners’ expectations for future sales declined for the third month in a row. Levels of hiring and spending were also low, as were expectations of future hiring and spending. However, profit trends were a bright spot, remaining stable after a sizable increase in April. Click here to read more or download the full report.