Perspectives

My day started with the usual hectic pace of boat show season almost at an end, yet still coordinating the last show combined with the anticipation of the busy part of the boating season starting .

The problem seems boat season is off to a slow start and folks like me are getting concerned that between the state of the economy. Fishing restrictions, fuel costs and material costs as well as pre election trepidation, there may not be much of a season .

Now, I know myself and many of you will continually go boating and I have a slight advantage over many as a person that  “lives on the water” and owning a boat dealership makes a choice of watercraft of some kind available anytime. But I have to put myself in the place of the Wefings customer. I wont say the “average boater” as I feel our customers are not the “average boater” .Our particular niches and dedication to a particular type of customer and our great service are designed to set us apart. Theoretically we are doing things right. We have focused on quality brands of fuel efficient boats and motors that appeal to a wide range of customers and try to provide a level of service that s as good as it gets. We utilize the web to the fullest advantage that we are able to, continually educate our staff, still love what we do and still want to do it better every day.

So what did we do today? We had to threaten repossession of a motor that we had released before getting paid in an effort to try to help a working waterman, cut some of our “luxuries” such as uniform services, evaluate the phenomenal increase in healthcare costs, and still try to maintain the level of benefits that I expect to be able to provide my employees, deal with  promises not kept by boat movers and mistakes made by shipping companies, that will affect the boats at the shows that we try to make a great impression at and spend lots of money doing, and all the while smile and try to make some current boat owners and future boat owners and our vendors and suppliers happy.…….  Well you get the picture . Just a day in the life

I also had a fellow C Brat come by out of the blue  to visit and say hello and thank me for being a contributing member of the owners group as opposed to just a salesman, , I looked for an inexpensive oyster boat for a person  that is willing to work and I am trying to help that has had a tough few years ,and also wants to donate his old, classic, yet completely unusable wooden  Eastpoint hand built boat to our new Maritime Museum, talked to at least 30 or 40 folks on the phone about a lot of things……

But the experiences that inspired this whole thing I am writing came to me within a few minutes of each other.  A person that I have met through our business that I have become good friends with called to tell me his father passed away this morning , he was 90 years old and had had a peaceful passing and a good life .

Just a little while later I had another of my friends that I owe to being in this business call me to tell me that he and his wife had a healthy 7 and a half pound baby boy.

It was an intensive,and emotional day .Life always goes on .

It helped me put it all in perspective

I’m ready for tomorrow.

Marc .