Boating Industry

December 2015

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December 2015 | Boating Industry | 23 www.BoatingIndustry.com [ Dealer of the Year ] Gordy's also created a 10-year strategic plan for the company and began the process of creating a succession plan; the goal is to have a written plan completed by 2025. "Strong leadership is needed to decide the direction for the company and then ensure that the company stays headed in that same direction over time. It takes dedication, disci- pline, and a clear and consistent message to the rest of the team," said Steele. "We owe it to our teammates, customers and next gen- eration of family members to have a plan in place that allows the business to continue to survive and thrive without our involvement or with limited involvement. " Many of the improvements Gordy's made in 2014 were to its service and storage departments, including beginning the pro- cess of building a fifth large storage building to rack 168 boats and adding new service and storage employees. "As we continue to grow with boat sales," said Steele, "we have a high retention rate of the boats we sell that people then store and service with us [and] a lot of our expansion has happened in the service and storage side." The expansion is necessary, considering the success Gordy's has had since adding the MasterCraft line to its offerings. 2014 marked the first full year of MasterCraft sales at the dealership, an addition Tom G. Whowell, principal at Gordy's, says has increased boat sales, service, storage, pro shop sales and more for the dealership. "There's no doubt that the MasterCraft [addition] has increased our business right away," said Tom. "In addition to that, it's re- ally a great cultural fit for us. Looking back, it's helped us grow our brand. MasterCraft has such a strong brand and we're really ex- cited to align the Gordy brand with that." MasterCraft is the first boat line Gordy's has added since it started selling Cobalt boats in 1997. Gordy's has certainly had several op- portunities to add lines in the past but has been selective about the ones it chooses, turn- ing down several brands over the years that did not match the dealership's culture. "When we had the chance to partner with what we feel is the premier water sports brand, like MasterCraft is in the inboard mar- ket, that was a no-brainer. That was a great cultural fit. It was right in line with what we're already doing on the water in promoting the water sports," said Steele. "It's been a great match and we're looking forward to a long- term partnership with them." This doesn't mean the dealership is done picking up brands for good – they just have to be the right brands. Gordy's focuses on im- proving to become better, not bigger. "We always look to choose our offerings carefully, the alignment with the highest quality, and we feel we're achieving that in the three different segments: the sterndrive segment with Cobalt, the inboard segment with MasterCraft and now the pontoon seg- ment with the newly launched MarkerOne from Cobalt," said Tom. "We're always look- ing at opportunities, but in the end we're very critical. I think our focus is always on … being better. We feel if we do that, bigger will take care of itself." Part of becoming better is learning and growing, a huge part of the Gordy's culture. When Gordy's added MasterCraft, the team was invited to join David Parker's Master- Craft 20 group, which has been a huge con- tributor to the success the dealership has had with the line. "We look at our success since joining David Parker's 20 group with Cobalt and we attribute a lot of our growth, success and a lot of the things that we've done and picked up from those other 20 group members and from David himself. We hold that as really high value," said Steele. "So when we had the opportunity to join the MasterCraft 20 group, it was a no-brainer for us." The 20 group has given Gordy's great feedback and ideas for promoting the Mas- terCraft brand. The dealership sees oppor- tunities to expand with MasterCraft through more events, as the customer appreciation events it held in 2014 for the brand in ex- panded territories were highly successful. Gordy's has always been a business with a water sports culture going back to its incep- tion, when Tom W. Whowell was a member of the Geneva Lake Jumpers, a ski club that performed at ski shows and for other boat- ing lifestyle events on Lake Geneva. Gordy's also has the longest-running ski school on the lake, and the addition of MasterCraft has helped the dealership better promote that as- pect of the business. The Tom Whowell Family The Steele Whowell Family DEALER OF THE YEAR The Chupich Family

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