Skipper's blog: Is loyalty dead?

AS you all know by now, if it’s a ranting, raving tirade of barbed, bellicose, belligerent, opinionated oratory you’re after, then The Skipper is your best bet. Mind you, that’s not to say there isn’t any truth in my scathing, sweeping and dramatic declarations – I make my point but also have fun cranking up the burner until the simmer froths into a boil.

So what’s this rant about? Well, it’s about the time-honoured concept of loyalty, and how it now seems to be about as old-fashioned a premise as walking to the outside of a lady on the footpath to protect her from the horse-drawn carriages. To posit the theory that the idea of loyalty (in our industry, at least) is now as redundant as the 8-track cassette player or the stationery cupboard at The News of the World, here is a jarring tale about two marine dealers who were to loyalty what Errol Flynn was to celibacy. Read on….

The first case, and least offensive of our two examples, concerns a neophyte owner, from outside the industry, who bought an established dealership (doesn’t matter what region or state so no names, no court-martial) and who, at first glance, had laid out a first-class and superbly presented stand at an otherwise lacklustre, cynical, revenue-grabbing exercise by his local BIA (i.e. boat show). To the uninitiated, this stand would have seemed a paradigm of professionalism. Two major outboard brands packaged on boats from a name-brand aluminium manufacturer, with a centre walkway (or line of demarcation, if you like) separating both outboard brands and with transoms towards the walkway – one make of outboard down one side and one down the other, like two armies facing off.

However, even the uninitiated would have noticed something incongruous and confusing upon venturing onto the stand. There, in pride of place, was a huge plasma screen running and rerunning the (in)famous DVD that showed two outboard brands doing battle so that one brand stood victorious and the other slunk away vanquished. You know the one: firstly a twin-rigged boat with two identical-HP motors (one from each brand) and secondly two identical boats, each fitted with the same-HP motor from each brand. What the dealer appeared to have rather glaringly overlooked, though, was that both brands were sold by him and displayed in equal numbers on his stand!

What a debacle! Here was an otherwise intelligent man who had brought over twenty boats to a show, with a selection of motors equally split between the two brands on the DVD – a DVD where one of his brands was rated a champ and the other a chump. So, with one inexplicable brain fade, he was on the way to excluding half of his show wares from customer consideration. After several stunned, shell-shocked industry veterans made the dealer see the error of his ways, he was suitably chastened and reluctantly (but pragmatically) agreed to pull the DVD.

Why did he do it in the first place? Well, because management of the “hero” outboard company from the DVD had promised him a cash payment of $1,000. Talk about cent wise and dollar foolish – this dealer was unconsciously but calamitously writing off half his show stock, and the tens of thousands of dollars this stock would potentially have brought him, for the pleasure of trousering one lousy grand! How badly would anybody need a thousand bucks to embark upon an exercise of such insane, short-sighted folly?

Whilst our first example contritely and humbly saw the error of his ways and subsequently became an even-handed, enthusiastic and proactive promoter of both brands, the star of our second example is decidedly grubby, contemptible as well as sinisterly Machiavellian. And, to the best of The Skipper’s knowledge, this person was always an incorrigible, recidivist, stirring, invective-slinging, underhand agent provocateur.

Our second party also represented two outboard brands, one of which, due to long-standing ties, he always personally preferred (no real problem there – who among us is different?), and one which he lamely professed to like equally (and which probably gave him twice the volume of his “pet” brand) but which in truth he marginalised and retained only as leverage to keep his preferred supplier on song and dancing to his tune.

There is no doubt whatsoever that this dealer’s less-favoured brand was used solely as a draw card or “tantaliser” to entice and bait customers, whereby they were in many cases switched to the brand with which he had the longer involvement. The Skipper personally knows a customer who went to this dealer to expressly buy a reasonably expensive model from his “second” line only to listen to an arduous, interminable, full-on litany about why a similar-sized model from his preferred brand was preferable in every way. No, the customer insisted; he was adamant that he wanted what he originally came to buy. Still the brainwashing went on – there was no way this dealer was going to sell him what he unequivocally asked for, so he left and gave his business to someone willing to sell him what he wanted.

Maybe there were unusual, overpowering reasons for the dealer’s behaviour in this instance; maybe there was a rebate or special offer on his pet brand, or maybe this particular model from his pet brand was incurring finance curtailment payments – who knows? But the facts are a) that he made no attempt to oblige his customer and b) that his myopic, irrational favouritism lost him that customer. But this was far from atypical behaviour from this dealer. With his second brand, he regularly, consistently and continually leaked details of promotions, campaigns, specials and business programmes (and, more than likely, delicate, sensitive, service-related issues too) to his favoured supplier. But lest you think that this was out of devoted, concerned altruism, nothing could be further from the truth. This was information proffered to keep his pet supplier (supposedly his preferred business partner) on their toes, so that they kept their pricing sharp lest he defect. And he used the same duplicitous deviousness with the second supplier as well, so that they would lift their game and be content to play second fiddle or risk total marginalisation in his shop.

Not only did this dealer always have complete, total and utter contempt for the products from his second supplier, but he had no regard or respect for their business systems, customer/warranty-registration criteria or their staff, having permanently barred both the rep and the state manager for once having the temerity to want to carry out a stock audit.

Naturally, however, once boat show time came, the party in question always had his hand out to both outboard brands for equal amounts of funding for his annual patchy, tatty, “bargain basement” display. So, in this instance, all favouritism or prejudice miraculously disappeared – they both had to contribute equally or he would display more of one brand.

How can the industry, suppliers and, ultimately, customers benefit from having contact with anyone like the individual above? Could either of his outboard suppliers ever trust him? Is someone like that an asset to any supplier whatsoever? Whilst dealers quite rightly expect support, loyalty, dedication and principled ethics from suppliers, there has to be the same level of reciprocation in the other direction otherwise the relationship will be a symbiosis of mutual mistrust rather than a synergy of success.

To end this revelatory saga of the confused but eager, “shake-up-the-industry” newcomer who made a silly error but atoned, and the long-standing grub with the putrefaction of malodorous business practices hanging over his head like the stench from a bloating corpse, it should be noted that one of them has since gone to the wall and the other is still in business. Guess which is which.