Yacht Service Company Owners: Can Customers be Trained?

Frustrated yacht service company owners often ask, can customers be trained?

Customers can not be trained, but they can be led. Customers can be led to behave in a way that is good for them and good for your business, when the purpose of your business is clearly communicated and backed by action.

State clearly the purpose of your business and why a customer should care.  Customers that believe what you believe will associate with your business and try your offerings. 

Design your products/services to reflect what you believe and deliver them consistently to earn your customer’s trust.  If the customer segment is large enough, your business will be profitable and your frustration with customers will abate.

Yacht Service Company Owners - Is Your Business "Secret Sauce" Negatively Affecting Your Customers?

Weak Customer loyalty and low profit margins are a serious problem for many yacht service companies.

Every business has a “Secret Sauce” that affects their Customers, whether it is intentional or not.  Often the actual “Secret Sauce”, as Customer’s perceive company performance, drives Customers to try other service providers or encourages them to bargain for lower prices.

When speaking with yacht service company owners, I define business “Secret Sauce” as the unique blend of their skillset, vision, goals, and personality as expressed by their company’s capability to deliver products and services that can transform Customers into more loyal and more profitable Customers.

Discovering and deploying “Secret Sauce” to transform Customers is a deliberate process, the goal of which is identifying the best Customer segments in which to gain the Customer / Trust and Confidence.   Customer Trust / Confidence is gained by consistently demonstrating Competence and making decisions in the Customer’s Best Interests, as perceived by the Customer.

Business Owners: Are You Too Busy To Grow Your Business?

After having skillfully grown their business, as a result of smart decisions and hard work, many small business owners have their time consumed by daily activities with no time left over for the activities to do the things they want to transform their business for further growth.

Growth plans get deferred, season after season.  This condition results in work days that feel repetitive and unproductive, while the dates for achieving financial and lifestyle goals seem to get further into the future.

What is the best way to break this pattern?

Yacht Service Company Owners: Customers Are Your Most Valuable Asset

Without Customers there is no business.

As a business owner, it is your job to make your business more profitable by transforming your Customers into more valuable Customers.

Yacht owners are demanding Customers.  They are active participants in getting the service they desire, whether they are personally involved or they delegated the oversight to a representative.  They are curious as to how their boats will be properly serviced.  Their safety and enjoyment of the boat directly relates to dependable performance of the yacht’s systems.  They want to be knowledgeable.  They want to be involved in service work “at will”, not out of a sense of necessity.  They want your leadership in forming and achieving their vision of the future of yacht technology and how it fits their yachting goals.

They do not want to be embarrassed by poor workmanship on their boats or by having the wrong gear.

Yacht owners are constantly changing and evolving in their needs.  They are individuals who uniquely respond to service offerings. 

Your task is to design and deliver your service offerings in a way that transforms each of your Customers into a more valuable Customer for you, while simultaneously making your services more valuable to your Customer.

The image below portrays the key elements in the Customer transformation process.  Future posts will discuss each of these elements.

Yachting Service Company Owners: What is your "Secret Sauce" and Why should you care?

“Secret Sauce” in your business is the unique blend of your skillset, vision, goals, and personality as expressed by your company’s capability to deliver products and services that transform your Customers into Better Customers.

You should care about this because turning Customers into Better Customers makes your business:

Ø  Easier to Run

Ø  More Profitable

Ø  More Valuable

Ø  Scalable

Yacht Service Company Owners – It’s About You (part 1)

Finding and deploying the “Secret Sauce” in your yacht services company will make your business easier to run, more profitable and more valuable.  (see blog: “Find and Deploy Your Secret Sauce in Yacht Services” http://bit.ly/YUHDKA)

Few yacht service providers have discovered or deployed their “Secret Sauce”, so the industry remains fragmented.  This leaves you an opportunity to get more of what you want from your business.

It is not only up to you, it’s About You.

As the owner of a yacht services company, whether intentional or not, your business is driven by the answer to the question:  What’s in it for you?

Your Vision
 
Every day, with every interaction with your team, with every interaction with your customers, and with every interaction with your suppliers you are signaling “What is in it for you”.  The meaning of these signals must be intentional.

 The signals you send must originate in a clear “Vision” of what you want from your business.  That “Vision” must be based on the realities of your skills, interests, capabilities, dedication and financial goals for your business.

The purpose of a “Vision” is to clarify why your company exists.

A “Vision” is the first step in making your business easier to run, more profitable and more valuable.  “Vision” is the big idea around which employees, suppliers and all stakeholders shall align. 

Your Vision for your business is about how you and your team spend your time.  A clearly stated “Vision” enables all company stakeholders to make better decisions and all efforts to create more value for customers, employees, suppliers and you.

 

Your Vision Must Fit You

 For every business “Vision” there must be a business model to execute the business and deliver the “Vision”.  The key elements of a business model, as written by Alexander Osterwalder & Yves Pigneur in their book Business Model Generation, are: Customer Segments, Customer Relationships, Channels, Value Propositions, Key Activities, Key Resources, and Key Partnerships.

How you design each of these key elements must fit your skills, interests, capabilities, dedication and financial goals.  For example:  If you design services that require a highly personal relationship with the customer then you must be the right person to conduct the relationship, or you must create a process to handle the customer relationship correctly.  Alternatively, design your service differently, so they fit you.

You are your business.  The first step in finding and deploying your “Secret Sauce” is creating an appropriate “Vision” that fits you.

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If you would like more information on creating your own special “Secret Sauce” for Yacht Services, please email me, gene@truebuildyachts.com

Some of my background in yacht services and service innovation can be read online at the links below.

Truebuild Yachts Blog:  http://truebuildyachts.blogspot.com/

What Boat Buyers Say http://truebuildyachts.com/testimonial_buyers01.html

What Boat Builders Say http://truebuildyachts.com/testimonial_builders01.html

Service Innovation Takes Your Business to Where You Want ItTo Be http://bit.ly/VHs2fU

Find and Deploy Your "Secret Sauce" in Yacht Services

As the owner of a yacht services company, you can make your business easier to run, more profitable and, more valuable if you find and deploy your "Secret Sauce".

“Secret Sauce” results from matching your Vision for your company with the design and execution of service offerings uniquely  focused on your customer.  The goal is , from the customer’s point of view, to demonstrate Trusted Competence, Superior Value, and create Evangelist Customers better than your competition.

As you know, running a yacht service business is a special challenge.  Most yacht services are not standard, not routine, there are many stakeholders, the yacht is at risk of damage, and the yacht owner is usually actively involved.  Few yacht service providers have discovered and deployed their “Secret Sauce”.  

The industry remains highly fragmented, leaving you an opportunity for profitable growth.

Success in providing yacht services requires achieving and retaining the trust of yacht owners and the yacht service eco-system.  This can only be achieved by demonstrating competence, value, and reliably making decisions that the yacht owner perceives are in their best interest.

 

There are many ways to create and deliver your “Secret Sauce”.  Getting it done can be hard.  You have constraints, limited resources, and daily challenges that prevent you from generating the progress toward your goals.  But the rewards are high.  Your business will be easier to run, more profitable, and more valuable.

 

The process starts with determining the answers to these three key questions:

1)      What’s in it for your You?

2)      What’s in it for your Customers?

 

3)  What's in it for your Team Members?

These are deep questions that have a profound and personal impact on you, your company culture, technician empowerment, business practices, training, and communication paradigms.

If you would like more information on creating your own special “Secret Sauce” for Yacht Services, please email me, Gene Kohlmann, gene@truebuildyachts.com

Some of my background in yacht services and service innovation can be read online at the links below.

What Boat Buyers Say   http://truebuildyachts.com/testimonial_buyers01.html

What Boat Builders Say http://truebuildyachts.com/testimonial_builders01.html

 

Service Innovation Takes Your Business to Where You Want It To Be  http://bit.ly/VHs2fU