1/15/2008
3:15PM
A friend once told me of Karma, and yep, there's something to it all right.
Just after lunch today the phone rang and it was the gentleman and his wife I had written about in the article below. Seems they had decided to enlist me to exclusively assist them in their boat search after all. They liked my style.
I'm going to like working with these good people.
Mike
1/12/2008
5:35AM
I received an email a few days back from a man and his wife from Washington state. His email explained their plans to sell their house on the west coast, move east and buy a boat to do some cruising to the Bahamas and up the Atlantic coast. He asked for my help in determining the best boat for their needs and finding one that would suit them. So far so good.
He then went on to say that my email was one of several that he had sent to yacht brokers in FL, GA and SC asking them to do the same thing. We have a problem here!
Buying a boat is much different than buying a new house. A realtor works an area concentrated in a specific town; perhaps a specific section of town. A yacht broker's area extends nationwide. We all use a Multiple Listing Service system to search for boats in other broker's inventories for buyers when we don't have just the right one in inventory.
I've worked boat deals with others as far away as Texas and Maryland. I am working a deal now with an individual in California for a boat located in Florida. I have boats listed in 3 states. As boats are movable property it doesn't matter where I find it, I'll get the boat to the buyer.
So I politely declined to help for now. I wrote him back telling him that I'd love to help but he put me in a difficult position. All of the brokers he has contacted will be looking at the same boats, perhaps even presenting the same boats to him. I see a lot of wasted time and time is money. I don't want to spend three weeks looking for a specific boat, traveling to preview it and find out another broker has already presented the boat to the buyer two hours before.
My suggestion to him was that he interview each broker for his/her knowledge of the type boat he might be looking for then let him/her be his exclusive search agent. He'll then have one broker that knows specifically what to look for, how much to spend and any other constraints involved. The broker will look through the entire available inventory and find just the right boat for the buyer and negotiate the best deal.
The process I just described works perfectly every time.
Mike
Saturday, January 12, 2008
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3 comments:
Very good advice! Sounds like you handled it well and perhaps they'll take your advice. I know I'M taking notes! :-)
Hmm, I would never turn away potential business. You never know.
Mike -
Good call. From our particular circumstances, we are looking 3-5 years away. We check boats out online and get a good understanding of what the costs are - the total costs - then go wandering around the marinas, looking over boats. If we see one of particular interest, we are up front with the listing broker of our time frame, and if he has more urgent business, we're not offended.
Once we're in position to pull the trigger, we'll have a strong idea of the boat we'll get, and using the internet and the region, we'll likely wind it down to a short list and go travelling. But - your point well taken, we'll narrow it down to a broker who knows the boats we like, and commit to them.
Cheers,
Ben
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