sept-2017

222 223 the “Home of Super Service” concept. Strong’s Marine works diligently to hire staff members that are a great fit. Jeff admits, “We can train most intelligent people to do different things, but we can’t train someone to be the right cultural fit for us. I personally spend a lot of time, along with Ryan, our General Managers and Human Resource Manager, on interviewing people, regardless of the position. Hiring the right people starts us off on the right foot.We see it as a key competitive advantage, and we invest a tremendous amount of time, energy, and resources on supporting and growing our people.” Strong’s takes good care of its staff, providing everything from profit sharing, health insurance, and retirement programs, to proper uniforms. Company training programs are liberal and flexi- ble, ideal for accommodating disillusioned former business owners who want to become part of this outstanding team. Strong’s maintains an entre- preneurial spirit in the company, yet takes away the headache part of the business. A lot of their STRONG’S MARINE great “players” like that. An Oct. 2016, partnership with Al Grover’s Marina, in Freeport, NY is Strong Marine’s latest expansion effort. Jeff says, “Now we’re just ten minutes from where my grandfather originally started.We haven’t had a direct presence there for awhile, that’s very significant. It’s a partnership arrangement where all of our boat brands are being represented at that location by us, and in conjunction with Dante Grover and his team.” Even as the business continues to grow, delight- ed clients are the top priority. To that end, Strong’s has an in-house position of Client Delight Man- ager. And natural organic consistent growth stems from three core pieces: Home of Super Service and always doing the right thing. Doing everything within our power to have delighted team members. Doing everything within our power to have delighted clients. The recession caused a lot of upheaval in the boating industry, but Strong’s Marine is strate- gically designed to weather that type of storm with significant balanced revenue streams. Jeff explains, “When you get an economic downturn like we had, new boat sales take it on the chin in the biggest way. But we also do a large amount of used boat sales, and part of that is brokerage. Meaning, we’ll sell boats for other people, in- cluding banks.We did a tremendous amount of repossession work for banks during that bad time. So, while we definitely saw a big decrease in new boat sales, we had a huge increase in our used