2012 Best Ideas Award Presented
At an awards lunch on Wednesday during the Marine Dealer Conference & Expo, Courtney Chalmers of Boat Trader and Mike Davin of Boating Industry magazine presented Bob Pappajohn of M&P Mercury Sales with the award for the Best Idea of the year.
Pappajohn's Burnaby, British Columbia-based dealership won for its efforts to sell to non-traditional boater populations. This included outreach to the Chinese community through interpreters, ambassadors and advertising written in their native language.
The Best Ideas Awards, sponsored by Boat Trader, are part of an annual program that promotes the sharing of best practices between dealers in the marine industry. Each year, Boating Industry solicits entries for the contest from the dealer body. The magazine's editorial staff narrows those applications down to a group of finalists who then present their ideas during an MDCE panel. Following that, a winner is selected based on the votes of the audience. Other finalist included Rob Brown of Clark Marine in Manchester, Maine; Paula Fulton of BMC Boats in Longwood, Fla.; Douglyss Giuliana of Advantage Yacht Sales of Newburyport, Mass.; and Phil Miklo of Oak Hill Marina in Arnolds Park, Iowa.
All of the ideas submitted to the program will be included in a white paper produced by Boating Industry, which will be made available to the industry later this year.
