This transcript was generated with the help of AI and may contain some errors.

Matt Jackson [00:00:00]:
You gotta be not afraid of making a decision and going with it if you’re wrong. You know the adage of fail fast if you can, but don’t be afraid to take some chances.

Kyler Mason [00:00:12]:
Whether you’re going to market through dealers, distributors, or some other partner channel. The mediated sale is complex. We call it B2B2X.

John Gough [00:00:20]:
But the leaders in the industry are the ones who are making it look simple. I’m John Gough.

Kyler Mason [00:00:25]:
And I’m Kyler Mason. And this is Why You Win. Presented by Element Three.

John Gough [00:00:30]:
 everyone, thanks for tuning in. Today’s episode is with Matt Jackson, VP of Sales at Godfrey Marine. On this episode we discuss the complexity of navigating selling two brands with Godfrey and Hurricane.

And how that impacts dealer development and sales efforts and how marketing tells stories. We talk about how Matt and his team have bucked the trend on traditional co op and how they’re doing things differently. But most importantly, we talk about how they’re saving marriages one boat ramp at a time.

Let me hope you enjoy. Matt, we’re so glad to have you on the show. Thanks for coming on.

Matt Jackson [00:01:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate you having me. This is a neat time to just sit down and chat a little bit.

John Gough [00:01:04]:
Yeah, we’ve been looking forward to this one. So for our audience, can you give us a little bit of background about what you do at Godfrey and Hurricane?

Matt Jackson [00:01:12]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I run sales for Godfrey and Hurricane, so it’s a little bit unique in the marine industry that we have two completely separate brands. So Godfrey spontoon boats. Hurricane is fiberglass deck boats, but we’re all under what we call the high water marine brand. And we’re also part of Polaris, so that’s our parent company. I’ve been in the marine business about 20 years. Been here a little over four.

John Gough [00:01:34]:
How did you get the gig?

Matt Jackson [00:01:35]:
Our GM at the time, who’s now president of Polaris Marine. We had worked together previously in the marine business, gone down separate paths. You reached out and crazy. I mean, this is in middle of COVID right? I’m living in rural Arkansas, running another boat company. And he said, hey, my, my head of sales is getting ready to retire after being with the company for about three decades. What would it take to get you to come to Indiana? I said, let’s move it to Florida. We had a good chuckle on that. And he said, no, get you and your wife up here.

Matt Jackson [00:02:06]:
Let’s. Let’s talk. And just ended up being a great cultural fit, which is in my career. That’s, that’s really a Big deal. I’ve been with companies that, you know, they have a lot of big resources, they’re publicly traded, but things tend to move a little bit slow. And then I’ve been with some really large privately held companies where things move blindingly fast. And this was a great balance. So we’ve got the resources of Polaris behind us, but they give us a lot of local autonomy, a lot of support to be able to be nimble.

Matt Jackson [00:02:36]:
The team here, there weren’t a lot of egos, nobody stabbing each other in the back to climb over each other. So I was like, you know what, this, this seems like a pretty good deal. So we ended up pulling the trigger.

Kyler Mason [00:02:46]:
So you are in Indiana?

Matt Jackson [00:02:48]:
Yeah, yeah.

Kyler Mason [00:02:49]:
Really? We should be doing this in person.

Matt Jackson [00:02:51]:
Yeah, I’m in. Sitting in Elkhart, Indiana right now. So they’re about five minutes from the Michigan line.

Kyler Mason [00:02:57]:
Okay, Very cool. We’re very familiar.

Matt Jackson [00:02:59]:
Never in my life that I think I would live in Indiana, but we’re enjoying it.

Kyler Mason [00:03:04]:
Are you getting down to Florida?

Matt Jackson [00:03:06]:
We do. And especially being in the marine industry. In fact, I was there last week. We had an industry event. I’m probably there four or five times a year.

John Gough [00:03:13]:
So how much time do you spend on the water? Like, are you a boat guy?

Matt Jackson [00:03:17]:
We have a term in this industry we call. You have the. The boating gene or boating DNA. We are a boating family, always have been. One of my favorite pictures is when we actually lived in Florida is my son, who’s the youngest of our three kids, is literally strapped to my wife in one of those baby backpacks. And fishing in one of the intercoastal parts of Florida. So yeah, we, we’re on the water as much as possible. We’re very fortunate here.

Matt Jackson [00:03:44]:
We live on the river, so we’ve got our pontoon, I have a fishing boat, kids are on kayaks. You name it, we’re on the water.

Kyler Mason [00:03:50]:
You’re VP of sales over. Over both of these. Both of these brands. What does the organization expect from you? What do your days look like? What does good look like for you.

Matt Jackson [00:04:00]:
In your role when it’s funny, even when I was thinking about coming on here, that’s. That’s one of the terms I use a lot. What does good like look like? Especially with a kind of an ever changing landscape with. With dealers for me, day to day. So I have a. I have an interesting setup. I’ve got a sales team that half of them are company employees, half of them are independents. So which is fairly common in the marine industry.

Matt Jackson [00:04:22]:
But usually you’re one or the other, not, not mixed. So I have that, I’ve got the inside sales team. So our coordinators, scheduling, getting orders approved, some finance pieces and then also have a data analyst on my team. And so, you know, if you really boil it down, what is my day to day? It’s trying to figure out how do we win in the marketplace, how do we grow, share, how do we develop long term partnerships with dealers. Godfrey and Hurricane both have been around a very long time. In fact, Godfrey brought the first all aluminum pontoon boat to the Chicago world’s fair over 60 years ago. So we, we like to say we didn’t invent the pontoon, but we’re the first one to commercially put it out. And Hurricane, very similar story there.

Matt Jackson [00:05:04]:
Been around a very, very long time, sold more deck boats than anyone else in the world over that time. So long rich history here.

Kyler Mason [00:05:10]:
That’s awesome. So tell us more about the mixed buckets of employees versus independent contractors and maybe educate us a little bit on why. Usually it’s one or the other for sure.

Matt Jackson [00:05:24]:
So an independent is exactly that. So they, they have to earn a contract every year with us. They don’t have any of the benefits, they’re 100% commission based. So you know, if you use cliches, they eat what they kill. So kind of, you know, if a company was going that route, it’s okay. These guys are always going to be hungry, they’re motivated because if they don’t produce, they don’t get paid. But at the same time, some of the challenges are unless you have it specifically spelled out on contract, you can’t say, hey, you have to be here, you have to do this. But obviously they’re motivated because if they don’t do what we ask them, you know, they’re not going to get a deal the next year.

Matt Jackson [00:06:01]:
And then a company employee, you know, they have all those benefits and then we’ve got some strong benefits for our team members. But the argument looking just as the industry as a whole would be okay, things are tough or things are good, they might not be as motivated, just be an order taker rather than getting out trying to grow. And we don’t have any specific plans to shift that mix, it’s just kind of evolved over time. But I would say that is a little bit unique, having some of both.

Kyler Mason [00:06:27]:
Do you see advantages that are helping you in the goals that you’re trying to achieve by having having the mix?

Matt Jackson [00:06:33]:
I don’t know that it’s a true advantage, but it does help me to kind of always be looking at things from two points of view. And I feel like this industry and probably a lot of others, it’s a chess game, Right. So how do I get the pieces aligned to where I don’t just win this move, but I’m winning two or three moves ahead. But I think anything that challenges you to think a little bit differently and not get stuck in a rut, yeah, that’s an advantage.

John Gough [00:06:56]:
I think that it is a temptation of operators to streamline and systematize everything as much as possible and make their own. This sounds like a dig. It’s not exactly one. To make their own lives easy.

Matt Jackson [00:07:08]:
Right.

John Gough [00:07:08]:
To make everything kind of hum. And your willingness to live in that hybrid environment I think speaks to the virtue that you’re describing of just being willing to see something from both sides. I love that. Yeah.

Matt Jackson [00:07:21]:
And then two brands also is. Is pretty unique, right? So if we do dealer programs, promotions, we get to do it twice because they’re not exactly the same. We have a large percentage of our dealers carry both, but we have some dealers that are only Godfrey, some that are only Hurricane. And that’s a unique piece to the business as well. And market share, completely different as well when you look at that. Different competitors, all that. I keep trying to negotiate to get two paychecks. That hasn’t happened yet, but we’re trying.

John Gough [00:07:50]:
Do you think that your dealers or your customers are tuned in to the relationship between those two organizations?

Matt Jackson [00:07:59]:
They are. And a lot of times we’ll even just refer to things as Godfrey or kind of. We have a parent company called High Water Marine that most people don’t know what it is, but dealers have been around long enough. Off the top of my head, probably about 80% of our dealers carry both, but we do have some that are one or the other.

John Gough [00:08:15]:
One of the things that we’re really interested in is how manufacturers are supporting their dealers in that kind of ecosystem where they have a connection with you or with another salesperson who represents both of those brands. Are you running like co op programs or MDF programs that cross over both, or do they have to have sort of independent relationships as they deal with those different brands?

Matt Jackson [00:08:36]:
So we do something a little bit unique. We don’t do traditional co op. With my background, one of the things I’ve enjoyed is so I ran a dealership, then I worked on the engine side for a little over 10 years, 11 years. And then here on the boat side of things, we can get more targeted market by market with promotions. And my view on typical traditional co op, if you will, is it’s effective at times, but it’s also like you get to the end of the year and you literally as a rep calling and going, hey, you got 500 bucks left in here. You want to order some bar stools, some couple of T shirts to pass out. And so it doesn’t really get utilized in ways that’s going to move the needle. So by us taking those same dollars and looking at what can we do really targeted, whether it’s at a boat show or an open house or just a regional promotion, we can get a lot more precise and use that money more effectively.

Kyler Mason [00:09:32]:
Can you describe traditional just a little bit more?

Matt Jackson [00:09:35]:
Yeah. So traditional in the marine space and probably a lot of others is we’ll say, okay, for every purchase you make 1% of those wholesale dollars we’re going to put into a co op account. And then if it’s a show and you have 100% share, then you can claim 100% if you have the money available, 50%, so on and so forth. And that’s kind of the model a lot of companies have used. And we would rather take those similar percentages, not exact, but similar percentages, and go, okay, where do we really get the most value for this? And the dealers, they see that as well. They all have those companies where, like I said, they’re getting to the end of the year and ordering 500 keychains to give away next year because they got money to spend.

John Gough [00:10:16]:
Right.

Kyler Mason [00:10:17]:
Use it or lose it.

Matt Jackson [00:10:18]:
Yep.

Kyler Mason [00:10:19]:
How do you approach the. Of recommendations for what, you know, works versus maybe what they are used to in the other competitive landscape?

Matt Jackson [00:10:28]:
It’s a combination of, of several things. I would say the, the great barometer in our business is market share. So we’re looking at, okay, who’s, who’s winning, who’s losing, not just brands, but down to, okay, is it specific floor plans, specific models, things like that? And then going, okay, what would give us the best opportunity to win in that? A lot of times it’s in partnership with the dealers as well. Of, you know, they come to us with an idea and we may go, hey, that’s awesome, or maybe not. But you know what that really spurred us onto? What if we did this? And so we get the chance to be a little bit creative. So we take a lot of inputs from, from the market, from the sales team, from the dealers. It’s not an exact science. We’re certainly going to do things that work awesome or do some things that don’t.

Matt Jackson [00:11:08]:
Work, but we’re going to try.

John Gough [00:11:10]:
Where does that dealer feedback come from? Is it a council? Do you just have a few of them on speed dial?

Matt Jackson [00:11:16]:
We don’t have an official dealer council currently. We do have some, some core dealers who talk to a lot our reps. I mean, my expectation is, well, backup, so I love to use the line, what if I paid you to do it? And so my expectation is, you know, they’re talking to those dealers every day. I have quite a few that I talk to on a very consistent basis. I love to get out, visit our customers. It’s probably the most fun part about the job for me. And one of the things I love about the company culture as well is our president all the way up to our CEO at Polaris. They get out and visit our customers as well.

Matt Jackson [00:11:50]:
There’s, there’s no sitting in an office, so we get a lot of areas, places where we can get that feedback.

Kyler Mason [00:11:56]:
That’s great. You mentioned, you’ve mentioned grow share a few times now. Like, what does strategic planning look like in, in your organization and how you’re a part of it to, to move the needle there?

Matt Jackson [00:12:09]:
Yeah, so. Well, I mean, from, from a share standpoint, we obviously have goals we’re establishing and we’re looking several years out and, and going, okay, what are the, what are the elements that really drive share? Right, so it’s pretty, pretty basic. You’ve got pricing, you’ve got, you got product, you got promotion. You know, the stuff we all Learned and the P’s. Yeah, yeah, exactly. 101. But then how do you, how do you take those and, and refine that? Right. So for instance, if it was all about price, well, anybody can come in and undercut you at some point in time.

Matt Jackson [00:12:40]:
And I look at price more as value. And what I mean by value is not just what the customer’s getting, but is this driving profitability for our dealers? Is this something they’re going to be excited about selling then? Obviously you do have to have the right product. And we look at different segments, you know, entry level, mid level, premium, all those things. But trying to put all those elements together and yeah, like I said, looking with the chess piece, right, like, what do we need to do right now? What do you need to do a year from now? What do we need to do three to five years from now? And you know, you go from what I would call really pretty crystal clear. Sometimes the market throws just some curveballs, but pretty close to creative. Two, I got a pretty good idea to. This is what we want to do, but it’s fuzzy. But we’ve at least got a plan, and we’re just going to keep sharpening the pencil if you want.

John Gough [00:13:26]:
That. Planning muscle is a challenging one, I think, especially as people are sort of young in their career, it feels a lot more like guessing. The thing that stands out to me in this conversation is that you took that fuzzy horizon and you moved it up way close. When taking a new job during COVID did that, what was that like?

Matt Jackson [00:13:46]:
One of the most exciting and most scary things I’ve ever done, actually. Pulling up the family relocating, coming somewhere the interesting in our. In a lot of industries saw this too, but in. In Covid, you know, orders exploded and so did supply chain challenges. So I joke, and a lot of my colleagues at other businesses in this industry say the same thing. You know, we were on the apology tour of, hey, I’m sorry, I can’t get this boat right now, that type of thing. But at the same time, I’ve never been in a place in my career where you go, you know what? We have so many orders, we don’t even know what to do with them. So that was kind of fun being the sales guy and having.

Matt Jackson [00:14:27]:
Having that. And then, you know, we all knew that was going to last forever. But, yeah, it was. It was definitely a scary decision during COVID but with the group here, the. The team, everything, we saw it at the same time made it a pretty. Pretty easy decision as well. Yeah.

John Gough [00:14:44]:
I think what we saw across outdoor rec really last year into 23 and through 24, is this normalization. Normalization like this return. Some manufacturers had got the COVID spike, and I think they got a little taste and they got a little excited, you know, built lots of big warehouses and manufacturing facilities and maybe bit off more than they could chew in some cases. How did you all weather the storm of saying no every day, you know, being on apology tour and also just knowing that maybe you knew, maybe you didn’t know that it was going to all come back down and you didn’t want to be on the wrong side of that.

Matt Jackson [00:15:23]:
I think everybody, at least to some extent, knew that it wasn’t sustainable, it was going to come back. Nobody knew how quickly it would come back. I think that was probably the surprise that hit a lot of us is just how quickly. Right about the time, most of the. What I would call the quality builders in the industry started hitting their stern supply chain, started cleaning up. They were getting boats out, Inventories came up right when demand was starting to go down and then, oh, by the way, interest rates are going to be as high as anybody can ever remember seeing them.

Kyler Mason [00:15:53]:
So great concoction.

Matt Jackson [00:15:55]:
Yeah, it was, I hate cliches, but perfect storm of circumstances there. But yeah, we did see a lot of builders that were buying property, adding buildings. We looked more at, okay, what can we do with the footprint? We have to be as flexible and as efficient as possible. And we’re blessed with a nice size property here. We’ve got a well seasoned team, some really smart people working here and just going, how can we take the Legos and reconfigure them to be as flexible as possible? And nobody’s ever going to get it perfect. Anybody thinks they are. It’s just absolutely crazy. But yeah, we tried to take advantage as much as we possibly could.

Matt Jackson [00:16:37]:
Also, going back to that long term planning piece, we know where we want to be and it’s probably not far off of where we were at that point. We’re just a little bit artificially driven with, with COVID But so how to, how do you plan for being able to, to pull back with the, the industry but continue to gain share and then grow to that point organically to where it’s sustainable? So that’s, that’s the way we’ve looked at it.

John Gough [00:17:03]:
Yeah, it can act like a slingshot too. Right? We were, we were talking, I remember having conversations at the beginning of 23 around, how do you, how do you win in this environment? Yeah, know, what kind of bets do you make? And one of the conversations we had a lot was, you know, the people who are going to win coming into this high interest environment, coming into low capital environments are the people who have built the right foundation up to this point. Having a good property, for example, I was like, you know, some days it doesn’t matter that much. And then when, when you really need it, having that asset stored up can be a big game changer. And I think in the context of this, of this conversation and this podcast, why you win, like, one of the reasons you win is you’re really smart about allocating resources early on so you can have them in the days you need them.

Matt Jackson [00:17:55]:
Well, I think the other thing we’re seeing that’s particularly interesting, especially on the dealer side, is the dealers that took this really short sighted approach. And you saw it especially in automobiles, right, where a sticker is X and people are paying 20, 30, 40% over sticker price just to get. That happened in the marine space too. We had dealers just name your price selling boats. And now that’s coming back because those folks are wanting to trade and they’re so far upside down they can’t get out of those boats. And we’re fortunate that a lot of our dealers, did they make a profit during the time? Yeah, they absolutely did, but they didn’t gouge people. And so now those customers are coming back or even customers that bought somewhere else and they’re, they’re keeping that long term business and the customers really are knowing who kind of stuck it to them and who, who was right there. And that, that’s actually been kind of fun to watch here, especially over the last six, eight months as those people come back into the market.

Kyler Mason [00:18:54]:
Did you have agreements with dealers that allowed you to, to manage the sort of name your price behavior?

Matt Jackson [00:19:00]:
We don’t, but what we do have is so many dealers that have been with us for decades and you can have those conversations on what is your plan. And you know, we’re, we’re not in a business where we, we dictate price. We’ve done some nationally advertised promotions that kind of do. But you know, we’re not, we’re not going to do any kind of things along those lines. But just having a long term conversation with those guys of hey, at some point this guy’s going to come back. Are you going to be able to look him in the eye two years from now and, and tell him, hey, you can trade this in, but guess what, you’re gonna, you’re gonna fork over another 10, 20, $30,000 just to get.

Kyler Mason [00:19:36]:
A loan, kind of going back to the, to the share piece. So there’s like mentalities and strategies to steal share. But do you, do you see yourself having any responsibility to like to grow demand in the market or is that not a responsibility that you think of regularly?

Matt Jackson [00:19:56]:
No, actually I do and I’ll take it kind of two different directions. I mean just purely from a share standpoint, we want to win share. Anybody kind of go into that price point, like you can go steal share. It’s usually short run and it’s, it’s pretty expensive and eventually you have to stop. It’s just not sustainable. But if you’re putting out really good value, and I mentioned that before, you know, if you’re putting out product debt, it creates value for the dealer, it creates value for the consumer. You can create those long term share gains where you are winning. When you talk about creating demand, creating demand as far as bringing new people into the industry, yeah, we’re thinking about those type of things a lot in Fact that was the running joke when Covid hit is who knew it took a pandemic to do what all of us have been trying to figure out for the last 20, 30 years.

Kyler Mason [00:20:50]:
Secret sauce, baby.

Matt Jackson [00:20:51]:
Yeah. Grow boning and other initiatives.

Kyler Mason [00:20:53]:
This isn’t the playbook, dude.

Matt Jackson [00:20:55]:
No, no, but the, the fun thing about seeing all those new customers come into the industry is going, okay, we know they’re not all going to stick, but how do we get as many as possible? Because then we have grown the pie. And then of course, selfishly, I’m looking at not only do they stick, but do they stick with Godfrey and Hurricane and create lifetime customers? And you know, that was a golden opportunity just to have so many new people come into the business. And we learned a lot too. Right. Because a lot of these folks completely new to boating. And you know, one of the things that the industry is struggling with is how do we make it more simple because boating is complicated. You know, it’s not like a car, there’s no brakes. Let’s start right there, right?

Kyler Mason [00:21:41]:
Yeah.

Matt Jackson [00:21:42]:
Like if you’ve never been on a boat before, it’s kind of a different concept. And so, yeah, just how do we take those pain points out? And I mean, if you want to have some good entertainment, I think anybody that’s a long time burger knows you just go to the boat ramp on a Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon. And so, you know, how do we save some marriages and enjoy being on the product too, so.

Kyler Mason [00:22:01]:
And some vehicles, I’ve seen some videos of the, the boat towing the truck into the water.

Matt Jackson [00:22:06]:
Yeah, exactly.

Kyler Mason [00:22:08]:
So how do you do it? You mentioned getting these people to stick. I mean, you’ve hit on some of those pain points. But what do you, what do you got to do?

Matt Jackson [00:22:14]:
We’ve got to help them see that whatever the cost is, whether it’s time money, that what they get back out of that, the memories, the enjoyment to being outdoor, that value is higher than the cost. And as long as the value proposition is there, they’re going to stick. And even some of the things we do. So like Polaris. Polaris has a really neat program called Polaris Adventures. And so you can actually go out. And it started with the ORV products. So off road vehicles side by side say TVs can do it with snow.

Matt Jackson [00:22:50]:
We ventured into that space with marine as well. So kind of like renting a boat, but from a true outfitter. And there’s even subscription programs to that. So you know, kind of not quite fractional ownership, but, but along those lines but just getting people to, to experience it and then hopefully we turn them into owners. But it’s all about just trying to, to build that value in of hey, these, these memories, these things we’re doing, getting outside are worth way more than what I have to give up other ways because there’s just obviously a lot of competition for everybody’s time and dollars.

Kyler Mason [00:23:23]:
So in your world, who tells that story that you’re mentioning? Is it, is it your brands? Polaris dealers?

Matt Jackson [00:23:29]:
Yes.

Kyler Mason [00:23:30]:
Good. How do you do that? It’s hard to do.

Matt Jackson [00:23:33]:
And when I say yes, I mean all of the above. Right. So Polaris does a wonderful job on their side. And so this is, you know, kind of goes back to that decision to come on board as we’ve got such amazing resources we can, we can tap into and people way smarter than I am that can, that can do that. And then we’re also, you know, going down to, at the dealer level and talk about, hey, what’s, what’s working or share some, some cool stories and how do we take that individual and their experience and expand on that and kind of tug at the heartstrings a little bit, if you will. Then even in our marketing, some of the things we’re doing beyond the experiential too is trying to build lifetime value. So one of the secrets of Godfrey is our construction story. And that’s why for years and years and years we’ve been the boat of choice for rental companies because those things get abused, but they hold up, they hold their value.

Matt Jackson [00:24:25]:
So imagine if somebody that’s treating this like their pride and joy, how well it’s going to last. And that’s a hard story to tell because those are things you can’t necessarily see and touch. You see the aesthetics, but you don’t see just how we put so much more time, money, everything into making this product last you a long time. But so we’re, we’re trying to figure out, you know, more and more ways to tell that story as well.

Kyler Mason [00:24:46]:
There’s some secret sauce in there, like the campaign around.

Matt Jackson [00:24:50]:
Yeah.

Kyler Mason [00:24:51]:
If you can, if they can withstand the renters.

Matt Jackson [00:24:53]:
Exactly.

Kyler Mason [00:24:54]:
You better believe it’s been tested.

Matt Jackson [00:24:56]:
Exactly.

John Gough [00:24:57]:
Some of those boat ramp stories I can imagine, I can see the video like how many times can you bonk this thing into the dock?

Matt Jackson [00:25:04]:
So I’m going to get into products a little bit because it’s fun to talk about product. But one of the things that is a little bit of our DNA is we, we use corner caps on all of our, our pontoons and a lot of folks in the industry, you can save a few bucks by just bending the rub rail around and then putting a cover piece on top so you don’t see the crinkles of the metal. But I love sitting on a show because that is one thing I can point out to somebody and go, look, I don’t care if you’ve been boating for two days, 20 years, whatever. You’re going to hit a piling, you’re going to hit a dock, something is going to happen. Doesn’t matter how good you are, this is structural, this is going to take the brunt of that. And you know what? Even if it’s crazy and you tear it up, great, you pull a couple of bolts up, you can replace it versus tearing up the entire front of your boat. So those are kind of some of the fun things we can do.

Kyler Mason [00:25:52]:
You personally are doing that at consumer shows?

Matt Jackson [00:25:54]:
Oh, absolutely.

Kyler Mason [00:25:55]:
I love it. I love it. That’s good stuff. You sell them on the spot right there.

Matt Jackson [00:26:00]:
I mentioned I was on the engine side of things for a while before I came over to the boats. That’s been one of the biggest differences is on the engine side of the business, you walk in a show, there’s not a lot of direct interaction with the consumers. And for the most part, everybody that’s in that show is your customer. So you spend too much time in one guy’s booth, he’s mad at you. Whereas on the boat side, yeah, I mean, we, we are, we’re actually out there with our dealers helping close deals, talking to consumers. That’s where we get a lot of good feedback to a lot of, hey, this is what they’re looking for. This is what they like, they don’t like. But we’ll get in and, and actually do the selling.

Kyler Mason [00:26:35]:
That’s good. We were doing a little bit of prep beforehand, and you mentioned you have a, an interesting background. I think it’s a good time to maybe weave that in because you’re talking about, you’re in your role as a sales leader. You’ve talked a lot about your values, the way to win with customers and dealers. You, you get right in it with customers. But I think there’s something to your background and how you, I think, grew up with your family. That’s maybe also part of the ingredient for why you’ve been successful in your role. Do you want to get into that a little bit?

Matt Jackson [00:27:04]:
Yeah, 100%. So I, I, I like to joke that I, I’m one of the anomalies on the, in the sales side. And that’s. I grew up. Both my parents were CPAs, so they had an accounting firm and they would have given anything in the world to have me come join it. And I knew if you chained me to a desk, I’d be a miserable person. And that side of things just comes naturally to me. Data, the finance side of things, you just don’t see a lot of sales, dedicated folks with a financial background like that.

Matt Jackson [00:27:32]:
And so I do look at things differently and I definitely embraced it. And I talk to my teams all the time a lot. Traditionally, I would say folks in my role would push how heavy you need to focus on the relationship side of the business. Absolutely. Relationships are huge. Then the accounting side of folks say you need to look at the numbers. Right. And I say where the magic happens is when it’s both and especially when you’re working with your dealers.

Matt Jackson [00:28:00]:
Because a dealer can. I’ve said a couple times, I don’t like cliches, and I’m going to keep saying cliches, but you can have a dealer that absolutely loves you and chooses not to do business with you. You can have a deal that you’re helping be profitable and they can’t stand you, but they’re sticking with you because they’re making money.

Kyler Mason [00:28:13]:
Yeah.

Matt Jackson [00:28:14]:
Or it gets really beautiful is when they really like doing business with you. You have that great relationship and they’re making money. And that’s kind of where the, the accounting and the sales comes together. And it’s, you know, it’s not a dirty word for a company to make profit. It’s not a dirty word for a dealer to make profit. And that’s part of that, that value stream. Right. The consumer feels like they’re getting a great product with a lot of value.

Matt Jackson [00:28:35]:
The dealer’s making money, they’re happy. And we can make money, too.

John Gough [00:28:39]:
Yeah, you gotta win for everybody. You mentioned earlier you have a data analyst on your team, and that one stood out to me as this is not a person who is all seat of your pants.

Matt Jackson [00:28:53]:
That’s a role we added a few years ago after I came on and just saw how much we could do with that. Just not even just breaking down market share, but really looking into the data. And that’s one of the things I brought to the team here, is just helping them do exactly what I was just talking about. Hey, let’s analyze the share. Let’s analyze what’s going on with the product. Let’s put numbers behind it. But then you’ve also got to have the eyes and ears, touch and feel, boots on the ground. Managing that you can’t manage by spreadsheet and you can’t manage by feel.

Matt Jackson [00:29:27]:
When you put them together, that’s when you win. Right?

John Gough [00:29:31]:
Well, don’t tell me this is recorded, so don’t tell us any of your secrets, but what surprised the organization when you brought this, this new person in and you started sort of like parsing all this data out? What was the shock?

Matt Jackson [00:29:46]:
Probably how simple some of the storytelling can be. I joked before that we were and still to a degree are, we are world class and making Excel do things it was never designed to do. So you have these huge, huge spreadsheets, lots and lots of data and trying to figure it out and by bringing an analyst on that can really take that, that data. And we talk all the time, like I need to be able to take huge amounts of data and digest it very, very quickly and then tell a story. How do we create tools that do that? And that’s probably been the biggest eye opener for a lot of people. It’s just how simple the story can get if you’ve got the right data and the right way to look at it.

John Gough [00:30:29]:
I think that’s one of those roles that people have a hard time justifying. They all want data and insights, but it’s hard to pay for data and insights, especially in a sales environment where like, I’m paying you, but I need you to go produce some revenue. That’s what I need. How do you counter that? Objection.

Matt Jackson [00:30:47]:
We’ve clearly proven it out of. We’ve. It saved us from making some, some wrong decisions based on assumptions. You know, I’ll look at that from, from a competitive standpoint, we’ll say, okay, company xyz, they’re winning. This is what we think it is. But now we can get down to it and go, okay, here’s where they really are winning. It’s this and this that they’re doing these very specific things and then go, okay, are we better than that and just not telling our story? What is the answer? And then you can get into that. So that’s where it really starts to get pretty easy to justify.

John Gough [00:31:25]:
And you’ve acted on that in a way that has started to like, produce real dollars.

Matt Jackson [00:31:29]:
Yeah, exactly.

Kyler Mason [00:31:31]:
That’s really cool. I feel like that’s rare in this space.

Matt Jackson [00:31:35]:
I would say my, my biggest challenge is I love the data so much. I can get stuck like, you know, just overanalyzing and sometimes. And I’m sure president’s laughing as he listens to this because sometimes you just gotta move. But yeah, that it just really gets fun when it starts to tell the story.

Kyler Mason [00:31:53]:
That’s awesome. You mentioned earlier you like to think in some segments of planning, like short term, kind of like middle territory and long term, where’s the industry headed? What are the things that you see coming?

Matt Jackson [00:32:07]:
There’s a couple elements to that that everybody’s trying to figure out. So one of them to me is the traditional space is where the manufacturer, we’ve got the dealers for distribution, they sell to the consumer. We get to chat with them at show host and a few things. But across other industries, and we’re seeing it here, some those consumers want more and more to interact directly with the oem. And so how do you balance that with where the dealer doesn’t feel like they’re getting cut out or you’re just handing them something, or they feel like if the consumer comes to us, they’re going to get the answer they want when the dealer told them no. Those are the things. Those are some types of things that we’re really trying to solve for as an industry is how do you make that consumer feel like they’re really connected to the brand, but yet the dealer still has their place because boats are complicated. This isn’t something where, at least I don’t think in the next several years you’re going to be ordering a $200,000 boat online.

Matt Jackson [00:33:11]:
It gets delivered to your house, and you never interact. The dealer part is really important. And so collectively, how do we kind of make that. Instead of a vertical integration, it’s more of a closed circle. Right. So everybody’s interacting with each other and make that a win.

Kyler Mason [00:33:30]:
How are you feeling about your ideas to solve for this? Don’t tell us your ideas.

Matt Jackson [00:33:35]:
That’s okay, because I’m not going to.

Kyler Mason [00:33:38]:
Tell us your ideas. Really though, are you. We’re not there yet. Or are you like. I’m feeling really good that we have a concoction here that’s going to make progress.

Matt Jackson [00:33:49]:
I think we have a good vision of where we want to go. I can’t sit here and say, hey, we’ve got every little piece figured out. There’s a lot of things where it’s more in the idea stage and there’s going to be some testing and trying and we’ll probably make some mistakes. But I think it’s important, especially as I mentioned, with the dealership and be open about what we’re. What we’re trying to do. You know, some of the things we, we are doing now is just even with. With lead management and how, you know that so many people want to shop online at midnight in their pajamas or whatever, and. But they want somebody to interact with them right there.

Matt Jackson [00:34:29]:
And so how do you take advantage of some of the technology out there to at least start the conversation and then hand that off to the dealers? I think we’re, we’re making some nice progress there. We know where we want to go, but there’s. Yeah, there’s quite a. Quite a few pieces we’re still figuring out.

Kyler Mason [00:34:43]:
Those are some serious bets. I mean, you mentioned lifetime value. When you think about the realm of like, you’re going to have to invest in tech, you’re probably going to have some headcount and, and just, I don’t know the list of things that would help you develop that relationship. And that’s where you got to say to leadership like, this is how much this costs and this is what we think will happen because our customers will buy 1, 2, 3, 3 more boats from us. And that’s pretty scary.

Matt Jackson [00:35:11]:
It is. And I think another piece that I’ve touched on that we really look at too is the repeat buyers. And how do we just create those customers for life that just. They’re so. We like to use the term sticky with the brand and I think that’s part of it too is they’re developing that connection to the brand. And so the more we can figure out that. That piece, all of a sudden the value for us internally of making those investments goes up quite a bit. It’s no secret.

Matt Jackson [00:35:43]:
It’s a lot easier to sell a guy 2, 3, 4, 5 boats than just one and then go keep trying to generate our new, new business every year.

Kyler Mason [00:35:51]:
Sure is.

Matt Jackson [00:35:52]:
Yeah.

Kyler Mason [00:35:53]:
It’s good stuff.

John Gough [00:35:54]:
You just got to find a guy who want. Who needs five boats at once.

Matt Jackson [00:35:58]:
Yeah, there’s. There’s a few out there. Not as many as I would like, but there’s. There’s a few. The pontoon fleet, it’s no shocker, but we have customers that buy a new boat every year. We have boats. I mean, we’re actually here. I’ll put a plug out here.

Matt Jackson [00:36:15]:
We are looking for the oldest sand pan we can get our hands on that’s out on the water.

Kyler Mason [00:36:22]:
For what? In return, I’ll have a special surprise that I can’t.

Matt Jackson [00:36:26]:
Can’t name yet, but we’re working on a project. You know, I mentioned that we debuted the first all aluminum to boat at Chicago World’s Fair, and, and that was a sandpan and our first dealer, dealer number one is still a dealer of ours today. So one of the cool things is they actually have the invoice of the first. First boat that got free. Sold them.

John Gough [00:36:46]:
Wow, that’s cool.

Matt Jackson [00:36:48]:
We know we won’t be able to get boat one, but we’re trying to come up with the. The oldest sand pan still. Still out there. And there’s some even here on, on the river in Elkhart. There’s. There’s some ones that are. I mean, it’s shocking. So 30, 30, 40 years old still out there.

John Gough [00:37:01]:
If I’m looking under the, you know, flip it over and look at the manufacturer date. What date am I looking for?

Matt Jackson [00:37:07]:
So we found boats into the early 80s. I would love to get one into the 60s. It’ll be the, the ultimate goal. I’m guessing we’ll probably end up somewhere in the 70s.

Kyler Mason [00:37:18]:
Gosh, there’s such a cool campaign you can do around this.

Matt Jackson [00:37:21]:
Yeah.

Kyler Mason [00:37:21]:
That I’m sure you’re already doing.

Matt Jackson [00:37:22]:
Yeah, we’re going to have some fun with it.

Kyler Mason [00:37:24]:
That’s so cool. Good for you.

John Gough [00:37:26]:
When these brands get, you know, get some legacy and some story that becomes really exciting for people to. And becomes a reason to buy. Right. Because to your point, Matt, about making memories, like, part of making the memory is knowing that I’m part of a, of a thing that’s bigger than myself. And sometimes that’s like the newest, freshest thing, and sometimes it’s like the thing with the most story behind it already that’s 100% correct.

Matt Jackson [00:37:52]:
And, you know, in this industry, there’s been a lot of brands that have, that have come and gone and there’s, there’s, you know, always going to be that kind of that shiny new painting, if you will, that’s going to change the world. And actually, we joke, when I was on the engine side, part of one of the last role I had was was director of the OEM business for that engine company. And so all the boat builders were our customers. And probably once a week I got a phone call from somebody that was, hey, I’m going to revolutionize the boat industry with this, this new brand I’m launching. And every once in a while, one of them would be pretty legit. But a lot of them, you’re like, man, I love the entrepreneurship, but it’s pretty hard to completely revolutionize things. You’ll have brands come and go, but there’s not that many that can say they’ve been around for decades and decades. And, and there’s a Lot of, lot of reasons for that.

Matt Jackson [00:38:45]:
You got to be doing something right.

Kyler Mason [00:38:46]:
That’s great. How should we land this plane?

John Gough [00:38:49]:
John, you’ve made some bets, you’ve moved around. You are giving some advice to somebody who’s looking into the future. Now what, what are you telling them to look out for?

Matt Jackson [00:39:00]:
I would say two, two things. Don’t get too caught up in personal opinion. I was just having a conversation today with one of my, one of my reps and then there’s one of the competitors, has a boat out and I, I made the comment, I said, look, just because I don’t personally like this boat doesn’t mean we’re not going to take it serious and see what it does. And so I think just always being open to the fact that you might not be right. But at the same time, I mentioned earlier, no, I can get, I can get stuck in the data. And so you gotta be not afraid of making a decision and going with it if you’re wrong. You know the adage of fail fast if you can, but don’t be afraid to take some chances, but do your homework. And like I said earlier, probably the most exciting thing for me and I would tell anyone is look for where you can take that idea of marrying data with the relationship, with the touch and feel and so putting those things together, it can be pretty special.

Kyler Mason [00:40:02]:
Golden. Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun talking shop with you.

Matt Jackson [00:40:06]:
Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you guys.

John Gough [00:40:08]:
Why You Win is presented by Element Three, a marketing firm focused on modernizing go-to-market strategies for manufacturers that sell through complex distribution channels. We help leaders solve problems across demand generation, sales channel support and brand development.

Kyler Mason [00:40:24]:
If you’d like more from myself or John, connect with us on LinkedIn. And for more from Element Three, visit elementthree.com. That’s elementthree.com