Join Network Yacht Brokers

In 2007-08 I was looking for a change in career direction and lifestyle. Having previously worked in the City and in Industry, I wanted to marry a new career with my passion for boats and sailing.

My first action was to attend the 2-day Association of Brokers and Yacht Agents (ABYA) Yacht Brokers Course to learn more about broking and to make some contacts within the industry.

I investigated joining an existing yacht brokerage as an employed broker, as well as buying into a well-known yacht brokerage franchise. Neither option was what I was looking for. It was then that I came across Network Yacht Brokers, a co-operative of independent brokers running their own businesses, but operating under a group umbrella. The Network Yacht Brokers web-site was one of the best and easiest to use that I had come across.

I had an initial discussion about joining the Group and was advised that the then owner of the Chichester office was looking to sell in order to concentrate his efforts on his Sea School and Yacht Charter business.

After a visiting the Chichester office and a short negotiation and purchase process, I was able to walk in and take over an existing, thriving yacht brokerage business in an attractive on-marina location.

The collective industry experience within the Group is immense and the help and support I was given by the other offices was invaluable to a rookie-broker.

NYB Conwy was originally owned by David Marshall who retired in 2000. At the time of his retirement I was a sailing instructor working part time for Conwy School of Yachting. After selling my garage business in Stockport I moved with my family to North Wales.

“I gave becoming a Yacht broker a great deal of thought”

It was at the Sailing School Christmas party around midnight, propping up the bar at the end of a great night out, I had a chance conversation with Dave about becoming a Yacht Broker. Dave had sold my own boat for me “Kuan Yin” through Network Yacht Brokers earlier that year, (I thought at the time charged me an extortionate amount of money for doing so).

Dave told me he was thinking of putting his business up for sale and retiring. The next morning I went in to see him and literally gave him a cheque. “absolutely no research.”
To be honest I should have given him double the amount he was asking. It did help having a sound knowledge of all things mechanical and a great deal of practical sailing experience, but it was still all very exciting to be starting off on a completely new adventure. This period in my life was quite frankly life changing, “I recall my wife stencilling a message on the inside of the office using flags”. I didn’t find anyone able to tell me what the message said however. Redecoration and reworking since has sadly meant the message has long gone, but it summed up our feelings at the time “Sink or Swim” I can tell you we have done far better over the years than we could imagine.

I attended an ABYA broker’s course before Dave left me to my own devices and that was, with hindsight, an excellent insight into becoming a Broker. After a very short hand over of the business by Dave I was good to go.

Looking back now I couldn’t envisage doing anything else, being a Yacht Broker not only gives me the opportunity to be involved in the marine industry, which I love, but I can keep my hand in terms of Sailing and boating as there's hardly a week that goes by when I am not out on the water.

The Conwy office sells and brokers deals on hundreds of boats every year. We have been very lucky in terms of our business position as we are next to a 500 berth Marina, but lots of hard work from my team and support from my family over the years has meant we now have an extremely successful business.

Thanks to many successful years brokering boats we now also have a Yacht Chandlers business, Marine engineering, and are distributors for Jeanneau and Regal boats and yachts.

New boat sales have suffered a lot in this recession but the brokerage on balance has remained strong and supported all the other aspects of business. Network Yacht Brokers has not only given me invaluable feedback in terms of the industry but being part of a group I have never felt alone. The Quarterly meetings are always a high point in my business diary, a chance to catch up with old mates.

A regular remark made to us by our customers is ‘how lucky you are to do this for a living’. They are right, but I try to keep quiet about it or else everyone will want to do this and you won’t be able to move for yacht brokers!

After a career in yachting and 6 years as manager of the nearby Ancasta office, I purchased Network Yacht Brokers Dartmouth back in January 2008, and in this short time we have sold over 200 boats. The brokerage business has proven to be very resilient during these hard economic times, and I have no reason to doubt that any good professional brokerage that is well positioned will thrive. The Network Yacht Brokerage marketing machine and well established brand have proven to be outstanding, and with continual ongoing website optimization I am very comfortable that every listing that we get becomes quickly visible on the internet, and this is very evident from the huge numbers of boats that we have been selling to people from all over the world, including S. Africa, Greenland, Scandinavia, Europe and even Taihiti!!

Just across the water from the Conwy office you will find Network Yacht Brokers Deganwy. This office was always going to be a challenge to open as Deganwy Marina only has 150 berths. Furthermore access to the Marina by road can be frustrating at times as a busy level crossing and complex light controls often result on a 20 minute wait. The marina itself has limited access via a sill that opens approximately half an hour later than Conwy Marina and closes a similar time before.

That said the facilities within the marina are superb. There is an on site 5 star hotel with a health spa and fitness centre. The marina building and facilities are on a par with the very best in the country. In 2011 The Crown Estates installed a fantastic decking area overlooking the Marina which on a sunny afternoon affords the most incredible venue for relaxing. This decking is available for the local community and its hoped, as many have experienced, Deganwy Marina will be the number one venue for private functions and outdoor parties.

We continue to support Deganwy Marina despite the access restriction as a secondary location to Conwy Marina and we hope in time Network Yacht Brokers Deganwy will turn out to be a worthwhile investment.

I took a decision in 1997 to become a Network Yacht Broker, as one of my life ambitions was to be involved in the sale of boats. Network Yacht Brokers presented the best case for becoming a professional yacht broker in a sustainable territory, that being Dartmouth. I liked and respected the ethos of being partnered with like minded persons running our own business but not as a franchise member.

Network Yacht Brokers, since the inception has always operated as a cooperative so none of your profits are reported back to any individual or the group. Your liabilities are your monthly costs for the upkeep of the website, your share of the advertising and a small management fee. This approach I liked because I could see exactly what my outgoings were each month and these could be merged into my fixed costs. Another great advantage of Network Yacht Brokers besides gaining instant credibility that with the simple infrastructure in place it allowed me to concentrate on what I like best, selling boats.

Benefits of joining Network Yacht Brokers:

• Strength in numbers
• A pool of knowledge
• Security
• A large range of instant stock
• Great website
• Shared costs
• The pride of being a Network Yacht Broker, the largest group of independent brokers in the country

I joined Network Yacht Brokers in March 2008, buying the Lymington Licence from my predecessor who was retiring.

My decision to buy a Yacht Brokerage was in taking me back to my early Yachting roots where I trained and worked for a number of years in the Boat Industry in the late 70’s and early 80’s before leaving to broaden my general business experiences.

I eventually ended up as a partner in an Engineering business which we sold in October 2007 and so it was time for me to come full circle.

I looked at the market in general and the feasibility of both going alone and buying a Franchise and neither held a great deal of promise, by which time I had seen Network Yacht Brokers and the great system they had of operating as a cooperative.

This gave me everything I wanted; My own business where I retained all of the profits and benefits made, A first class website professionally managed to ensure high ratings from goggle searches, magazine advertising in leading yachting magazines as part of full page adverts and a great group of like minded people to share ideas ask questions of and therefore not feel I was starting out on my own.

Its been a huge benefit to say to potential clients that whilst I’m an independent broker operating on my own in my own area, I am also part of a Network of Independent brokerages around the country with shared advertising and website with boat search functions which will enable any office in the group to help sell their boat.

The group is now expanding and with more areas and offices being opened across the country this can only help to strengthen each individual office as well as the group as a whole.

Setting up the Brokerage
Deciding to set up a brokerage from scratch at Royal Quays Marina was the easy decision as no other brokerages were operating in the close proximity and it would offer an additional service directly to berth holders and other surrounding boat owners in the area of the North East.

The question was how to set up from nothing and have a business, which could be operated effectively from day one.

We looked at various options but elected to look at the benefits of joining Network Yacht Brokers as our favourite option.

The benefits as we saw were:-

1. Established and recognised organisation with numerous offices.
2. An organisation looking to expand.
3. Flexible in its approach to shaping agreements and costs of joining.
4. Offering support and advice ongoing before and after set up.
5. Existing administration system documents and tried and tested contracts, which could be easily adapted for the new office.
6. Developing website technology, which allowed easy listing of boats and managing them through the sale process.
7. Being able to visit other existing Network operators to get firsthand experience.
8. Full display window of boats for sale, day one, by displaying listed boats from the other offices.
9. Being able to adopt an existing name for the business with only an additional geographical tag required.
10. Access to already designed logos and artwork.
11. Organised shared press advertising.

After setting up the brokerage we were quickly able to start building our own local listings and were able to clearly demonstrate and discuss the benefits of using a networked brokerage in marketing boats for sale. This gives a new office a gravitas in the local market which would be extremely difficult to achieve by a standalone fledgling brokerage.

Having searched for many years for an established Yacht brokers in Plymouth to purchase, my partner and I were extremely lucky to discover that Network Plymouth was shortly to be sold as a going concern due to the current owners imminent retirement. Having completed negotiating and the purchase agreed, We were welcomed into the Network group and started trading in Jan 2011. It soon became apparent that purchasing a business within the Network group was going to be a great asset in not only the day to day running of the business, using existing systems already proven, thus saving time money and embarrassment. It would enable us to build expand and progress our new venture within a quicker timeframe than expected. The added benefit of a framework of documentation, contracts along with a great number of useful administration systems that were all ready in place, proved to be invaluable. With an excellent website, Great marketing and Group advertising, The ability to trade within the group with joint sales, support from other offices and communication within the group coupled with regular quarterly meetings with all members of the group to discuss and agree the best strategy for the group and its future and therefore continued success of its individual members.

Now Nine months on and settled into a steady routine and given the time to reflect over the last months we can only conclude that being a part of the Network group has been our greatest Asset in establishing our new business, and further encouraged to move the business forward knowing as part of the Network group the support and security will be there if required.

In September 2010 I was a serving Naval Officer, in the final stages of a 20 year career that focused on Training Management and Corporate Communications. I’ve always been a keen sailor and have spent more time than is sensible traipsing around boatyards doing a spot of day dreaming about which boat to buy. Well I was now a serious buyer, so I went along to the Hamble to look at a number of boats that might have fitted the bill. One such boat was at Network Yacht Brokers on the Hamble. I had a long chat with Trefor Jones, who is a longstanding Network man and, to cut a long story short, I didn’t buy his boat, but I have, almost 12 months later, become a Network Broker myself in Poole.

Why Yacht Broking?
Having worked in a large hierarchy for many years, I was keen to do my own thing. I didn’t relish the idea of working for someone else and felt that there was a living to be made from broking – so long as the location was right and I was prepared to put the work in. While a prior career in the Navy might not necessarily the perfect preparation for a second career as a Yacht Broker, I do know a lot about boats and I’m hoping that my other skills such as relationship building and planning will enable me to make a success of the new venture. Poole has a lot of potential. There are over 6000 boats in marinas and on moorings and while there are some brokers here, they tend to serve their own marinas and not get out and about.

Why Network?
Once I decided to become a Yacht Broker I looked at the options in Poole. Setting up something new was always going to be a challenge. There was one existing business available, but I wasn’t happy with the costs and the liabilities I would be taking on. Network remained an obvious choice, as the Poole license was available. However, the real challenge was finding a suitable location. All the private marinas had existing brokers, and the rest were yacht clubs – who don’t have businesses on site. I finally found a small office available in what used to be known as Lathams boatyard. It’s next to Parkstone Yacht Club – one the largest clubs on the south coast and has a busy chandlers (Quay West), boat repairers and marine engineers.

Fairly late in the day, I was approached by David Tomkinson who suggested a partnership. He has 30 years at the sharp end of sailing, having worked as an instructor and examiner before becoming a skipper for the BT Global Challenge organisation. He then skippered a large yacht for the owner of one of the world’s largest sail makers.

A partnership appeals as it will give us both time to pursue other activities. We acknowledge that broking can be a 7 day a week business and we think we’ll be able to offer that more effectively with the two of us. There’s also the added advantage of sharing the set up costs.

Setting Up
We became license holders rather than shareholders. This was a much more affordable way of starting the business. I’d had numerous discussions with Trefor Jones from the Hamble Office and Phil Howling in Dartmouth and was invited to meet the rest of the group at one of the quarterly meetings, held (unusually I’m told) in the grand surroundings of the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. After this, it was simply a case of signing the paperwork, paying a deposit and then getting ourselves in a position to start work properly. At the time of writing (Aug 25), we have the following in place:

• Office accommodation (albeit the desks are due tomorrow!) in a serviced office
• Professional Indemnity Insurance
• Public Liability Insurance
• Banking

Access to the brilliant www.networkyachtbrokers.co.uk back office site called HELM. This provides us with instant boats to sell from other NYB offices. It also gives us all the necessary sales documentation which can be tailored for our own needs, plus a useful customer and boat database.

Next Week’s Jobs:

• Printing cards, stationery and boards
• Ensure all processes are in place and working
• Finding boats to sell!
• I’ll let you know how we are getting on.....

We started our marine business in Pwllheli and were looking to expand by offering a brokerage service. We did not want to buy into a franchise as we wanted full control of our business, what we did require was a proven business model with which to hit the floor running without having to “learn from experience”. Network Yacht Brokers offered us this and more:

• Recognised business name
• Established website
• Ready available paperwork for listings and contracts
• Support and advice

We feel that by choosing this route it saved us time and money in getting to the market place and gave us immediate exposure to the boating world.

It has enabled us to sell our customers boats all over the UK and Europe making many new friends along the way. Our only complaint is that we did not do this year’s ago.

Starting out in business is always daunting and to some effect stepping into the unknown. We looked at many different alternatives including going alone but were extremely satisfied with our choice. The support from the start was priceless, giving us the opportunity to open our doors with the ball in full motion.

To look back now we are extremely thankful that we joined Network Yacht Brokers. The business it has brought to us is outstanding and the brand recognition has helped us in greater ways than we could have imagined. If we had gone alone we would not have had the dealerships, advertisement power, listings, consumer confidence and support of the group which has proven to be instrumental in the success of our business.