What's happening around the Marina

I have a problem:

I want for Hoffmaster's to remain the warm, friendly, honest place that it has always been- a place that's more like a family and a town rather than a marine resort or a car dealer with docks. I have an idea of what things we need to do to maintain the place, some of which is easy, and some of which is incredibly expensive. I DON'T want to spend money where it doesn't need to be spent. I also don't know how much the economy would affect my plans. A professional group I belong to-the 20 Group- will visit in March to give the whole place a thorough review and I'd like to have a plan to show them. Would you please help me solve this problem?

We will be calling 24 customers at random and several others specifically to ask the following questions. If you would like to answer these questions yourself it would be extremely helpful. Although I can't promise to do everything suggested, I can promise that nothing will be rejected out of hand.

  • We want to offer the very best products and services available within our mission as stated above. What can we offer that will make you happy that we don't now?
  • What does our business do right now that pleases you the most?
  • Why did you become our customer?
  • What is the most frustrating or inconvenient thing about doing business with us or for that matter with any other company in this business?
  • What do you dislike the most about other busineses such as restaurants, video stores, car dealers, or shopping in general?
We've done a lot of work at the entrance to the marina in the past month and installed a picnic area in the south end of the property. Let me know if we should do more with the picnic area.
We just got back from the Chaparral Meeting and as predicted, Chaparral held it's own in a mixed atmosphere, outperforming Sea Ray, Regal, Bayliner, Maxum, and Wellcraft over the last 6 months in both market share and units. Theya re doing some retooling of the 240 and 260 expresses, they introduced a 32, a 24 deck boat, and a new 18 to compete with Genmar's VEC boats.
JD Powers announced the results of a survey of many boat brands. Cobalt won first place, with Chaparral, Chris Craft and Sea Ray bunched together. Maxum, Regal, and Rinker were ranked below. I'm in the process of obtaining the raw data and will report in detail. Personally I believe that Chris Crafts and Chaparrals are better boats than Sea Rays in their class. I'd like to see Chris Craft go after Cobalt both in pricing and in follow up, and I think they will.


1214 Swan Point Rd. * Woodbridge, Va. 22192
Phone 703.494.7161 Fax 703.494.8786
Open 8-4 M-F, 10-4 Sat, 12-4 Sun