One of the most important decisions you can make to improve your trawler boating experience is to find a trained professional yacht broker whom you are comfortable with and engage that broker to be your primary resource. It is very easy to fall into a trap and make a commitment too early with a yacht broker. Take a little time upfront and do some research about reputations and work ethic, negotiation skills and post purchase follow up, you will quickly learn that your fellow boaters have very strong opinions about yacht brokers. There are hundreds of great certified professional yacht brokers who are hard working. Not every broker is a “broker” and not every career veteran is a “professional” so you need to do your homework and understand what your choices are. Remember, a certified professional yacht broker is a full time, commissioned sales person who don’t get paid until they close a deal. It’s a very lucrative way to make a living, but there are definite cycles of activity.
JMYS was created after realizing that I was really already working independently and had outgrown my position as a sales representative. My personal pursuit for delivering customer satisfaction has provided opportunities for me to develop my own methods of doing business based on gaining product knowledge at sea, building long term relationships and sharing knowledge with my clients. I’m a check list guy and love to write things down. I also take a lot of photos and have extensive archives of information about all types of trawlers. Writing articles for the Nordhavn website, for JMYS.com and for magazines like Ocean Navigator have helped me express my passion for the trawler lifestyle. When a client asks me to be their trawler advocate I draw upon a lifetime of boating and decades of marine business knowledge to assist with purchasing or selling their trawler. I love getting on trawlers and have travelled all over the world to preview, inspect, and evaluate trawlers for and with my clients. Whether my client is buying or selling I dedicate an enormous amount of time to insure all of the necessary details are completed.
I’ve always been a good student with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. When I left cruising sailboat leader Pacific Seacraft after seven years and was recruited in 1999 by PAE to help introduce the Nordhavn 35, I had a lot to learn to better understand how to build, outfit and sell power boats. This provided a great opportunity for me to get educated on diesel engines and embrace the trawler world. In my youth my favorite high school summer jobs were being a sailing instructor and racing coach. Teaching and helping younger kids “get it” out on the water is very natural and satisfying to me. Any good teacher is also a good learner and I am a student of the boating industry, of the yacht brokerage profession and the trawler market. I have taken professional sales classes and trained in safety at sea. Passing on what I have learned I have written dozens of internet articles and become a featured speaker presenting lectures and courses at TrawlerFest. But the biggest thrill to me is when I’m able to “leave the dock” and work with my clients to help them discover the wonders of the top ocean going trawler brands. I’m very fortunate to have an understanding family. My natural inquisitiveness has allowed me to get to know all of the various trawler brand companies and products better.
I am grateful and indebted to the many colleagues whom I worked with during my fourteen years at PAE/Nordhavn. I was the top sales person several times including my last two years 2012 and 2013, and I will always be a proponent of the Nordhavn brand – a product line I truly believe in.
Breaking away from the comfort and security of a known business routine is not easy when you have an established reputation and a solid book of business. Having the gumption to set off on my own in a fragile economy was not a decision I entered into lightly and yet looking back is the best career move I have ever made. Establishing an independent yacht brokerage has created freedom, unlimited growth potential and the opportunity to work with dozens of long time industry friends and colleagues all over the country AND to spread my knowledge base across a much wider range of trawlers.
Dedication, determination and drive have always been essential ingredients in my life. I’m a classic extrovert, Type A over achiever who is always pushing to do one more thing and trying to squeeze in just a little bit more. This initiative is one of my strongest attributes and a largely responsible for my success.
The open and honest relationships I have with my customers (all of whom become my friends) is what is most important to me. Being able to provide insights and advice to my clients as they grow more comfortable and assert more control in operating their trawlers is a thrill I never grow tired of. Long lasting friendships, sincere appreciation and mutual respect between me and my clients makes my job extremely rewarding.
At JMYS business is booming and I find that each day is action packed and flies by, I constantly surprise myself that I get it all in, it takes focus and lots of hours to find enough time in the day to accomplish everything I need to complete – and I’m loving every minute of it. I have come to realize that I have a limit to my availability and need to spend my time wisely to continue delivering my focused, personal approach. It is a pleasure to go through each day working with both long term clients who are years out and short term clients (most of whom I’ve been working with for years) and who are now on the home stretch of their hunt.
If you are looking for a reliable certified professional yacht broker who will put your interests first, who understands how to evaluate and compare trawlers, who asks questions and listens to the answers, writes things down, has a critical eye, works long hours, lives and breathes the trawler market every day of the week, enjoys coaching on systems and operations, is comfortable at sea, takes a lot of photographs and is a friendly, “people” person with personality a quick wit and a sense of humor, then I encourage you to send me an email Jeff@JMYS.com or even better yet give me a call on my cell phone, +1 949.355.4950 and let’s start a dialog and I can explain to you how I can help with your trawler buying or selling goals. Thank you!