Bayside Marine
2001 Dealer of the Year
Story by Ryan Schulz

With this year’s Dealer of the Year, we honor a marine dealership that has all the elements of a successful business. The location is ideal. The clientele has boating in their blood. The boat line handled is perfect for the customers. And the dealership enjoys a reputation for service above and beyond what’s expected.

Incorporated in 1637, Duxbury, Massachusetts, is a quiet, ocean-side town 35 miles south of Boston on Snug Harbor. John and Priscilla Alden and Myles Standish settled there just after the Plymouth Colony was established. The town was a center of shipbuilding until the mid-nineteenth century when ships became too large for the shallow bay. Formerly a rural and summer community with an economic base of fishing and agriculture, Duxbury has become a residential suburb of Boston.

Bayside Marine was founded by Jack Kent, Sr., in 1949. Now led by third generation family members, the business enjoys a sterling reputation with its customers and colleagues.

For the residents of this prosperous town, only the best fishing boats will do. Bayside caters to this elite clientele by carrying Grady-White, which J.D. Power recently rated best center console. Bayside and Grady-White form a mutual admiration society: the dealership was the first to win a customer satisfaction award from Grady-White. They have received Grady’s National Service Award for three years and the prestigious Admiral’s Circle Award for eight consecutive years. (The Admiral’s Circle requires that a dealership have $1.5 million in sales and a 92.5 percent customer-service rating.)

J.R. and Jack Kent

“Our market is family fishing, and quality is important to our customers and us,” says J.R. Kent, Jack Sr.’s son. “We don’t sell price, we sell quality and customer satisfaction. Our reputation is our marketing plan. We carefully select our customers during our selling, and then we do everything possible to keep that customer happy.”

Carrying one major line is key to the Kents’ success. “To be specialized makes all aspects of life easier,” says J.R. “Our service people know where every fuse in every boat is. Ninety-five percent of our service work is on boats we have sold, and we usually get into trouble when we take a job ‘off the street.’ The pre-owned boats we sell are boats that we have serviced, so we have a pretty good idea that we are going to have a satisfied customer.”

Bayside through a customer’s eyes
Jerry Hubeny remembers picking up his boat at Bayside one spring day. He freely admits that he had neglected his trailer, and as he was cruising down the highway, a wheel locked up on the trailer, nearly causing the entire rig to flip over. The boat smashed through the rear window of the car and almost broke free from the trailer itself.

Not knowing what to do, and having just left Bayside, Hubeny called J.R., who told him to wait where he was. Twenty minutes later, he arrived with some equipment and help. They took the boat back to Bayside where J.R. and his service department gave it a full inspection. Hubeny was even more surprised when J.R. called him at home that night to ask if he was all right, to tell him his boat was fine, and to ask if there was anything else he could do.

Hubeny says that experiences like that keep him coming back to Bayside. He says that even if J.R. were to stop carrying Grady-White (which isn’t likely), he would have to consider buying his next boat from Bayside anyway. “It’s not about selling a boat with him. In fact, it’s rarely even about the money,” says Hubeny.

Customers through Bayside’s eyes
The Kents are as selective about their customers as their customers are about the dealership they choose to patronize. “We try to focus on a very specific geographic area,” says J.R. “I don’t really like to sell outside of that, because the farther away they are, the harder it is to take care of them. I know a dealer has to make a profit, but if Bayside is selling outside of its market area, we are probably cutting another dealer’s throat.”

A boat builder’s view of Bayside
Kris Carroll, president of Grady-White, sees our Dealer of the Year as someone who is “willing to not only go to the mat for the customer, but willing to go to the mat with the manufacturers. He pushes us to the limit, and we love it.” He once asked Grady-White to cover warranty work on a boat that was 10 years old and had changed hands several times. “He can be very convincing,” says Carroll.

Eddie Smith, CEO of Grady-White, says that Bayside’s goal is to give the ultimate sales and service experience to the customers. “And that just happens to be our goal, too,” he says. “It’s worked out well for both of us.”

“It’s great to have a manufacturer feel the same way about customer service as we do at Bayside,” says J.R.

Praise from a colleague
Ray Gaffee, executive director of the Massachusetts Marine Trade Association, says, “If you’re in Duxbury, you go to Bayside,” and that the Kents have one of the most loyal customer bases he has ever seen. “When I first came into contact with Bayside,” says Gaffee, “I was with Boston Whaler at the time, and even back then I remember Bayside being a very comfortable dealership, but incredibly professional, too. You don’t see that very often.”

How Bayside works
Bayside’s staff consists of a salesman, store operator, a service manager, service writer, six factory-trained mechanics with a total of 94 years of experience, one longshoreman, a bookkeeper, and three trained boat yard repair/cosmetic personnel. “Our service department has enough area for each mechanic to have their own inside work bay so they are out of the weather and close to their tools. Most of the boats we service will fit inside the shops. We sublet our fiberglass, canvas, and metal work,” says J.R. Bayside provides in-and-out service for 100 boats and can stack about 240 boats. They also serve customers with a fuel dock and ship’s store.

On the selling floor, J.R. has a basic philosophy. “It might sound simple, but we listen to our customers. We ask them how they want to use the boat. Will you use it for watersports, and, if so, you don’t want anything bigger than 22 feet. How important is the head? How social or fishy are they? If they’re both, that’s why we have Grady-White!”

Community involvement
“We find that involvement with the town and the Massachusetts Marine Trades Association is an important source of information,” says J.R. My son Jack serves on the board of directors of the association and the Stellwagon Bank National Advisory Council. I serve as the treasurer of the association’s Boston In-Water Boat Show and was president of the association. I serve on the board of directors of Duxbury Bay Maritime School and am currently chairman of the Town of Duxbury finance committee.”

One of the Kent family’s admirers is a competitor, Larry Russo. “I have known J.R. for 30 years. His dad and mine started out in business together. He and I were once kids in the boat business, and now we are both grandfathers! We get a great kick out of that. He serves his family, his community, and our industry with respect and dignity.

“My father and J.R.’s father were pioneers at getting people to the water’s edge, so I’ve been watching Bayside work for a long time. It’s a quiet kind of magic that they seem to perpetuate year in and year out with incredibly consistent results.”

Bayside has had its challenges over the years, of course, and none more frightening than the incident that almost put them out of business. “I don’t even like to think about it anymore,” says J.R. “We almost lost the whole thing over an underground fuel leak. The leak was so slow it didn’t show on any testing that was conducted until an inspection for a re-finance. The following clean up cost close to $1 million, and we were able to get about 50 percent of that money reimbursed through a Massachusetts state clean-up fund.”

J.R. sums up the success of his family business: “I think the greatest asset that Bayside Marine has is its employees. They come to work with a great attitude and they enjoy the company of each other and the customers. We have fun.”