Brianna Liestman

As I have counted down the days to Independence Day, I have daydreamed about all of the activities I will be able to engage in during the holiday with my nieces: roasting marshmallows, games of hide and seek, snuggling under blankets during fireworks and, most importantly of course, driving my mother-in-law’s boat around the lake. While my nieces aren’t quite ...

In our Reaching New Markets webinar last week, we received a number of insightful questions and comments after panelists Raul Bermudez, Lou Sandoval and Rob Youker finished their presentations. Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case with these discussions, we ran out of time to address every question and comment. However, one comment caught my eye just before we ...

I sign up for Google Alerts on boating topics in order to see what interesting things are occurring in the industry, but sadly my alerts often detail accidents and deaths involving boaters who were under the influence. Certainly anything in the least bit salacious is more “newsworthy” in this era than feel-good stories about boating, but it can feel a ...

Courting younger buyers is certainly not easy, but one way marine businesses may be able to attract them is to highlight their values, such as eco-friendly business practices. Even if Millennials don’t call themselves environmentalists, they still care about tending to the Earth. Do you sell a green brand? Is your company’s plant focused on practices that reduce waste? Does your ...

Over the past week, I was fortunate to visit three of our Top 100 dealers for the first time: Wayzata Marine in Wayzata, Minn., Oak Hill Marina in Arnolds Park, IA, and Parks Marina in Lake Okoboji, IA. You can check out photos from the Boating Industry editorial team’s Oak Hill Marina and Parks Marina visits at our Facebook and ...

Some members of the Boating Industry staff attended the Minnesota Magazine and Publishing Association Summit last week, which was a great opportunity to listen to speakers and learn more effective ways to bring the tops news and best practices for the marine industry to you. During one of the sessions I attended, “Solving the Content Conundrum,” speaker Jen Kane spoke ...

What are you doing to make sure your boaters are safe this season? Hopefully you are preparing to participate in a local or national initiative for National Safe Boating Week, which is May 16 through 22. According to data from the United States Coast Guard, 398 of the 560 boating-related deaths in 2013 were drowning fatalities, and in 328 of ...

The U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments recently approved ferry services between Florida and Cuba for four companies, with more companies anticipating approval in the near future. The ferry companies plan to offer trips that would be less expensive than charter flights. This is just another result of President Obama’s decision in December 2014 to re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, which ...

As I have been working on the digital marketing article with associate editor Nicholas Upton for the upcoming June/July 2015 issue of Boating Industry, the overwhelming message I have heard from dealers, manufacturers and experts is the need to keep customers engaged in what you’re posting on social media if it is going to be an effective marketing tool. It ...

While interviewing Dr. Michael O’Connor, executive vice president of Spader Business Planning, I asked how developing Millennials for future leadership roles differed from developing previous generations. And I immediately tensed up while I awaited the answer, as I always do whenever I ask about this generation. I am a Millennial, so these are my people, and I spend a lot ...