Brianna Liestman

If you have salaried employees who regularly work overtime, a new rule coming will affect your business directly. The Labor Department is moving to release its final rule to change the salary-base threshold amounts for exempting workers from overtime pay. After the final Fair Labor Standards Act coverage rule is published, employers will have 60 days to comply. The Office ...

I was fortunate to visit Premier Marine, Inc. last week to interview team members– huge benefit to having our offices just south of Premier’s corporate offices – for an upcoming article in the June/July issue. While I was there, I was given the opportunity to experience a plant tour. We went from building to building to see the entire process ...

This week, we saw the first of our completed Top 100 applications start rolling in. Dealers have taken advantage of the opportunity to submit the application before the busiest part of the year rears its beautiful head. While dealers who wait until the deadline have additional time, those who have already finished can check off an important item on their ...

The Recreational Boating and Fishing Foundation hosted a webinar on Monday, March 28 on “Reaching the Hispanic Community.” The webinar talked in detail about the demographic realities in the U.S., best practices for reaching this community and anecdotal evidence of its potential, based on the existing campaigns of organizations such as the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources and Freedom ...

Boatsetter recently announced that more than 50 percent of its customer base consists of Gen Xers and Millennials. The peer-to-peer boat sharing company claims it has gained traction with younger boaters who want to experience the lifestyle without investing in a major asset. “We provide a new service in the boating industry, which brings together boat owners, boat captains and ...

As previously reported on Boating Industry, the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba and the possibility of lifting the trade embargo could have a major impact on the boating industry. However, as we noted in our features, lifting the embargo is a complicated process – even if everyone were on board with the idea – and it’s going to take ...

A recent commentary column from Tom Gimbel, CEO of the LaSalle Network, caught my eye, as the conflict he addressed seemed one that I thought many marine businesses may be facing. In the column, Gimbel discusses the mistake of holding onto an employee longer than he should have, but with the added complication that this employee had become something of a ...

The 2016 Best Ideas White Paper is now available at BoatingIndustry.com. The Best Ideas are selected from the best strategies dealers used to improve their businesses in the past year. From the Best Ideas, four finalists were selected for the Best Ideas panel at the Marine Dealer Conference and Expo in Orlando, and the winner, Mary Jo Goettling of Blue ...

According to a new survey of 350+ small businesses from Clutch, a B2B research firm, nearly half of small businesses in the U.S. operate without a website. Among the survey’s findings were that 23 percent of existing small business websites are not mobile-friendly and another 9 percent of respondents said they did not know if their website has mobile capabilities. ...

Submissions for the Boating Industry 2016 Top Products are open for one more week, closing on Mon., Feb. 22. Any product that has been introduced or significantly updated since Jan. 1, 2015 is eligible. Many of you released exciting new products at the Miami Boat Show – all of which are applicable. These Top Products, selected by the editorial staff ...