Never stop learning

By Adam Quandt

As I’m writing this column for our October issue, the team at Boating Industry is nearing the end of another season of scouring through piles of fresh Top 100 applications and scoring them accordingly. And by the time you’re reading this, we will likely have the 2021 Top 100 rankings set and will be gearing up for our first in-person Top 100 celebration since 2019.

While all of the various sections of the Top 100 application are equally as important, one section in particular really stuck out to me with each dealer as I read through this year’s applications: training.

The concept of continuously learning and training, regardless of your position or title within a career, also came up regularly as I was speaking with this year’s Bold Moves recipients.

And though training and education may have been slightly more difficult to accomplish over the last year or so, with many in-person conferences and training opportunities cancelled, it was wonderful to see in your applications how highly you all still held training and educational opportunities for your employees.

Whether it was in the form of the rare, small in-person training events still taking place, your own in-house training and learning opportunities or completely virtual training seminars, it was clear that many of you still consistently push both yourselves and your teams to better them selves in non-stop learning.

One applicant — a multi-year Top 100 recognized dealer — said that it offers various training year-round to its employees across all of its different business aspects from sales to service.

“Our commitment to training is to take advantage of any and all opportunities that we can for all the components of our business to better themselves,” one dealer said in the 2021 application. “If we cannot offer our employees all of the right tools to better themselves, including training, then we can’t expect them to succeed to their fullest. Training equals success nearly every time.”

And it’s really sometimes just as simple as that. Regardless of whether it’s in-person, online or something in between, training and education offers employees continuous opportunities to not just better your business, but better themselves.

By offering cost-covered training and education to your employees, you show to your employees that you are invested in them and that you are committed to helping make their career with you and your dealership to best that it can possibly be.

And don’t forget to take part in some learning yourself along the way. Professionally and personally, never stop learning.

Adam Quandt is the Top 100 program director and the managing editor of Boating Industry.