Customized Future

Sales reps at Taylor Made Systems used to drive past low-volume boat builders to get to bigger business. That is, until one day, a sales rep stopped on a whim to see if a smaller volume builder was interested in his products.

The builder liked what he saw, ordered some product and the rest, as they say, is history.

That history is still in the making at Taylor Made, as the company looks to expand on its customized business tailored to smaller builders. That first order gave way to an entirely new opportunity for the company and boat builders around the industry, tapping a market for custom-built products like windshields, roof window systems and many others. And no one quite knows the full potential of this discovery.

But according to Mike Oathout, vice president of sales and marketing, Taylor Made has a vision: “If this becomes as big as we think it can be in the next couple of years, we could build a new facility just for that part of our business,” he said. “We’re going to need more time, more people…”

While the company has aspirations for doubling its custom build business in the next two years, the present term has the company busy getting the word out and helping potential customers understand what it is capable of. It’s also busy figuring out ways it can streamline its engineering and design operations.

Taylor Made recently opened a new engineering facility to take a step in that direction by bringing the engineering staff together. Next steps include getting more people in the field and, of course, more of those smaller boat builders interested.