I've been blogging about my first business- Contemporary Fiberglass and Marine for years, but if you have followed us, you know by now that I'm selling that business to Kale and Alee, my daughter and son-in-law. They will continue to blog about that business, so please follow them.
Some background regarding the new business- Contemporary Marine Flooring. As you know, we (Contemporary Fiberglass and Marine) began to specialize in extended swim platforms roughly 15 years ago. At that time, I had the opportunity to purchase my first SeaDek kit.
SeaDek is a marine non-skid flooring. It comes in many colors, styles, thickness' and textures. It was a perfect fit for our custom extended swim platform and the demand for it grew as fast as the demand for our swim platforms.
The problem was that at that time, SeaDek labeled me as a "dealer". The process at that time was that I could template your boat, ship that template to SeaDek, who would fabricate the pads and then ship them back to me. I would then install them on the customers' boat. Because of the popularity of the product and because SeaDeks' manufacturing facility was in Rockledge FL, that process took roughly 14 weeks.
My customers loved that product, but hated the lead times. I began to request that SeaDek consider making me their west coast fabricator, allowing me to actually fabricate as well as template and install. Long story short, in April of 2016 they contacted me and offered just that....to be what they call a "certified fabricator" of SeaDek. Jeanne and I did not have to think long about the opportunity and accepted. We both had to go to Rockledge to attend a 2 day class to learn the finer details of the entire process. Once certified, we purchased the equipment necessary, purchased some raw material from SeaDek and began to make our own kits.
That is a little over a year ago and the business has grown as anticipated. We hired Jeanne's brother Jamie as he already had knowledge of the CAD process and in fact, turns out, set up our complete integrated system. We could not have done what we've done without him.
The future: We believe that this business will grow as CFM did.....mostly through word of mouth and happy customers. We have not done a lot of advertising other than regional boat shows. It turns out that once we complete a job at a particular marina, that job sells 5 more promptly. And so on. The nice thing about having both business' is that they are surely synergistic.....customers will come in for a new #safestep custom extended swim platform, and end up buying #genineseadek for it....and vice versa. Jeanne, who is doing all of the administrative work for CMF, and also working her old job for now, and I will continue to develop the business. We will do it as long as it is still fun for us and makes sense with respect to the big picture. Eventually, we plan to hand this over to Kale and Alee and do what retirees do....whatever that is!
So why would you purchase SeaDek from #contemporarymarineflooring ? We try to define our business model to reflect what we like about business' that WE frequent.
1) You don't just want to know that a product has a good warranty, but also, if there is a problem....the owners of the business will do what is fair and right to ensure that the customer is taken care of and leaves with a pleasurable experience, regardless of any published warranty.
2) You want honest answers to your questions. It is more important to us that you make a good decision about our products and services, than simply making a sale.
3) You want fair and consistent pricing, service and products.
4) You want to be able to feel good about referring your family and friends to us.
5) You want someone who will actually listen to what YOU want, not inject personal preferences that steer you away from your objectives. If you do request our opinion, we will do our best to give you all of the information, advantages, disadvantages and allow you to make a good decision.
6) You want somebody who will continue to innovate and be creative. We are the originators of what we call a "ghost logo".....where we create a logo that is in the top color and does not go all the way through to the bottom color. More subtle and can be a better choice.
7) We provide a complimentary pad that states "nice matters" to every one of our end customers. The customer can do whatever they want with it, but we feel that with the state of the world what it is, it is a VERY important message. We hope you agree and spread the word.
8) We have something nobody else in the industry has.....Eddie the SeaDek dog!!
We're excited to see where this takes us. We are in the middle of negotiations to supply SeaDek to some seriously cool military and law enforcement vessels. To be honored to be able to add comfort and functionality to the men and women who protect the rest of us would truly put a smile on our faces.
If you have not done so already, visit our website: contemporarymarine.com in order to see more about what we do.
I hope to keep this blog up to date with photos of recent projects and updates on how Jeanne, Eddie and I are doing. Thanks for your patronage and loyalty over the years. WE are grateful.
Please follow us on FaceBook, Instagram for the most recent project photos.
Scott, Eddie and Jeanne
#seadek #genuineseadek #seadeked #seadekpacificnorthwest #pacificnorthwestseadek #contemporarymarineflooring #safestepflooring #nicematters #nicemattersmovement #genuinewestcoastseadekfabricator #seadekseattle #seattleseadek
