T&T: Boat Shows

[Milt Baker]

A few years ago in Bermuda one of the all-time top Nordhavn salesmen (no longer with the company, by the way) told me he qualified customers by:

1.  Looking at their shoes, and 

2.  Looking at their teeth

Nobody who wears really bad shoes and has really bad teeth ever buys a Nordhavn, he said.  Since at boat shows shoes must be left on the dock, qualifying customers by their shoes has to be pretty hard.  Qualifying them by their teeth (big smile here!) is probably a little easier.

So if you want real attention from a salesman of quality yachts at the boat show, one answer may be to wear your Bruno Maglis and give the salesman a big smile with your mouthful of fancy, straight, whitened teeth.  But don't expect the Brunos to be there on the dock when you're finished touring the boat.  I'll be long gone by then.

--Milt Baker, Nordhavn 47 Bluewater, Fort Lauderdale


David wrote:

A couple of years ago, my wife and I went to the Annapolis boat show
with a friend. We all were dressed casually. Perhaps the premier boat of
the show was a new Flemming. Upon boarding, the sales guy not too subtly
looked over my wife's ring finger. Because she did not have a big rock on
her hand, he treated us like dirt. What the jerk did not know was that my
friend (a) was in the market to buy and (b) had the wherewithal to do so.
His wife who did have a big rock had not come with us. Oh, well. My
friend did not buy the Flemming.