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Promo Boats


Klundell
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It depends on each manufactures requirement. Most are looking for people involved in the tournaments and someone that takes good care of the boats so they show up in good condition to a tournament to promote that brand. At Nautique we sit down at the begining of the season and divide up the tournaments based on location and who might be going. Some like to pull more and others a little less, but it all seems to work out in the end.
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Depend on manufacturer and area your in also. Some areas might already have all the promo members they need. Having the boats at the tournaments is the fundamental purpose of the promo boats. However I had to take mine to a few shows and dealer demos. They're looking ideally for people that will commit to staying in the program. You are a representative for the boat manufacture and supporting the dealers, helping sell more boats. When I was in a promo program you were required to take the boat to x # of events every year. Anything above that x number of events you received additional discounts on your next boat and each year in the program you received and additional % off your next boat (I think regionals and nationals were extra points also).

 

So if you took the boats to some extra events and stayed in for a while you could get some pretty good deals on your boats.

 

If you go to tournaments regularly its not to big of a deal other than you might have to be there early and stay late. For the most part the boats were taken pretty good care of but there were a couple of drivers that just really abused them.

 

My biggest problem became selling the boats as they got more and more expensive, plus the local dealer I worked with was no help. He hated the promo program and saw it as taking sells away from him. Not sure how it is now but the boats were only good for two seasons, after that you had to have the next year model.

 

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I agree that the issue is price. Tough to cough up the dough even for what a promo sells for these days. My 2005 197TT cost me $31k. Equivalent boat today is at least $10k more and my 2005 is worth a lot less. When I bought the 2005 my old boat covered 2/3rds of the price. Not any more.
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Are exceptions easier to get, now that newer tow boats are becoming price-prohibitive for some? As long as it's a recent hull, with ZO, my naive opinion would say what's the difference? Is it that the boat companies don't want to see a record pulled behind an older hull? I could see that side of it I guess? I don't know how happy CC's marketing department would be if someone set a new world record behind a 196.
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@swc5150 - it's all about the manufacturers and their desire to maintain the status quo. The sale of promo boats in the fall (off season) is a large segment of their sales during this period. If AWSA adopted IWWF's philosophy, we would no longer need current year towboats to host events. This rule is not only antiquated but also economically unfeasible in today's environment. When AWSA was considering the “3-year approval rule” a few years ago, the Big 3 made a bee-line to Polk City to express their displeasure. Fortunately, level heads prevailed and the rule was extended for Class “C” tournaments. Once that occurred, it allowed for further exceptions to be made. If the Big 3 desires a 2-year approval rule again and a strictly enforced 2-year rule for ELR events, they need to step up and provide factory boats to tournaments and not rely solely on the over-worked, under-appreciated and financially strapped promo team that has dwindled significantly over the past 10 years. And, don’t give me the “AWSA represents only a small fraction of sales so we shouldn’t expect much”. BS. If the promo business was even a break-even proposition, they would bail in a heartbeat. It’s a money maker for them during a time of year when sales are depressed. Don't fall into the false perception that the boat mfg's are doing us a favor.
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I had a conversation over the weekend with a frustrated promo owner. Initially, the promo boats were supposedly sold at a "discount" to the market price of the same boat. But let me ask you this....if it weren't for the promo boats being purchased out there every year, how many SN 200's, MC 197's, or Response LXi's would be out on the market every year. Not very many! So in essence, this so called "discounted price" becomes the true market price. So when it comes time to sell....you are at no advantage bc you have less in the boat than your competition....your competition is everyone else that bought at a "discount" too!
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Most promo guys I know do it for the boat and because they go to a lot of tournaments anyway. If you could manage the "loss" so that it wasn't much more than what it would have cost you to own a boat and watch it depreciate, it probably still works out reasonably well. That being said, I just don't have the appetite for competition boats at today's prices.
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There are some long time promo guys out there who have special deals or grandfathered deals with the mfr's. I know Charles bought one back from the Mfr for $6k under his cost last year because of a special deal they had set up. So there are some promos that come up as better deals than others at times.
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