"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:
"Harry.Krause" wrote in message
...

The real ME wrote:

Harry Krause wrote:



I sold off nearly $3,000,000 in new motors and boats, depressing
the new boat
industry in southern Connecticut for an entire season. Everything
was sold...every cotter pin, every quart of oil, 30 days after I
started.
For near full-retail, too.


Harry,
I am curious, how did you depress the market if you were selling for
full-retail?

Why are you curious? Are you planning to transport yourself back to 1974
in New Haven County and go into the retail boating business?

I'll indulge you.

I didn't sell for full-retail, as my father had. I sold for *near* full
retail, which, in those days, for the lines my dad sold, was unheard of
in the pre-season. Remember, this was in the days where a franchise meant
something, and among the "something" was a protected territory, meaning
there were no competitors selling the same brand name within a certain
area. "You want a Cruisers, Inc., 23-footer with an I/O? Fine, the price
is $15,000 or whatever, and I'll toss in some cushions."

There were three large dealerships in that part of Connecticut in those
days, my father's, which was in West Haven and Milford, another in West
Haven, and one in Branford. Two of my father's best friends were the
owners of the other large dealerships. At a memorial for my dad later
that year, the two close dealer friends told me that our "sale" had
killed off nearly 20% of their sales for the year, and had apparently
driven two of the weaker dealerships right out of business.


Ummm. That dealership that was driven out of business was...yours.
Anybody can sell price.

Not at all. My goal was to liquidate the business as quickly as possible,
pay off all debt, provide my aging mama with a pile of dead presidents so
she could retire in style to Florida, and then sell off the business real
estate. The store wasn't "driven" out of business. I didn't want the
business and I liquidated it.


Fair enough. But the fact of the matter is *two* (not one) businesses were
out of business after your liquidation sale.

At a tidy profit.


By definition, a liquidation doesn't produce true "profit". You're
converting fixed assets into liquid assets. On a balance sheet, nothing has
changed.




Harry's sales technique:
"I know we're losing money on each transaction, but we'll make up for it
with volume."


We joked about that, but the net proceeds enabled my mom to buy a nice
place in Palm Beach and to buy a bunch of CDs that provided here with a
very comfortable retirement.



Nothing wrong with that. But realize that there's not much business acumen
needed to liquidate a business. The end result of selling price for any
business is exactly what happened to your dad's business: it goes out of
business.