Inside Self-Storage Boat & RV, September 2003

Basic Marina Management: Simple yet complex
by Dennis P. Kissman

The question of how to manage a marina is a surprisingly difficult one to answer, as every marina is slightly different. Most people unfamiliar with the industry see a marina as a place to store boats, either in the water or on land. But out of the more than 14,000 marinas in the United States, I would guess less than 10 percent are in the boat-storage business exclusively.

A marina can be likened to a shopping center — with one exception. With a shopping center, the property owner typically leases commercial space to different types of businesses, though he does not operate or have vested interest in them. A marina also will feature various types of businesses, but the owner will generally operate all or most of them.

From a management standpoint, this creates some very unique challenges. One of the most critical is a business requires some form of employee expertise to be successful. For example, you wouldn’t trust the marina restaurant’s chef to repair your customer’s outboard motor. But this is only half the problem. When it comes to managing the affairs of a business, it is not only supervising people and directing their skills. It also involves managing a process. The process is how the operation’s goods or services are provided and tracked to ultimately collect the money due for providing them.

Most owner-operated marinas do not meet their full economic potential. This can easily be explained when you understand that marina owners, like most other business owners, usually find particular comfort in one of their profit centers. This becomes where the marina excels — but at the expense of the other potential revenue-builders. For example, the owner that came up through the ranks of the repair operation usually does not realize the full income potential of his dockage or storage.   Continue »