I had lunch with a highly successful Charter Broker today and I was enthusing about the Yacht Broker Master Class and telling her about the modules dealing with the various contracts used in yacht sales.

Her reaction was interesting, she said to me “that’s all well and good, but honestly our business is often about exercising common sense and just having good relationships with clients”. She told me a story of how a very expensive charter contract was cancelled with just hours to go before the charter started. The client was already in the marina with his family, his kids were running around excitedly and asking where the yacht was. They couldn’t wait to get started on their yacht charter vacation.

What they didn’t know, and what the broker had just found out, was that one of the yachts engines had failed and in spite of the best efforts of the Captain it just wouldn’t be available. It was going to take weeks to get it repaired. There would be no charter! Not on that yacht any way.

You can imagine what a tough message this was to deliver, and I’m sure you can also imagine the reaction of the client. He was furious, he called his lawyer, he made all kinds of threats, but eventually he calmed down and was able to look at the situation in a more objective manner. 

The broker’s knowledge of the contract to ensure him that he would be refunded his money was of course useful, but the great relationship that the broker had built up from doing years of business with him is what really saved the day. The client knew that the broker had his best interests at heart, he respected the fact that the broker turned up in person to deliver the bad news, he had total confidence that they would do everything in their power to find a replacement charter, and they have continued to do business together ever since.

Not only in the world of yacht charter but also, and maybe especially in the world of yacht sales things can go very wrong and they do go very wrong quite often. It’s one of the things that makes this a very exciting and challenging industry to operate in. Whilst 4 of the modules in the Yacht Broker Master Class deal with the contractual side of yacht brokerage, 5 of the modules talk about the human element, they talk about the things that can go wrong, how to handle them, what pitfalls brokers can and do fall into. How to deal with buyers, how to deal with sellers, the relationships that you need to build up and to maintain. 

The good news for everybody is that my charter broker friend is absolutely right, a good dose of common sense and an ability to deal with people is a VERY big part of being a successful yacht broker. The other part is quite simply knowledge and experience; the knowledge that is contained in the Yacht Broker Master Class along with countless stories of yacht broker’s experiences that you can learn from.