Intro Webinar: Future Of Boating with keynote speaker Liz Rushall - Attracting New Members

06:48 Age profiles of each sport

08:53 Why the growth in lifestyle watersports?
“Innovation has played a really big role in some of these activities.”

12:21 Generational differences
“What gen Y & gen Z are doing is different. They won’t grow up and do exactly what we did.”
“Young people are probably not going to go out, buy a boat, and use it every weekend.”
“We don’t expect to have to knock on the door of a club and wait for two weeks for a reply.”
“Video and YouTube and all sorts of other channels are something we need to think about in our industry.

14:35 Changes in outdoor recreation
“There’s a lot less interest in competition amongst younger people, across the board. This is not just through sailing, it’s across all the sports. There’s a huge move towards personal challenge.”
“I don’t think there’s any one single solution. There’s going to be no one silver bullet here that solves everything.

16:28 Who are your likely ‘customers’?
“With older people who’ve got time on their hands, there’s a big move towards staying healthy, spending money on travelling, health and welfare. This is all an opportunity for us.

18:51 Fixing the leaky bucket
“It’s about keeping the members that we've got, keeping them happy, and keeping them for a long time. And it's about making sure that our bucket is attractive to new members and that when they come in, they stay.”
“The first three years of joining clubs are absolutely critical. That’s when you might lose people.

19:37 What does your club offer?
“Not only is competition and racing dropping, but the younger people are saying they’re not interested.”

22:28 Offering relevant experiences
“We’re offering young people the chance to go out in a boat by themselves when actually they like doing things with friends.”
“Pricing has always just been a one-size-fits-all…maybe that needs looking at.”

25:30 The steps towards a “buying decision”
“In the sailing industry, we’re particularly good at this top stage of awareness and interest, of throwing absolutely everything at the customer. All the product details, all the widgets.”
“What can we do to bring new members in that gives them that equivalent of the test drive?”

29:31 Making the most out of taster days
“What do we need to do now to bring them in? It probably means they’ve got to have a boat, join a club, pay insurance, pay for storage, buy a yacht, 300 grand. That’s an enormous step.”

31:05 Reducing the hurdles
“This is where we need to be thinking about our younger generations.”

33:08 Top 10 Tips
“It’s a difficult and changing world. What we do now maybe needs to change in two or three years time. We’ve got to try new things and we’ve got to be brave.”

35:59 Check the signs!
“Make it friendly.”

37:14 Q&A
“If you’re losing members, do you know who they are? And why?”