Boat Shop Parts

All right, Raymond, thank you so much for putting yourself out there for our veteran job seekers. You know, like we say at Veteran Hiring Solutions, people don't follow companies, they follow leaders. And so as the owner of The Boat Shop, I think it's really important that they get to know you, your background, what got you to this moment, uh, so they can understand the company a little bit more. So if you could, you introduce yourself, your background, and kind of the history of The Boat Shop.

Absolutely, Justin Henderson. So my name is Raymond Kidd. Um, myself and my brother Kevin Kidd own The Boat Shop together. We're both very involved in the day-to-day. We're here every day shoulder to shoulder with everybody. How it all got started is, and I was born and bred in Zimbabwe, graduated high school, came to the United States, got a job at a dealership, worked for the big dealerships for 8 to 9 years and figured out that I was probably not a very good employee and I didn't like the big dealership feel. We didn't know who was walking in the door till we asked them their name and so on and so forth. So in 2014, started the boat shop. We started off service only. We didn't want anything to do with sales. I'm a technician by background, still work on boats today, as is my brother. So 2014 started with myself, my father-in-law, and that was it. Laptop computer and two white chairs and a table, my toolbox. 2015, my brother came on board as a partner, and we've grown incrementally since then. So, uh, fast forward to 2019, We found out that we actually do need to start selling boats, not only to help the business, but to keep up with certifications and be able to send our people to factory schools and what have you. And then, so today in 2026, we're up to 10 employees. We sell a lot of boats. We work on a lot of boats. We've really carved out a little niche in the industry in our part of the world that we are the premier service industry. We don't, we don't work on just everybody's boat. If you don't take care of your boat, I'm not sure how you can expect us to. And so there is an age limit and what the boat looks like and feel and phone calls. So the long and short of it at The Boat Shop is we don't deal with any nonsense. Everybody is friendly and happy. Generally, people that cause nonsense don't get to come back. And so that we can have a friendly work environment at The Boat Shop, we're selling fun. And again, if we can't have fun while we're doing it, how are we supposed to sell it? So all of our folks are avid boaters. We're not only a work family, but we all hang out on the sandbar and river together as well.

I love that.

My family fishes a lot. My brother's family fishes a lot. The guys in the back, Dean, one of our technicians, he fishes more than me. Stephen has a camp on the lake and he doesn't just fish, but he hunts and fish, anything to do with the water, really. And so no matter who we go through on the crew, even down to Sterling, who is my office manager, her husband has a boat and he's on the water all the time. She's got a young daughter. They all load up. So again, we don't just at the boat shop. It's not a matter of working in the environment. We truly live it. We're very fortunate to do what we do. It's fun. Nobody's dying on a table. We're not having to deal with customers that are totally irate because they can't get to work or something like that. It's a luxury product, so we treat it that way. But at the same time, very easygoing, trying to put this together.

We take— I was gonna say, I just like that we say like minds connect, you know, and that's why we do these videos, so like-minded people can feel connection with you, apply and have that. And then you just outlined it that, hey, the entire team is like-minded. And not only are they showing up to work, but they're working on their passion. They're working 100% on outdoor stuff. Their customers are like-minded. And as a business owner myself, it does feel nice to say, hey, listen, you're not the right customer for us. You don't want to do that often. But when somebody mistreats your employees or just isn't respecting the process, it's nice to have that ability to say no. I want to take care of my team.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Take care of my team as well as take care of the customers that deserve the right treatment. Often, you know, that 80/20 rule that the 20% of bad customers take up 80% of the time. And we've really tried to do the right thing to attract the right kind of customer. We get lots of birthday cards and, and Christmas cakes and it's so cool that, you know, I get texts with instead of texts with problems with the boat, I get texts Just this week I got a lady that we sold a boat to her husband 3 years ago. Well, she's now started to tournament fish and she's every month there's a tournament and she's giving me her progress. So she's, she's third in the Angler of the Year standings and it's just so cool. Part of being a— again, we're making a living at this, but we're having fun doing it.

I think that's the hardest part, you know, when you transition out of uniform. So much of your life is around purpose and, and the military is really good at connecting those like-minded people through the ASVAB test. And so when you get out, you're kind of searching for that connection again, you're searching for that like-minded camaraderie. And so that's why I love this for opportunity because, you know, if you are an outdoor person and you enjoy working with your hands, you know, fixing problems, fixing equipment like this, it's a great job.

It really is. We're also on the forefront of a bunch of technology, which is so cool. It's a— the boating industry, like any industry now, is moving forward so fast that we're having to learn stuff daily. Some of our Garmin electronics right now are just absolutely unbelievable. I mean, we've got boats with $30,000, $40,000, $45,000 worth of electronics and learning how to set that all up and use it correctly to where you can teach the customer. It's a really cool fun time to be in the boating industry. Stuff is changing so fast. We're not working on old John boats with two-strokes anymore. It's a nice clean job. The, you know, we're not crawling under a Humvee and getting sand and dust in our face. These boats, these boats we've got to put booties on to get in them. They're that clean. Oh wow. Yeah, no, it is. It's very enjoyable.

You know, that's— so let's get into the roles then since, you know, I think it's a they have a good idea of like the culture and the type of human and leader you are, which is amazing. The role we were talking about was like a parts advisor role?

Yes. So we've got a good parts guy. His career is coming to an end due to age and health. So his role encompasses a lot. Parts conversations over the phone. So we've got several customers that are do-it-yourselfers, which I'm totally okay with. You want to change your own oil, we'll be happy to sell you the oil, the filter, and everything to do it and try to guide you along on how to do it. In a friendly manner. You, you somewhat the manager of first impressions. We can't have you having a bad day. If you're having a bad day, suck it up. Sound nice on the phone, right? So that's one side of the business. Another side of the business is inventory control. And so we've got a significant amount of parts and accessory inventory that I would like to make sure is accounted for. And accurate. And then so the third part of that is the same person is also feeding the technicians. So what that means is if they need parts, they come to see him or her to get their parts. He puts them on the ticket and sends them out the door.

I— the one statement that stood out the most of that was the manager of first impressions.

Yeah.

What an important part of that role.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. Kind of the, um, you're part of the dictator of the energy, right?

100%. And so we've had several instances where a phone call to buy an oil filter has turned into the purchasing of a boat. Because if you're going to be as nice and helpful as me on a, on a $12 filter, well, by God, I want to use you to buy my next purchase. Because hopefully the whole crew has the same the same want and, you know, to take care of you.

Yeah, that's— you know, we say here every interaction is an interview. And so when you have, you have that person that's answering the phones that— I mean, even the coordination with the technicians, right? That's got to be a positive exchange.

Totally. A team-based exchange. Absolutely.

What— so I would think with this role, communication is key, right? A social person that enjoys that. Managing those relationships, the ability to inventory control. So do you have an application that you use for inventory control?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

So we've got to show them that and teach them how to use that.

Absolutely. We've got an inventory program or a whole operating system is called Lightspeed, and we chose Lightspeed. It's certainly not the cheapest out there, but we chose it because it's all encompassing my accounting, my service, my parts, All of it runs through it. There's a lot of automation in Lightspeed too, which is nice. Is in the, the part ordering process, it will not let you order a part without a PO number, which at first becomes a little bit of a pain, but you understand when parts come in, you don't know where they go, why POs and SOs are important. Keeping up with all the work orders, we run anywhere from 120 to 80 work orders open at one time. Every single one of those work orders needs parts. Yeah. And understanding which ones have parts, which ones don't, how long this part is going to take versus this part. So on the communication side of things, something I didn't mention is how closely you're going to work with our service manager, Daniel. You two guys have got to be joined at the hip and moving— guys or girls, I keep on saying that, I'm sorry.

Lazy English.

It's okay. Yeah, moving the left hand and the right hand have to know where they're at. And Daniel and Jack are really good at it. It'll take a minute to feel each other out, but yeah, in, in 6 months or so, it, it should look like a waltz.

That's what— it's funny you say it. I said we start off with the box step. Yeah, for relationship, you know, left, left. Yeah. And then over time, it becomes the waltz.

That's right.

That's great. I love that you said that. Yeah, so it's a Monday through Friday role. Are there Saturdays? Are there weekends? How does this— how does that work?

So we will let you work as much as you want to. I am here 6 days a week every week. My brother is here 6 days a week every week. In the summertime, we do every second weekend for our parts advisor and our service advisor. We don't have a lot of Saturday business, but it is enough to make it worthwhile.

And then on that side, is the compensation for that Are they— it's hourly roles. Is there anything added to that compensation?

Yes, in the, in the parts there is, and then on Saturdays you're making time and a half. So it's well worth, well worth it.

Okay, so again, a hustler that is social can be that quarterback with the service manager for parts and kind of managing the, the parts going into that service manager who's then managing the technicians and everything else.

Absolutely.

What— is there anything else about the role we missed that we haven't talked about?

So there's, there's, there's so much to talk about the parts role that we'd be here for 3 hours. Okay. But that is it. So it's all— everything we do on that parts role is relationship-based. Managing your vendors, making sure that when we receive stuff that we input the invoice correctly so that it comes through to Sterling so she can pay the bill. We, we like to pay our bills on time. Knowing what parts to order. When the customer comes to you or the, the technician comes to you and he says he wants a thrust bearing for a Yamaha VF250LA, that's going to take some training. But eventually you need to understand what that means and where to find it in a parts schematic efficiently using your cheat sheets and what have you to make a cheat sheet of common parts so you don't have to dig through a fish every time. We deal with a lot of vendors. The boat business is somewhat archaic in the fact that we may have a boat that comes in and to complete the job we may have to order parts from 6 different vendors for one boat because everybody produces different things. We don't have one great big wholesaler. Yeah. And so being very organized is key because there's a lot of moving parts. It sounds, sounds like a really simple job that you Be nice to people on the phone, order parts in a timely manner, and kick them out the door in a timely manner. But there is a whole lot in between that that takes some really, really good organization.

It's like a— it's an iceberg role.

Absolutely.

It is. Underneath is the chaos and all the craziness, but the top of the iceberg should just be a smiling face.

Yeah, yeah. You just got 3 things to do, should be easy, right?

Yeah, yeah. But don't let anybody see a sweat.

That's what that— no, no, no, no.

Oh, that's great. So good. We've talked about the role. Is there anything that you want to cover about you, the boat shop, the area, the team, anything that we can give to the community, to the veterans, before we start looking for the right humans for you?

Absolutely. To talk about me, that we somewhat— there's a yin and a yang at the boat shop. I'll be the yin and my brother can be the yang. I am very direct at times, sometimes a little too direct. My brother is direct but in a much nicer, more even-keeled way. I'm the bulldozer, he is the forklift that can weed through things easier. And we've learned that over the years, that depending on the situation, um, good, bad, or indifferent, do I need to handle it or does Kevin need to handle it? Because we're going to have a more positive outcome if we choose the right situation. Family-based dealership. So we have got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 kids under the age of 8 in amongst the Boatshop family. Texanna is the youngest, that is Sterling, my office manager's daughter, and she spent her first 6 months, 8 months of life in the office doing what she does. My kids are out for summer this year and so they will be in and out. So very family orientated.

I love that.

So close-knit that we all hang out together. I know the names and birthdays of most of the kids in the back. Stephen's son worked for us for 3 years before he went to college. Just a man, we spend more time each other with each other at work than we do with our family. So let's make it, let's have fun, enjoy each other. We might poke fun at people sometimes. One of my guys, Jesse, this morning said that, sent a text to say, man, forgot to set the alarm. I'm running 15 minutes late. See you in a while. I said, no problem. I like my donuts glazed. Yeah, right.

So that's great. I mean, that's the way we are in military, you know.

Yeah, yeah. You know, we all, we all make mistakes. There's no point in getting fussed about it. When we make a mistake, let's identify the problem and come up with a solution. Just that easy. As far as Shreveport goes, we don't get enough credit in Shreveport for what's going on in Shreveport. We really don't. I was a bit of a Shreveport downer for a second and and kind of forced myself to open my eyes and look what's going on. We've got some really cool stuff. So for the veterans, we've got Barksdale, is right here. So a huge base. So the camaraderie ship after work and what have you, if you do miss some of the guys that you worked with and want some of that environment, it's here. The VA is just like, I mean, it's, I could walk to the VA from the shop. If you enjoy the outdoors, the opportunities for hunting and fishing are endless. I can point any degree on the compass and I can be on the water or in the woods within an hour, which is so, so nice. Cost of living and everything too in Shreveport, something we don't talk about enough either. We can really stretch a dollar. I mean, mortgages and rental rates and stuff are half or a third of what they are in DFW or Houston. Where I live is South Shreveport. I'm 6 minutes from the golf course, 8 minutes from my kids' school, 12 minutes from the shop, which is just absolutely not bad. Yeah, yeah, I've got all bases covered. So, so there's a lot to be said for small town living, right?

100%.

We don't have any toll roads. You can be from one end of the city to the other in 15 minutes with no issues. So, so really, really good about that. There's some cool stuff coming to Shreveport too. With everything that's new in the data center world and all of that, a lot of that's coming here. And with that is going to grow our business as well as when that comes, it's going to bring some more nicer restaurants, things to do. And so it's a great time to move in on the upward growth. You're not joining a dying city. It's definitely on the up and up. The news doesn't portray it that way, but it is.

You know, for me, doing this for 20 years, what I know and what I understand is finding the right community is everything. And so, you know, I grew up in a village of 320 people. So like a role like this screams to me, I guess I can go in. I know everybody. I know what everybody's coffee is. I can crack jokes to people, right? He's late. I could set up a text, you know, when he walks in, we could, hey, good afternoon. Yeah, good morning. You know, all that fun stuff. And that's, I think, what's most important about the job. Yes, you're going to feel at home. You're going to feel like part of a community. You're going to feel part of a team, and you're going to be invested in as a human, not as a data point.

Absolutely a human. You know, we all win together and we all lose together. There's times where on a Friday afternoon that we may have to work a few extra hours if the boats are not getting out. But I can assure you that it's not going to be you working extra time. It's going to be us. Booking extra money.

I love that.

Yeah.

Hey, I have everything I need. We're going to get this information together. We're going to send it out to the veteran community. Once we find those right humans for, we're going to send them over to you. And I'm just excited to get this process started.

I am too, Justin. It's been great. I really, really think this is a wonderful process. The— my wife is looking for a job right now and is going through the temp agencies and standard recruiting, and it absolutely sucks.

Yeah.

This whole world we've got into that you never get to speak to the person that's gonna hire you just sucks. And so anybody that's interested, give them my number. I'd love to chat through everything eyeball to eyeball, whatever. That's my favorite. That's how we can judge somebody's character. We, I just listened to, I just listened to a talk that had nothing to do with recruiting, but it had to do with acquisitions and stuff. And just a very simple statement. That I thought was great. If you can't spend 8 hours in the car with somebody on a road trip, you probably can't work together.

There you go. And that— and people don't get that enough, that they don't understand the human to human is so important.

Absolutely.

And that's why I love these videos, because good leaders like you jump into it. Hey, let me get in. Like, let me show— like, let me show how much I care. And bad leaders are like, no, I don't want to show how much I abuse or—

what can we get out of these guys?

Yeah, so it's always— we're creating safe places for veterans, and that's what's so important.

Absolutely.

Well, hey, again, Raymond, I appreciate you so much. We're going to get this out there as soon as possible, and as soon as we find the right piece and person, we'll let you know.

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Justin Henderson Henderson Henderson. Have a great afternoon. You too. Bye.