THE TIME SEEMS RIGHT for Boating Industry Canada to profile The Binnacle and the profitable partnership between Robert Dempsey and Chris Shaw that is behind the steady rise and success of Atlantic Canada's regional chandlery. As the industry becomes more keenly aware of our aging population of marine business owners, a great many of whom are owner/operators with no succession plan in place, the partnership between Robert Dempsey and Chris Shaw looks more and more attractive. Boating Industry Canada sat down and interviewed both Robert and Chris about both their store and their relationship as partners. We think (and hope) you will find this very interesting. Chris Shaw told us, "We needed a partnership to get The Binnacle started and as we have gone along, we realized that by being partners, you realize that it's not all on your shoulders and that sometimes you need somebody who's going to call your bluff or look at a situation in a different light." Chris says that, "After 18 years, we are like an old married couple; we do what we do separately. Over the years, we have divided up the responsibilities; Robert does the purchasing and merchandising, I do the public relations and advertising." Chris was quick to add that, "When we buy at the shows, we make a joint decision. If we see a market for these things, then it's OK". Boating Industry Canada has observed Chris and Robert at shows. They arrive with their people, armed with notebook computers and spreadsheets, ready to analyze historic sales and business data to best arrive at buying decisions, stocking quantities and other key measures. That is one sure way to avoid disagreements – base decisions on hard numbers. But partnerships are relationships as well. This relationship started on a custom C&C 41 back in 1984; Chris and Robert raced together until the early 1990s. Both love sailing and particularly racing. They had a lot in common. The Binnacle was started in about 1975 in Montréal by John McCurdy. McCurdy expanded and opened a store in Halifax. (Robert Dempsey describes the original The Binnacle as having become a clothing store that was dabbling in marine.) McCurdy also owned South Shore Marine in Chester, Nova Scotia but sold that to one of his managers. When he did that, McCurdy was also thinking of closing The Binnacle because it was losing money in Halifax. And, the manager lived in Chester and probably didn't want to have a business in Halifax. As the story goes, Chris happened to be in Chester, talking to these people and discovered that they might be prepared to sell the store. The rest is history, but it's important to note that without setting up the partnership between Chris and Robert, it's unlikely that either would have run the risk alone, or been able to afford to buy The Binnacle in the first place. At that point in the early 1990s, Chris had been with a grocery products manufacturer and he had just received a "package" as his company was bought out. Robert had been working for the federal government as a UIC officer. Luckily for Robert, when he and Chris made the decision to buy The Binnacle, he was able to work out an arrangement with his manager where he would work six months of the year, taking off on April 1 and returning on November 1. He did that for the first two years while he and Chris, and one other employee got The Binnacle going. After two years, Robert was able to join Chris on a fulltime basis. The partnership was a significant factor contributing to the success of the start-up, giving them the confidence to commit to investments that lead to future success. The original store was 860 sq. ft. and literally on the day that I interviewed them at the Toronto International Boat Show in January 2011, they had just added another 2,000 sq. ft.; the carpet was being laid as we talked. With this latest expansion, they have now taken over the entire 8,200 sq. ft. building. The security of the partnership also facilitated three pivotal decisions in the early days. The store has long had very unique and distinctive advertising materials, all created by Cindy Schultz, a person they have known for 30 years. Chris emphasizes that from the outset, they never wanted to promote price.
Chris came from the grocery business and he felt that marine was not a nickel and dime business. Instead, he believed that for marine buyers, "the brand" is what it's been all about. Cindy's consistent approach to The Binnacle's advertising continues to build "the brand". Robert commented that some of their customers tell him that the first thing they look for in the newest copy of Canadian Yachting or Pacific Yachting is The Binnacle ad in order to see what they've done this time. The appearance of the store is also very important and Chris freely admits that the look of The Binnacle today is nothing that they would have designed themselves. He emphasized that in addition to their obviously good decision to have Cindy Schultz do the advertising and branding, one of the most important decisions they ever made was to have Ann Acland do the store design. Ann Acland is also a racer who has been profiled in Canadian Yachting as a sailor, while professionally she does retail design and store layouts.
From the very beginning, Chris and Robert trusted The Binnacle to Ann. She chose the colours, the natural oak trim and the carpeting. Chris said that they have always believed that a marine store does not need to look like a Canadian Tire or a Wal-Mart with gray metal shelves and cement floors. He also believes firmly that the cost of their comfortable nautical decor has more than paid for itself. He claims they have never had to charge anything extra at retail for the upscale store design. Chris told us, "We almost blush when people tell us that they think it's the nicest store of its kind that they've been in. And, we get cruising yachtsmen up from the United States who say that". "We see ourselves as a destination retailer," Chris said "offering something unique to the visiting yachtsman and the regional buyers."
Both Robert and Chris view The Binnacle as a regional retailer, drawing their business from a substantial store trading area in Atlantic Canada but then, branding the store and carrying its personality across Canada through their advertising and their Internet presence. The third pivotal decision came in March 1999 when the company went online and opened its own virtual store. Right at the start, they hired a fulltime IT person; Robert's brother Eric Dempsey. "We're pretty certain this was Canada's very first online marine store," Robert said. "The story was written up in the local papers." Today, The Binnacle employs 15 fulltime people and a staff of 20 or more during the summers. "Not only do we occupy the entire building now, we have three people working full-time on Binnacle.com," Robert told us. Again, the strength of the partnership arrangement facilitates the growth because as Robert stressed, they grow into it. "We have always hired staff and then hoped that they would increase sales by adding something new to The Binnacle and so far, that's always what has happened," he said. "It was the same thing with the Internet. We hired our IT person when there was no Internet business. We modify our site on a daily basis and we've worked with Eric to follow his vision about the web. He predicted the growth scenario and we've been able to make it happen." So, The Binnacle is now really two stores; the physical store in Halifax and the online store that is coast-to-coast across Canada and has even expanded into the United States.
The great value of online is that you can measure everything and you can very quickly know if your product or your ad is doing well, even as far away as BC. Robert added that, "We feel that service is our greatest strength. We really want to service our customers because that is how we grow. The reason that we exhibit at the Toronto International Boat Show is to support our online business by seeing our customers face-to-face in Ontario." Another aspect to this partnership when you talk to Chris and Robert is that they make it sound easy. We had to ask them, what challenges have you faced? "I think that, originally, The Binnacle was seen as a high-priced store, but that's not true now," Robert said. "When we bought it, they used to incorporate the GST into the pricing. As soon as we took it over, we took that out and immediately dropped the price tags by 7%. It's taken a long time for us to change that pricing perception but as we have grown into being a regional store, people now see us as being nationally competitive from a price standpoint.

The Internet has given the customer tremendous access to information." So, the partnership was instrumental in getting The Binnacle off to a strong start but is Robert still having fun? "It's mostly still fun," Robert said with a thoughtful smile, "I really enjoy getting up and going to work. In fact, I enjoy it every day. The staff might say that I get cranky sometimes. Some of the things that happen can wear on you, like a customer coming in with an eight-year-old jacket that has a broken zipper, hoping that you're going to fix it for free!" "We really have a good staff. Some of our people have been with us 12 or even 15 years and we can let them deal with issues like that. Our staff is empowered to solve problems and these days I have an office where I prefer to stay.
On the other hand, I really get excited when our new products arrive. We try and offer a really wide selection of merchandise. Like foul weather gear – you don't even need a boat to appreciate Henri Lloyd clothing."

In terms of succession, Robert and Chris don't have anything specific in place but at age 52, Chris is planning to stay another 10 years and Robert probably is too. Chris says that bringing in a younger partner might be a good idea. Hiring a manager is a question of money. In order to find the right person to buy them out, that person would need to have some investment capital. You couldn't buy the business out otherwise. Also, Chris has a daughter Taylor, who is a keen sailor and has taken an interest in the store. She's a teenager now and perhaps she will grow into it. All in all, Chris emphasizes that he and Robert both see the business as a work in progress and they rarely stop to think about their partnership. "This has been the easiest relationship I've ever been in in my life," Chris said when describing his working partnership with Robert. "My weaknesses seem to be his strengths. We don't always agree but it still seems to work. From crewing on a boat together, it doesn't take long to figure each other out; one look and we know what we're doing. Just like an old married couple!" "What we do, we do well" said Robert.