Talking Hot Tubs

We’ve started the third month of 2012 already! I can’t believe how fast the new year has begun. For the hot tub biz, it is already Home & Garden Show season too…where many people come across a hot tub on display and rekindle a thought about whether they should get one for their family and lives.

Many people are surprised to see hot tubs offered for sale outside of hot tub retail stores…but it actually happens quite a bit. Of course, Home & Garden Shows for this category of consumer products is not that surprising. A hot tub can truly make outdoor deck or patio space almost a part of your home itself with its year-round use and utility. At least that is our experience at our house.

Consumers can get very good value out of shopping at Home & Garden Shows for their hot tub too. The key is to make sure that you are dealing with a local retailer who is exhibiting at the show…not some of those traveling road show brands that blow into town and out again, without a continuing business activity in your town.   They usually do those big and noisy ‘Spa, Pool, Barbeque, Gazebo Monster Shows’ that claim to give you many company’s products to compare (but that’s a hoax).  Then they are gone.  But they sometimes do the Home & Garden Shows too.

For the best shopping and ownership experience you want to buy a national brand like Marquis from a local dealer that you know you can find and rely on through the years of your ownership. (I also kind of think it is a big deal that it be ‘Made in the USA’…not Mexico, or China, or elsewhere. But maybe that is just me.)

Check out your local Home & Garden Shows if you are thinking about a hot tub. You usually can compare a few brands all at one event, which is convenient. We like that too, because the more people know about what they are buying…the more often they select the Marquis. It truly is the Ultimate Hot Tub Experience! Cheers.

After five of the last six weeks on the road in three countries, seemingly in meetings and traveling non-stop, I managed to make the whole period even more challenging with sinus infection.  Getting home for Thanksgiving week to recoup a bit came in the nick of time.  My Marquis Epic hot tub on the back deck has been a helpful part of the process.

This time of year, we are often stimulated to pause and reflect a bit about all we have to be thankful for in our lives.  I know on my list I include that hot tub.  Whether it is a few moments of night time solitude under the stars…a relaxing chance to talk with my wife when we are undistracted by other things…a hydrotherapeutic 20 minutes to soak and massage away muscle stress…it all is appreciated.  And it is gratifying to be involved with a business that brings that kind of benefit to people around the world too!

This week to recoup has worked.  And it is a good thing too.  Monday morning it is off to the airport for the next round!  Happy Holidays!  Make some time to go soak in a hot tub this Holiday Season and make it even happier.  Cheers!

My wife and I had breakfast with Sam Shepard, one of my favorite actors, the other morning in Durango, Colorado. Actually, he didn’t even know we existed as we sat at a table behind him. But the three of us were all eating breakfast at the same place.

That is sort of how this hot tub industry tends to talk to consumers. There ‘sort of’ may be facts hidden in the vague or misleading claims of some brands and sales people. But the impression most of that spin and hype gives to the consumer is that all hot tubs are pretty much alike…and some folks in the business don’t seem to be of the highest ethical instincts. The first impression is wrong, the latter may be right with more than a few unfortunately.

Claims that all jets are the same (compare high flow GPM deep massage to the common high pressure type that irritate the skin); that trapped air is as efficient insulation as fully foamed cabinets (check the R-value of a partially air-tight window compared to an insulated wall); that single input filtration at the surface cleans water as well as dual systems that pull water from the top and bottom of the vessel; that bases covered in little more than Saran wrap (or nothing at all) protect the structure as well as formed high density plastic bases; clearly there are important differences in how and why some good hot tubs are designed to be better products then the generic box of hot water.

Those valuable and well-designed concepts are the types found built into Marquis products. As for other brands…some of them even rather well known…not so much. Just like I know I will always see and appreciate a ‘real’ acting performance from my breakfast companion Sam Shepard, you can trust that you will always get a real performance and value from a hot tub from Marquis. A Marquis dealer will be happy to show you the real deal.

Oh, and I know you are wondering… Sam ordered the quiche. JSJ

 Each year for three weeks in July I really don’t mind getting up each morning before the sun to turn on the television! Probably the only mornings all year when I will actually do that.  It’s the Tour de France broadcasts and I truly enjoy the serpentine development of the daily races within the race.  Covering more than a thousand miles over cobblestone roads, monster mountain climbs, sprint finishes, and the flying peloton of powerful cycling athleticism around the picturesque French countryside, I think it is one of the most entertaining sporting events in the world.  I even got to ride in a team car at the Tour one year!

I have actually had the good fortune to work closely with a wide variety of elite athletes in various sports over the years of my career. Among them all, I think cyclists and triathletes top the list for athleticism.  It takes such amazing conditioning to excel at the elite levels of both sports.  And massage therapy plays a huge role in their conditioning and recovery regimen as well.  This year’s Tour broadcasts had segments on the importance of massage that were enlightening.  It reminded me of how useful our hot tub products can be as a daily massage tool for serious athletic efforts.

Watching the Tour always stimulates me to pull down the bike and put in some miles of my own.  Of course, my fitness and training discipline are nothing compared to the pros or dedicated fitness enthusiasts.   So that hot tub time to recover and relax REALLY helps an old guy like me. I can truly attest that a hot tub is a great part of any active sports lifestyle. Check one out at a Marquis dealer…you can even get one with a television so you can drink a beer and watch your favorite sports without leaving the tub…probably more my kind of ‘sport’ at this point.  Cheers!  JSJ

Met this week with the account reps from Make-A-Wish to review the past year of our support.  We currently are at the 460 hot tub wishes granted milestone and it appears that by the end of the year or early next we should pass the 500 mark.  I have to admit that I am very proud of what Marquis and our hot tub dealer network have done over the past 11 years to help kids with serious medical conditions and life-threatening illnesses through our support of Make-A-Wish.

The MAW folks reminded us of how our particular support with our Marquis hot tub products provides much more than just their financial value for the kids and their families.  A Marquis hot tub often is a therapeutic blessing for kids with debilitating conditions affecting motor skills or other muscular or neurological functions. The hot tub also provides the rest of the family a social connection spot or those few moments of solitude to relax and regroup from daily struggles and stresses that can accompany taking care of a loved one with special needs.  Our products and support can help the Make-A-Wish child and their entire family in very meaningful ways day after day for many years.  So how cool is that!

When people buy a Marquis hot tub, it truly helps sustain this very gratifying support of Make-A-Wish and it’s efforts to help kids. We even have one of our models called the Wish which generates additional cash donations for the cause as well.  Check one out at a Marquis dealer.

I have to admit that I never appreciated how hot tubs and their benefits consistently can touch people’s lives in such diverse and meaningful ways. Truly, “Moving body, mind, and soul at 104 degrees.” is what we are all about in this business.  Cheers.

Followed Webb, Kerr, and Miyazato around the US Open at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs yesterday. That Marquis Epic on my back deck makes a great last stop to a great day watching great golf. A hot tub can make almost anything better!

#10.       Marquis is the #1 choice of 2^nd time buyers…once you’ve had experience in owning any hot tub, you easily recognize why Marquis products are superior.

#9.          Proven history of reliability…you will find more 30-year-old Marquis hot tubs still in use today than with any other brand.

#8.          Industry tops in integrity…from shop floor to boardroom our employee-owners see and assess everything daily to make sure our products are manufactured, marketed, and sold to the highest standards.

#7.          Loyal dealers/company cooperation…Marquis dealers are known in the industry as one of the most loyal and trusted networks who truly take care of their customers.

#6.          Simply beautiful designs…Marquis’ award winning hot tubs have evolved with the most stylish and contemporary design language in the industry today.

#5.          ‘Greenest’ designs in the industry…from compliance, to manufacturing process, to components, to energy efficiency, to cleanest water management system in the industry.

#4.          The preferred hot tub of Make-A-Wish…our company, our employee-owners, and our dealers are proud of 10 years and over 450 hot tub wishes granted to kids facing serious life and health challenges.

#3.          Most effective designs in hydrotherapy…in jet hydrotherapy, the true benefit is in targeted GPM (gallons per minute); our unique system delivers the most massage benefit to precise body areas.

#2.          Ownership satisfaction…whether you seek hot tub benefits for health, connection, or escape, Marquis owners consistently confirm they are very happy they chose a Marquis Spa.

#1.          20 minutes to a better life…use a Marquis Spas hot tub any day…and your world becomes just a little bit better place.

Remember M.A.S.H.’s Colonel Potter and his “horse hockey” curse?  That is as close to what I can write here about how I really feel about those hot tub sales pitches out there that make a big deal about hot tub pump horsepower.  Horsepower  numbers are as relevant to a hot tub pump performance as knowing what the decibel levels are for the alarm bell that tells you that you left your car keys in the ignition.  It is a stupid and meaningless sales pitch number that tells you nothing about how much water it moves.

Gallons per minute (GPM) is the measure of a hot tub pump’s value.  Think about it.  The amount of water that is pumped through the jets creates the action that gives the massage benefit to a hot tub’s performance.  Horsepower does not correlate to the water volume and laminar flow that produces the massage.  And the number of jets working off a pump will also affect the experience a pump delivers.  Ask the guy who is pitching horsepower what that really means, and he can’t tell you.  Ask him if he can tell you how many gallons per minute are moved by his pump, and I will bet you he doesn’t even know.  He won’t tell you that the higher horsepower numbers more closely indicates a higher energy cost in use.

Marquis hot tubs use the latest generation of energy efficient pumps to move more water and deliver highly controllable flow of water through our network of unique valves and jets.  We achieve that by knowing our pumps’ GPM and the critical fluid dynamics in the design of our hot tub and jetting systems.  We optimize the laminar flow for jet performance without any of the meaningless ‘horse hockey’ sales babble about horsepower (we don’t use four-barrel carburetors or fuel injectors either by the way…)

That stuff those other guys pump sure is a lot more hot air than hot water…  Cheers!  JSJ

As the news reports about the geniuses we send to Washington discussing raising the debt ceiling again and making disingenuous political posture claims about lowering the country’s debt by $4 trillion or whatever in 10 years as they ‘stimulate’ our economy, I headed for the hot tub to escape and think about a couple of things:

1.  A “trillion” has almost no meaning to me.  A million I can kind of get my limited mind around sort of…not that I will ever actually have a million of course.  But billions and trillions may as well be words in some other language…until I looked at it another way, in that unit of measure I ‘sort of’ understand.  A billion is one thousand millions.  A trillion is one million millions.  We are how many millions of millions in debt and they think they are going to tax us more, cut as little as possible, and spend more on various ‘projects’ at the federal level to ‘stimulate us’ to get out of debt?  Even I am smarter than that.  I’ll just get my stimulation from the hot tub thank you.

2.  The economic reality out there in the real world where we sell hot tubs today is facing an avalanche of inflationary price increases.  Gas, food, services… just about everything… has been and is going to continue to go up in price.  Every one of our industry suppliers for parts and materials has raised their prices to us in the past year, several of them multiple times, with more to come.  We see other hot tub brands raising prices now too.  We’ve been holding back from increases for a couple of years, but we can’t hold the line like this indefinitely either.

It is maddening.  We have to get the federal government out of spending more than the economy produces or debt and inflation will have us all living in our hot tubs!  JSJ

A couple of years ago I sat on a marketing committee for the industry, and as part of the process in defining a focus and direction for expanding the use of hot tubs across our culture, we came up with an industry branding statement above.  It isn’t an advertising message (like Got Milk?…Beef, it’s whats for dinner…Go RVing!), but an inspirational touchstone as we think about various marketing programs to promote all of the benefits of these products.  And a hot tub really can do what that states for a person.

I find myself coming back to that message every once in a while to offset some of the more negative aspects I see in tactics and messages by some brands, some sales guys, and some dealers who seemingly will say and do anything to get a sale without concern for the truth or creating a happy and loyal hot tub consumer experience for the end user.  I have worked with consumer brands and products through independent retailer distribution for over 30 years now; most of it in the active sports lifestyle and fitness niches beyond the hydrotherapy and health area I navigate here today.  I have never seen a niche where brands and dealers use so many negative tactics to try to devalue competitors instead of affirm the positive features in their own products.  Too often, after a consumer goes through the process of shopping for a hot tub among various brands and dealers, he really needs a hot tub to de-stress and recover from the purchasing process!  Wake up industry!!

I am soooooo grateful that Marquis Spas has an ethical compass that is second to none in this industry…with products and marketing that reflect that concern for a truly satisfied consumer buying and ownership experience.  Cheers!  JSJ