Dedicated To Serving Our Customers
Someone asked me the other day, “How did you get into the boat business?” I replied, “You
know, that’s a great question…and a complicated answer.” Many of you know the story of Faction Boardshop and the history of how our store came to be. What I would like to share today is the history of SurfMN, Faction Marine, and how all of it is interconnected.
Back in 2003 when I opened the Faction we discovered that the market in Alexandria had a need for wakeboard specific coaching. We were selling a good amount of wakeboards in our store and people had TONS of questions about how to use the stuff and how to do tricks. They had even more questions about how to pull the kids around, how fast they should drive, or how long the rope should be. We decided to add a little coaching to our list of things that we offer our customers. We would offer to come out and coach the customers and help them get things figured out on the water so they could enjoy the boards they were buying from us. I didn’t realize it at that moment, but we had started what would become SurfMN.
As we were becoming better known as one of the premiere Minnesota wakeboarding shops, we decided to take the plunge and add wake surfing as we had so much fun doing it ourselves. We knew that the customers would love it once they were exposed to it. At first people on the local lakes weren’t really equipped to do wake surfing on their own, as their I/O boats weren’t safe for surfing behind. We offered hourly and daily lessons behind our boat and more and more people fell in love with it and realized that they had to do it. In order to
surf though, they needed a proper inboard boat to do it behind. As the polularity grew locally, SurfMN was taking off. As more and more people got into surfing the market demanded inboard boats set up for surfing. That’s where Faction Marine was born.
In the early days of Faction Marine it was mostly just me getting a nice used boat in and then setting it up as a premiere turnkey wake surfing boat. I was putting in huge stereo systems, drilling holes in boats and adding as much ballast as that boat could hold. We were customizing the boats with fresh air exhaust, making them even better boats for wake surfing while reducing noise and carbon monoxide that riders were being exposed to. It was a lot of fun, and to tell you the truth we were getting really good at it! On top of that I started to compete on the World Series of Wakesurfing and promoting our surf school SurfMN.
In 2012 I purchased a really nice Centurion Enzo SV230. It had all the bells and whistles, and was set up for Wake surfing. My entire crew loved that boat and I figured I’d have that thing for the foreseeable future. One day in June of that year I received a call from Todd Gaughan of Fineline industries. He asked me to become the Minnesota promo driver for Centurion boats. I tossed the idea around for a couple days and decided to move forward with that and had my brand new 2012 SV233! That was a day that changed my life forever. Up to that point I had just been buying and selling used boats and setting up boats for customers. Now, I was moving into the new boat segment!
In 2013 Fineline purchased Supreme boats. They had been manufacturing the boats on and off for quite a few years and apparently knew that this brand was something special. Todd called me again and asked me to join the Supreme Team after I had won the 2013 Outlaw Surf Division at the Supreme Wake Surf Championship. They flew me out to California and I met the Walker family who took me out on their loaded up Supreme and showed me what this boat could do. I was fully onboard and ordered my first Supreme that day!
The more I became involved with Supreme and setting up boats for customers, the more I found myself in demand to help educate people that were in the marked for an inboard boat. I was getting many calls each week about which boat to buy, what is a fair price for this boat, or what kind of ballast set up do I need for that. It came to a point when a good friend of mine suggested that I just start a new business to cover the demand that needed to be met. Voila!
Faction Marine was born!
Now I find myself in a unique position in a market that has a lot of demand. People are looking for tow boats at a record pace. Most are buying strictly on price but not really knowing what they are buying. We created Faction Marine to help those people. That was the entire premise behind the birth of the dealership. We started our business to help people with boats like we always have with boards! That’s what we are good at! Helping people!
You can buy a boat from anyone, just like you can buy a board from anyone. Before you do though, I would encourage you to consider a few things. Does this dealership truly want to help you? Does their track record indicate that they help people; by taking the time to find out what it is they want or need? Do they have the experience in wake boats to know what you need? Have they been successful in making customers happy? Do they make sure that you know how to use the product before being sent out the door?
Faction has done that for 12 years. SurfMN has been doing it for 11 years. Faction Marine is merely an extension of that and a continuation of the principle that we are here to serve our customers and without them we do not exist. Thank you to everyone that has supported us, encouraged us, and given us a chance to be the best at what we do.
Happy Surfing in 2015 and we hope to see you on the water!
