Welcome to another episode of our serious SSG meetups by Super Luxury Group, where we connect with some of the most interesting players in the Luxury market. My name is Alvaro and today we'll be having with us a very special guest. His name is Patrick Curly and he's the CEO of JAD Life. They specialize on sales and chargers and they're the number one JAD brokerage company with over 40 locations worldwide.
In this conversation, Patrick will be talking about the current JAD market trends internationally and the importance of technology and social media to stay connected while bringing results. Also, we will be going over the importance of building a strong team and keeping a positive environment at all times to bring the beautiful success in life. As he likes to say, if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. I hope you enjoy it.
Alright, what's happening? What's up? Good. Yeah, the clown, that's that.
Where are you man? I'm in Miami Beach Marine on board 70 foot prestige. Look at you, that's a good office, huh? Work from yacht.
So you are actually here, right? This is what I would show you before. Yep, yeah. Unfortunately, it's a little too windy.
I wanted to go up on the fly bridge, but it's a little windy in Miami today. No, but it's beautiful, man. So where do we start with you? I mean, you tell me, you are an incredible guy that has started this company and I love what you guys are doing.
So tell me, why yacht life? Why yacht life is a long story, but I can tell you that as you can see, I'm not very social media savvy. I think the most important thing is you have to have a really good team around you. So we started the company about five years ago and we had a vision.
And I think when you're starting a company or a brand, you have to have a vision. Our vision was to make the process of chartering and purchasing a yacht as simple as possible. And then based on that vision, we put together a phenomenal team around us that was able to kind of work towards making the vision a reality. I think that what you just said is key because working towards your vision, that's what really makes the talking to reality.
And I love the yacht, by the way, I was playing around with it and you have access to all amazing yacht for charters, for sales. So for those listening or watching, I will recommend you to download the yacht life app right away because it's so visually attractive and so easy to navigate. So very nice. Now, let me ask you because a lot of things have been going on this year with the pandemic and people wanting to stay a little bit away from the crowded places and yacht seem to be like a really good getaway.
So how has this been for you? Yeah, so we started the year extremely strong. We were wrapping up all of our charter season for the Caribbean around the Christmas New York period. And then, you know, so January, February, we're fantastic months for us.
And then all of a sudden in March, we started to hear a lot of chatter in Europe. We had clients coming to us asking to postpone or cancel their Mediterranean charters for summer because of COVID. And, you know, that's when the pandemic hit. And basically for the months of March, April, May, we were completely shut down.
Marinas were shut down, shipyards were shut down. We were in the process of delivering a new yacht to an owner. Unfortunately, the yacht was being built in Italy, which at the time was at the center of the epidemic. But we came out of when things started opening back up in May, we saw so much pent up demand that our Europe business was down in the summer over 90%.
And that's where we make most of our money in the summertime. Even with Europe being down over 90%, the demand that we saw in the US exceeded the loss that we saw in Europe. So we posted record months for June, July, August, September and October. That's awesome.
So what did you do to stay afloat? Because you're, you said you are not big in such a media, but you surround yourself with the theme that does understand the magic of it and with the app that you currently have in place. So how important has been digital presence and the new technologies to adapt? Oh, yeah, Stephanie on our team.
Shout out to Stephanie. She handles our email marketing and our social media marketing. She is the one that drives all of what you see on social media with the at life. So she's a rock star.
And believe or not, we actually do see a lot of business come from social media. We see a lot of big influencers, athletes, celebrities that reach out to us initially via their agent or the social media manager. And Matt on our team who runs our paid digital media ads does a phenomenal job always pinpointing which area we should be marketing towards based on the season. And yeah, we see a lot of incoming leads from both our paid and organic social media.
Very nice. And you will say that it's strictly Instagram or are there any other platforms where you see like, wow, this is great. Yeah, it's mostly Instagram. We actually just started testing advertising on LinkedIn targeting a lot of sort of the high end sea level executives that are target market clients.
We just started that this month. So we're gonna see how it goes. But yeah, I mean, social media has been from the start of our company just because of the brand name. Yeah, life is associated on social media as one of the most used hashtag when people are on boats.
So social media has been great. But our biggest driver for new customers is honestly word of mouth. And I also said, not only you offer the yacht itself, but also you build itineraries for the experience. Yeah, exactly.
So you know, the Beliara Islands, which I know are near and dear to you, is one of my favorite places to go yachting. The thing is a lot of people, they'll go to Ibiza and they'll take a yacht out for the day, they'll go to form and data. But if you really want to experience the Beliara Islands, you know, you got to do a seven day charter, you got to explore Mallorca, there's so many private little beaches and coves, you got to go to Mallorca, all different parts of Ibiza. And they're even more fantastic when you're in a yacht like this.
I mean, when you are in a nice yacht going through the right places, I mean Mallorca, you got to have a first pain. So for me, it's always a blast to go in the summer to do visa or Mallorca. And as you all said, it's a beautiful place. And I don't think there is a better way to go around than on a yacht.
So I definitely encourage everybody that has that warm feeling or wanting to do something with the yacht is going with the experts that also can build a nice itinerary. And I think you guys do an excellent job on that. So congrats. Now, there's a lot of different yachts.
I mean, you offer obviously over 1000 different yachts in your app. So there is different ranks, right? From super luxury to not so luxury, but always high end. Now, the question is, everybody sees luxury in so many different ways.
But what will be for you? Luxury is beyond, at least for me, it's beyond just excellent service. It's beyond an excellent product. It's anticipating something that your client needs before they even think about it, right?
It's when you're at a nice restaurant or a hotel and someone brings you something before you're done with your glass of wine or champagne. It's anticipating what you want before you even know you want it. That to me is what luxury is. That's a good one.
I mean, I've never heard I want before the attention to details to stay ahead of the game. So that's definitely good. And I love that by the way, when you are having your glass of wine and they bring you something that you didn't expect, but you were thinking about. So this can be taken in so many things also with the yacht, you know, when somebody wants to charrier a yacht and then you all this sudden, boom, put them in a itinerary place.
They're like, oh, I actually wanted to do this. We do the kind of similar with the home. So it's always about building that experience for lifestyle. 360.
And you guys have a place very well. So that's pretty important. Now, Patrick, I have a question because it's really cool to see how you turn this brand, you got life. It's so successful and so broad that a lot of people are currently using your app.
So in order for this to make it happen, I mean, there needs to be also some personal growth that took place between. Do you have any mentors or any people that you look up? Oh, yeah. So many.
You know, first and foremost, you know, when we start the conversation, we're talking about you have to have a vision. You have to have a team in place. You have to have, at least in my opinion, you have to have a good support network. So for me, the initial support network where my parents, I said, guys, am I crazy?
I used to work in banking, you know, making a good money, had a good lifestyle. And I said, look, I'm thinking about actually leaving financial services and actually starting a company. That's doing something that no one else is doing, taking a big risk. And my parents, I was like, my crazy, my friends like, no, if you believe in it, do it.
Very well said. I'm so important to have that support system from the very beginning, especially when you have that vision, because a lot of people are going to be like, you're crazy men, stick to banking, you're making good money, you know, like you're fine. Oh, yeah. I told you that.
Oh, I'm sure I'm sure, because I was very fascinated with the transition that you did. But listen, it didn't go too bad, going out right now in your office, enjoying it. And as you said, it's one mantra that I wrote that because I want to start using it. You know, sometimes you forget you get too much into work, but if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.
I love that. Exactly. No matter what you're doing in life, if you wake up in the morning and you're not having fun within the first hour, show back to that. No, that's good.
That's good. And that's why you need to keep that vision going, because when you read that vision in the morning, you're like, nice, like, I'm like, night, I want to do stuff, you know, and when you have the people around you that will support you to go that direction, it's one. I guess something that I always ask, because it's always important, and this goes aligned with the sentence that we just said, you know, beautiful success. When you think of beautiful success in your eyes, what is it?
Beautiful success. I mean, I think first and foremost, it's being happy. You know, our team is, you know, we use Slack to communicate as a team, and everyone's up very early, you know, chairing about talking about deals and working on if someone needs help from someone else on the team. And I can go to bed at night, and people are still active.
And you know, it's just, you have to create a fun environment, because if you're not having fun, and you're like, oh, God, I gotta go back to the office, I gotta start working again, and you know, da da da da da, that energy is going to be perceived from your clients, and it's just, it's going to be like a negative kind of downward spiral. But if you're happy, and you're excited, and you generally care about your clients and what you're doing, then it comes off, and it makes your clients excited. The rest of the team gets excited, it's, it's, it sounds cheesy, but if you're not having fun, then it, it, it gets perceived by everyone else around you. But if you are having fun, then it's just, you're, you're unsavable.
I love that. And I'm going to extract that part of the, of the conversation, and I'm going to send it to a few friends, because I know they're struggling with their business. And one of the reason is because of the mindset, you know, when you get into this nation mindset, everybody around you, in your team starts feeling that, and then there is no growth. So very well said, I mean, I tried to always, yup, the club, the club wakes everybody up and puts the mood.
So now I see that you play paddle as well. So we need to set up a match. Oh, definitely. I'm going to, I'm going to go play you out later this afternoon.
Really cool, cool. So practice, because it's going to be intense. I'm coming, I'm coming, ready. I'm getting a good game in Madrid.
So I'm like, geez, to do sports outside right now, it's a challenge. Miami is where it's at. Oh, yeah, for sure. I'll talk to you soon.
But no, Patrick, I do appreciate your time as always. I mean, you're a great guy when you're doing this phenomenal. If somebody wants to reach out to you or book one of your beautiful chargers, where do they go? Yeah, so, um, the, if you want to connect with us on Instagram, you can do that.
It's just Yacht Life app. You can send a message. Stephanie is going to hate me because she feels all of our messages. You can do that.
You can download the app on the app store, whether it's Google Play or App Store, or you can just go to website yachtlife.com. Once you go to the app or the website, you'll be able to see all of our yachts for charter. We've got over 5,000 yachts available for sale. And from looking at any boat, whether it's for sale or for charter, you can send a message or call.
You'll be connected directly with one of our brokers. Beautiful. All right, Patrick. So thank you very much.
I do appreciate your time. Stay safe. It seems a little bit cloudy right now in Miami. So it's clearing out.
Bye, sir. Yeah, yeah. It's life in, life in, yeah, it's always fun. So keep doing your thing.
And I'll see you soon. All right, Patrick? All right, brother. Thank you.
And thanks again for everybody tuning in today. We hope you enjoyed it. And remember, embrace it's beautiful success in life. My name is Alvaro, and I'll see you next time.