Communicating The Berthon Message

Never has it been so easy to communicate – the web is full of it, and the humble cell phone normally has at least 5 different ways to get in touch – the least used of which is the standard telephone function. Communication flows like a fast-moving river, never still and providing masses of opportunity to get your message across and to absorb information of all sorts 24/7.

The huge scope for communication on so many levels provides a delightful morass of information, advice and opinion, much of it conflicting, masses of it inaccurate, and all of it enticing depending on your point of view. A wonderful Tower of Babel online morass of confusion.

As soon as the age of the web was upon us, we learned about social media, and Microsoft and threw away old ways of doing things, on the promise that new technology would streamline things, make them easier to assimilate, and hence easier for both ourselves and our clients to navigate; so that the business of yacht sales would be simpler.

Of course, all this technology has done nothing of the sort. But we have learnt new skills, invested in new technology and dived into all the platforms that are available, discounting many and developing others in the effort to inform, market and provide the best possible service to our clients – our yacht owners, and our yacht purchasers. It is not the first time we have written about the changes in technology and how it affects our communication protocols. Technology has taken another leap and has changed our offering again.

The Price of Honesty

There has been a step change in what is possible in terms of presentation in all its guises, and so much more can be shown and provided today. Because of the possibilities it is key that all presentation is honest – the more that imagery is touched in, and shortcomings skirted over by others (after all our main business is the sale of pre-owned brokerage yachts), the less our offering is trusted.

We risk sinking in a sea of information and presentation that is not trusted as it is not perceived to tell the whole story. For this reason, we decided that we would have a voice ourselves as brokers, sailors and as those passionate about what we do. The technology now exists to speak, and we are using it. And what fun it is.

The Myth of the Review

Modern technology loves to grade things. Comparison sites exist in every part of human endeavour whether to help you to decide what sort of screwdriver is best, or what washing machine to buy to the best food to give your dog. Along with these are sites which encourage buyers to score businesses and to calculate the information so that whatever in the world you want to buy, research or experience, there will be a guide that has been put together by consumers scoring their experience to tell you what is best. How fab is that! Or is it?

The wonder of modern technology is the way that information can be collated and regurgitated to help with your decision. This is all to the good for the platform which has the information, and they add to the fun by interacting with those leaving reviews to encourage them to use their platform more fully. A great example of this is the lovely Google review. Virtually all businesses are scored by Google whether they are selling pencils or superyachts. The problem is that to leave a Google review you have to deliver your Google password. If you know yours, we are impressed as most of us mere mortals do not, and have to pass on leaving reviews for many good companies who have done a great job. An average Google review makes very little difference to someone selling superyachts as buyers are interested in their offering and not what Mr Google thinks. However, it makes their SEO expert very unhappy so external people friendly to the business (who know their password!) are drafted in to square the circle. Hence the review is pointless.

Of course, there are many studies and surveys that are useful but the power of the modern search engine to influence the communication of a company for whom their review is irrelevant is not cool.

Being heard amidst this wonderful twenty first century Tower of Babel is therefore a challenge and for 2025 we have changed much to ensure that the Berthon voice is heard.

Our “Sandal-Wearing” Sherpa

In the olden days, when the yachting magazine was key to communicating the message, the typesetter of the brokerage pages held the key to the Holy Grail of communication. Today it is the guy with the woolly jumper who wears sandals even in the winter and who is rarely seen except behind a screen and only ever communicated with by WhatsApp or Signal. Every business has one and we are all familiar with those 3 letters – SEO. The jumper makes magic, is our communication sherpa and when he texts – jump – we only stop to ask how high! He controls how we say things online, where we post and how the Berthon offering is structured in order that we are heard.

As the online world develops it is important to be laser focused about where your market lies, who you want to communicate with and what you need to do to be heard by them. Realising this, we recently completed a focused rebrand of our .com which is well visited, but we now believe that it has the elements that are needed to speak to clients who own or who wish to buy the yachts that are in the Berthon fleet, both new and pre-owned.

We also looked at the smaller segment of our offering. All quality yachts but of modest size and value, they were in danger of being smothered by our re-brand. In truth, even before it they lacked enough visibility. So, we have built them their own platform, Berthon Essential which is optimised to be visible with this new techno Babel world, and so we are now communicating about these yachts better.

People Buy from People

Talking about chatting, of course people buy from people and there is nowhere where this is truer than in yachting. A yacht whatever type, colour or size, is an enormous extravagance, a depreciating asset and one which needs constant love and input from your wallet. In return she provides a fun quotient that is vast. Finding, buying, owning and finally selling her, is therefore an emotional experience rather than just a transaction, so deciding who will join you on the journey of yacht purchase and ownership and then onwards to your exit, is a big deal.

Many brokerage houses and sales organisations are delightfully corporate with central enquiry hubs, matching jackets and doubtless branded biros also. At Berthon we are a family and our clients are family too. We are more fountain pen, dogs in the office and chatting about yachts. Communicating this important difference has been helped hugely by the Berthon Podcast which we have found to be easy, as we get to talk about our favourite subject – yachts. Fun to do as some wonderful people like Tom Cunliffe and Steve Dashew have joined in (and please do watch out for much more of this in 2026); and it is something which cuts through the babble and shows our clients just who we are.

Imagery, Video, and the “Monetisation” Trap

At Berthon we never stop going on about imagery – both still and moving. We are spoiled as we have in-house photographer Harry Shutler in the UK office and Nathalie Miquel-Elcano in our office in Palma de Mallorca. We are honest and up to date with our imagery, and can provide them in truly high resolution on request, allowing a potential buyer to examine the imagery in great detail, warts and all. And then there is video. We are fans.

We have gone from being dismissive to being positive but nervous about the speaking bit, to all out total enthusiasm, because of the opportunity these short films give us to be heard above the techno babble all around us. Now that we have the ability to film (or be filmed) aboard a yacht and speak whilst doing so, the message is being heard loud and clear without the need for scripts and spending hours hunched over a computer and forgetting the critical facts that are obvious once aboard and in full flow!

As ever, much of the material found online about yachts of all stripes is inaccurate to some extent and advice given is in the main subjective – we are of course all still human, until the day (which may not be so long in coming) when AI takes up the cudgels of informing. Yachting magazines and journalists are sadly in the retreat, and now information is increasingly being propounded by bloggers and youtubers of all shapes and sizes. Some of them are excellent and it is interesting to see journalists like Dave Marsh, put down his pen and sally forth with a Go-Pro and his unique take on yachts and what matters.

Others can be less so and the revenue to be derived from a successful channel of whatever type is attractive to many. We are daily asked if we would monetise the Berthon YouTube channel. The answer is a polite no. We sell yachts, we are not youtubers or bloggers or creatures of the web. We are yacht brokers and for us, our platforms are the chariot we mount to be seen and to be heard in the techno babble of today.

The Human Core

The yacht search portals still exist and some charge handsomely for their service, convinced that only their voice may be heard above the babble and that without them yacht brokers are voiceless and impotent to get their message across. Even for them, there are new platforms popping up on what seems like an almost weekly basis, all promising to lead us to the promised land of plentiful enquiries and high conversion rates.

The truth is of course somewhat different, and we realised a long time ago that to remain relevant, we would need to be nimble, and we have been by embracing our sandal wearing SEO expert, YouTube, LinkedIn and all the many platforms that now give us voice. But the thing that is most important, and key to giving us voice, is just that. Mobile, probably WhatsApp or face to face, is the real way to defeat techno babble, where we chat to, experience yachts with and to develop a human relationship with those that trust us with the sale of their yachts, and to those who are interested in buying them.

We never forget that whilst surrounded by a sea of technology, systems and clever widgets that will capture likes and all of that, that human interaction is the thing that allows us to communicate our message, develop a relationship and work with our owners to provide the best possible platform to sell their yacht. For yacht buyers, speech and personal contact allows us to understand their needs, what will work for them given the programme that they have and how they are going to use their yacht.

Yacht brokerage remains and will always be the most personal of purchases and the most emotional of disposals. Achieving both in a way that scratches the itch that is yacht ownership and delivers confidence in a purchase and the knowledge that market value has been achieved for your beloved yacht once her programme is complete, are both important parts of the voyage. As we tussle with the babel of yachting’s online bazaar, we look forward to making that personal connection with you that will unite us in the common purpose of diving in and enjoying the amazing world of yachting in all its forms.

We will continue to hone our communication but of course as far as the important business of yacht sale and purchase are concerned, the most important words are yours.

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