Quick Q&A: Chris from Cecil Wright & Partners
Wednesday, 14th August 2019 - By Laura Nicholls at Superyacht Times
After 17 years at Edmiston, Chris Cecil-Wright took a leap of faith and left to run his own brokerage house to look after a small number of special boats and select clients. As the show season gets underway, Chris and his team are hoping to continue their trend of selling a boat at every Monaco Yacht Show. With three berths booked in preparation, along with his positive attitude and wealth of knowledge, he may well get lucky. In the meantime, over a cup of coffee on New Hampshire, Chris gives a fascinating insight into the business from the eyes and mind of one of the superyacht industry's most influential and successful yacht brokers.
Having branched out on your own and founding Cecil Wright in 2013, has your method of working changed? Do you have any particular tactics when it comes to dealing with clients?
The way I do business is that I meet the client and I take the time to build a relationship with them as that is the driver for good business. When you have a good bond with someone you can have frank discussions and, most importantly, you get to know their idea of value, size and quality. That’s my tactic: to know my clients well! It is also why I don’t have very many clients as I like to keep them to a minimum and look after them properly.
How do you think Cecil Wright stands out?
I don’t think we do stand out, I just think we do what we do well! There’s a whole big market out there with thousands of boats to choose from so you can’t know everything. The way I add value to a relationship is knowing the history of the boats, which is why I focus on Feadships because I like the product and about their boats. When I deliver this information to a new owner it is good value to them.
What would your best advice be to a new owner wanting to get into the industry?
Personally, if I was a new owner coming into the industry I would try to find the support of someone who spoke my language and understood who I was. Someone who bothered to make a relationship with me and didn’t just send me a list of big white boats and ask me to choose. I would be having coffee at various brokerage companies and look the broker in the eye and ask myself: “Do I like this person? Because I am going to be spending the next year or two with them!”
