A Cool Year: 2016 Annual Overview Frigibar Industries, Inc.
Happy New Year!
As we pass the half-way mark of our 45th year in business, I want to personally thank you for being part of our business. Whether you’re a customer, partner, employee, friend, or like to read our blog, I want to thank you on behalf of our family and team at Frigibar. Your support, contributions, allow our business to thrive and we are very grateful. We look forward to serving you in the new year and beyond to the high level of service and quality expected from the Frigibar brand.
2016 was an exciting and rewarding year for the Frigibar team. We want to keep you up to date with what’s happening with us, so in this year end overview, we will share with you; where we have been this year, what we are doing, our thanks for your continued support, and why we’re so excited about 2017.
Our Purpose
We provide the luxury and convenience of additional cold storage for vessels around the world by delivering stylish, dependable on-deck fiberglass and stainless steel freezers, refrigerators, and accessories to enhance your yachting experience.
Boat Shows
Every year we have the opportunity to participate in boat shows around the world. These shows are a very important part of our business. Each one gives us a chance to interact in-person with customers and partners, and give others the opportunity to see and touch our products.
In 2016, Frigibar products were exhibited at 9 shows, including:
- USSA Captains Briefing, St. Maarten
- REFIT International Exhibit & Conference
- Miami International Boat Show
- New England Boat Show, Boston, MA
- Bay Bridge Boat Show, Annapolis, MD
- Sanctuary Cove Boat Show, Australia
- Sydney International Boat Show, Australia
- Auckland On the Water Boat Show, New Zealand
- Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show
Outside of the shows we participate in as exhibitors, we attended the following shows which gave us the opportunity to connect with our colleagues, suppliers, customers and friends; Palm Beach International Boat Show, IBEX, METS, and the Antigua Charter Yacht Show.
Featured In…
2016 gave us opportunities to share our information, message and products throughout the industry and beyond in publications and digital media. Our YouTube channel is up and running with messages about our take on business, overviews from events we attend, and helpful information about our products and marine refrigeration. Our Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram accounts are very active and we appreciate all the love, likes, comments and shares you have contributed throughout the year.
We contributed to an article for Yachting Pages to help boat crews with tips on how to best maintain and deal with refrigeration issues while on-board and at sea. You can read the overview and find a link to the article here.
I was honored to have opportunities to represent our company, being featured on 4 podcasts; Entertaining Business, Enterprise Radio on EPN, Business Rescue Roadmap, and the Business Leadership Series, as well as articles in Florida Trend Magazine and Forbes.com Trep Talks. I also had my speaking debut at the Small Giants Summit this year, sharing the importance of succession planning for your business. In the upcoming year, you can find us online and in the soon to be released print version of Yachting Pages, through banners on YachtForums.com and new for 2017 on the Yachtneeds App.
Thanks to our on-going involvement with the Goldman Sacks 10,000 Small Business Program, we shared our insight about relevant business topics on the Huffington Post Business Blog.This year we published 6 articles aimed at providing actionable advice for entrepreneurs. We enjoyed writing these articles and were thrilled to see and hear how what we share benefits others. Additional articles are in the works for next year. If you are interested in contributing, I welcome you to email our content manager, Michael Luchies at content@aquaair.com.
Here are the 6 published articles from this year:
- Using Customer Service as a Competitive Advantage: 5 Ways to Help Customers Love You
- Are You Mentorable? How to Prepare to Receive Guidance in Your Business
- Your Missing Network Ingredient: How to Tell Your Network What You Need
- Six Tips for Harnessing the Power of a Thank you Note for Your Business
- Where Love Fits Into Your Business as an Entrepreneur
- Philanthropreneur: Why Business Owners Should Get Involved In Local Nonprofits
New Website
In November, we had the debut of our new website. It was time for a facelift as we strive to continue to provide you with a friendly user experience when you visit us at www.aquaair.com. If you see something we missed, a broken link, misspelling, corrupt picture, improvements we can make or some other issue please let us know at shuly77@gmail.com so we can fix it.
Frigibar Blog
Our blog is designed to provide you with relevant information on topics that add value to our readers. All in the past year, we featured industry experts Jeff Rhodes, builder of Coastal Craft Aluminum Boat and philanthropic fishing team – Team Tito’s. We shared new product offerings, published The Ultimate Boat Show Attendees Guide, Refrigerator and Freezer Food Safety Tips for Boating Trips and several others posts about buying the right freezer for your vessel. We also wrote about our participation in the 9th Annual Get Down to Business Lunch benefiting Easter Seals. This is just a sampling of the information and value our blog provides. We’d love to have you take a look at our blog and read a couple of the articles we created just for you. If there is a topic that is of interest and you would like to learn more about, email us at content@aquaair.com and we will work on providing it.
Partnerships
In 2016 we developed a wonderful new partnership with Ultra Marine Products in Queensland, Australia. Ultra Marine Products is responsible for supplying Frigibar products throughout Australia and New Zealand. I had the pleasure of visiting their facility and spending time with them during the Sanctuary Cove Boat Show for the launch of our partnership, which was a wonderful experience. Aside from providing a wide range of marine products and accessories, Ultra Marine Products is a business comprised of solid individuals who share our values and commitment to customer service. We are proud and grateful to have the opportunity to work with them.
Another wonderful partnership forged this year was with SailorSams.com. SailorSams.com is an online boater’s marketplace offering every item you could possibly need for your boat. Frigibar freezers, refrigerators, and accessories are now available on their site.
We ended the year with an exciting cooperation with Yachtneeds App for their 12 Days of Christmas Giveaway. Brian Schmidt was the lucky winner of a Frigibar Sportsman Freezer/Refrigerator. We can’t wait to deliver his gift and help him get a cool start to the New Year!
We are actively looking for partners of all types around the globe to represent our products. For partnership inquiries, please contact us at shuly77@gmail.com.
Fishing Teams
The 2 phenomenal fishing teams that we sponsor both had a great year! Team Tito’s Fishing Team helped us start the year off right, hosting a special Tito’s Vodka tasting reception at our booth at the new Miami International Boat Show at Miami Marine Stadium. We raised over $500 at the reception to benefit Southern Fishing Charities. In addition, Team Tito’s was responsible for raising over $30,000 for charity in 2016 participating in over 10 charity tournaments and in November they fished the SKA National Championship finishing Top 25 out of 188 boats.
The team had tremendous success with their Memorial Day family event and fishing tournament “The Downtown Showdown KDW” in West Palm Beach, Florida, which raised money for Lauren’s Kids and Paws for Veterans. Mark your calendars for May 21, 2017 for their 3rd Annual event. We hope to see you there! You can visit the team’s website at www.teamtitos.com and follow them on Facebook.
Liquid Fire Fishing Team had a remarkable year. Highlights include a 2nd Place finish in the SKA Division 1 and 3rd Place finish in Division 9, the two largest divisions in the SKA! It didn’t hurt their chances that they were fishing from their new SeaVee 390Z which they launched in June. Liquid Fire finished the year out in 2nd Place All Time in the Cape Lookout Shootout Series. Their biggest catch of the year however was undoubtedly Colby Levi Henderson born on 12/13 to Joshua and Sierra Henderson. To learn more about their upcoming seminars and tournament schedule, visit www.fishlf.com and to see some of their spectacular photos on Instagram.
Why We Can’t Wait For 2017!
We have a lot of things to be thankful for and many opportunities to pursue in the new year. Here are a few of the things we’re looking forward to in 2017:
- Fine tuning our new website and adding features to enhance your user experience
- Partner acquisition and forming new relationships along with expanding existing partnerships Nationally and Internationally
- New product development
- Participation and exhibits at new boat shows
Where We’ll Be In The 1st Quarter Of 2017!
- February 16-20th: Visit us at the Miami International Boat Show at Miami Marine Stadium on Virginia Key, Booth C554-Tent C and we hope to see you there. You can find helpful information about the show, tickets, shuttles and pre-paid parking at miamiboatshow.com.
- March 23-26th: We will be visiting the Palm Beach International Boat Show. If there is anything we can do to assist you while we are walking the show, please let us know!
With any of our events, feel free to contact us ahead of time if you would like to schedule a time to meet with us or just stop on by. You can keep tabs on us by visiting our Facebook page for updates about our upcoming event schedule and overviews of all the fun stuff we are doing.
In Closing
Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook so you can see what we are up to. We wouldn’t want you to miss a thing. As always, if there is anything we can do to assist you please let us know. We are at your service and happy to help!
Thank you for an amazing 2016! From our family to yours, we wish you a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year!
- Shuly Oletzky, Frigibar President & the Frigibar Family
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