HATTIE: (In the Studio) What are we learning? If you've got what people want, they will find you and go out of their way to give you their money. They don't have to know you personally or live around the corner from you. However, you can't market from a distance unless your product is top quality and unique. When your product arrives on the doorstep of a new customer, it must stand there, all alone. You aren't there to apologize if something is just not right.

For these business owners you're meeting, quality is an obsession. Some like to argue that the Maine work ethic and a traditional commitment to craftsmanship are the underpinning of the success we see here. I agree. But I see another common thread that binds these owners. It is a devotion to what they do. They are in love with what they do. This is their expertise, their gift, and no matter what happens, they are constantly working to perfect it even further. Don't think about marketing from a distance unless you have a unique product, unless you are willing to devote yourself completely to quality.

(Voiceover) Travelers from all over the world enjoy the 10-mile cruise to Monhegan Island on the Hardy Boat.

STACEY CROCETTI (Hardy Boat): (Voiceover) It's always been an outdoor state. I think people think of Maine and they think of the great outdoors and to experience the great outdoors and the wholesomeness of this state.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) The boat departs from New Harbor typically twice a day, but for current schedules, see hardyboat.com. To me, the scenery is both breathtaking and calming. For the young and the old, the trip created a perfect memory for me.

Unidentified Woman #3: Thank you. Great trip.

Unidentified Man #1: Thank you. Bye-bye.

STACEY: (Voiceover) We really brought it up from nothing.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) Stacey and Al Crocetti own the Hardy Boat.

STACEY: Basically, all we did was really buy a boat. We didn't buy customers. We didn't have one reservation on the day we bought the business, so we really have had to build it.

HATTIE: Why did you buy a failing business? What's wrong with you? Like, what, are you stupid?

AL CROCETTI (Hardy Boat): Absolutely. Absolutely.

STACEY: Probably in hindsight, I don't know. I don't know. I don't think we were stupid. I think we just didn't know any better. AL: We didn't have much to lose at that point, you know. It was--yeah. Yeah.

HATTIE: You were thinking, `We can do this or we can go get a job.'

AL: Yeah. Why not take a chance, you know?

STACEY: We figured, worse came to worse, we're in the hole $40,000 and, well, you know, we could probably pay that off working at McDonald's.

AL: At some point, yeah.

Unidentified Woman #4: See you.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) I asked Stacey how she gets the word out.

STACEY: (Voiceover) As far as print material and advertising, we have our brochures that we mail out. HATTIE: How do you get that mailing list? Who do you mail to?

STACEY: Well, it's sort of a selective bunch of people that I mail to, birding groups. We have really tapped into our birders.

(Voiceover) There are people that have to see birds. They have a life list, and they list all the different species of birds that they've seen, and so I do mailings to birding groups that might want to come out and see Atlantic puffins. This is the only place you can see Atlantic puffins in the United States. And I think word of mouth is something. I don't know if you call it advertising, but that's what we really strive for. We want people to get on our boat or have an experience on the Hardy Boat, whether it just be with the owners or whatever, that when someone says, `What should I do?,' their first thought is Hardy Boat. `They're so nice' or `They do a great job' or whatever, and we try to build that in the community so that when they're talking to tourists, they say, `Gee, you should really go for a ride on the Hardy Boat.'

Unidentified Man #2: Watch your step. Welcome aboard.

Unidentified Man #3: Hi.

STACEY: (Voiceover) I would say our #1 advertising, the one thing that we would not do without, is our Web site. You don't come to my business to see the Hardy Boat. You come to my business because you want to see a puffin or you want to see Monhegan, and so the best thing I can do for my business is put out the word about puffins and Monhegan Island and New Harbor and how beautiful the Pemaquid Peninsula is, and people then say, `Jeez, you know, I'm going to go to Maine, and I want to go to the Pemaquid Peninsula or I want to go see a puffin or Monhegan.' And they type in the keywords into Yahoo! or whatever and up pops `the Hardy Boat,' and I'd have to say we've had that site for six years, and, of course, the Web is just growing and growing and more Web sites are getting out there, more links are being--that Web, that Net is just expanding, and it tremendously helps my business because somebody might be at the Bradley Inn because they want to stay at the Bradley Inn and then they list things to do in the area, and there's the Hardy Boat.

(Voiceover) And I can track actually where people are coming from, not just in the United States but throughout the world. You know, you type in `Atlantic puffin,' you're going to see the Hardy Boat.

HATTIE: Of course.

STACEY: And so I just can't believe --who would have thought 20 years ago -- something called the Internet would be this huge big deal? But it is, and it's the one thing I would not do without.