"Owners Update" in Park City

[davidvel]

Had an "update" in PC yesterday. Kenny was friendly and immediately knew hw wouldn't sell us. He politely looked at his sheet and said "Looks like you have been doing presentations since 2002, and have never bought. You own resale and it's enrolled, but have not toured in over 5 years. . We don't spend a lot of time on you people." He asked why we came back for a tour after abstaining for 5 years. We told him we traded in late and the "body snatcher" called and implied she might be able to get us a better location (she may have), so we thought signing up with her would up our chances.

After about 20 minutes he understood we knew the system, used it well and asked if we rented points, which we said yes. He then said "and of course if you were to buy you'd go resale." He was well seasoned and knew his stuff. The next 20 minutes we had a good chat, talked about our teenagers, his rental of his own ski weeks, and even an old horrible TS salesperson we had. Typical comments from salespeople about winning salesman of the year and getting a Rolex, etc. He said he loved this location because skiers in park City have lots of $$, but the mud weeks and summer were not as lucrative. He got up, said thanks for being forthcoming, and then logged into his computer and clocked out. He was done for the day and said the gifter/encore person would be right in. Overall a good experience. We were out with our $225 in visa cards in a total of 45 minutes and off to Main Street to shop. An enjoyable detour on our vacation.

 

[StevenTing]

I bet the snow was fabulous. I’m thinking of booking a few nights in April and letting my daughter go snowboarding. I think mud season this year is going to prove a great value.

 

[davidvel]

I bet the snow was fabulous. I’m thinking of booking a few nights in April and letting my daughter go snowboarding. I think mud season this year is going to prove a great value.

It's great Steve, dumping right now!

 

[dougp26364]

I often wonder what is said later to the body snatchers who use whatever trick is necessary to get marginal prospects to the round tables? You got a nice gift. The salesman just got a little conversation. Are they that desperate o get people into an update?

We’ve owned TS since 1998 and MVC since 2001. It’s always been this way. I guess it must be lucrative to throw everything against the wall in hopes some of it will stick.

 

[Fasttr]

It’s a numbers game. As a simplified example, for every sale of 3000 points @ a discounted $13/point, they haul in $39K. Let’s say $3 of that is acquisition costs on a ROFR grab of $9K. That leaves $30K for sales & marketing, admin costs, and profits. If sales and marketing runs 50% of sales, that’s $19.5K for sales and marketing. Let’s say half of that goes to sales commissions/salaries. That leaves $9,750 for marketing. They can give away a lot of $300 gift cards to find the next Yes.

 

[Dean]

I often wonder what is said later to the body snatchers who use whatever trick is necessary to get marginal prospects to the round tables? You got a nice gift. The salesman just got a little conversation. Are they that desperate o get people into an update?

We’ve owned TS since 1998 and MVC since 2001. It’s always been this way. I guess it must be lucrative to throw everything against the wall in hopes some of it will stick.

I've had the same thoughts over the years and discussed this with sales at times over at least 3 companies on more than one occasion. Normally those whose job it is to try to fill up the sales presentation schedule are paid based on a numbers basis of whether they get you in or not. Obviously the sales staff have a different compensation model that's based on sales including % of sales compared to the total presentations. Their goals don't line up completely and I've seen a number of times where the sales staff was clearly frustrated with the recruitment staff because of the quality of the sales prospects sometimes threatening to "have a talk with them". I think it's even more contentious with some other systems where the ASA's (Advanced Sales Associates) often don't even work for the company in question, not unlike the concierge at many resorts.

IMO the related question is what truly separates a reasonable prospect from a lost cause. Obviously the company has the ability (and the right) to not offer sales tours to some individuals based on past or recent history. Often I see tours offered to those who clearly are so unlikely to purchase that it seems unreasonable to me. I have to assume their data proves otherwise. else they would figure out some other approach or limit more people than they do.

In some ways the even more interesting thing to me is how sales staff react once they are certain they are wasting their time. As we know here on TUG, a certain % of sales staff go into attack mode once they know that a sale is not possible. I've gotten very intolerant and proactive when that happens though. I've also asked a number of sales staff over the years about this, those that I had some level of rapport or confidence in. The question is whether it's a sales technique (unlikely) or just teenagers mentally (and/or borderline personality disorder) in a grown body which is more likely.