Rent? Buy? Share? or Timeshare
Well, timeshare has been around a long time. Jesus was born in the very first AirBnB that I have ever heard of and it was actually a kind of timeshare arrangement.
When traveling, its obviously more efficient to rent a hotel room while on the road. You would not want to buy a home or condo in each town you stayed in while traveling …makes not sense. Sometimes it is necessary to rent a car for special situations, if yours is in the shop or when traveling. Would not want to buy a car for each of those occurrences. This brings me to my late Father’s old axiom, “Boys, remember the Four Fs and life will be easy”. What are the Four Fs ….?
My Dad said this to my three brothers and myself when we were all home from college one summer and I brought up that I was about to close on a small condo in Ruidoso, NM. A humble, mountain cottage but my first “second home”. My older brother then chimed in, “well I am buying a quarter horse and looking for a good riding saddle.” One of my younger brothers then offered that he had just bought a half interest in a ski boat to keep on Lake Austin and the youngest brother then said, “I just finished my pilot training & have found a nice, six seat, Cessna for sale.” Our Father just sat and stared at us for the longest time… then said, “Don’t you ladies remember the Four Fs of life?” He proceeded to remind us that “if you are thinking of buying something that Floats, Flys, Fornicates or is Far away, rent it don’t buy it! ”
Well timeshare solves my Dad’s dilemma for one of the Fs. While planes still need extreme maintenance, boats need constant attention and horses need food, vets and training, timeshare continues to solve the idea of owning a vacation, even in Far away places. And it is efficient, maintained and exchangeable to almost anywhere in the world.
For more no-nonsense resort stuff, contact Chris Bounds directly.
#timeshare sales, #resort management, #Chris Bounds Austin
Millennials vs Timeshare Vacations
Mom & Dad, late twenties, two kids….so Disney World is a logical vacation destination. Well, it was. The 30 somethings and younger crowd often see a vacation in a completely different light. So pay attention. The interval ownership, timeshare and fractional folks are coming around slowly but they will get there.
Zip lining, hiking, biking or sitting in a coffee shop at the beach with your smart phone can be a complete vacation for these folks. Does not mean timeshare is out. In fact, these guys timeshare everything from cars via Uber, bikes via most urban areas “share a bike program”, sofas via Air BnB to scooters, lawn mowers via renting from Home Depot etc. No, they get it when it comes to sharing stuff. Don’t forget that Gen Xers say that on average they will spend over $4,000 a year on “vacationing”. Now this might be made up of two night day trips to hike a mountain or see a concert or sky dive somewhere but they are spending money.
Also and importantly, they are getting married much later, if at all, having fewer kids and have less structure overall. So buying an old fashioned, brick and mortar condo overlooking a golf course or marina might be a hard sell for these folks. And buying a bunch of points, well that is so 90s ish. And you don’t have an App that shows my unit on live web cam…well that seems weird.
Its not a perfect call and the fractional business seems poised for more great things but those that figure out how to compete for the GEN X crowd will have cool and flexible Club memberships that update Apps daily and will have a constant string of new activities to try and will have 2 night deals at many locations with drive to options outnumbering fly in destinations. The Covid-19 hoax will accelerate this. They will have a lot of technology stuff around the resorts and will have programs for singles. That’s where we are headed. Recent stops in San Diego, Austin, Nashville and Ft. Lauderdale re-affirmed this trend.
There will always be a market for the high end consumer but the mid-market consumer base is growing. Dos Mundos Developments, , with a 25 year history of resort development and management says, “We are seeing resorts with gaming centers, interactive services including ordering show tickets, shuttle services and beach cabana reservations. It is really amazing to watch these young adults move quickly from activity to activity. No more 18 holes of golf or a pro-longed tennis match or a day of boating…rather, they would prefer a quick Pitch N Put on an eclectic, 3 whole course then an auto-scored electronic ping pong match with someone 3000 miles away, a quick hour on a jet ski and then zip lining….all in one day”
Chris Bounds maintains that “while the tail is wagging, the dog is still in charge.” People are going to travel, PERIOD. The ancient Romans had coastal homes in Pompeii. The 18th Century Londoners had Grand Tours and on the US Western Frontier, a day long picnic was a vacation. Things change but people are going to travel…its in their DNA. So the challenge is to keep up with the trends.
For more no-nonsense resort stuff, contact Chris Bounds directly.
CoronaVirus: Travel & Timeshare
Well, WISDOM, defined, means that you are old enough to have already learned from your or someone else’s mistakes. Simply put by Chris Bounds, “If you are under 40, you are about to gain a little wisdom. The mistakes you are currently making or are planning to make, will show up later as grey hair and WISDOM.” CORONAVIRUS!! COVID-19!! Sub-Prime mortgage! Swine Flu! Hurricane Katrina! SARS! Gulf War! Legionnaire Disease! 911! Hurricane Harvey! H1-N1! World Series Earthquake! Weapons of Mass Destruction! Pandemic! Great Recession of 2008! Wuhan! etc…. Some of these words were unknown to most until the media outlets kept repeating the exotic sounding phrases, as related to some major Crisis, over and over and convinced many that the sky was falling. Then, this type thing becomes a self fulling prophecy. What follows is that irrational, emotional decisions are effected based on hysteria and the resulting mistakes produce Wisdom. Happens every time.
Back to those of you under 40, likely educated in a Govt School, that did not teach or make you examine, study and understand the importance of Henny Penny and Chicken Little in the great allegorical parable about the dim witted chicken being manipulated by a WISE fox. Don’t make any more decisions until you go read the parable and study the various interpretations of it. The staff at Dos Mundos Developments & their sister company, Texas Call Center Solutions, have been through all of the above listed crisis and more and lived through them, developed Wisdom and can be called on for help.
For the hospitality, timeshare, resort, country club, vacation club and related travel businesses, this Corona Hoax has been devastating….short term. ENTER: Make Good Decisions- by studying other’s Wisdom (mistakes) and the long term results will be much better for your sales & marketing teams, developers and the notes and contracts you are holding.
The underlying economy is Great. Interest rates are low. People still want to travel very soon. We are just now entering our prime, travel season. Think! Yes, displaced workers will travel less or not at all. Ok, I agree. But many of those restaurant, bar and related service industry personnel ARE NOT YOUR MARKET. Get ahead of this now or your competitors will. The sky is not falling.
For more, NO BS, sales and consulting ideas, call Chris Bounds directly.
February 23, 2017 33 Comments/in Blog /by terrychristopherbounds.com
Manage your managers! Seems straight forward, right? WRONG. Its not easy. Its hard. Its time consuming. It gets complicated. It has to be done. Goals, accountability, reporting, timelines, budgets etc don’t just get done if not managed. Chris Bounds, Austin, Texas offers the following:
#1 Ethical Sales will cure most other issues. Lets be clear, its all about sales. Sure, someone has to decide when to order more copier paper and yes, it is sad that Rick’s father is dying from cancer and that the swim up bar at the adult pool has a cracked mirror; yeah those things must be dealt with BUT don’t let life’s distractions cloud your vision of what the goal is. Don’t stay busy all day doing things that don’t show up on the bottom line of the quarterly sales report. AND, don’t let your managers do it either. Is it coincidental that record setting sales figures seem to make it much easier and more pleasant to deal with life’s issues? I think not! SO & THEREFOR, never, ever let your management team get bogged down in stuff that has nothing to do with sales. NO, no excuses; just don’t let them do it. Try this for 3 months and watch what happens.
#2 Shift the focus of the time you spend with managers. With sales reps, you’d (hopefully) spend your time digging into the details of their sales production. But with your sales managers, you must dig into the details of their management. For example, in a review with an individual salesman (Bob), you might say, “Lets review your 30 day sales efficiency on X”. But with a sales manager, you would say, “How are you working with Bob given his 30 day sales efficiency report for X” Or rather than asking, “How could Bob have done Z better?” you instead should ask, “How could you have managed Bob to do Z better?” Make your managers answer these questions. Make them study and be accountable for their answers. This will bind the team and give them ownership of the process.
# 3 Know that you’ll teach by example, whether you want to or not. When you’re managing all phases of a project or development, you’re probably not real concerned that the kitchen staff sees you out of your professional dress when you snitch a cup of coffee on your day off. But when you’re managing managers, you and your behaviors, dress, habits, language etc., matter 24/7. REALLY. What they see, and so perceive of you, is what you are going to get back – and that can be good or bad. If you’re delegating effectively, providing useful and regular feedback, conducting useful check-ins, hiring wisely, and fairly holding all staff accountable, that’s what your management team will do. Conversely, if you tell one of your mangers that he can hold a pender over and close it the next month so he can get his Christmas bonus, then you just told him (and his piers) that cheating and breaking the policies is ok.
#4 Feed the tigers, ride the horses & shoot the dogs. It is very important that the sales mangers you manage, although operating fairly, for everyone, by the exact same policies and handbook of rules, understand that at the end of the day SALES is what we do. We do them ethically, straight forward and do not cut corners or skip any procedures, BUT our job is to sell. When managing a fast paced, high energy sales organization fairly and according to stated goals and budgets, your managers’ recipe must call for: #1. Feeding the tigers: give more leads, tours, and prospects to the #1 salesman/manager/team. The #1 seed in a tourney gets the #8 seed for first game. That’s just how it is. Make your rules and policies match. #2 Riding the horses: We don’t ride pigs or cows. No, we want horses and when you have a horse why would you keep a pig or cow in the stable for riding. Horses are for riding, so when your salesman/manager/team is selling well, do not quit riding. Big mistakes are made when the top team is broken up because of promotions, lateral moves or reassignments. #3 Shoot the dogs: we don’t want dogs in our stable; it creates chaos. When a team/manager/salesman is just not performing and not performing consistently, despite your focused efforts, then you must train your management team to get the dogs out of the stable.
#5 Quick, fair & public trials: Nothing quite like a public hanging to get your attention and help you understand that rules must be followed and that the results of actions will not be dealt with in secrecy or privacy. Not withstanding proper adherence to employment and privacy laws, your mangers should see, know and understand that all matters, good and bad, will be dealt with immediately and in a fair and open forum. Showing managers that it is OK to post the weekly sales reports and comment openly on efficiency numbers is a good thing. There are no secrets in sales numbers. They are exactly what they are. No excuses, no what ifs and no where to hide. If you are second place by $0.50 then you are second place. Your management team must have the confidence to openly admonish wrong behavior and reward good behavior. Actively treating managers with this same philosophy will trickle down.
For more NO BS sales management stuff, feel free to contact Chris Bounds, Austin, Texas.