Membership should be included with new purchase

[yakman]

Hello all,

I'm sure I'm not the only one to ever ponder this. It would make perfectly good sense for Thor/AS or even the WBCCI itself to include a 1 year paid membership into the WBCCI with the purchase of a new unit. If a family spends that much on a new trailer, why not offer the complimentary membership? Seems like a no-brainer to me. They should sell the camaraderie of ownership and let you experience it for free the first year.

My dealer sent us home with 40 nights of free camping with Travel Resorts of America. One campground is in Gettysburg and the other in NC. I don't understand the concept of "buying" into a campground and having to spend a part of my free weekend to attend a seminar on their program. No thanks... but back to the original topic...

Why wouldn't the WBCCI or Thor offer new owners a complimentary first year membership?

I challenge the WBCCI to recruit new members with complimentary offers. I've heard too much to ever drop $80+ of my own cash to sample it.

cheers,

yakman

[streamer23]

They actually did that for many years.I believe the last time they did that was early this decade.

[Bambi_Bandit]

I got a free membership (1 year) in WBCCI and a year of Airstream Life. I can't remember if it was the dealer or Airstream, but I think the dealer...

[2airishuman]

Originally Posted by yakman

...offer new owners a complimentary first year membership?...

hi yakman...

this has been done in SEVERAL flavors....

-dealer paid 1st year memberships...
-1 year comp'd for first time buyer/owners of used 'streams...

-and so on.

Originally Posted by Bambi_Bandit

I can't remember if it was the dealer or Airstream, but I think the dealer...

bandit's DEALER paid for these things and initiated the paperwork...

the wb and ibt and regional war lords and home office staff, HATED THESE things...

there were and are a variety of reasons offered by the hierarchy, but they are all smokescreens for the CONTROL issue...

recruit locally, sign'em up locally, train and control member thinking locally...

then move 'em up the ladder to control the next crop....

they claimed it took TOO MUCH effort to process the new folks...
-send em packets
-do all the mailings
-have the local units make contact
-and so on...

they also claimed MOST of these 1 year deals did NOT result in RENEWALS...

of course VISUALIZE these results and that's what u get, right?

the club is stuck in the door2door sales/amway/local recruiting office model...

most buyers of NEW UNITS may think the 'wally history' is neat once they learn a bit about it...

but find virtually NO VALUE in the primary club or focus on ceremony,

and are turned OFF by the pre historic way they conduct business...

the LAGEST single group of new members EVERY YEAR join as members at large...

and just to show how important this group is viewed by the wb'...

they STOPPED giving out stats on mals, mal numbers, mal renewals and so on in 2005.

only now are they even THINKING about surveying members at large, to find out WHO we are, WHAT we want, WHY we join/leave and so on...

there are many threads on the free/comp and creative membership recruiting, so look around here...

cheers
2air'