Busy week posted by Brian @ 8:47 AM

Wow, okay. I have a lot going on this week.

1. I'm feeling a bit better now. Not 100%, but better.

2. I have some trim jobs this week. Not too hard, but time consuming. Probably a rough-in later in the week.

3. I'm seriously considering making a couple radio ads and spending $1500-$1700 a month to play them. I figure if I get 1 job per month from the ads, they pay for themselves. But I need to pull the trigger today in order to get them rolling.

4. In order for the radio ads to work I need to have a good professional website up and running. Because I'm not in the yellow pages yet, I need to point the people somewhere. And that place is my website. Which means I need to have it up and running by the end of the second week of next month or earlier.

5. I'll also need a pretty good idea of what I want the ads to accomplish. I know my targets, but I'm not 100% sure what I want to tell them. Then there's the whole decision of if I want a jingle, or a catch phrase, or a special identifying sound or what. Something to keep some consistency across all radio ads both now and into the future.

6. Then there's this whole Trendwest thing. Not sure if you guys have heard of it, but it's a kind of timeshare deal. It's actually a club where you buy a membership (a partial ownership) and you get credits that you can spend on vacations around the world. If you're going to travel it's one of the best ways to do it. If you're not gonna travel, it's a waste of money. The problem is, the product is good, the company that sells the product (that company is actually separate from the product itself) is made up of a bunch of fast-talking salesman (i.e. crooks).

I'd done research about 6-8 months ago into timeshares. There's a website called Timeshare Users Group. You can get all sorts of good info and advice about timeshares. I found out there that when you buy from a developer you typically pay about 2X the real value of the product because you are paying for their commission, the "gifts" the you and everyone else receive, and who knows what else. So I went into this figuring that unless there was some serious reason why I HAD to buy from these guys, that I just wouldn't and that I would buy on the resale market.

Anyhow, during the presentation they tell us that there are two products. They call them the standard membership and the premium membership. The major difference is the standard membership isn't an ownership, it's what's called a Right-To-Use membership. That means you can use the resorts like an owner for 40 years. Then it goes away. You have no rights, you can't vote, and there are other perks that you can't use. Basically it's a crummy product masquerading as the real thing. The premium membership is the ownership and you get all the perks and it never expires.

Here's the key. They told us that the ONLY way to get a premium membership was to buy there and that day! I pressed them on it and they kept saying the same thing. If you come back and call us tomorrow, we can't sell you anything but the standard membership. So then I asked specifically, "If I were to buy a premium membership, and then someday sell it, would it revert to a standard membership?" The guy said, "Yes."

I thought, "Crap. They've figured this thing out and have set up the rules in the club to cover their butts and force people to pay the 2X premium."

So we go through the rest of the presentation and I asked tons of questions and had trouble understanding things (because I was sick and a little fuzzy) and eventually decided that we would purchase the cheapest premium membership. Keep in mind that Idaho has a 3-day right of rescission. That means that if we change our mind within 3 days we can get out of the deal. That played a BIG part in our decision.

So we go home, I feel like garbage (from the sickness) and go to sleep. I called Dad who thought I was insane and out of my mind for buying into a timeshare, I tried to explain to him but I'm not sure I did a very good job. (Dad, really I'm not insane!) Anyhow, I had already decided that I was going to do a lot of research in the morning to find out if there was a way around this rule that causes premium memberships to revert to standard memberships when sold.

So the next morning I wake up and log onto the internet. I start searching for any and all information about premium an standard memberships and selling and buying them. Well, pretty quickly I find about 10 or so listings in different places for Trendwest memberships. In every one they specify whether they are premium or standard. That sets off a warning bell in my head. Why would they specify what they are if they all revert to standard memberships after the sale?

So I email two of the sellers and ask if they do in-fact revert to standard memberships. The first one replies, "No, that is not true. Sue". Oh oh. I then decide to call the other person who is a broker I found through the TUG (see above). I end up talking to Angel and ask her the same question. She confirmed that the memberships stay the same. Then she invited me to call the Trendwest transfer department and ask them. She gave me the 1-800 number and I called. Sure enough, I get the same answer from the transfer department.

So now I'm a bit ticked off. I was lied to! So I decide to call Trendwest and get to the bottom of this and figure out how to cancel my membership. I had to wait until 2:30 because they come in late and work late. Eventually I talk to a jerk named Dave and I end up going to the office with a letter. Dave continued being a jerk while we were there, but in the end he had the letter and we were gone.

Now I only hope that Trendwest doesn't try and get fancy and try and force us into the contract. It would just cause a lot more trouble and grief than I need right now.


So that's my story. Interesting eh? In the end I remembered that salespeople who want to force you to make decisions right away are doing so because of a reason. And that reason is never in the best interest of the buyer.

Oh yeah...

7. I forgot about our new Sunday School class that we're helping start. That starts a week from this Sunday so we have a lot to do to get ready for it. For instance, I need to make sure we'll have some divider walls because we are meeting in the chapel behind the main sanctuary at First Church and that room is HUGE. So we need the divider walls to help make it feel smaller and hopefully block some sound from filtering in and out.

8. Upwards Soccer is gonna start next week too. I'm a coach and have to start preparing for a team of 7-year-old girls. Aaaaaack!