Rotten Apples

Get your day off to the right start with your own MORNING MEETING. A Timeshare Sales Tip of the Day and a daily blast of music for your enjoyment! Published Monday thru Friday.

REMEMBER: See how many of these companies you know and then guess what American Airlines, AAMCO, American Express, All State Insurance, the Better Business Bureau, Carnival Cruise Lines, Delta Airlines, Expedia.Com, Firestone, GMAC, Hewitt Packard, Jiffy Lube, K-Mart, McDonalds, Microsoft, Office Depot, Pizza Hut, Radio Shack, Sears, Time Warner Cable, Uhaul, United Airlines, United States Postal Service, Verizon Wireless, Wal-Mart, Walgreens and Western Union, etc. ALL have in common?

Every one of these corporations and a staggering number more of well known long established trusted ‘household name’ companies (aka: “Brands’)– both publicly and privately owned– are all listed on one or more of the various ’scam’, ‘rip-off, ‘consumer complaint’ websites, boards, blogs, etc.

What matters to the timeshare rep is even if (highly unlikely) your resort, developer/company doesn’t have a negative or tarnished online image, rest assured that ‘timeshare’ does! And that issue must be addressed during the presentation because when new buyers, within the rescission period, get online and google ‘timeshare’ there is no shortage of bad and/or negative information that will cause many new owners to ‘kick’!

Depending on the selling system (F/B Vs T/O) when that issue is discussed, as it must be, will be up to the timeshare rep. But be duly warned: Failure to address the ‘topic in general’ (online negative information) is a sure fire way to ultimately lose more deals; and the only thing worse than not closing a deal is to close one and have it ‘kick’!

During our NORS (New Owners Retention Specialist) training this topic is covered extensively along with the various methods and ways to defeat the often inevitable. But for here (Morning Meeting) with time constraints, etc., the best defense (perhaps during the ‘button-up’) is to inform the new owners that the Internet is filled with websites whereby anyone can post anything (biased) they want about any person or company and do so with a vengeance, with impunity and without any verification whatsoever by the hosting ’site’ (freedom of speech and all that…)!

Then, by providing an example of a ‘poster’ (person) complaining about an often unfounded allegation against (e.g.) SEARS and how that ‘opinion’ affects other consumers in the market for, say, a Washer and Dryer, it can be pointed out how that is not only unfair to SEARS, but is also not fair to the readers seeking information about a company, product or service and who read undocumented claims, assertions or allegations.

Make no mistake about it; people these days look for ways to justify their timeshare acquisition as well as reasons to ‘kick’ and it is the savvy Timeshare Pro who meets this issue head on and eliminates the probability of a ‘kick’ based on online negative information who’ll laugh all the way to the bank.

TODAY’S VIDEO: Elvis Presley – Clean Up Your Own Backyard from the 1969 movie The Trouble with Girls (and How to Get Into It)