Non-Sponsor Participation

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I have observed that our webmaster or site owner has kept non-sponsor companies from posting or participating on our forums and in our seminars at rallies in the past.

It is my opinion that as a business enterprise the owner has the right to make and enforce rules as he sees fit. But with our growth as a group, and with so many technical topics that are likely to be of interest I am wondering how we as a group and how the webmaster can get all of the needs met. Let me cite a few examples.

I have posted that I wished Prevost and the converters would read our forums and post answers to questions when appropriate. My guess is that could be accomplished if they were granted membership in POG. They don't have to be a sponsor under that scenario, but they do have to pay up just like everyone else. The benefit to us is we get answers from the very folks that engineered our conversions or the bus. The benefit to the converters or Prevost is they get to hear exactly what their customers are saying about them and the product.

Here is another scenario. Allison, Detroit, and Michelin are unlikely sponsors, but I would be very happy to have each of them put on a technical seminar and maybe even be available at a rally for service. I can't see them being POG members or sponsors, but the benefit to POG to have them participate in rallies with us would be tremendous.

To Jim and Jeff and all POG members....what are your thoughts. We are getting bigger and as such we will be able to have situations such as the above much more likely in the future. In the past it may have made sense to freeze out non-sponsors or non-members but I think the momentum on the sites makes them attractive to sponsors and inviting potential sponsors or even technical gurus to our rallies and forum only increases the POG membership and forum participation.

Just thinking out loud here.

[MangoMike]

I guess I'm a little surprised. I thought that was one of the key selling points about joining POG was the access to technical information (other than Jon).

We don't want someone on POG trying to sell us something (unless of course it's Jerk Chicken) but I for one would like them to share their knowledge and experience if we have an issue. I would think that some of their information would be so helpful that they should be given a membership for free - easy for me to say it's not my site.

I think that if this knowlege based is increased by their participation it would help sell POG memberships.

Mike

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I don't want my interests misunderstood so let me be more clear. I am asking if there is a way we can get participation of non-sponsors to provide us as members with seminars at rallies or technical advice via the forum.

I do not want either of these two venues to be for sales pitches. In fact at Kerrville I was not pleased to have a sponsor there pushing his products on me while I was cleaning the outside of the coach. I am strictly suggesting that those with expertise we can benefit from accessing be enabled to provide that expertise.

If someone wants to sell something, then I think it is perfectly appropriate to require they sponsor these web sites, and if at a rally make a distinction between selling (such as displaying a coach or products) and teaching (being a generic technical presentation). BTW, lets imagine XYZ converter has 20 coaches owned by POG members at Branson. Lets imagine further that XYZ converter does not sponsor or advertise on these sites. But XYZ is willing to put on a seminar for the owners of its conversions. It is my position that we should try to make that happen because 20 POG members may get some valuable technical information about their coaches. Now if XYZ wants to display a coach and do a little selling in the evenings, then maybe there needs to be some payment to the website owners. That is why I would like to see this discussion.

To repeat, these are privately owned sites whose purpose is to make somebody money. We benefit because we get much more than $100 worth of knowledge and advice. We can get much more advice and knowledge because there are a lot of manufacturers, small businesses, and experts that are not sponsors and probably will not become sponsors but who have a lot to offer us. In exchange, they get exposure.

If Michelin were to put on a seminar, for example, maybe we would learn why the King and I (wasn't that a play or a movie?) shouldn't be riding on Chinese tires. Or why we should.

[Just Plain Jeff]

We've always been open to welcoming any parties who are willing to provide information that would be useful to POG members. That being said, not everyone seems to, 'get it.'

Let me share an example.

We have nearly 2,000 registered members on the Prevost-stuff.com forum. Let's see, if you do a little math, it's likely that at least half of them have a coach. So, if each of those owners buys new tires (scribble, scribble) every five years, that equals the number of tires that Prevost Car buys from Michelin every year.

We've talked to Michelin about stopping by, talking about tires or the funny guy they have in their commercials or anything else. Instead of doing that, they have listed the sites as 'preferred customers.'

Go ahead and scratch your head, my hair is all but gone.

When we are contacted by an outfit, if it brings benefit to the membership, they are invited to participate in any fashion that is helpful to the group. When we see someone who may also be helpful, we reach out to them.

So, we've gone through the list at least a few times and always invited the usual suspects, some show up others don't.

Guess the problem here is this: If they get more sales, then it may affect their projections, which they have to justify to their managers. Then they have to make an extra trip to the bank and add new accounts to their ledgers. Not only that, it would make corporate jobs different than they were before they changed the way that they worked, and we certainly wouldn't want them to have to do that now, would we?

If you look at POG membership, it is made up largely of people who have common sense (choke, choke) and are results-oriented. I am sorry to report that the rest of the world doesn't always work that way.

But, over time, we'll get more folks involved. Maybe we should be nicer to new people on the public prevost-stuff board?

Since Mike Kerley wrote a wandering dissertation on home generators, I get to write this long posting.

[hhoppe]

I think we as members can promote our existance to the people in the industry we want to hear from the same as we promote our group to every non member driving a Prevost. When attending other rallys that Prevost, Converters and other vendors related to our mechanical parts attend we should button hole them to contact Jim for a way to become involved.
We operate our group in a strange way with no monthly updates as to number of members. Were getting close to POG4 and no mention of how many coaches are signed up. How can we promote our group with out these basic numbers to work with.
I contacted Goodyear truck and bus tire division and expressed a desire to hear from them at one of our rallys and asked them to contact Jim Skiff and discuss the posibilities of hearing the merits of their tires. I don't know if they made contact with Jim.

[Ray Davis]

When we are contacted by an outfit, if it brings benefit to the membership, they are invited to participate in any fashion that is helpful to the group. When we see someone who may also be helpful, we reach out to them.

I'm sorry but I just don't believe that. Without getting into details, there were a few times when trying to plan for POG3 that we were told certain things we were planning couldn't happen because "so-and-so" was not a sponsor of prevost-stuff.

[garyde]

My electrical Association has different tiers of Sponsorship: Silver, Gold , Platnum. Those sponsers put up the majority of $$ for Convention events. There are several dozen other Companies which contribute less $$ and are called Associate Sponsors or some thing similar. At some point, it may be a good idea to check that out. Golf tournaments have similar Tiered participation.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Sponsors and non-sponsors that educate us are good. Being beholden to them limits our criticism when we become dependent on their financial contribution. If we pay our own way, including the cost of the rallies then if public criticism of a vendor or product is warranted it will not be unduly censored.

To give an example, JPJ has made some strong criticisms of Espar (think of a product like Aquahot). If they were a major sponsor do you think he would have been so public in his criticism? He and I have had this discussion.

[Just Plain Jeff]

First of all, I have never met a single person who has said, "Hey, I've got Espar heaters and just love 'em!" Secondly, if you call Espar with a problem, they start speaking some other language (assuming you get a real person, which is a different issue altogether).

The key here is that we get some people who want to show up at rallies and pitch members about their products without the benefit of any technical information or educational value. So, the critical idea is to insure that any participant at a rally is there to add something educational or of technical assistance in a seminar.

We did that: At POG III, there were four non-site sponsor participants.

At prevost-stuff, here and at the rallies, we work hard to protect the membership from unwarranted intrusions and people who think that our groups are a free ride to cash.

Ain't gonna happen on my watch.

[Jim Skiff]

On Tuesday of the Branson Rally at 1:15 or so in the afternoon we have invited an non-sponsor to talk about towed vehicles. She is Teresa Ott of Ultimate Toweds LLC. When I spoke with her this afternoon, I made it clear that members would like to learn something at her seminar and that she would probably learn quite a bit from them. I also noted that none of our members are interested in a hard sell but would like to learn what vehicles can be towed unmodified, modified correctly and so forth.

I think that her experience, combined with member experience will result in something worthwhile to membership.

If you have any questions for Teresa let me know so she can prepare. She has told me that she would be interested in addressing these at POG IV.