Donna Genie breaks down why a Good Sam lifetime membership deal for a 35-site campground is a bad investment. A client paid nearly $12,000 upfront plus monthly fees, but Donna argues it would need to generate $400,000 in extra revenue to make financial sense, when advertising should cost no more than 3% of revenue.
I'm seeing campground owners waste a ton of money. What brought this to light and really angered me is one of my newer clients approached me and said, hey, I've got this payment plan set up with goodsand this agreement was for monthly payments and a hefty down payment that totaled nearly $12,000. This is a campground that is in a great travel area with 35 sites. That's it. Now, let me talk about Good Sam from a customer's perspective. We took advantage of the lifetime membership with Good Sam. I still have it discounts. Let's talk about what this means. You can. You're paying Good Sam to reduce your sales by offering a discount. And in return, they're supposed to send you people. I'm not here to tell you it's a bad company. My point is their advertising practices and their sales staff are, I feel, crossing the line in signing people up for these contracts that don't make sense. Your advertising should be no more than 3% of your revenue. In the case with my client, if they had to spend $12,000 on this good Sam contract, they would need to bring in an extra $400,000 in revenue that was specifically driven to them by Dude Sam.
