Are Timeshare Owners Dummies? Part 3, Exploiting Owners That Want to Sell Timeshare

Are timeshare owners dummies? It seems like a silly question when you consider that,
according to industry statistics, the average timeshare owner’s household income is over $92,000 -
hardly dummy pay
! Regardless, there are some in the industry that
do believe timeshare owners are dummies, and are working daily to exploit them. In this series we’re examining all sides of the argument.Once an owner decides to sell timeshare, they’ll typically need the services of a timeshare resale company, which will require paying an
up-front fee. Effective
timeshare resale companies will ensure your timeshare is visible to potential buyers, at a cost that’s
much less than doing it yourself. Ineffective companies end up exploiting timeshare owners, whether intentionally or otherwise, by failing to provide adequate exposure to buyers.

Ineffective Timeshare Resale Companies
can be divided into three categories, all of which should be avoided if you want your timeshare sold.

**No Interest in Providing Value*
– These “Listing Companies” have one focus: selling listings. Occasionally, these companies use outright fraudulent “
It’s Already Sold” techniques, but more often this type of timeshare resale company will promise to expose your property to buyers, however no
actual effort is made to do so. Their websites can be difficult for clients to locate, and near-impossible for a would-be buyer to find. While their profit margins are high,
their consumer records are low
– a quick check of the
Better Business Bureaushould be a good indicator of their performance. While all timeshare companies get complaints, a persistent pattern of complaining and unsatisfied customers typifies the “Listing Company.”

**Not Enough Resources to Provide Value*
– These timeshare resale companies are ostensibly well-meaning, and have a desire to expose their clients’ properties to buyers, however they lack sufficient budgets to do so. While small businesses tend to drive innovation, and innovation is
paramountin timeshare marketing, they also tend to fail frequently. If you’ve listed your timeshare with a company that lacks resources, all is not lost, as some do grow into powerhouses when given enough time. (Just hope that in the interim, your “newbie” company doesn’t become the target of exploitative Bulletin Boards and Forums, something we’ll tackle in the next installment of this series.) According to a recent
MSNBC article, 56% of small businesses never see their 4
th year, so risk averse timeshare owners should choose a company that’s been in business
at least 4 years.

**Flawed Business Model Incapable of Providing Value*
– This type of timeshare resale company is the most complicated to access: Do they think you are a dummy, or
are they themselves dummies? Many established businesspeople enter the (to them apparently lucrative) timeshare market and attempt to apply the same models that have worked for them elsewhere. Unfortunately for these companies, and for the owners that pay for their services, the timeshare resale market truly is
like no other.

For example, conventional business wisdom would suggest a “branding strategy” – advertising your company name and/or logo repetitiously to create an associate between “XYZ Marketing” and “Timeshares for Sale.” I have watched companies literally dump millions of dollars into
branding; running countless newspaper advertisements, pay-per-click, billboards, and commercials, only to fail in selling timeshares. While these strategies may succeed in causing consumers to connect the dots between “Timeshare Resales” and “XYZ Marketing,” they ignore the most basic principle of selling a timeshare:  The brand that matters when reaching a buyer is THE NAME OF THE TIMESHARE RESORT THEY WANT TO BUY.

If the Jones family wants to buy a
Colonial Crossings of Williamsburg timeshare, then that’s what they will search for; not “XYZ Marketing,”
and not“Timeshare Resales.” The most effective timeshare resale company should be just like the most effective salesperson:
invisible
. Their brand will never matter anyway. A business model that ignores this basic axiom is at best a failure, and at worst a scam.

Please continue
following this blog, as we delve even deeper into the single most important issue in the timeshare industry today, “Are timeshare owners dummies?” Over the next two installments, I’ll be connecting the dots, and revealing the sobering truth: If just
sometimeshare owners are dummies, by default all of us may be.