Chuck, I have no way of knowing if your site is representative of the UK as a whole but for the moment, let's assume that it is.
It suggests that there is no real interest in taking that extra step into competitive paintball.
I think the point of your post is to suggest that even if site owners did invest in catering for walk-on days and Sup Air etc, the resultant uptake would make it pointless.
With these points acknowledged, I want to factor in a few things.
This year, I have sat down and had meetings with Avery and Johnny Postorivo of NPS, many meetings with Dave YB and Bryon Bennini of Dye and several meetings with Billy Ceranski (head of PMI sales) and Andy Piper.
All 3 of these companies have set up shop over here as you know and I would hazard a guess they would tend to know what they are talking about.
A recurrent mantra from them is the disbelief in the way we do business over here, I would think it's the first time I have ever heard any such consensus agreement from all 3 such disparate parties and so I think we can safely assume that whatever their point of agreement, it must have some integrity.
They look at the number of sites we have over here (anywhere between 200 to 300) and can predict from that number the scale of business this country should turn over and as an emergent property of that number of sites, they can also predict (generally speaking) the number of teams we should have and their associated level of spending.
The numbers don't fit the predictions Chuck, nowhere near, we need to generate interest in tourney ball, we need to generate some coherent pricing strategy, we (our site owners) need to generate some loyalty to suppliers and responsibility and so on.
Referring back to your initial figures of saying you have between 500 to 600 players go thru per month and only 10 asking about paintball outside of the rental environment, I find that amazing because every time I see a bunch of young guys at a rental site and anything close to tourney ball being shown either as a video or it being played alongside, the interest is huge.
As to the subsequent uptake from that interest, I have no idea but I would think from the degree of interest and enthusiasm I saw, it wouldn't take (or shouldn't take) much of a salesperson to transform that interest into a significant percentage of recballers.
I wouldn't have thought your customer base is any different from most others and so I can't really reconcile what I have seen with my own eyes and what you are telling me.
And perhaps this may indicate as to where another one of our problems lie, not only do we not promote recball (in any general sense) we do not have the necessary sales skills to convert that interest, after all, if we take a look at the US market, their conversion rate is manifold ours.
I'm not so sure their gun culture predisposes them to take up paintball more readily than the Euros, I don't really buy into that coz kids across all countries have a morbid fascination with them anyway and so I am still left wondering as to the real reasons.
But all the time our site owners (I know you are not one of these I am referring to Chuck) and wholesalers are doing what they are doing, we have no chance of anything getting better anyway.
We need to put the foundations in then build on that, cliché I know but wholly appropriate.
It suggests that there is no real interest in taking that extra step into competitive paintball.
I think the point of your post is to suggest that even if site owners did invest in catering for walk-on days and Sup Air etc, the resultant uptake would make it pointless.
With these points acknowledged, I want to factor in a few things.
This year, I have sat down and had meetings with Avery and Johnny Postorivo of NPS, many meetings with Dave YB and Bryon Bennini of Dye and several meetings with Billy Ceranski (head of PMI sales) and Andy Piper.
All 3 of these companies have set up shop over here as you know and I would hazard a guess they would tend to know what they are talking about.
A recurrent mantra from them is the disbelief in the way we do business over here, I would think it's the first time I have ever heard any such consensus agreement from all 3 such disparate parties and so I think we can safely assume that whatever their point of agreement, it must have some integrity.
They look at the number of sites we have over here (anywhere between 200 to 300) and can predict from that number the scale of business this country should turn over and as an emergent property of that number of sites, they can also predict (generally speaking) the number of teams we should have and their associated level of spending.
The numbers don't fit the predictions Chuck, nowhere near, we need to generate interest in tourney ball, we need to generate some coherent pricing strategy, we (our site owners) need to generate some loyalty to suppliers and responsibility and so on.
Referring back to your initial figures of saying you have between 500 to 600 players go thru per month and only 10 asking about paintball outside of the rental environment, I find that amazing because every time I see a bunch of young guys at a rental site and anything close to tourney ball being shown either as a video or it being played alongside, the interest is huge.
As to the subsequent uptake from that interest, I have no idea but I would think from the degree of interest and enthusiasm I saw, it wouldn't take (or shouldn't take) much of a salesperson to transform that interest into a significant percentage of recballers.
I wouldn't have thought your customer base is any different from most others and so I can't really reconcile what I have seen with my own eyes and what you are telling me.
And perhaps this may indicate as to where another one of our problems lie, not only do we not promote recball (in any general sense) we do not have the necessary sales skills to convert that interest, after all, if we take a look at the US market, their conversion rate is manifold ours.
I'm not so sure their gun culture predisposes them to take up paintball more readily than the Euros, I don't really buy into that coz kids across all countries have a morbid fascination with them anyway and so I am still left wondering as to the real reasons.
But all the time our site owners (I know you are not one of these I am referring to Chuck) and wholesalers are doing what they are doing, we have no chance of anything getting better anyway.
We need to put the foundations in then build on that, cliché I know but wholly appropriate.
