ChromeBoy

I got to watch the reruns when I was in Boston. Unfortunately the hotel I am at in VA does not get MTV. I thought it was hilarious though. Ozzy is a prime example of what will happen to you when you do too many drugs. He walks around the house like a zombie with his arms to his side and mumbles. He's constantly yelling at Sharon bacause their animals shit and piss all over the place. Sharon is the true leader in the family as well as Ozzys business. I would not want to go head to head with her for a fear of death. When the neighbors played their music too loud..."Why don't you come over for a nice cup of tea and a biscuit?" The kids have a nice life.

In no way was I violating the customers rights. In order to be successful you have to bring your customers inside your business. Forge a strong alliance with the customer but keep the relationship simple - and close by. In order to stay ahead of the market you have to focus on your customers, not the competition. However, you have to be informed about the competition and play karate with them. Turn their disadvantage into your profit. Are you going to be happy if you make the same revenues as others in your same industry? Every employer that I have worked for wants to go for hyper growth. I don't mean to offend anyone by the way I was educated and trained to be the best. There is no reason for this thread to be a debate. My only thought was that I can see some dzo's though processes. As others in this thread have said this is a business and they have to ensure they do all they can to make payments each month as well as have a return to the initial investors even if it is just themselves.

That will be up in my neck of the woods. Hrmm...maybe TequilaGirl will want to Zip Tie me...lol

You sound like Dr. Evil...

Guess I should join the military then.

Dave, I jumped a Raider 220 in a Wings Container a lot when I jumped student gear. It is a F-111 canopy with moderate performance. I would compare it to a Falcon 220 that I jumped during that time as well.

Rap, This has been mentioned before and HH basically said that he has really not had the time to organize the Jumpsuit section. If anyone wants to gather info on all the different manufactures and their different suits and provide it to him he would be more than happy to add it.

If money isn't really a major objection look into the Tony Multi Suit. http://www.tonysuits.com The Multi-Suit is a two piece jacket and pants arrangement. It's possible to get one or two pair of pants (Freefly or 4-way), and 5 different jackets. Each jacket is designed around 4-Ways, Big Ways, Camera wings, Sit Fly or Head Down.

I understand and respect your thoughts on this subject and I agree / disagree on different aspects of the point you are trying to communicate, however, Outside of the skydiving / friends / family world my motivation is profit. To make as much money in the shortest amount of time as possible so I can retire early and not have to work as hard. Is this hateful? I think not. Is this deceiving? Again, I disagree. Why do we have a business anyways. To enjoy life. Is it about being the richest person in the world or having the most power? That's not my goals or the point I was trying to make here. The point I was trying to make is that at the end of the day if what you are doing is for a living it is all about profit. If you are in the industry you love, as in skydiving, it is for the better. But do you not want to be the best at what you do? Or do you just want to blend in and breathe. I know I want to be the best. It is not about deceiving or lying to anyone. It is about the way you structure your business, no matter what it is!

Dave...I was in no way pointing you your instructions out. My gripe is what is this post anyway besides humor? Freefliers are better than Relative Workers? At least most of you try to convince people that. All I was saying is that I have not really learned anything from the freeflyer forum. Maybe it is my lack of experience or my lack of freeflying but it seems that it is another Talkback forum. Do I want to learn, hell yes. Did I mean any disrespect, hell no. Did the person who posted this mean anything but a joke, I doubt it. Smile and have fun...it's all about the seperation from the aircraft!

I do not pay attention to the Freefly forum anymore because the only posts are how to and the only answers are wear tight pants and sweatshirts or wear tight shirts and sweatpants. I want to learn more than that. Other than that it is like the Talkback forum! (I will probably get flamed)

The client never finds out. It is called research and if you do not know the customers of your competitors how do you succeed? You have to be informed about the realities of the customers' industry and knowledgeable about their organizations' particular needs. Where is their supply currently coming from and what have they done to gain this demand? What are the strengths and weaknesses of their product and how can we grow from that? How do you gather that information? Is it produce a product and hope that it does well in the market and watch it sink? No. It is by watching the competition succeed and gain information on their successes and failures. In any organization if you do not complete research about your competition and what their strengths and weaknesses are you will lead the market. You find out what you have that they don't and sell against it. It is not misrepresentation and telling clients you can meet their needs when you cannot. It is about understanding what others offer and what you have that the competition does not. There are absolutely no slimy tactics involved in understanding the realities of our competition and knowledgeable about the customers particular needs. You gain commitment by opening and nurturing relationships; not just closing sales. Find out what the competition does successfully and unsuccessfully. You build your business to succeed in the areas that they do not and maintain the products and services that they do and you are not misrepresenting anything. It is about understanding your competition and not downgrading the competition. I never said a word about that. All I said was go for the throat and understand the competition and the customers needs. Build your product around that. It is not lying and giveing false information. No business will be successful that way.

Some of what is illegal?

It would be funny if they bolted the door and put laughing gas in it and took everyone up and brought them back down, let them out, and watch them roam around the dropzone.

I have a Tony Swoop Suit and love it. What discipline do you want to spend the most time in, RW or VRW? This will help with others recommendations. You can view a lot of different suits at the below website... http://www.enclave.com They have a pretty good selection of suits to get info about.

The bad being all the beer you owe for your first times, Spy?

My question is that Denver is a mile high and there is a dropzone in Boulder, which is right outside of Denver. I wonder what altitude they jump at because of the mountains. Maybe waht 13 k but the ground is around 4k which means you have to deploy at 6.5k? Anyone know the answer to this?

Skydive Orange is a great DZ in Virginia. Great planes, staff, experienced jumpers, etc. Definetly worth the trip!

I agree with you Sebazz. Especially when you have a piss hard on. You have to go vertical over the toilet because it will not move.

Leaving out the dz part of it, what do you consider being dishonest? The fact that to increase sales companies are going to great lengths to find out their competitors customers and trying to sell them on their "brand"?

This is a video of a friends 300th! http://www.skydivenaples.com/videos/300jumpPie.wmv

Maybe I should put this another way. First, my philosphy for dropzones is that it is my release and I never want to be put into all the political bullcrap the goes on behind the scenes at some of the dropzones I have been to. Therefore, I would never really want to get into the dropzone ownership part of the sport. However, we are thrown into some of these occurences. The decisions are not ours to make but we often criticize DZO for their decisions. I will give you an example of something that I have heard. There was a group of 8 college frat brothers that booked Tandems on a Saturday at DZ (A). One of the frat brothers accidently called another DZ (B) to get information. The DZ (B) offered the group a lower rate at their dz to get the guys to theirs. The group did not call Dropzone (A) to cancel the reservation. So on Saturday DZ (A) had enough tandem masters their to cover the group that no showed. They went to DZ (B) instead and completed their first jumps and others went on to go through the rest of the tandems and scheduled times for the IAF training. In business this is a normal occurence. Why should DZ (B) be criticized for offering the group a lower rate to get the business? Do you think DZ (A) should have charged the group for no shows?

Anybody have the answer to #1?

At 7:00am this morning I had a meeting with the Area Managers with the company I work for. We discussed our current business practices and what it will take to increase our sales in the Eastern Region. Some of the ways we decided we would train our Sales Managers to steal market share were downright to the throat. 100% direct sales is what we need and have to do. The initial decisions are as follows... - Our Sales Managers will do whatever it takes to steal clients from our competitors. Examples: Follow clients when they leave the offices to see where they go, gain competitor documents through whatever means as necessary, low ball the competition as a last resort to steal the business, etc. Utilize revenue management resources to ensure we are getting the maximum amount for each product. Bill clients who are no shows for their reservations, etc. My question is that these instances occur in businesses everyday. This is part of staying competitive and keeping an increase in revenue year over year. However, when I hear different people discuss how dropzones operate and the certain practices they have that, "are not fair or nice to other dropzones," I don't understand. I understand and appreciate the loyalty some of us have to the DZ's we belong too but why judge a dropzone by a business decision the DZO made?

=Nope.... Funny...she usually receives the ones I send to other people as well!