I got an e-mail the other day from a person who markets a well known product to the RV industry. He was unhappy with the comments I wrote about one of his products that he sent me to evaluate. He called what I had to say a “hatchet job.” While I wouldn’t go that far, I did say that I didn’t feel that his latest offering measured up. I’m sorry, but I don’t write puff pieces. I tell it like I see it, good, bad, or indifferent.
Of course, we also have the people who don’t even send a product to evaluate, they just send us a glowing pre-written review, and then expect us to publish it. I always tell these people that if they have enough confidence in their product to send a sample, I’ll try it, but that only gets them my honest opinion about it. If they just send a press release, I just send them back an advertising rate card.
I also upset an RV dealer who wanted to bring some rigs to the fairgrounds in Yuma to display at our rally. He insisted that these display RVs would be parked where we intend to put our outdoor vendors, so that everybody would have to walk past them, and his salesmen, to go from the indoor to the outdoor vendor area. I told him that wouldn’t work, and that I was not going to do that to our outdoor vendors (or our attendees), but I would let him park the RVs in a convenient and visible area.
The fairgrounds charges us for every RV on the grounds during the rally, in addition to the rental of the facility itself, and I gave him a price per rig that would cover our cost. He was amazed that I would consider asking him to pay. In fact, he expected us to pay him, because he felt that just having his units there would be a feather in our cap.
A couple of years ago, we had a dealer who wanted to display RVs at our rally in Casa Grande, but he demanded that we supply him with the snail mail addresses, e-mail, and telephone numbers of all rally attendees for his marketing purposes.
Over the years, we have been approached many times by companies wanting to buy our mailing list, and we always tell them no. We never give out our subscribers’ or rally attendees’ personal information. We’re fulltime RVers too, and we don’t like junk mail, spam, or unsolicited telephone calls.
No, I can’t please everybody, but at least I can look at myself in the mirror when I brush my teeth every morning.
It’s time for us to order rally T-shirts, and we’re trying to get an idea of how many we’re going to need. Regular sizes are $15 per shirt, and 2X and larger sizes are $2 more per shirt. We don’t need payment at this time, but if you want a shirt, please e-mail me at editor@gypsyjournal.net and tell me the sizes, and how many you want.
We’ll send the new issue of the paper off to our printer tomorrow, and then we’ll turn our attention to Terry’s dad’s 80th birthday party until Monday, when we’ll start stuffing envelopes to get them all in the mail.
Thought For The Day – The engineer knows the glass isn’t half full or half empty: it’s twice as large as it should be for optimum utilization of resources!
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Nick – Thanx for having morals with your people and exhibitors. I could see him putting one trailer, and people that WANT more info signing up, but sorry, I don’t need to walk past 10 trailers to get to the classes. I can get plenty of info on-line with out 10 pounds of mail that I am paying for.
Keep up the good work bud.
Sort of a PS – I checked the subscribe button ?? months ago and nothing ever comes in the e-mail? Or is it not supposed to? LOL. Looking forward to Elkhart in Sept.
Have a successful western rally
Hang in there, pal! I’ll bet it’s actually kinda fun to pull the beards of these vendors and dealers when they make stupid demands like that. Wouldn’t it be nice if ALL rallies and chapters and organizations just said NO to stupid demands?
Good for you Nick… It is about time a rally is well organized and it looks as if yours is. As far as reviewing products I think if half the product had honest reviews we would save a ton of money. Good for you!!! Have fun & travel safe…
Donna
Good for you, Nick! Stick to your guns and don’t let those vendors get you down. Your decisions make us comfortable both in subscribing to your publications and attending your rallies. We don’t want to get on any more mailing lists (in fact, we’ve tried unsuccessfully to get *off* of a major one), and, as new vendors in Yuma, we don’t want other vendors to be able to market their wares without paying for the privilege.
What was the product in your post?
Would like to back and read your review.
Another “thumbs up” on your rally and subscription data policies. If we want to look at rigs, we prefer the friendly “rig hopping” that occurs at gatherings where you can be invited into each other’s rigs to see how they personalized them.
As for the t-shirt orders, have you posted the graphic yet? Would love to see the shirt before pre-ordering.
– CoolJudy
Nick,
Thanks once again for sticking to your guns.
I think you are supposed to brush your teeth before you go to bed.
The longer we RV the more I am convinced that most RV dealers are invaders from outer space. They are out of touch with reality.
Nick,
I’m several days behind reading posts, so I apologize that this post does not relate to today’s entry.
Several days ago you posted regarding tires. In that same post you mentioned friend Al traveling with a delegation to China from the RV industry.
My concern is this — I have seen several small manufacturers go out of business after a Chinese “buyer” ordered from them at a show. They took the order, studied it and began manufacturing it in China. They used inferior materials and undercut the price. The patent infringement costs would have been prohibitive.
I would hate to see the result of substantial competition from China in our already depresssed RV manufacturing industry. It is not worth a free trip to China.