In a perfect world, the perfect ski school - Page 4

WTFH:

Not to ignore your post...I think you have some helpful observations. It's just that the differences in business climates makes it a different proposition over here in the States.

- One reason I like Breckenridge is that it is still a real town. At least more of a real town than a skiing version of Disneyland. Real towns are a plus, to me.
- Resort management cannot take salaries in lieu of ongoing maintenance and expansion. Otherwise, the stockholders (owners) will replace them. On the other hand, governments mismanage at will and with impunity.
- There are way too many lawyers in the US. And they only create income by creating conflict. Score one for Europe.
- Lodging, eats and shops being privately run? I'm all for it. It add flavor to a ski area. Something lost on the Disney-wannabes.
- Lift ticket covers the cost of the lift. Ok. It should. Are there not gov't subsidies in (many) European ski areas? Regardless, a lift ticket price should most certainly cover the total operating cost of moving folks up the mountain.
- I like the idea of independent ski schools. But I think this is most likely a source of revenue for resort management that is a cash cow--and they won't let that go. Discussing that is the point of this thread.
- Terrain? Ok. No argument.

All I can about coming to Euope is that the Europeans I met in Breckenridge said we have it better over here. No argument from me either way as I've never skied in Europe.

- HT

I love how "businessmen" think they hold all the trump cards and wild cards in this card game.

arrogance is pitiful AND destructive.

not yet. haven't seen enough of your thoughts!

I didn't want to post this because it may not be reflective of typical circumstances at all schools. But....

I asked the students in our group what the instructors talked to them about in terms of additional lessons and where they (the students) wanted to take their skiing and subsequent trips. The unanimous reply was that each instructor suggested additional lessons as a blanket announcement at the conclusion of the lesson. And there was nothing asked or said about anything else.

Then, later in the week, we happened to bump into one of their instructors at a local brew-pub. We bought him a couple of beers and asked him and his friend to join us for dinner. His friend was an instructor, too. I asked about gathering feedback from students and passing it up to management. Basically, they said it's sort of an informal system. He said he is always interested in what students want to do with their skiing, but he is sometimes frustrated by the "compartmentalized" (his word) nature of the ski school approach. He further said that not much at all is gathered by the school management and, then, incorporated into their plans. His take was that they focus on being as professional and accomodating as they can "in the present" to serve those who schedule lessons or show up and want lessons.

As I wrote above, I don't know if this is typical or not. It just seems that--if this is the norm--that a great "touch point" opportunity is going by the wayside.

- HT

I am trying to understand the "perspective" that you think I'm reflecting. I don't think "business" is only for some elite; I think it's for everyone (literally). In fact, a fair amount of my time is spent helping individuals and very small companies create and build successful businesses. "Successful" simply means "self maintaining". Pay the staff, maintain the infrastructure, and have a happy life in the process.

Isn't this what you're advocating? Help me understand what I'm missing, please?

you jargoneers sure do have the market cornered on samethink.

Steve, "business" is the act of staying busy. no more.

it's only people like Harvard Tiger and medmarkco who wish to turn it into some exalted calling that only a select few understand and even fewer do well. I guess that's a product of education (in pussycat's case) or arrogance (in medmarkco's case).

I get tired of people who pretend that "business" cannot be infused with pleasure or with personality. the two dominant voices in this thread are trying to remove all pleasure and personality from the notion. they are trying to excel at a game (current American "business") that is a fetid corpse waiting to be planted in the global graveyard.

What about grooming? Patrolling? Hosting/helping? Speed/safety controls? Terrain parks? There's a lot more to the on-snow environment than lifts moving people up the mountain.

I'd suggest that patrolling is the only thing you listed that is a good requirement. the rest are luxuries.

I agree. But I don't know anything about how things are run in Europe and was replying strictly to his point that "lift tickets cover the costs of the lifts."

You are dead wrong about me. You clearly don't know me at all. You assume quite a lot about me to justify your disdain for things Harvard. But don't let all that stop you!

That's cool, though. Press on.

...and supporting oneself and one's family, I would add. The latter is a bit personal for me, given that I am actively working on options to support my family at the moment!

okay, you're just posting random thoughts from the stupid B-School education but you don't support them. you're just in here messing with Bud Heishman's mind.

boy you're danged cool.

jeezus even I could beat you at poker, you lousy liar/bluffer. and I'm well known as the WORST poker player in Missoula.

wrong. supporting your family is not a BUSINESS. it's a pleasure. if it's not, you have no business being a parent or husband.

I didn't say that they were requirements. I meant to communicate that if they are done, the lift tickets need to support them.

...but supporting my family is a purpose for a business.

with that I agree completely. I would suggest that they are mere luxuries and the mega-resorts will provide them in spades... until the economy crashes and they all go belly up like Mutual Benefit Life did, and like Prudential ALMOST did.

surprised that Pussycat and Medmarkco don't have enough cross-pollinated "experience" or "education" to see this coming.

perhaps - but if it becomes the dominant reason, it takes on a "work" mode instead of a pleasant, chosen, wilful obligation.

HAMMAHTIME!

good points all 'round. try convincing Harvard Tiger and medmarkco of that, though. they'll laugh you out of town. they and their Brooks Brothers suited cohort of "investors"

Agreed.

I am a lousy liar.

But if we're going to talk business, I try to discuss it in reality. Regardless of what I think of a particular practice personally, I am not so arrogant as to think I can--or even deserve--to change it. This is a practical world. You can fight it and live a bitter, frustrated life. Or go with it and enjoy the wisdom of many others far brighter (than I am).

You might call that "selling out." I call it growing up. Nothing at all immoral about serving the needs of others and making a reasonable profit from it.

But as you continue your crusade against me it might be helpful if you actually knew or understood even the slightest about me. I thought you to be a far more complex thinker and perceptive man than to completely define someone by a few posts on an Internet forum about skiing. I guess I was wrong.

it's not a crusade against you pussycat.

it's a point of focus, shining new light on an area where the stodgy old "the way it's always been done" people think there's no possibility of new perspective.

YOUR problem is that you have reduced me to a natter.

MY problem is that you are fixed in perspective and think that what you learned in BSchool makes you eminently more qualified to talk "business." whether I can tell something from a few posts is surely guesswork, but when your posts hew close to a certain theme, I'm adept at detecting the theme and discussing it. you got a problem with that, guido?

it's just a friggin' degree, pussycat. it isn't the right to lord over others, no matter what your fellow students may have been saying or thinking while at the SafeHouse of Puritanical Thought.

as to "selling out" versus "growing up" you obviously haven't a clue. I'm talking about maturity and wisdom, not some stupid protoliberal 18-year-old's view of the world.

how about this, smart businessboy:

discuss the effect of a large NON-REALTY business's overinvestment in real estate in an inflated market, and what that does to a large business when the market bottom falls out. compare and contrast to large insurance companies in the 80s.

It certainly can, I agree. Standard definitions of "business" include: "A commercial enterprise" and one definition of "commercial" is "Having profit as a chief aim". So, there may be some definitional conflict with some of this conversation. I think what you're focused on may be more appropriately "vocation" or "avocation", but I'm not sure how much bearing that has for this discussion.

Regardless, in order to continue to do this thing that I love to do, I either need to support it by doing something else for income or I need to generate sufficient revenue to support myself and my family. Otherwise, I have to stop doing it. Hence, I think that a key component of a fulfilling business is having it generate sufficient revenue to support the staff and their families.

This seems to go to the root of what Bud was asking, too.

agreed, ssh. it's not about making a mega-resort. that's what the two tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum want to do.

"how to make a mega resort"

"mega resorts and why they're the best"

"how to have happy shareholders while pi$$ing off the skiers you apparently serve"

etc etc etc

Absolutely agree that it's not about mega-resort. It's about a business that works for the goals of the individuals involved. At the bottom, it's all about the people.

amen, bruddah. the business cannot exist without the people. at least, not until the machines rule the world a la The Matrix!

Gonz,

The primary "business" education that I operate from is one my parents gave me before I ever entered school. When I wasn't getting my way in my neighbor's sand box they told me:

If you rely on someone else to provide the sand box you want to play in, then expect follow their rules. If you're unable to do that, then don't play or build your own.

If you don't like the areas other people have built and how they operate, just stop skiing there, or build your own. You're incorporated and running a business, use your experience to build the mountain and ski school you want to see.

Rather than try to work within the system that exists and figure out how to improve ski instruction for instructors and customers, the thread has degenerated into nothing worthwhile... no more for me.

lay down. never seek improvement.

thanks for playing halfheartedly, mark. next time try bringing in a new perspective.

Yeah, it's just a friggin' degree. So get over it.

And shine the light. Please. But bring more than natter-ing and let's see some concrete ideas.

I don't think I ever said anything about "mega-resorts are the best" but I will say that there is most certainly an economy of scale that leads to their formation. There are real, palpable reasons there are so few automobile manufacturers and so many wheat farmers. I'd say skiing mega-resorts have evolved because the skiing experience itself has moved toward commoditization and the mega-resorts (including the over-investment in real estate) are attempts to differentiate.

I personally don't care for much more than a "real" town near a ski area and some lifts. But reality tells me that those lifts don't get there on their own. There are a lot of Brooks Brothers wearing rich-boys (who probably inherited their stock portfolios) who anted up the money so I can play. They expect management to figure out ways to get my butt in that lift seat so they can earn a return on their bucks--or they'll take their bucks elsewhere. Reality.

What's more, everytime you, gonzo, sit your butt in a lift bought by someone else you are directly supporting what you seem to find so evil. Why? There are lots of failed and abandoned ski areas. Go buy one and cut out the Evil Investor. One even went out of business near your town. Why didn't you and your closest 100,000 friends ante up the bucks to buy it and ski without the likes of us businesspeople polluting the place?

My point is that business is a very practical vocation. People who "have a better way" love labs and forums because they never seem to (or have to) actually implement their Better Way. They learn to be very good a criticizing the efforts of others, however. Without risk.

My discussions, I hope, focus on how to make it better for everyone who cares to ski. I am not so arrogant (or elitist) that I think that my way or opinions are best for all. I just look to improve what's already working.

What's already working isn't perfect. But it is working. Aspects of it may fail. That's life. But I haven't seen anything concrete from you to replace it. You seem talk around it but never get to a "here's what needs to be done" statement.

Gonz, just go buy your own area and show us all how to do it. Or live up to the standards you like to hit me over the head with and refuse to ride a lift. Hike 'em all and I'll be impressed...and really respect your convictions. But every time you get on a lift...you're admitting that you say one thing and do another. Keep in mind next time you ride a lift--and it's a nice, quiet environment for reflection--that some guy in a Brooks Brothers suit paid for it and that your lift ticket is adding money to his bank account.

pathetic AS USUAL, pussycat. here's why:

kinda hard when it keeps hitting me in the face every time you post.

I believe that Post #2 in this thread had quite a few concrete ideas, to which you said "Ditto." why are you ignoring that?

so the "evolution" not only is "natural" but also "desired"? my how you are lazy intellectually, how you just accept what is, and don't offer thoughts on what could be. who's the natterer really, Pussycat?

whatever "reality" you come from is the falsest reality of all. your "reality" contains so much artificiality -- the "resort" experience isn't about skiing at all.

1) where have I supported what I find "evil"? I think you're attacking paper tigers and strawmen here.

2) failure and abandon are part of life, pussycat. how do you conclude that the ski areas failed because they did what I'm suggesting?

3) the caricature about me and my 100,000 friends is tawdry and immature, like your general perspective.

how funny. do you know my work CV? no. if you think I'm no more than the sum of my provocative posts, you are sad. and misled. and uninformed. on top of all that, you misunderstand my posts terribly. which is probably where the sad, misled, uninformed part comes from.

"already working" as what?

again read post #2.

so funny funny funny. how many people do you know who gave up partnership in a law firm, GC in an insurance company, and lawyering generally to do something that will never make riches?

you wouldn't know risk if it bit you in the arse, armchair pussycat.