Originally Posted by
flamingpanties
Interesting. Now I'm inspired to attend a few more, as I work as an online marketer and would like to observe their selling methods. Like you, I would be taking a professional interest. I'm wondering how they respond to you if or when they learn you're observing them as test subjects.
I never confess that I teach psychology. I'm afraid the salespeople would hit me if I did! I just play dumb and then at the end I tell them their timeshare is way too expensive.
Fun fact: Of every dollar spent for a timeshare bought "new" (from a developer), about 20 cents goes to actually building the resort. Around 60 cents per dollar goes to marketing costs -- someone has to pay for all of those "free" theme park tickets! About 10 - 15 cents never gets collected at all; it's written off as bad debt. Profit is maybe 5% - 10%. (If the resort is selling additional ownerships to people who already own there, then marketing costs go down and profit is higher.)