Advertising Woes

I advertise the club in other venues such as "Craigslist groups section" I've received hundreds of replies, and I responded to every one of them, I directed them to the Club website. Only 5 have completed the membership application and committed to join. That's less than 3% of the respondents. While those numbers may seem dismal, those 3% are quality respectable professional people that we're happy to have as members. And we wouldn't have met them if it weren't for the advertising. So we did find some diamonds in the Craigslist coal mine.

So far we've collected Zero dollars and zero cents from or for the club. Some members have offered money, but in the beginning stages I didn't accept because the original plan was for a free Club, funded by donations. And I wanted to make sure we had enough donation support to make it happen. I didn't want to collect money from some people only to find out we didn't have enough money to make it happen. Not collecting any money from anybody was the best solution, till we could gauge the core financial support. (And really how would anybody know how much to donate anyways). And a socialist Utopia never has worked. So we reverted to the tried-and-true method of capitalism, by implementing a modest membership fee.

We still haven't collected any money in membership fees or otherwise received any money related to the club at all. But I suspect people will wait till the weather warms and the club is more underway to come forth with money.

So I get an irritated chuckle when the outside advertising brings in people that email accusing me perpetuating a scam. I don't respond because I figure it's not worth my time. (I would make more money collecting cans). When I first cut the road into the club property the Cat blew a final drive, that was 10K by the time it was done, it's hard work busting rocks. Every time I fuel it up it's 250 bucks. When I dropped a valve moving boulders a few weeks ago that was almost 2k, and these are parts cost that's with me doing the work. Not to mention hundreds of hours of work, hundreds of hours of building the website, and hundreds of hours responding to email advertising that goes nowhere.

I had one jack-off that emailed a few days ago (using only his first name) and offering no other identifying information, said that he wanted to know why the PayPal link on the website was linked to a Cattle Company..... (the audacity of an anonymous person demanding information!) That's why we don't post the address on the website, to avoid these peeping Tom people that hide in bushes. And people email and want to know why we don't post the address, as though it's suspicious. I feel like emailing back and saying you post your wife's naked pictures on a website with an address and advertise on Craigslist and see how that works out for you.

We directed The PayPal payments to go to the company account, because it's the company that owns the land and the equipment, and pays for the fuel to make the club possible. If there were any payments to the club, it would need to go to the Cattle Company account to avoid running afoul of any tax laws. (Otherwise it would be tax evasion) and it's less record-keeping if the money goes back to the corporation, we only invested in the club because we wanted a nude Recreation area in Montana, we never expected it to be profitable.

We do expect the club to at least meet its operating expenses by the summer of next year, at which time we'll switch it over to a 501 c 3 non-profit corporation. For now, it's just a money pit on a hill.

Here's a picture of nothing to do with anything that I've just talked about, it's a juniper tree on the hill but I particularly like this one because it's so bushy. And in the background you can see the Beartooth mountains if you look closely off in the distance, partially snow-capped.

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