Rob Boudrie

"If you're in a state where all you can shoot is 10 rounds what's the big deal. Everybody else in that state is shooting the same thing." That's not always the case. Take Claifornia, for example, where it's a criminal offense to possess a > 10 round mag you owned prior to the magazine ban. Newcomers cannot legally compete equally in Open division.

I am the USPSA Area Director Chuck D spoke to, and he has relayed my comments to him with great accuracy. USPSA President Michael Voigt did vote for Ecuador, because of both the 10 round issue and cost (The third possibility, Denmark I beleive, was very expensive). The way I understood Michael's explaination was that they had a Canadian govt official (not sure who) committed to recommending an exemption for > 10 round visiting competitors, but this had not been formally issued. Anyone who has followed the Canadian situation since the pre-pan days is very familiar with the double-cross. When the Canadian govt was proposing the 10 round limit, competitive shooters spoke up and were told a special license would be created to address their needs. Guess what? After the law passed with a provision for a high cap mag license, the govt decision was "After consultation with gun control proponents and sporting organizations, it has been decided that the need for public safety outweighs legitimate competitive needs for these magazines and no such license shall be issued." (The quote is from memory, but it's pretty close). But Chuck raises a very interesting, and increasingly relevant question: Would a 10 round World Shoot be acceptable?

We need to look the basic root cause of the current predicament - a tendancy of the members to have a very narrow view and unwillingness to accomodate change if it would take away any advantage they had purchased. When the federal ban (which even Bush has promised to renew) was put in place, the most common reactions to questions about the future of hi cap magazines in USPSA competition were : <ul> <li>"Course design negates the hi cap advantage, but don't you dare undermine the investiment I made in purchasing a capacity advantage." One must wonder why the great concern with protecting a purchased advantage which supposedly does not exist. <li>"Don't make it my problem if you don't have pre ban equipment" <li>"If someone can't get a hicap, they just aren't willing to make a big enough committment to play this game." <li>"What problem? I have <b>MY</b> high caps. You should be content to use your low caps." </ul>

"Slow but steady decline?" - actually, the problem is more a lack of growth. Membership numbers for 2001 and 2000 are actually _UP_ from the previous year (but so slightly as to be statistically insignificant). What is down is the "club count" - and that's no wonder, since we used to have 100% market share, and now share it with IDPA. IDPA offers clubs a lower cost option (no mission count), which can be attractive if the members chosing their affiliation are not interested in USPSA program such as our larger matches, NROI programs, paying for a World Shoot team, etc. As we focus on figuring out what we need to do to encourage growth, we must not lose sight of the fact that we offer something from value. Where the "crunch" hits USPSA is that expenses increase every year, and with a flat headcount, we're not growing revenues as fast as our expenditures. <p> It is also important to consider the marketing proposal from Michael Bane in perspective. He has many good ideas, and there may be services of value which he can offer to USPSA. What the membership must realize, however, is that the board must balance possible benefits, costs, and risk. Michael's proposal is professional and prepared with great care - but is also a request for a consulting job which, if accepted, will cost USPSA more for his services that we pay our full time executive manager or our president (and the proposed fee is not contingent upon results). I'm not offering that as a criticism, but as an observation from someone who shares the burden of assessing "risk/benefit", and is responsible for both growing your organization as well as safeguarding your financial assets in USPSA. <p> Any large "marketing expense" to a consultant would have to come from deficit spending of our assets, as we do not have an operational surplus sufficient to fund the kind of proposals we have received. This increases the risk, because we may never be able to recover from a failed marketing program if it consumes our nest egg. In this context, success and failure is defined by the number of members and affiliated clubs - "buzz" or "favorable trade press" is of little benefit if it does not translate to stastistically significant (there's that term gain) increases in membership. <p> On a separate matter, I have corresponded with ShooterGrrl, and will be getting her the info she needs to try to revamp the USPSA site (sorry it's taking so long). Although I am somewhat territorial about the "data management" aspects of the site, I am very open to contributions which will result in a more user-friendly appearance.

Nothing can be done without risk. The questions are "how much risk" and "is the risk shared?" <p> I had asked the marketing person who made the presentation if he would be interested in a deal where USPSA risked the expenses, he risked his labor, and he got paid several times what he was asking if, and only if, he go the kind of membership numbers he was talking about. <p> The answer was very polite, (and even started with the word "Yes", as good salesmen often do), however, the answer was a clear and unambiguous "No." <p> In fairness to this presenter, he is the president of a samll but "real" established firm, and is used to dealing with clients who not being asked to commit approx (very rough numbers) 25% of their net worth to his fee on a single deal.

Eric - What level of "risk" do you recommend? Should we give a consultant $250K to assume responsibility for marketing? $500K? The level of caution required is directly proportional to the investment required. I hardly call not being willing to give the consultant who made a presnetation to us a quarter million dollars to "assume responsbility" for marketing, with his only accountability being possible "non-renewal" after spending our $250K to be "paralyzed be fear."

While it's not possible to figure out ROI precisely, we must ask if the marketing will increase CLUB and INDIVIDUAL memberships. <p> IDPA has eaten much potential growth from USPSA. It's not much of a jump to conclude that some of the 200 or so IDPA clubs would be USPSA affiliates if IDPA did not exist. I do not believe that many of these IDPA clubs do now know about USPSA - what are the other reasons they choose IDPA over USPSA? Let's address those for a start. <p> IDPA offers a low infrastructure, low overhead, way for clubs to offer practical shooting matches. This can be particularly attractive to clubs without lots of "old timers" who are interested in traveling to matches throughout the country, etc. Remember, many people shoot what is offered at their local club and don't direclty choose USPSA vs. IDPA. If get get more clubs, that will bring in members.

In discussion of professional marketing, please don't forget that both proposals ask that USPSA spend a substantial chunk of our net worth, and operate in the negative, to fund them. Dave Thomas (USPSA Exec Office Manager) is acting reasonably and responsibly when he does not spend our savings to hire a consultant at an annual fee exceeding the salary of any USPSA staff member (including Dave). This does not mean that hireing a marketeer is a bad idea - but we need to be convinced that we will get a positive roi.

I can add some perspective on the USPSA web page since I created and maintain it. The emphasis of the page has been on two things - "data" and "speed." The page includes numerous data management functions: <ul> <li>Classifiers <li>Major match listings, updated nearly continuously <li>Self-service posting of major match results to the page - each major match can ask for an individual password and use an integrated EzWinScore feature to upload results for immediate posting. <li>Automatic re-direction of membership prospects to local contacts <li>Database driven local club info lookup <li>Database driven links to club pages <li>Personalized match report (for results submitted using the new EzWinScore upload file) <li>On line membership signup <li>On line USPSA Store <li>With more projects in the works </ul> You'll notice that "flash animation", "fancy graphics", etc. was not on this list. <p>That does not mean it has to be that way forever. If someone wants to work on a "new generation" web page with me, and has strength in the areas of "flashiness", I'd be interested in talking to you. Keep in mind, however, that whatever we do has to be fast enough to serve users on standard speed dialup lines (ie, 28K, sometimes even less).