Ski lessons should be free

[-- SCSA]

I'm gotta keep talkin about this.
Ski lessons should be free.

Man, I'm tellin ya. There's a buncha really great reasons why. I can prove it.

[-- SCSA]

Correction.

Not all ski lessons.

Just enough to get them to parallel.

Teaching Primary Movements from day 1 of course.

[Mr. M]

I second this.

But how do you make them free? I don't think that the ski schools are going to do that. Sometimes I offer help or advise to people in trouble, but I can not chase every beginner on the slopes. I strongly believe that it's possible to come up with the small subset of the book 1 drills which will do the fair job in teaching parallel turns from the start. Put them together on the WEB page or make a burnable DVD or VCD image and you got it. Do you need HH to do it? Probably not. I think few volunteers from this Forum should be able to carry on this effort as a hobby porject. I guess this is what I was proposing in the other thread.

Greg

[-- SCSA]

Here's my logic.

1) By making ski lessons free (enough to get to parallel), it's a loss leader. The bet, is that skiers will ski more, buy more ski lessons. They'll ski more because they're having fun and getting good at it. They'll buy more lessons because now they have the bug and want to get to the next level.

If they're skiing more, that means revenue. Equipment sales, dining and entertainment, parking, you name it.

2) The slopes will be safer. If more people understood the skiers responsibility code and if it was taught to all skiers, the slopes would be much safer. **

**Ski lessons would be free. But in order to get them for free, the student would have to pass a written test at the end, which would include the skiers responsibility code. Maybe ski area insurance rates would go down?

3) Ski instruction would improve. Instructors would be paid by tips only. Their ranking in the ski school would be based on customer feedback and return business. No feedback or return business? See ya.

4) Skier numbers would improve. Make lessons free and you'll see way more skiers coming to the hill. You can't sell a product (skiing) that the customer doesn't understand (most don't).

5) As far as who pays the loss (making the first 5 free), I'm not sure that's needed. But it could be done. There's all kinds of creative ways to get product marketers involved, particularly when there's a focused audience.

6) A big push should be made to the youth. They get free park lessons or whatever they choose. Another push should be made to the 40 plus crowd (that'd be me).

Look at the most popular message boards; epic and powder. Dirtbags and lawyers.

The 40 plus crowd has kids and they talk to their friends while playing golf, or whatever. The 40 plus crowd is ready to ski today -- with their families.

The dirtbag crowd, you need to invest in them. Today's dirtbag is tomorrow's condo owner.

Ski lessons should be free.
How come nobody else can figure this out?

"Be cool -- drive a small car"

[Bluey]

SCSA,

I've been giving this some thought and I'm with Mr M.....in that I can't see free ski lessons will ever take off on a large scale &/or widespread &/or global basis.
With all due respect, I think you're flogging a dead horse here.
It comes down to simly Demand versus Supply. Long term versus short term investment choices
The Demand reasons may be great but the Supply reasons, from a long term econmoic point of view are lousy.
You maybe able to niche market the idea to those ski areas that are struggling to get numbers, if any.
But here in OZ there aren't any.......come ski season time here and you'll find the resorts/slopes are overcrowded and fully booked out so they don't need more skiers. Everything is overcrowded and the only person making money is the Gov't.....a very silent, non caring, ignorant, bureaucratic, brain dead stakeholder.
The lift queues can be boringly long and the ski runs heavily populated with meandering slow skiers.
If these slow meandering skiers ever got off the slopes at a faster rate the lift queues would only lenghten.......a lose /lose situation for me.
In fact, I'm being a little flippant here, I'd like to see all the new skiers get off the slopes, out of the shops, out of the overpriced accomodation and off the roads........ and go/stay home.


I'm sure the resort owners ( read Oligopoly here in Oz ) don't care. They are just milking a cash cow. .....till global warming sorts itself out.



Gotta go.......more later



Bluey

[-- SCSA]

HI Bluey,

I know, you're probably right.

[Bluey]

Hi SCSA and Mr M,

I've given the concept of Free Ski Lessons some more thought.....I'm a bit of a slow thinker........

Anyway, I approached the marketing strategy of Free Ski Lessons by asking 2 questions-

Question (A) :

If I give something away how can I do that so it will improve my long term market postion without sending me broke but more importantly I want to be able improve my bottom line within 2-3 years?
Assumption No. 1 A strengthening market share without improving longer term profitabilty/cashflow is a recipe for, excuse the expression,...... burning your toast
Assumption No. 2....I'm also assuming I have sufficent cash or Access to Cash ( read : bank facilities/connections) to weather a 2-3 year marketing campaign of this nature.


Question ( B ) :

Secondly, Ive limited my scope by only thinking about PMTS related people and or ski instructors.
I'm not specifically going to try an addresss whether Other Stakeholders/ "The Establishment" could or would benefit from a Free Ski Lesson Strategy.......they may assist but I think this is unlikely initially / in the short term.

BTW : In the group Other Stakeholders/ "The Establishment" I would include people/corporations like Resort owners or Condo Owners or Retail/Shop owners or Ski EQuipment Manufacturers etc. My quick and dirty guess is that the Other Stakeholders/ "The Establishment" would be too economically/politically emcumbered to adopt/support this Free Lesson marketing strategy, especially within the foreseeable future ( read next 2-3 years).

Sorry the above is so long winded....but/therefore Question ( B ) is :

How can Harald take advantage of such a strategy?

Another BTW : Possibly only Harald can benefit. On the surface/in theory there should/could be a flow on effect/benefit for PMTS ski instructors as well but I'm not clear on this aspect yet.
I make this last point 'cause I'm not clear whether the ski resorts in the US would allow the PMTS Organisation/PMTS instructors to give away free lessons and still work out of their resorts.
I suspect it certainly wouldn't work in Oz 'cause of the Oligopoly/Bottom-Line -Driven bastards/establishment we've got over here who don't care about skier quality just skier numbers and as I've said earlier, skier numbers are high here, to the extent that sometimes its like skiing in a sardine can Down Here.


OK....where are we up to in this long diatribe......I'll summarize.....so far I've posed 2 simple questions ( A & B ) which I can summarize into one question viz. :

How can free ski lessons make money for Harald and his band of merry men?

Answer : Assuming there are enough PMTS instructors, then offering "Free Lessons" would attact people into PMTS and away from the Traditional Teaching Systems ( TTS ).
Harb Book and Video sales would jump as would Harb Camps and so would the demand/workload for PMTS instructors.
This is obvious stuff and some of the reasons for it are stated quite clearly above by SCSA. In addition, as stated above by SCSA, the idea of limiting/capping the number of free lessons is excellent and I agree with SCSA when he suggests they only need to be able to get to parrallel.
However. I'd like to elaborate on the thinking of SCSA and MR M. and so I'd suggest only the first lesson is free then the next 2 lessons should be at say half price but these next 2 lessons must be bundled in with the purchase of say Book #1 & Video #1.
In effect, I'm suggesting the skier has the option of getting a free lesson and / or to sign up for a 3 lesson package. The 3 -lesson package should be priced so that the 3 -lesson package is say 25-30% cheaper than the equivalent TTS lessons but of course the skier gets to go away with say Book #1 & Video #1.

BTW : I understand that most people who sign up/commit to a Harb Camp do so because of what they discover in the Books #1 & 2 & the related Videos. Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

Now I want to hope over to Mr M's idea of creating a "smaller small subset of the book 1 drills which will do the fair job in teaching parallel turns from the start. Put them together on the WEB page or make a burnable DVD or VCD image and you got it".
OK, so if such a smaller small subset of the book 1 drills existed then it might be more applicable to bundle this rather then, my suggestion above, the bundling of Book #1 & Video #1 as these latter items would be relatively more costly to produce and they cover more areas than just getting to the stage of parrallel skiing. This would also mean that the Book #1 & Video #1 etc would be an extra thing Harald could sell. The Books are a great hook.

One last BTW, I agree with SCSA, the Free Ski lesson needs to be niche marketed( eg Young skiers or Over 40's skiers etc ), certainly initially.........but I would also add it should not be directed at very first time skiers as they don't even know the very basics of getting into/out of skis, "walking" uphill on skis, getting onto/off lifts, T-Bars etc

But of course all of the above works on the assumption of an adequate supply of PMTS qualified instructors and that the ski resort owners are not the dominant decision makers in how ski lesson are sold. Therefore I don't think this would be viable in Oz and I can't comment on North America or Europe ......I'll leave that to you guys to ponder.




Anyway....that's where I'm at in my thinking, which I think coincides with you guys ...but it's kinda long winded /rough however....... I hope you can see where I'm coming from.......


Gotta go....


Bluey

[Carvlust]

It is difficult enough to find a worthwhile lesson you are willing to pay for and PMTS instructors are hard to find in some areas of the country, what kind of advice do you think you will get for free from instructors at most ski areas???

I don't think I want free advice from regular ski instructors. I'd rather get it from a book like Lito's or Harb's, it's almost free.

[Guest]

I do not think that there is a functional way to put your theory into practice.

Who do you think would teach these lessons?

You? Me? I don't think so.

What incentive would there be for any instructor to teach for free?

Who would go thru (at their own expence) the extensive process of study, practice and learning to teach long enough to get to a level that would warrent a tip?

I thought the idea of sending in a video to get a lesson was the goofiest ski instruction idea I'd heard of, now it is only second on the list.

[Mr. M]

QUOTE [
You? Me? I don't think so.
]

Dear Guest, definitely not you, but I do! Sometimes I see people really scared and lost. I do help strangers occasionally, so please do not put everyone else in your category.

Let?s touch a little bit on the topic of ?free?. Just go to the supermarket or a warehouse and try some free food samples (I am sure you do that sometimes ) and if you like this strip of bacon you may end up buying a 2 lb. bag. What kind of an idiot would give away a free food? A successful entrepreneur would!

I think what have been discussed here is not a quest for the professional ski instructors to work for free! Why be afraid of revealing a big ?secret? that lift and tip will get an average novice turning their skis in no time? I think that basics MUST be simple. I can speak only for myself, but for me the basics were really simple (after I browsed the book). Now I might work and try to improve for the rest of my life, but starting skiing for me was easy. I am sure that if I would have to struggle through few more lessons in the WP ski school instead of working with the book, I would never ski again. So my question is what kind of lessons are these that an inexperienced non-athletic average person may do better without those? I am talking here only about beginner?s group lessons. I do not want those lessons the way they are now even for free. It?s just a waste of time.

I think that the standard for the REAL ski instruction should be much higher that it is now and that?s where my compliment goes to PMTS. I think that a little bit of free basic info would not hurt PMTS or ski schools (except of getting some of the old-timers out of business). Nothing of course will substitute for the real ski instruction. The free information is just an addition to it.

[gravity]

I'm gotta keep talkin about this.
Ski lessons should be free.

Man, I'm tellin ya. There's a buncha really great reasons why. I can prove it.

I like the free thinking, out-of-the-box approach, SCSA. I get a little skeptical when you throw out "I can prove it" and then there's nothing more said for the sake of proof.

Running ski school as a pure guest service within the budget of operating costs without anticipation of revenue has been discussed quite a lot within the ski industry.

A few ideas:
Stationing instructors at the top and bottom of bump runs for the purpose of providing tips. Give the tip at the top and the follow-up at the bottom.

Same idea but at the terrain park.

Requiring lessons to those who are found to break the skier responsibility code. Kinda like mandatory driving school for bone heads.

Requiring a proficiency test for all skiers as they advance to more difficult terrain.

Any other ideas? I'm sure there are a lot of creative people out there who see the world in a different way than I do.

[BigE/Erik]

few ideas:
Stationing instructors at the top and bottom of bump runs for the purpose of providing tips. Give the tip at the top and the follow-up at the bottom.

Have you ever taken a group lesson? Next time, take note of the people in the class...

You are suggesting that a single "tip" that you can give any skier will do any good whatsoever. The majority of those that take group lessons really need them. They need the moves explained and demonstrated in detail before they try them. Then, most are so fearful of trying them and failing, that they only give 50% effort. And those are paying customers. I'm not even counting those that just don't understand what it is the instructor is even talking about.

Now we are suggesting that the recipients of freebie tips are going to try harder? Sheesh, most people either won't paying attention to the know-it-all a the top/bottom, or won't understand what they are talking about.

Worse yet, they will be getting an arbitrary sequence of tips. There is no foundation upon which to build the steps to get to the next level. Most people are clueless about how they are skiing, what they are doing, and why what they do works (if they are so lucky that what they do actually works).

The tip they get has no chance of taking root in their lives. What they need is to be taught the basics first, like stance, balance, coordination, timing, edging.... The last thing they need is a disconnected series of tips from some talking head on the top of the hill. An analogy is that you build the foundation before the house.

On top of that:

There is a level of commitment required by the student to learn how to ski. Giving away free lessons won't magically create that commitment. I mean, have you ever heard from anyone: "I really want to learn how to ski, but I can't afford a lesson?" That's a cop-out: they can afford the lift, transportation, time and equipment, but they are really scared of admitting that they really can't ski, and putting their reps on the line by taking lessons. Afterall, if you take them, then you have to be good right? What happens when they don't get better right away?

How many times have you seen people take a lesson and then never practice any of the moves/drills they were taught on their own time? I'd say most of the time. People tend to view lessons as magic -- you take them and they make you a better skier. Period. If you don't become a better skier right away, something is wrong with what is being taught or the instructor, or the equipment etc.... Can't be that the student only ski's 5 times/year, and then on runs well above his/her ability.

Free lessons won't help getting anyone to practice. Bottom line is, if you want something bad enough, you'll commit to doing it.

[gravity]

Erik,

Good points. Have you tried the tips approach?

I've seen it done. I've benefitted from them. That's just me, though.

So, have you tried them?

It's an out-of-the-box disscusion, Erik.

PMTS has strong roots in out-of-the-box. But, I see the walls of the box are closing us in just like the "other" system.

[BigE]

Yes. I've tried the tips approach. It replaced one problem with another. The tips came from a level 4 instructor, after a free video session. He even took the time (15 minutes) to describe in detail the chain of events that I was to attempt. He was very correct in everything he said, but without getting feedback from the attempt, it was not a complete success, though it did help somewhat.

The problem was repaired during lessons and practice. That took 2 weekends of effort. The tips he gave me now all work.

There are two interesting points here:

1) the video analysis and tips were free. He was there all day long. Less than 10 people did it. The lift lines were very long -- there were no shortage of people. "Free" did not matter, and the hill was not filled with experts...

2) I did not have sufficient foundation for the tips to take root. And this is key: He could not know that from viewing a single botched up run. He did not really know how I ski -- he sees only a small snapshot of the mechanics that I use.

Re: PMTS -- I view PMTS as just a different box. If PMTS works for you, especially where others have failed, then it's a "good thing". But as with any teaching method, it cannot be "the one truth".

People learn best when there is a philosophical fit between the style of instruction and the students view of the world. One person can respond well to something like "Move your body downhill with the skis." (As you've said is "common sense".)

Another thinks that's a meaningless statement, because they are already moving downhill, and attached to the ski. That person might respond better with "Sink deeper into the turn as you apply more edge. Flex more at the ankle, while keeping the toes pressed to the top of the boot." (Which helped me alot.)

BTW: That "toes up" tip came during one of a series of 6 weekend lessons. The lessons were not free and the instructor revealed the tip in lesson 3. Why did it work? It's all about balance.

[Mr. T]

I am starting to believe that most people on the slopes are not interested in lessons. I have a co-workers who went to Breckenridge to ski. I offered to teach him a few basics so that he was not going to get stuck at Breck just doing bunny hill or green runs and he kindly made me understand he was not interested. Those who are interested are already into skiing very seriously and want to improve further. But those require expertise and more than help I could use some lessons myself.