Round 2 with Gomberg

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

So talked with Gomberg some more today; things are progressing very well.
Some of the areas in which we're clearly still on different pages are that
of...hmm... let's call it "customer support vs. PAM financial viability".

Now before you even read the examples below, please keep in mind that
WE'RE JUST TALKING, and things are going GREAT.  We're working through
these issues, and I (who usually goes through the roof on stuff like this)
think we'll come to an agreement.

OK, so stickler point #1: My initial thought was for AGA to pay PAM $15
per subscriber year, its lowest bulk subscription rate, and for the AGA
to collect additional $5 in dues, for a total of $20 per subscriber year,
and PAM would provide the AGA two pages free for AGA business.

However, Dave's initial idea was for AGA to pay PAM $16 per subscription
per year (his high end bulk rate), plus the actual advertising rate for
two pages of AGA business ($4800 per year).  Add to this $5 for the AGA,
and you have about $27 per membership.  To Dave this seems very
reasonable, as TFH costs $29 per year.  But to me, it seems like that
wouldn't fly with our members.  Talking with Kathy, she confirmed my
feeling: for us there's a sort of "sweet spot" at things costing $20 or
less, between $20 and $25 we have to think about it, and no way above $25.

Another related issue is what to do with overlapping memberships.  Dave's
proposal is that both PAM and AGA "shorten" remaining memberships to
account for the increased benefits, and then add them to make a combined
PAM+AGA subscription. My feeling is that our membership won't stand for
this either... you don't promise four issues of something and then say "oh
sorry, you only get three!  but hey, it's in color..."

Soo...

Currently PAM's circulation is around 400, and he's losing about $1300 per
issue not counting his time.  What we need here is a deal to make PAM
float, AGA get its fair dues, and have our members happy with the
arrangement.  Though I think he's clueless in terms of understanding
customer satisfaction, Dave is (as usual) open to negotiaton.  We need to
actually figure out what we're negotiating.  Specifically, we need to find
out numbers:

        * how many new subscribers PAM would be getting, 
        * and how many new members AGA would be getting, and
        * how many are overlapping (and by how many years)

To this end, I propose we bring in Jack, or ask for a snapshot of the
membership database.  I will filter out all but name, zip and expiration
date, and Dave can correlate it with his database.  

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

  ------------------
  To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@thekrib.com
  with "unsubscribe aga-sc" in the body of the message.
  Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-sc
  When asked, log in as username is "aga-sc", and password "showy".