Front Sight Question

[Beodricht]

So, I have been a Front Sight member for a few years now, and have been there mainly for the repelling and ropes courses. Something that has always confused me has been their marketing model. They way overprice the memberships, and then allow members to sell the same level of memberships less firearms or other added perks for dirt cheap, but said members are not allowed to advertise the sale of memberships through "public media".

Is anyone else here a Front Sight member that can allude to business practices? The business model to me seems like a sham, but they seem to be expanding, and I can't quite figure out why.

[hermosabeach]

Don't over think the process.

24 fitness sells membership and the stats I read were that 20-25% of the members to more than 20 times a year.

Front sight started out selling memberships starting around 5-10k

The members got certificates to sell. If they could sell the 20 certificates at $500 each, they essentially got a free membership.

The school got word of mouth advertising.
Referring friends built the school
They ended up with 20 students and 1 person paid for everyone



Simple MLM type of strategy



Over the years, the memberships have become cheaper
They have offered a gazillion different type of memberships.

They can sell memberships to the public. So you selling to the public on a forum competes for the same people.

You selling to coworkers, church friends, fellow hunters, fellor shooters get new people into the program that the ads don't touch.


Now for the real question-

How is the ropes class???

[devilcaninex]

Do they have ranges you can just go and shoot at, or is it all based on taking classes?

[Pardini]

Also makes it tough for Front Sight to sell a membership to a new prospect when he can go online and buy one for far less than what Front Sight is selling them for.

[hermosabeach]

As far as I know, the ranges are really for classes.


I think if you spend enought, you can use private ranges when classes are not being held.

But it is Pahrump- lots of areas to shoot

Lots of public and BLM land.

[Beodricht]

The ropes classes are fun, but I am an avid indoor climber. There are plenty of ranges, and from what I have heard, their CCW class is fairly intense, to the point of forcing the students to simulate jams and clear them before receiving a passing grade. The last CCW course i took made sure i could hit a target at 15 feet, and took less than an hour.

[mikeinla]

The ropes classes are fun, but I am an avid indoor climber. There are plenty of ranges, and from what I have heard, their CCW class is fairly intense, to the point of forcing the students to simulate jams and clear them before receiving a passing grade. The last CCW course i took made sure i could hit a target at 15 feet, and took less than an hour.

Did you hear that from ANOTHER school??? CCW classes are mostly paperwork and lectures. CCW class is easy

[ke6guj]

The ropes classes are fun, but I am an avid indoor climber. There are plenty of ranges, and from what I have heard, their CCW class is fairly intense, to the point of forcing the students to simulate jams and clear them before receiving a passing grade. The last CCW course i took made sure i could hit a target at 15 feet, and took less than an hour.

Front Sight only offers their class if you have immediately taken their 4-day defensive handgun class. that class does deal with all the malfunction types and how to clear them over those 4-day. http://www.frontsight.com/pdf/ccw-faq.pdf

[k1dude]

They have a business model? That's news to me.

All joking aside, it seems like a Ponzi scheme and I suspect it will fail at some point. I'm actually surprised it has lasted this long.

To keep the cash flow going, they constantly pound their membership to upgrade into ever changing membership levels.

I suspect 80% of the membership probably has never been to Front Sight yet. Or if they have, I suspect they've only been there once. So that's a lot of membership money they collected that will never be used or seldom used.

They've been promising real estate development for years but have never delivered - until now. It appears construction is finally happening. But the promised homes disappeared and morphed into timeshare condos. That will probably be the revenue stream for the foreseeable future. I suspect they are borrowing against future earnings to fund the construction. I wouldn't want to be the lenders/investors.

A Front Sight membership is best used as often as possible. You will make your membership money back the first time you take a 4 day course. From that point on it's all gravy. But expect to be hounded incessantly with emails and phone calls from Ignatius trying to sell you the next best membership upgrade ever.

It's the best deal out there if you actually take advantage of it. Just don't expect it to be there in 10 years.

But.....it's lasted this long, so I could be wrong about their longevity.

The business model (or lack of one) makes no sense to me. But Ignatius somehow seems to be making money. So maybe he's the smart one and I'm an idiot.

[mikeinla]

I have been there 3 times this year and am going back again in September.

[Beodricht]

K1Dude, you are spot on about the obnoxious amount of advertising mail. My membership level allegedly allows me to sell an unlimited amount of memberships, but I have a personal problem with selling something that seems to me as risky as a junk bond, since i know a few 'guardians' that have yet to attend a class.

There most recent membership push to become a guardian was rather annoying. At least 7 "last chance to buy in" emails a week. The language of the control being put into the hands of the guardians seemed rather vague and obnoxious, to me at least.

I intend to go again with my latest AR purchase in October. Since I am presently stuck in Las Vegas for the time being, its like a 30 min drive, so if work was not hectic, I would go far more often.

[dskit]

I thought they wouldn't last 10 years 10 years ago. I will call their business model "unconventional" to be charitable, but they manage to continue to deliver high quality instruction.

I recall the story of the retired fellow who was and initial member with I think over $100K invested. He took a class every week for several years. I always wondered whey he was in every class I took.

[Ronin2]

The Front Sight Business model???? :

[71MUSTY]

I got the Photon Torpedo and Pulse Cannon Upgrade on my membership so when they expand into the galaxy I'll have that going for me.

Seriously it's worth it if you go there and train. I just ignore Iggy.