Still Waiting? What the....
This will also be an excellent opportunity and tool for anyone with additional comments about each of the specific questions to get better clarification. Use the comments section to discuss each of the questions in greater detail. I remind you that I learned how to accomplish such a huge task from Brian Tracy and his courses, which teach that you focus on the each task one at a time, focus on the solution, break it down into manageable chunks, and before you know it, you’ve achieved your goal. (By the way...I just got an e-mail from Brian regarding a New Years Coupon to Save 20% on all his courses!)
It should be a really fun debate, and for those of you in YTB, take this information and documentation and use it. Here are the questions we have gone over thus far.
Question #1 - Why a compensation plan takes 12 pages to define?
Question #2 - How YTB arrived at $226 Million in travel sold for 2006. (Still waiting.)
Most of us know by now that the numbers were taken directly from our suppliers who we asked to provide numbers for us. Tabulating numbers that were directly booked off our web sites is easy to track and report. If that’s all YTB RTA’s did, it would be easily tracked and verified electronically. As our company matures and RTA’s get more and more comfortable with the concept of being a “Travel Agent”, many RTA’s are stepping out and speaking with and booking directly with vendors. (Our Group Cruise page is a perfect example of needing to arrange directly with the vendor first to secure price and availability for our clients for actual bookings.)
I’ve been dealing with accusations from those outside of our company for years about what YTB actually books. All anyone looks at is our SEC filings, which everyone “should know” as commissions, not gross sales, and these commissions are not reported to the SEC until YTB actually has the commission in hand. Doing otherwise, or what we “expected to receive” in commissions from booking made in 2006 is highly illegal and would put YTB in a bunch of hot water.
While Travel may have been booked in 2006, it is not reported to the SEC until the commission is received. Again, our Group Cruise page is a perfect example of what YTB has “booked”, but until these groups or clients have paid all deposits, commissions can not be reported to the SEC until YTB physically has the commission in hand. The Frye Thanksgiving Cruise for November 2008 is a perfect example of some 40,000 7 Day equivalent cruises YTB has booked with Carnival alone for 2008. (Did you catch that? 40,000 7 day Equivalent Weeks with Carnival and it’s only January.) While Carnival reports this group as a booking for 2007, it won’t show up on our SEC filings until Q4 2008.
When YTB’s number was given to Travel Weekly early in 2007, it certainly raised some attention on their end. So much so that on January 8, 2007 Kim Sorenson was interviewed by Travel Weekly after they found out how much business YTB “claimed” they did. Apparently the $250 to $300 Million that we “claimed” raised enough eyebrows that Travel Weekly wanted to investigate further. (Can we all agree you don’t just take a “Networkers” word for it?) So we know that Travel Weekly was aware of what YTB first reported at the beginning of 2007.
A full 6 months later, on June 25, 2007 Travel Weekly reports “verified” numbers of $226 Million for YTB, ranking them at #35 overall, and all hell breaks loose. I invite anyone wishing to find out more about how Travel Weekly came up with these numbers to read the bottom of page 25 of the report. You will note that Travel Weekly “sought to confirm accuracy whenever possible”, and also “reviewed responses for consistency and used whatever resources they had at their disposal to ensure accuracy”. You may also note that BCD Travel was not certified (#4 on the list) but the $12 Billion number was one they “generally give out”. (I don’t see any huff over that number anywhere.) You may also notice after further review there are several notations throughout the list concerning other companies that did not meat or exceed the required certification needs which was noted…but nothing mentioned about YTB?
Could that be because YTB satisfied all of Travel Weekly’s requirements concerning accuracy of $226 Million in Travel Sales?
October 22, 2007 Arnie Wiessmann described how over 8000 RTA’s flooded our Funshine Travel Training which had suppliers “gushing” about what YTB is doing concerning travel. (However, none would be willing to go “on record” for fear of the backlash they would get from Traditionalists in the market.)
November 2, 2007 Vicki Freed was quoted “It has been published that they [YTB] sold over $13 million of business with another cruise line and I can assure you that we also have millions of dollars in cruise revenue generated as well”
October 24, 2007 Kim Sorenson interviewed again by Travel Weekly as HE explains that the numbers were “gleaned” from many different sources, and they were “verified sales”. It should also be noted that Kim specifically addresses that these numbers come from travel and not “net revenue” from our marketing side. (Why should a Travel Publication even consider networking revenue?)
November 20, 2007 I went into great detail how these numbers were acquired, verified, and totaled.
November 20, 2007, (Same day) Kim Sorensen was named one of 33 “Most Influential” and warns that suppliers are now forced to decide if they want our business or not with a Top 50 Travel Agency.
December 7, 2007 Kim Sorensen was again interviewed, this time in Travel Trade, again quoting a $226 Million dollar figure in Travel Revenue and warns that 2007 numbers will reach approximately $550 Million in sales. (Putting YTB in the Top 20 overall.)
January 9, 2008 Carnival saves face AND its YTB business with a brilliant move by imposing new booking requirements for FAM’s. Clearly Carnival does not want to follow the Royal Caribbean lead made months earlier.
January 17, 2008 John is still waiting for an answer.
With all the sources and documentation out there concerning the $226 Million YTB sold, I if find it hard to believe that anyone is still waiting on this answer. If there is any question about the validity or accuracy, maybe those that want to contradict or discredit this number need to ask Travel Weekly and not YTB RTA’s?
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Doug & Ronda Bauknight
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Labels: "Card Mill", Power List, Travel Bookings, Travel MLM, Travel Trade, Travel Weekly
Can you explain the definition of "175.2 Million of sales from hosting of outside agents."
If you are talking about your group business, why is it even relevant if you are not going to recognize the income. Groups need to go through HQ so they know the potential. So which way do you want it? Do you want to tell us about all these sales you have pending or the ones you collect a commission on?
And as anyone knows with groups--most fall apart or do not materialize to what they initially had planned.
It is a numbers game with YTB. Did you see John's recap on the presentation by the Founder? They talked about the numbers being so great, but the reality was not all that.
I have no doubt that YTB will try and finagle a way to show $500M in sales for 2007. They have much face to save and too much to lose. But I also think that if TW does the Power List again, they will be a LOT more careful about their own internal checks and balances.
YTB may sell travel and a good chunk of it, but the business of YTB is in recruiting people into the scam. This will eventually come to the surface. Each day, there are more and more people that are seeing the real picture--from within YTB and from without. The unfortunate part is that in the interim, there will be hundreds of thousands of people that have entrusted the company with their money in hopes of this promised land of riches, only to find that they only contributed to the wealth, well being and retirement funds of the top people in the scheme.
Posted by
Anonymous |
Friday, January 25, 2008
Industry Vet;
I’m well aware that some believe this $175.2 Million are from web site sales, or recruiting sales.
The $175.2 Million are “Travel Sales” not “Net Revenue” or “Revenue from selling Booking Engines”.
Please review the following documents:
1. YTB’s total Net Revenue came up $125.2 Million SHORT of the $175.2 Million quoted in Travel Weekly in 2006. YTB’s 2006 Annual report only produced $50,896,730 and that includes Marketing, Travel, Franchise, and Training Revenue for all of 2006.
Here is our 2006 SEC Annual Report
2. If you take the time to read Kim’s interview with Travel Weekly on October 24th, that I posted you will read his quotes that also support “Travel Sales”.
"Sorenson said that figure reflected the total value of bookings that resulted from referrals by its agents, not YTB's actual net revenue."
"Sorensen said that the $226 million sales figure it offered to Travel Weekly describes the volume of revenue it generates for cruise, vacation and other travel suppliers, rather than YTB's own net revenue."
It’s been a full year and at least 4 separate articles in which Travel Weekly is quoting Kim Sorensen saying “verified sales” of $226 Million?
January 8, 2007
June 25, 2007
October 12, 2007
October 24, 2007
YTB is now reporting $550 Million in Travel Sales for 2007. You better get on the ball in letting them know how “careful” they need to be this year.
Please let us know how it works out for you.
Thank You.
Posted by
TravelPro |
Friday, January 25, 2008
The number relates to travel revenue.
It was wording strangely - but was meant to represent the sales from referral agents. They were breaking it down since ytb international also creates sales from vacation central franchises, old travel network franchises and of course sales from ytb travel and cruises which is a separate entity.
Can't believe people are so blind and stupid - geez . . .
Tom
Posted by
Anonymous |
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Doug...is the $226M verified sales? You have preached that a sales is not recognized till commission is paid--and this is how most agencies operate.
Now you are saying that the $226M is based on travel was was somehow on the books including your speculative group business?
Did I miss something here? If I was able to commit to a cruise line for 50 whole ship charters with a value of $99Million, am I then able to claim that I am a $99 million dollar agency? Regardless if these people sail?
What is the drop out rate of your groups? Is that number available?
Posted by
John |
Saturday, January 26, 2008
John;
Please take the time to read Kim’s October 24th Travel Weekly interview. No one has said anything about “speculative sales”.
I said, Kim’s quoted, and Travel Weekly has documented “verified sales”. Meaning the travel is actually booked with commission revenue expected to be generated from actual bookings, not cabins simply on hold in hopes that we “might” sell all these cabins at some point.
While our Group Page requires a minimum of 30 cabins to generate a link or page to be included on the Group Site, reports given to YTB only included those cabins which were actually sold.
Including all cabins that were simply “being held” for us by the cruise line would certainly not reflect accurate sales and I would consider something like that as cheating.
Our Founders would never allow or pull such a stunt, and that’s a new all time low, even for you, for us Network Marketers John. ;-P
Posted by
TravelPro |
Saturday, January 26, 2008