Firearms Training

Question # 3 – Do Recent Lower Priced Memberships Adversely Affect Early Members?

June 5th, 2006  

Hello, this is Ignatius Piazza, founder and director of Front Sight Firearms Training Institute. I am answering the top ten questions as surveyed by our students on May 15, 2006.

Question No. 3 – With all the different memberships that have been offered at Front Sight how do these memberships interact with each other and have recent membership offerings had any adverse effect on the original members?

It is a great question and the easiest way to answer it is to simply say no, the most recent membership offerings had no adverse effect on the original members.

And the reason I say that is because any time we offer a membership that costs less than the previous memberships the reason it costs less is because we have removed very valuable benefits from that membership. What I mean by that is this; many of the memberships that we have offered over the years have certificates with them. They are called first family certificates, and they allow a student to attend their first course free of charge.

So, you buy the membership which allows you to attend any of the courses that are part of your membership free of charge for the rest of your life, and you are given a number of these certificates – as an additional benefit, an additional value – that allow you to bring your spouse and friends and shooting buddies and co-workers, etc. to come out to take their first course at Front Sight free of charge.

So, when you see a membership that is offered and it is at a lower price, what we have done is we have either reduced the number of certificates that have been provided with that lower price membership or completely removed the certificates from that membership. And that reduces the value of the membership significantly in that you do not have these $1,600.00 valued certificates that you can use for family and friends. So, our response to people asking us do you have an entry level membership that is at a lower price than what you are currently offering if we are going to respond to that we respond in kind with a membership that has less benefits.

For example, the most recent membership offer – The Challenge Membership – that is an entry level membership that provides the:

• two-day and four day defensive handgun,
• two-day and four-day Tactical Shotgun,
• two day and four day practical rifle,
• two day and four day uzi submachine gun,
• two day and four day select fire and M16 course.

Along with a hat and a card and that is it. Also, it allows you to attend the July 4th reunion. But there are no certificates – $1,600.00 value per certificate – included in that. There are no savings in the Pro Shop. There is no access to the private ranges, Assault Weapons Storage, these types of benefits that are in the other membership. It is an entry level membership, and it is priced accordingly.

Therefore, there is the quality across the board with all of the different members. We also recently offered the Founders Lifetime Membership. This is an all-inclusive membership. And this allows people to attend any of the courses that we offer but it too does not come with any certificates, and it is probably most closely related to a Gold Membership. But the original Gold Membership provided 24 first family course certificates which currently have a value of $1,600.00 each. That is worth thousands and thousands of dollars and the Gold Membership gave the member 12 additional certificates every year thereafter, so it is a huge value in those certificates for a lifetime. Well, the Founders Membership does not include any of those.

Previously there was a no certificate Gold Membership. Same type of thing again no certificates. So, the take-home message here is when we offer a membership that is a lower price, the reason it is a lower price is because it has less benefit with it. Now, some people prefer the firearms training for a lifetime as more value than the certificates, but there are also students that want memberships that have the certificates.

So we try to provide a little bit of something to everybody that is interested in joining our organization so that they can get a lifetime of training for pennies on the dollar. It is the greatest value in the firearms training industry, and they can also help support our efforts to positively change the image of gun ownership in our lifetimes and to create a world class facility there in the Las Vegas area. So, hopefully this has answered the questions but certainly if you have any questions along these lines feel free to email me at info@frontsight.com. Thanks very much.

Entry Filed under: Dr. Ignatius Piazza,Front Sight.