Star Resort Group (Scottsdale, AZ), a leading developer, marketer and seller of resort real estate in North America, has reacted to the business climate with a “cautious optimism” when it comes to fractional ownership.

Carl Berry, CEO of Star Resort Group and pioneer in the shared ownership resort industry, notes that there are key hard steps and soft steps to success in making the product work in 2010-2011.

Steps to Success

1. Know the market. Are people ready to buy? Star Resort Group’s SMART assessment program surveyed customers to determine this factor. Surprisingly, in late 2009 and early 2010 the results have been surprisingly positive.

2. Know new media and new media lead generation. There’s lots of talk about web sites on steroids, social media, blogging, search engine marketing, EDM marketing, pairing with industry websites, with real estate broker websites and the like. There’s lots of talk out there. But, how does one make it work?

3. Get a CRM program (such as SalesForce.com) to capture all these new media leads in a format that works for 24/7 and gives permitted users access 24/7 to track prospects and sales.

4. Get the right project. Sounds simple doesn’t it? But, the core adage of location still holds true, quality building is still important, stylish furnishings are still necessary, and the correct size for the bulk of the market is paramount.

5. Determine the right share size to sell. Offer multiple share sizes. Be innovative in the use plan. Have a common sense reservation plan. All this sounds simple, but this is the area where success or failure will largely be defined.

6. Build the HOA budget with a combination of ‘built-in’ services and other a la carte services. The balance in this task is to meet the expectations of the owner for carefree vacations with an annual fee that makes sense as it’s applied to their use. At Star we’ve done a full 180 going from all-inclusive to a combination of included services and extras. Naturally, there’s no fooling with the maintenance and reserves for replacement part of the budget.

7. Deliver a level of hospitality management that will fulfill the owner’s expectations.

8. Educate and train the selling staff in the science of how to sell fractions. There’s no ‘art’ here; just the science of knowing the product and documents; to be unconsciously conscious in the presentation; and to fully understand the decision making process of the buyer who are concerned first with personal use and second with ongoing costs. Lastly the staff should understand that maybe one of the buying ‘unit’ will want the fraction more than the other, so if there is an ‘art’ it’s bringing along the trailing buyer.

9. Sales of documentation and registration in selling jurisdictions are necessary and must be accomplished before hard sales begin.

10. Marketing from Branding to EDMs, from Old to New Media must be skillfully planned and executed to first fill the customer pipeline with qualified leads; and secondly, to keep the pipeline full for the selling staff.

11. Administration and escrow management is vital for this process and translates the product into cash in the final analysis. Does the title and escrow company accept credit card down payments? Can a documented sale be closed within 30-days?

12. Purchase financing is mandatory. At this time there is no third-party financing available due the financial collapse of September 2008. Therefore, developers have to make the loans and warehouse the loans until they can be sold. Star estimates that will be mid-2011.

The twelve steps above are all ‘soft’ steps.

The ‘hard’ steps involve product:

Product to Sell

1. The ideal situation is to have completed product, completely furnished, with all amenities in and ready to use. However, presales are sometimes necessary and provide an advantage in that, last minute configurations to the product can be made based on customer response. If presales have commenced, a firm construction loan needs to be in place, subject to the presale requirement, so the buyer can expect a semi-firm date for construction to begin and occupancy to occur. At Star we’ve sold in all situations. In a recovering market like there is today, the more certainty the better.

2. Before there can be new product to sell there’s the total lack of development and construction financing, and also buyer financing. These markets are still frozen save for a very few isolated cases of local banks continuing to work with their developers. The vise banks find themselves in is that on one hand the Federal government says to, ‘Get the money out’, and on the other hand the FDIC auditors say, ‘Don’t you dare make any loans’. This is a nationwide situation.

3. The current end loan options out there are:

A. The developer makes and holds the balloon loans for the 3, 5 or 7 year period.
B. Some brokers are working with developers to ‘package’ their developer-made loans in the right form to be sold, if and when the market opens up.
C. Lastly, some developers are just stuck as they don’t have the capacity to get releases from their lender, save for all cash sales or huge down payments, and to then carry the paper themselves.

4. There’s been talk of private money coming in for the loans, but there’s also the consensus that private money will flow first to timeshare loans as they yield is much higher than for fractions.

The real question is how will fractional developers move beyond potential stumbling blocks to successfully bring in those who want quality, vacation home living at an affordable price?

Star Resorts is a leading developer, marketer and seller of luxury fractional ownership real estate, private residence clubs, timeshares, and whole ownership resort real estate products in The Americas and soon in Europe.  Star Resorts provides sales and marketing, development and management expertise to developers throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico and Central America. The Company also develops resort projects for its own account, and is unique in that aspect.

Find out how Star Resorts can assist in the development of your project. www.starresortgroup.com

Trident Business Management has recently announced the launch of its new website to serve the needs of its existing and prospective clients and has named the first two members of its prestigious Advisory Board.
The Trident website (www.tridentbusinessmanagement.com) was created to help companies in the lodging and timeshare sectors of the leisure industry. It features information about the company, services provided, and professional credentials of the Managing Partners, James (Jimmy) Danz RRP and William (Bill) Tsao, two of the timeshare industry’s most respected senior level operating executives.

Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Trident Business Management is an implementation-based business solutions organization created to aid companies in need of highly specialized operational expertise and management services. Trident clients generally require corporate, financial, or operational improvement, which may include short-term crisis management, longer-term stabilization, repositioning and growth management.

Adds Bill Tsao, “We formed Trident Business Management to help bring positive change to our industry at this critical time. To help us accomplish this ambitious objective, we assembled a best-in-class group of professionals to serve as our Advisory Partners.”

“Our Advisory Partners are widely acknowledged as successful business executives and respected authorities in their respective areas of expertise within the lodging and timeshare sectors of the leisure industry,” adds Danz. “Since every client has a unique set of challenges, these Advisory Partners will provide us with strategic guidance and support, working with us as a collaborative team to customize solutions as we match them with each client’s individual needs.”

Sunil Aluvila

The first two Advisory Partners named by Danz and Tsao are Sunil Aluvila and Steven C. Hicks.
Sunil Aluvila is an innovator in marketing, product development, and the application of emerging technology for the vacation rental and ownership industry. He will assist Trident Business Management clients in these highly specialized areas. For the past 19 years he has amassed extensive experience in strategic planning, interactive marketing, vacation club product development, e-business development, and online distribution of vacation products. He served in a senior management capacity with Shell Vacations Club, heading market research, vacation club product and loyalty development and development of interactive sales systems. He founded Vibes Interactive in 2005 to build and support a customer acquisition, retention and value maximization platform that connects vacation ownership and vacation rental companies with customers in creative ways to deliver measurable results. Under Sunil’s leadership, Vibes has developed a suite of innovative interactive sales and marketing products for the vacation rental and ownership industry. In 2007, a joint venture was forged with Interval International (NASDAQ: ILG) to use Vibes’ interactive marketing platform to develop and support VacationSource.com, an aggregate tour generation and vacation rental portal for Interval International’s affiliate resorts. www.vibesinteractive.com

Steven C. Hicks

As founding president of Resort Management Advisors, Steve Hicks is one of the vacation ownership industry’s most respected senior property management professionals. He will assist Trident clients requiring his expertise in his highly specialized field. During his professional career spanning 28 years, Hicks has property management leadership encompassing more than 50 resorts, 60 owner associations with 300 board members and over 3,000 employees, responsible for developer and owner association assets in excess of $1 billion. Prior to the formation of RMA, Hicks served for more than 25 years, as President of Shell Vacations Hospitality, building that company from three properties to more than 20 resorts in the US and Canada with over one thousand hospitality employees serving under his leadership. Hicks also served as Vice President for all 23 North American resorts for Diamond Resorts International and in the same capacity for ResortCom International, a resort management company located in San Diego. Hicks is a Certified Hotel Administrator (CHA) and ARDA Registered Resort Professional (RRP). www.resortmanagementadvisors.com

About Trident Business Management
Trident Business Management is a leading business solutions firm focused on serving the lodging and timeshare sectors of the leisure industry. The firm’s expertise is in its industry-specific and operationally-centric knowledge and experience.  The Scottsdale, Arizona-based company is led by Managing Partners Jim Danz and Bill Tsao, who bring more than 40 combined years of senior management experience to the aid of their clients.  The firm specializes in delivering results in these critical disciplines:  restructuring and turnarounds, asset management, merger & acquisition advisory, financial advisory, and performance improvement. Trident is highly differentiated from consultant and advisory companies by its implementation and performance-based orientation.  For more information, visit www.TridentBusinessManagement.com

Operating Mantra – “Performance, Not Plans”

Two of the timeshare and lodging industry’s most respected senior level operating executives have collaborated to launch a new business management organization, created to aide companies in need of highly specialized operational expertise and management services.

Utilizing their four decades of combined operations management expertise, Managing Partners James (Jimmy) Danz RRP and William (Bill) Tsao, founded Trident Business Management, an implementation-based business solutions group, based in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Trident Business Management was created to provide management services for companies in need of corporate, financial, or operational improvement. This includes short-term crisis management, longer-term stabilization, repositioning and growth management.

William "Bill" Tsao

Explains Bill Tsao, “We recognize that the timeshare industry is in the midst of an evolutionary phase. The sudden vanishing of capital can be both destructive and cathartic. After hundreds of hours of discussions with top developers, lenders, strategists, lawyers, and respected industry-operating executives, we have identified a huge void in terms of a solid solution to the crisis. We formed Trident Business Management to help bring positive change to our industry at this critical time. Our past experiences, our contacts and strategic resources have positioned us well to participate in some much-needed change to the outdated and under-performing 30-year-old business model of timeshare.”

How will this be accomplished? “Instead of just focusing on cost containment and expense renegotiation,” adds Jimmy Danz, “we provide the operational experience and intimate understanding of a business that is critical in knowing how to open new revenue channels from existing assets that have not been properly leveraged. For some consulting companies or global rescue firms, it’s all about business plans. For us, it’s all about execution and differentiation from past practices. We back this philosophy by scaling our compensation toward performance and execution … without the cost of global overhead. While many companies espouse theory, at Trident, we believe in the principal of performance, not plans and stake the majority of our compensation on a success model with performance-based success fees instead of guaranteed fees with no guarantee of success.”

Trident Business Management is an operationally centric “all-inclusive” business solution company that has assembled a best-in-class group of professionals (the Trident Advisory Partners) who are widely respected authorities in their areas of expertise within the lodging and timeshare sectors of the leisure industry. Since every client has a unique set of challenges, these Advisory Partners will work with Trident leadership as a collaborative team to customize solutions, matching the right experts and specific talent to each client’s needs.

The two managing partners have spent their careers as senior operating executives, not as consultants, and have a solid reputation for integrity, ethics and sound business practices. In their previous executive positions as senior strategists and tacticians, the programming and implementation guidance provided by Danz and Tsao were key drivers in the procurement of nearly $1.5 billion dollars in net sales volume for some of the country’s largest vacation ownership companies.

James "Jimmy" Danz

Danz is internationally recognized as an expert in partnering corporate alliances with enterprise strategies, initiatives and objectives. His professional experience has also included equity partnerships, senior-level executive and consultancy roles for Diamond Resorts International®, Princeton Resorts Group, Starwood Hotels, Conrad Hilton International, Vistana Resorts, ACCOR Vacation Club and Success Marketing. The five-time Gold ARDY winner has held Board of Director seats for the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and is the current Chairman of the ARDA Meetings Council and the ARDA Sales and Marketing Forum. He also sits on the Board of the American Tele-Services Association (ATA) and is the current Chairman of the ATA Political Action Committee.

Bill Tsao is a results-driven executive with a broad range of senior-level experience encompassing both domestic and international business operations. His background features a successful track record in driving revenue growth and winning market share, primarily in turnaround, start-up and high growth situations. His 18-year industry experience includes equity partnerships, senior-level executive and consultancy roles for Casablanca Express, Sunterra Resorts, Pacific Resorts International Inc., International Cruise & Excursions, Vacation Marketing Systems Inc., Raintree Resorts International and Diamond Resorts International®. Tsao has a proven career track record in driving multi-national and multi-site projects. He has been a frequent guest speaker at the ARDA National Convention and is a past board member for the Arizona Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) Annual Golf Tournament, which was the largest MDA Golf Tournament in the nation.

About Trident Business Management
Trident Business Management is a leading business solutions firm focused on serving the lodging and timeshare sectors of the leisure industry. The firm’s expertise is in its industry-specific and operationally-centric knowledge and experience.  The Scottsdale, Arizona-based company is led by Managing Partners Jim Danz and Bill Tsao, who bring more than 40 combined years of senior management experience to the aid of their clients.  The firm specializes in delivering results in these critical disciplines:  restructuring and turnarounds, asset management, merger & acquisition advisory, financial advisory, and performance improvement.   Trident is highly differentiated from consultant and advisory companies by its implementation and performance-based orientation.  For more information, visit www.TridentBusinessManagement.com