It seems after 5+ years, TravelPro is realizing that YTB is not for him and appears to be throwing in the towel. Or possibly he is being thrown under the bus by YTB. I am not quite sure, but from this blog post, it appears that instead of "spanking me", it seems he might be the one getting spanked.
I suspect that his involvement in ShoppingGenie was a little too much for YTB to take. After all it is headed by a silent founder of YTB. Ron Head is also their new face and lead distributor.
In his post, the TravelPro goes on about all of his passive streams of income (and I am a firm believer in those for sure) and it appears that one of his largest assets is the mailing list he has accumulated over the years. Doug was shrewd enough to ingratiate himself into the good graces of some very senior people at YTB and had them referencing his blog and suggesting people sign up. Right now, with the dismal number of people in YTB, I suspect that he has a contact list of everyone in YTB and a good portion of everyone who was in YTB to utilize as a prospect in his new venture--courtesy of the naivete of YTB and their management. In today's age of technology, data (and content) is king.
While I have run into many zealots over the past few years--Metre Wisham and her cocaine white Bentley, Earl from the farm and his prostitutes in Honolulu, Proud to be YTB and his $30,000 per month income from travel sales, Alphie, TravelCop, Firemedic, and the rest; none have been so persistent and zealous as Doug Bauknight. Doug put all of his eggs in the YTB basket and lived and breathed it. In his post, he references a job as being a carrot to entice people. It seems to me that YTB was simply that. Even in their latest "incentive", YTB dangles the carrot of $1 million dollars-if you recruit 27,000 people to pay $249 and $50 a month.
I think Doug finally realized this--or possibly that no matter the name change, the reputation of YTB/ZamZuu will be a detriment and there was no way he was making Director even under these reduced requirements.
As I said a few days ago, it would be interesting to watch this all unfold, and just as I thought, it is. Stay tuned!
