The Shelby American (Winter 2021)

and also liked the flexibility of work- ing for myself. SAAC: At that point, for you the club was the magazine and the conven- tions. TALBOTT: Yes. We attended a lot of the conventions and continued to do so through the 2000s. SAAC: You eventually sold your ‘69 Shelby. Why? TALBOTT: I had used the car as a track car, and I enjoyed that. But doing it over and over again was be- coming a little less enjoyable. And the car was getting more valuable. By 2006, when I sold it, there were excel- lent alteratives available to drive on the track. I got a 2007 Shelby GT500. I had that until 2016 when I traded it in on a 2016 GT350. SAAC: That was more or less a “hobby car”? You didn’t drive it every day, did you? TALBOTT: No. Because I worked out of my house I didn’t need to. Being self-employed I didn’t need a car to commute to work. In the intervening years I also owned a 2003 Mustang Cobra convertible, which was a fun car. SAAC: When you took over the mem- bership in 2009, what percentage of members were not computer compli- ant? TALBOTT: I would say that 30% to 40% felt comfortable using computers for club related activity (renewing, communicating with the membership office, using the Forum, etc.). SAAC: What is that percentage today? TALBOTT: It is much higher, perhaps 85%. SAAC: Essentially we are on an an- nual renewal system. Have you had much success with multi-year re- newals? TALBOTT: We have about 10 to 20 members who will pay for two years at a time, and have even had a couple who have paid for four years, but we don’t like to extend it beyond that. Our membership cards don’t go beyond four years. That’s not a big deal, as we can always hand-write the date, but I think club members are a bit leary of shelling out $250 (for U.S. members, or $375 for International members). SAAC: How about automatic/perpet- ual renewals? TALBOTT: We don’t offer automatic renewals. We don’t keep track of mem- bers’ credit card info in our office. We shred every bit of personal info that comes across our desk, including re- turn addresses on envelopes that we receive. We don’t offer lifetime mem- berships, either. If the club had offered a lifetime membership back in 1975, how would it have been priced? SAAC: In fact, we did offer a lifetime membership back in 1975 when we started the club. The purpose was to generate some operating capital up front, to pay for some of the start-up expenses. The initial membership dues were $12.95 and we put the price of a lifetime membership at $50. At that time, four years in the future was hard to conceive. We had no idea how long the club would last. When four members stepped up for lifetime mem- berships somebody started thinking that if we accepted a lot of these (and there was initially a lot of enthusiasm) it wouldn’t take long for the club to go broke, because having spent all of the membership money on start up, we would have a hard time paying the an- nual costs. So we cut it off at four. TALBOTT: It’s probably a good thing you did. Ten years, twenty years, twenty-five years worth of the current annual rate? The club would have gone belly-up a long time ago. Or, at least it would have been wishing some of the older members would lose in- teest in all things Shelby and cancel their memberships. And we know that would never happen. SAAC: Do you think members still want to hear from the club at least once a year, if only to be reminded to renew their membership. TALBOTT: Absolutely. We don’t want to be only a “subscription” to an an- nual magazine. We want to give mem- bers much more than that, and we do. We try to send out some form of com- munication at least once a month. SAAC: E-blasts are a good way to maintain contact with members. Is there a danger of overdoing them? TALBOTT: I don’t think that e-blasts are overdone, nor do I think there is a chance of doing that. Members have the option of turning the e-blasts off if they don’t want them, but most mem- bers want to know that SAAC is alive and well. The membership office al- ways sees an uptick in renewals after we send an e-blast out, even when it is not membership-related. SAAC: Is there a trick to identifying e-blasts so members don’t automati- cally delete them as junk mail? TALBOTT: I don’t know of a trick to prevent that. SAAC: You seem to prefer waiting as long as possible to accept convention The SHELBY AMERICAN Winter 2021 83 Swapping Shelbys. The Talbotts bid farewell to the 2007 and hello to the 2016.