What if I told you there is a place were beer doesn’t flow like wine? Where you won’t get judged for wearing something other than a trucker hat, puffy jacket, and flannel? Where $1,500 a month gets you a large home instead of a cramped apartment?

I’m talking about a little place called Anywhere-but-Aspen.

After three and a half years in Edwards, CO, two things are changing and the more I think about them, the more realize how relevant they are to marketing to people like me.

Change #1) Man-to-Man Defense
As Snowbasin’s Jason Dyer put it when I talked to him about entering such a life-stage:

“Yep, we went from the zone to the man-to-man defense.

In other words, Kim and I are expecting our second in September.

Ever since Callie was born, a very clear shift in the way we use our vacation time took place. Our increased desire to be with family meant that we were spending a huge portion of our vacation time just traveling. This was especially tricky because the she was/is a lousy sleeper and hated (understatement) the car.

Meaning that if The Dos (as we call him/her) is anything like Callie, there will be an even greater conflict between reality and desire.

Change #2) Paying for Steak I Don’t Want
Edwards isn’t a full-fledged mountain town (we do have a Wendy’s, after all), but even still I sometimes feel like all I want for mid-life supper is a baked potato (simple mountain life) but have to pay for the sirloin steak (upscale resort lifestyle) to get it.

Toss in a the baby factor plus a dozen others and we realized that, for lack of better words, it’s time to move. So, as of April 27, the Blanchard family will be living in Eden, Utah.

Corey and Ryan Solutions are totally, amazingly supportive so nothing about my job changes, but we’ll actually have a chance of buying a home in the near future, be an hour from family, and still live right in the mountains.

Not a bad gig. Like I’ve said a dozen times, I’m a lucky man.

What This Means
The more I think about these changes and what they mean in terms of marketing to someone in my life stage, the more I realize a few, important things about the messages that resonate.

#1) The “Day” Keeps Getting Pushed
The “day” (meaning the day we can truly recreate or ski as a family) is something I see people skiers (and occasionally resorts) talk about when addressing parents like me. If we stopped at Callie, the “day” could be a couple years away (or sooner), but every new child effectively hits the reset button.

We’re very excited about baby #2, but it will be a while before “almost there” is really “almost there” again which reduces relevance of that reference from resorts/skiers for a while.

#2) Mountain Town Life Doesn’t Resonate
I’ve talked a few times recently about how resort stories that feature pros or locals just don’t resonate with skiers while stories about people like them do.

While this is true on a broad scale, this has become increasingly true for me as I move further into this stage of life.

#3) Skiing Still Isn’t #1
I love being a dad and I love doing things with my family and I love both much, much more than skiing. So even with the greatest offers, I may still not act until doing so doesn’t mean leaving them at home.

That’s just the way it seems to be during this stretch of life for a lot of people.

Long Story Short
In the world of branding, marketing dollars go toward building relationships that may not blossom for months, years, or decades.

I think the same mentality needs to happen with the hundreds of thousands of skiers who are in this stage of life.

Like me, they may not buy anything significant this year or the next or even the next, but if you can build that relationship with me (us) in the interim and be first in line when that day comes, that could be a powerful position to find yourself in.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.