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Post by atalbert on Jan 14, 2009 10:02:13 GMT -6
I am looking into joining the Bill Williams FCPGA website. Does anyone else on here belong that can give me feedback on timeliness of delivery, quality of tapes, hassles, additional costs, etc. I know its only $200, but I can find alot better ways to p-away that money if the site isn't as advertised. Thanks for any help you can give.
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Post by CoachJohnsonMN on Jan 14, 2009 11:01:21 GMT -6
You will have to pay a postage fee with each set of tapes you get (postage for them to ship it to you and for you to ship it back). It has been a couple of years since we used the service but I believe it was $9 each time. I was somewhat upset that this was not disclosed upfront. The videos were helpful and we usually received our first choices with each shipment.
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trojan
Junior Member
[F4:wingtcoach.com] [F4:wingtcoachdon]
Posts: 494
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Post by trojan on Jan 14, 2009 11:14:58 GMT -6
You will have to pay a postage fee with each set of tapes you get (postage for them to ship it to you and for you to ship it back). It has been a couple of years since we used the service but I believe it was $9 each time. I was somewhat upset that this was not disclosed upfront. The videos were helpful and we usually received our first choices with each shipment. Coach, the $9 was a total for both ways, right? Also, how many tapes did that include? Was it three? Thanks. |
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Post by CoachJohnsonMN on Jan 14, 2009 12:55:07 GMT -6
You will have to pay a postage fee with each set of tapes you get (postage for them to ship it to you and for you to ship it back). It has been a couple of years since we used the service but I believe it was $9 each time. I was somewhat upset that this was not disclosed upfront. The videos were helpful and we usually received our first choices with each shipment. Coach, the $9 was a total for both ways, right? Also, how many tapes did that include? Was it three? Thanks. The $9 covered the postage for both ways. I really don't remember for sure how many tapes came at one time but I believe it was two. |
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Post by morris on Jan 14, 2009 16:28:10 GMT -6
Is he still sending VHS or has he switched over to DVD? I keep looking at doing this. I always wondered about turn around time. I also wondered if it was year subscription type thing or a tape limit subscription? They state select 15-20 and after the welcome letter you will get 2 tapes. When you send it back you get the next 2. How do you pay for their shipping?
I will say that I have been very happy with all the Bill Williams stuff I have gotten through trades. Veyr good on technique and teaching methods. Not much fluff. You will have to get us to things like
"yes?"
"Heres the big secrete"
"Your going to love this. This is b!tchin"
"Can't coach offense unless you know?"
I am sure if we had enough people we could have a whole thread of Bill Williams words of wisdom.
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Post by tiger8387 on Jan 14, 2009 16:57:49 GMT -6
Is he still sending VHS or has he switched over to DVD? I keep looking at doing this. I always wondered about turn around time. I also wondered if it was year subscription type thing or a tape limit subscription? They state select 15-20 and after the welcome letter you will get 2 tapes. When you send it back you get the next 2. How do you pay for their shipping? As of this moment the tapes I get from him are all on VHS. For the past year I think I averaged 2 deliveries of tapes from him 2 times per month (4 total tapes). The faster you return tapes the faster the next shipment comes in general... I have to drop the tapes into a USPS envelope and pay shipping of about $5 for two tapes. I live in California though. The postage will go up with distance to Bill in Poway (near San Diego). Keep in mind this is in addition to the $9 check each time you sent Bill for exchanging two tapes. If you want more tapes I believe he has a 3 or 4 tape option but then you have to pay $14 per shipment. Membership price may be higher on that deal as well??? I had some tapes on my list of 25 for the entire year that I never got to view. You are subject to what is available at any point in time (supply and demand). Some are easy to get and some are hard. To Bill's credit though if you really have to have something he can usually work to set it aside somehow and get it to you eventually. He is very reasonable to work with and full of good stories! Tape content quality varies a lot with the presenter. Some I turned off after 15 minutes. Others I recorded and have re-watched several times. For the year it adds up a bit more than I realized: $200 to join for one year on the two tape package $130 postage ($5 times 26 exchanges) $234 per two tape exchange ($9 times 26) About $534 in total if my feeble math skills are right for exchanging a total of 52 tapes??? |
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Post by Mav on Jan 14, 2009 21:12:16 GMT -6
Is he still sending VHS or has he switched over to DVD? I keep looking at doing this. I always wondered about turn around time. I also wondered if it was year subscription type thing or a tape limit subscription? They state select 15-20 and after the welcome letter you will get 2 tapes. When you send it back you get the next 2. How do you pay for their shipping? As of this moment the tapes I get from him are all on VHS. For the past year I think I averaged 2 deliveries of tapes from him 2 times per month (4 total tapes). The faster you return tapes the faster the next shipment comes in general... I have to drop the tapes into a USPS envelope and pay shipping of about $5 for two tapes. I live in California though. The postage will go up with distance to Bill in Poway (near San Diego). Keep in mind this is in addition to the $9 check each time you sent Bill for exchanging two tapes. If you want more tapes I believe he has a 3 or 4 tape option but then you have to pay $14 per shipment. Membership price may be higher on that deal as well??? I had some tapes on my list of 25 for the entire year that I never got to view. You are subject to what is available at any point in time (supply and demand). Some are easy to get and some are hard. To Bill's credit though if you really have to have something he can usually work to set it aside somehow and get it to you eventually. He is very reasonable to work with and full of good stories! Tape content quality varies a lot with the presenter. Some I turned off after 15 minutes. Others I recorded and have re-watched several times. For the year it adds up a bit more than I realized: $200 to join for one year on the two tape package $130 postage ($5 times 26 exchanges) $234 per two tape exchange ($9 times 26) About $534 in total if my feeble math skills are right for exchanging a total of 52 tapes??? tiger, very good post. That's precisely what I was going to present concerning the FCPGA -- especially the hidden ~$30 per month. I recently received a marketing mail piece from them -- still no mention of this add'l cost. Many of the videos are full of incredibly detailed information. But because they're not edited it takes a couple of hours to watch many of them. Not quite worth the $$ for us. |
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Post by red2slam on Jan 15, 2009 7:52:53 GMT -6
I love bill william tapes and his service. BUT it take long for me to figure out, that it much cheaper to contact "other" and get the same amount of stuff for a lot less. You have to have set, have some buisness sense and it is their for the taking.
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Post by atalbert on Jan 15, 2009 8:33:09 GMT -6
Thanks for the posts, guys - that is exactly what I was looking for. I am looking for some good material on installing the 3-5 and saw Bill had a couple different sets. Any other suggestions on where to get the material (other than searching on here)?
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20x
Junior Member
Posts: 380
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Post by 20x on Jan 15, 2009 11:36:09 GMT -6
Well I think Bill Williams FCPGA is a great resource. For the money, yeah over the course of the year you'll spend $500-600, but if you take a staff out of town to a clinic and spend the night how much does that cost??
I generally received new tapes every ten days, but it was a priority to get them duplicated and sent back ASAP. Hopefully the next day. If you do this for a couple of years you can really build a library for your program. Talk about being able to coach up your assistants, or maybe let your youth program/middle school coaches learn from them.
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Post by ajreaper on Jan 15, 2009 23:19:52 GMT -6
Bill is a hoot for sure but for the cost you could own outright 12 or so DVD's a year vs. borrowing VHS tapes. And even if you make a copy it's still acopy of a copy that not going to be great in quality. Heck in my office I cannot even watch a VHS tape I'd have to go to the defensive office and that's out of the question  |
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Post by poorbob on Jan 16, 2009 6:13:00 GMT -6
Can you buy the tapes on there without signing up? Are they available anywhere else?
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Post by Mav on Jan 16, 2009 8:26:57 GMT -6
If he simply went from VHS tapes to DVDs the shipping costs would drop significantly. Here's a rough example staying with his current use of USPS Priority Mail --
VHS -
......to return -- $6 twice a month = $12/mo = $144/yr
......shipping and handling $$ sent back w/tapes -- $9 twice a month = $18/mo = $216/yr
......Total S/H per yr = $360
DVD -
......to return -- $2.50 twice a month = $5/mo = $60/yr
......shipping and handling $$ sent back w/tapes -- $6 twice a month = $12/mo = $144/yr
......Total S/H per yr = $204
Total shipping savings(staying with Priority Mail) -- $156 per year
Note: if he went to 1st Class Mail($1.50 per shipment) the saving would be about $200 per year. The total cost of membership would drop from ~$560 to ~$400 per year.
Or better yet, put the videos online and completely eliminate the shipping and media costs. The investment in hardware and bandwidth would be recovered very quickly.
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Post by morris on Jan 16, 2009 8:34:17 GMT -6
Can you buy the tapes on there without signing up? Are they available anywhere else? He has a small amount of tapes he just sells. They are about 90.00 or so. He does not "sell" tapes past that. The club is more along the lines of NetFlix but you are given the ok to copy them. |
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Post by oguru on Jan 16, 2009 16:58:15 GMT -6
I was a member from 1999-2001 and then agaion 2005-2007. I love the FCPGA. it was mentioned that you ahve to send payment with the return of the tapes. At elast when I was a member. I have over 200 some topics on football from him. I focused on coaches I wanted to learn from such as Mike Sanford, or Milt Tenopir or Jeff Genyk who supped for someone else. All of the Mike Sanford and Milt Tenopir tapes are awesome,and I would highly suggest you get them yest it is an investment, but it is definitely worth the time and effort.
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