Last week we blogged about the arrows that market leader Exclusive Resorts endures, sometimes deserved, but often simply because they’re the pioneer. The fast followers like Crescendo, Quintess and Private Escapes enjoy the advantage of learning from the early guys’ mistakes and piggy-backing on their financial, legal and regulatory premises.

But being a fast follower ain’t all donuts & milkshakes. In the case of destination clubs, selling the club model as a category is an easy sale. Stacked against the alternatives of timeshares, vacation homes and single-destination clubs, it has immediate appeal.

But having to explain why your club is better than the other guy…that’s a different story. Lots of hair-splitting on dozens of parameters and philosophical discussions of equity vs non-equity. Ever-tweaked membership models have changed an expensive purchase into an expensive and complex purchase. And don’t forget to multiply that complexity times 2 spouses.

If you really had to listen to the waiter explain the distinctions of Coke and Pepsi, you might just decide you’re not all that thirsty right now.

Luckily for Exclusive Resorts, Steve Case recognized the appeal of the model and the advantages of grabbing market share early. He backed up his money truck and eliminated the chicken/egg problem most new clubs face. Instead of carefully balancing member acquisition revenue with real estate spending, Exclusive Resorts hit the gas on both.

Great timing. Back in the day (i.e., last year), conventional wisdom was that Exclusive was signing 50-100 members each month with a mix of direct mail and some phone chitchat. We haven’t heard this verified by Exclusive Resorts, but it seems pretty obvious that they had a disproportionate share of the early adopters and others for whom the general destination club model formed a perfect fit. It also didn’t hurt that Case’s involvement injected lots of attention to the segment and credibility to the company.

It’s a different story now. We’re hearing that the newer clubs are enjoying lots of lookie-loos, but working like dogs to close them. CEOs are personally meeting prospects and holding their hands through the nuanced model and unique advantages of their particular club. Considering that these new clubs locked down their spreadsheets (and their CEOs) with hearty assumptions of Exclusive Resorts-like signups, maybe it’s not so bad being the pioneer, arrows and all.