When you think of bullying you tend to think of the awkward middle school and high school kids. Not necessary from a vender in our community

Stay classy and be the better person/company. You've got a great following and are respected by a lot of the community.

Glad to see you moving in this direction, @lrobbi. Whoever is doing the manufacturing of the knock-off part, and marketing to Slingmods, will just have to deal with the karma they have coming.

And unfortunately, that *is* how business works, and we all know it, it just sucks to have the lesson applied so personally and so close to home. Keep your head up, and we'll keep spreading the good word for your products and customer service.

Well sheeeeet ! Thanks for the post

@lrobbi. This splains the “other” thread. Stay strong buddy.

You are truly a Class Act! Wish you all the best in your endeavor.

Ok, the poll thread to me painted a larger strong arm situation. I read your transcript @lrobbi as Slingmods giving you a heads up and offering you that slot vs. the "bigger company". The $20m mention, seems to be less an asshole thing and more a, "we can move a lot of your item for you" thing. Unless it was different than you just laid out, I think Slingmods was above board.

Sure it took you showing decent sales for them to respond to you, but it seems once your numbers were showing well they chose to give you first crack to sell the item with them.

Outside looking in. Best of luck to all, unless it was a malicious , predatory encounter.

What?!?

Wow... Did not expect that from SM.C... If it was Instagram though, I wonder who was doing the typing? I don't know who the head honcho is there, but maybe someone will be getting in trouble for bad tactics...

You know we have your back though Robbi!

Now what's your Instagram? I don't follow you yet...

@lrobbi although this situation should never have occurred, like you said it is just added inspiration to move forward and continue improving. It does suck to hear the vendor involved in this as I have always held them in high regards. I am in the works of potentially bringing a product to market and my first thought was to bring it to slingmods, but I will have to definitely rethink this now. Either way keep your head up brother because you are doing great things and I look forward to seeing more from you.

Wow never in a million years would I have guessed that @slingmods was the offender, I would have bet my left nut it was the other guy.

Sorry @lrobbi that you had such an immature person reply and bully you.

@SlingMods Brandon @SlingMods_Josh , I know you are in it to make money but this type of reply is something that is done by a 14 y/o in highschool that doesn't know better.

Even if they were not going to do business with lrobbi this type of response should have never taken place.

As I said in the other thread, I think miscommunication occurred... Especially because it was through Instagram... If all staff have access to the account, and someone decides to try and get a new product using that medium, well...

Slingmods has had their issues, but it's what is done once that has been communicated that separates them. All the staff isn't perfect, but once the main dudes hear of it, they address it. No doubt that will happen here...

As someone else said, family first... I think, I hope, slingmods gets that...

Perhaps I am not fully understanding this. you say you were surprised when your daughter informed you that slingmods wanted to be a vendor of your products, but you were already with someone else and doing fine

Can I ask why you only want your products to be sold by one vendor? if you agreed on a deal with Kev where he would have the exclusive rights to distribute thats great, I just want to understand.

the reason why I ask is because I like it when I have a choice of vendors. sometimes I prefer to buy from an out of state vendor to avoid sales tax, other times I might like a vendor located closer to home to reduce shipping costs and time, and I always like that they have to compete with each other for my dollars thus helping to insure that prices remain under control

anyway, just corious

thanks

Passion is an extremely great attribute to have, but needs to be well harnessed in business negotiations.

It seems to me like you have a good problem. Distributors want your item/s. I don't fully understand why you think you are being bullied? It seems like pretty normal distribution contract negotiation talk to me (other than reaching out on IG with somewhat relaxed punctuation). Why not just call up Kieth and setup a real meeting about what is going on to hash everything out? I can't say I know everyone from Slingmods, but the people I do know are great! Its hard to have these type of conversations over text and email and sometimes you need to call or take a flight to have a more meaningful discussion.

Sorry to see everyone so worked up about this. It seems silly to get angry/upset with Slingmods or any other distributor for trying to lock down exclusive distribution contracts with manufactures. These type of agreements should protect both parties.

And like I said on the other thread, if it's a 3rd party (completely dissociated with Slingmods) who is doing the knock-off production, then it's less about Slingmods and more about this 3rd party.

You have our full support!
I will be ordering a wind screen shortly as soon as I wrap up some other work on the Sling.

Amazing thing about free market is it is our choice not theirs where we make our purchases...

Stay strong Brother you have a huge family standing behind you - Mess with @lrobbi you mess with his family!

Quote from lrobbi

When you think of bullying you tend to think of the awkward middle school and high school kids. Not necessary from a vender in our community

I am not writing this seeking anything from anyone, sympathy or what have you. My thought is actually there is a lot of positive things going on in the Slingshot Family. Community events, charities and fundraisers and the list goes on. I have owned my SS since 2015, three years next month when my wife told me to go buy it and said Happy Birthday! Since then I have been part of this great community. When I decided to be a Vendor, I kept in mind why I was doing this. It was NOT to get rich and over charge everyone and nickel and dime them out there hard earned salary. I actually went back and looked at how often I made DIY projects and shared the details for others. I have sent templates to other forum members and have held wrench days at my home and invited many other forum members to join and break bread in fellowship. I do my best look at ways to give to charities that our Slingshot community has grown into.

As a customer of many vendors, never would have thought that after spending 3K or possible more of my own hard earned money with SlingMods, they would use a bully tactic to try to “encourage” me to sign with them. My first thought was what??….Why would a solid company like SlingMods need to use these tactics, they have a solid business model and a large market base.

I had reached out to them months ago when I first was setting up everything to go live. I sent two messages and I believe a third after a set of PRP seats was mistakenly sent to my house… I reached out again. I heard nothing back so I moved on and continued to get things set up for my launch of R-Shot Accessories. I signed up with another vender, (All things Slingshot) Kev and I have been doing pretty solid business since our short time.

So when I say it came a surprise to me when my daughter told me that Slingmods was interested in being a vender. (Instagram post) I thought wow… well darn I am already with someone else and I am doing fine and getting my feet wet nicely.

My response back was; “ Sorry for the delayed response as I have been busy with business sales, Thank you for the message but I currently have a distributor for my R-Shot Windscreen”. Thinking that was the end… Nope.. NOT so fast!

SlingMods response, “U do know we do 20 Million in sales”

I figured that they do a great deal of sales and that is awesome… who would not think that.

My response; “I did not realize that, however I would like to extend my deepest congratulations and wishes for your continued success.”

SlingMods respons; “Well thank u, another larger company has approached us with a competing product that well be launching. We figured we wed give u first shot at our relationship, we understand that you may not be able to handle our volume, best of luck to u.”

My response…. None.

After there response - there is nothing to say - not even needed - I will keep enjoying and setting up wrench days, and enjoy coming up with ideas, some I can share and at the same time give back to the community. But yesterday I struggled with the fact of a larger vendors attempt to push its weight around on someone who might be new to this sales game yet has been around long enough to know that bullying tactics is everywhere in corporate america. Although it kind of pissed me off… I smiled this morning and said to god, thank you for another day because now I am even more determined to succeed. SO I guess I owe them a thank you! Thank you SlingMods, I wish you NO ill will what so ever, I hope to hear your a 40 million dollars a year company next year with continued success.

I confided in two other forum members and that is what lead to the poll. I did not mean to get one of my brothers so wired up and I do apologize to him for getting his blood pressure up…. but you know when you have really really great friends and brother hood in this Slingshot Community… they will go to hell and back for you.

Thank you

This is done and over, I have moved on - so we don’t need to hash it out. Lets get some riding in today!!! and start more MODS.

thanks all and consider this a new biggining

Lewis R.

R-Shot Accessories

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Hello Lewis, I apologize on behalf of my company on you how you were spoken to. As our company grows, so does our staff. We diligently put forth our best efforts to instill our code of ethics into each individual employee… but we can’t possibly monitor every response before it’s sent. Believe me, I wish I could.

We previously delegated the recruit of new business opportunities to a few staff members... that apparently need a bit more training.

We do appreciate your business as a customer, respect your integrity as a philanthropist and are glad to see others entering into the aftermarket parts arena to keep the Slingshot alive and moving forward!

Although, the message was sent in poor taste… I think the attempt was to reach out to you to see if you were interested in expanding distribution on your products. We can respect the fact that you have chosen to work with only 1 distributor at this time and do honestly wish you the best in your endeavors.

If you decide to open up distribution on your products at a later date, we’re open for discussion!

Thanks,
Keith

I may know nothing on mechanics, but damn I'm a pretty good guesser on these other things...

But y'all are just like my wife, hardly ever admitting I was right... And yeah, I annoy her too about it...

Glad it has potential to workout!

Like I said, someone else behind the touchscreen... Poor communication in a non professional medium...

And now I know the head honcho... Keith! Pleasure to virtually meet you!

I have always had a good relationship with Slingmods since I made what I recall was one of their first ten sales around Christmas of 2015. Never had an issue in thousands of dollars of orders. Having said that, Lewis is one of my local sling family members. Enjoyed leading him and others from the Wrecking Crew on rides in my neck of the woods in the Blue Ridge foothills. Year before last he made the journey out to my house after a day of work to help install my side exit exhaust-just another example of having friends like him (and the Rock, Jdin, Wraith, Ethermion etc.). I can state unequivocally that any item of his that is pirated/sold by another vendor will never reach my address regardless of price. I am retired from over forty years in sales and understand the difference between legality and ethics. My brothers in the Wrecking Crew are the closest thing I have found since Special Warfare Group Atlantic. Go Crew, Go Navy.