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