Opinions on 'club merchandise'

I would maybe send out an email to a bunch of clubs or something, tell them what you offer, show them examples and give them a ruff price on stuff.

They can then relay that info to their members...

I think its cool that you can do stuff for the clubs like this, but I can also see how some might find it a problem as well.

I would take the logos you have drawn up already, and cut one of each out just to use as an example of your work.

"GET STROKED" (THE COMPANY YOUR TALKING ABOUT) AND KIK , CALL ME BEFORE ANY ITEMS ARE RELEASED AT SHOWS OR OVER THE NET ,,THERE GRATE PEOPLE AT BOTH PLACES !!! I HAVE NO PROBLEM YOU HAVING MY LOGO ,, IT MAKES IT EASYER FOR YOU AND OUR MEMBERS TO GET ITEMS FROM YOU MUCH FASTER !!! SO HIT ME UP AND ILL GET YOU A COPY OF THE FILE

Ok, I dont know why my last post didnt show up on here, but it explained it out in more detail...but here is my take on this,

Get Stroked has never and never will "steal" or "duplicate" ANY clubs logo. We have never had to. We started this company after the East Coast Bowling Nats in February when the clubs at that event went nuts over our bowling pins that we made as their "Best Of" awards.

EVERY club logo we display has been received by a member of that club. We dont just go "Well, lets make that clubs plaques and see how it goes" that would be silly, a waste of time and money for us and it is not the right way to do business.

We actually do the bulk of our business with companies and businesses. These clubs came to US. At every show we will have a club approach us and say "Where is our club? How come you dont have our club plaques out here?". Our response is the same every weekend "Because your club has not requested us to do so and we wont make them until the proper person has asked us to". It is then that they will email us their logo.

The ONLY WAY we will do a clubs logo on our merchandise is if we have a member or president EMAIL US THE LOGO, that way we have a name to give if someone says we "stole" it and also then we can know we went through the proper steps to get that club our merchandise and it was done by THEIR REQUEST ONLY.

In fact, most of our requests come directly from the Presidents of said clubs and if they have not come directly from the Presidents, we have since then, spoke with them and gotten a second approval. We do business with dozens of clubs big and small and if we dont recognize them as being a member of that club, we ask them to bring up a member with them to make their purchases or have a higher up member of that club contact us for approval. But like I said, this has NEVER been an issue.

Why would someone want a club plaque with a club name on it that he doesnt belong to?? Can someone answer that for me since that seems to be the big question here. This community would call a poser like that out so fast it would make his head spin and I am sure most of you would agree with me on that. Also, I think everyone that knows us personally would agree that the two of us running this company (yeah, just two of us) combined know at least one person from every club out there...we are at a car show over 45 weekends out of 52 every year and we get the approvals we need from the right people.....ALWAYS!

It sadens us to think there are people that feel what we are doing is disrespectful. We never intended to upset anyone. We dont sell club shirts, club stickers or club hats, we sell art...and that is all it is.

We do what we do because we were asked to, not because we saw the dollar. It takes alot of time and money to get these out there and we charge a very small amount of money for them.

Club pride, most will agree, is strong in this community and all we wanted to do was give clubs more ways to express their club families in their homes, shops and businesses and we are VERY proud to say we are doing just that.

Never once has a person approached us at a show and said what we were doing is wrong and we dont feel it is at all. Anyone that knows us knows we are not only going through the proper channels doing this but we are doing it for YOU GUYS. When the requests stop, we will stop.

If you check out our website, you will see that club merchandise is just a small percentage of our business. We specialize in ART, hot rod art, skateboards, mailboxes, bowling pins, switch plates...etc....we didnt sit on a couch and say "Hey how can we make a dollar off the clubs?" We would never do that. The man doing this art is an artist, he loves doing it and I support him in that, and always will. To say it is wrong is hurtful to us when the last thing we would ever do is disrespect the clubs that we call friends. We hang out with these clubs every weekend at shows, have dinners with them and share laughs and good times with them.

We welcome any questions or comments anyone might have on this issue and hope this post can shed some light on this issue.

We would also like to thank all of our supporters and friends...without you guys, we are nothing!

In closing I would just like to say this....We are minitruckers too, we supply a service that was asked of us, it is as simple as that. What would you do if you had a friend say "Hey, can you make me one of those with our club on it?"...cause that is what it was...FRIENDS asking FRIENDS and isnt that what all of this is about?

Thank you to all for your continued support and love!

Jen
Get Stroked
www.getstroked.com

yeah, get a contact in the club that can contact the state rep of the person who is trying to order so they can confirm the member. thats how KIK does it, and i know FBI does it if you try to order one of the club mirrors.

Well currently i have RA, EKSESSIV and Aftermath logos done, and I've only cut the Aftermath logos (did about 20).

The other thing I can do is just convert the CAD files I have to a standard jpeg and then people can see those without me actually having cut a finished product. Or I can just list the logos that I do have on file. Then once I did cut one for a customer I would use that as an example on my site.Either way I would get some sort of confirmation before cutting them for someone I was unsure of.

OK well I think what I will do is list the club logos I have on file. Because when I'm killing time, it gives me something to do, and if I'm just doing them on my own time, then there wouldnt be a design fee either when someone does order. (provided the customer doesnt want me to totally rework what I have done).

Then I'd just get a confirmation from that club that 'so and so is authorized to be running the logo' and I'd go ahead and do it.

Fair enough? I'm not planning to cut stock on logos and go sell em at shows or anything like that.

Originally posted by iLLblazer



OK well I think what I will do is list the club logos I have on file. Because when I'm killing time, it gives me something to do, and if I'm just doing them on my own time, then there wouldnt be a design fee either when someone does order. (provided the customer doesnt want me to totally rework what I have done).

Then I'd just get a confirmation from that club that 'so and so is authorized to be running the logo' and I'd go ahead and do it.

Fair enough? I'm not planning to cut stock on logos and go sell em at shows or anything like that.

I would say over 85% of our sales are at shows which makes is SO MUCH easier to verify that the people buying our merchandise is in that club. If we dont recognize the guy (oh and by the way I would say 90% of our customers come to our booth already wearing said club on either their hats, shirts or are with someone that is)...so it makes it so much easier for us to verify those that we are not sure of. When we have online orders, we contact the person we have on our files as the "CLUB CONTACT" to verify his sale is legit.

Thanks!

JenGet Strokedwww.getstroked.com

Edited: 10/10/2007 8:56:47 AM by iLLblazer

Cool. Yeah the show option isnt really an option for me since I'm in Canada, I cant get to many. Plus with the raw CAD file I can cut the logo in different materials and sizes or even onto gussets etc so I have some flexibility for the customer that way. So I think the 'club contact' thing is the way to go for me too. Thanks guys.

Yeah Joel, I would definitely side with Jennie here. Seems like she's got a solid idea of "whats right" and "what's wrong" in this department.

BTW, good luck to Get Stroked, Jennie. U guys got some sweet stuff. Seen you at a bunch of shows.