On May 17, 2013 at 20:54, 3PedalMINI said...
You still do not see anything wrong with what you or your sales guy did? i appreciate dealer loyalty i really do, but this is petty and pretty low to go "tattling" and i highly doubt you would of denied termmul's dealership and order of 40k worth of seating, he is a well respected member here and does some incredible work. I am a direct dealer of a very protected line, i know of 3-4 dealers in the area and we regularly compete against each other (friendly competition) if company X decided to favor one of us over the other 3 dealers and started calling things in i would think we would put the breaks on and find a different vendor. Then again us 3-4 dealers are very ethical so.....
Your stunt has cost you another sale from us and from others on this site, what was done is disgusting and im glad termmul brought this up.
Let's make sure we all understand, Termmul is not a Fortress dealer. I think Termmul may have oversold how "welcoming with open arms" Fortress was to him on his phone call.
From the sound of it, the client was completely sold on Fortress and thus the need for Termmul to seek out Fortress instead of using a brand he may have sold in the past. After the existing dealer did the design and sales pitch, Termmul felt he was entitled to step in with the quote the ID shared with him, sign up as a dealer real quick and get the sale. I wouldn't be surprised if the ID also had attempted to be a dealer to get this sale. I completely respect Fortress for their action.
I still don't understand the complete 180 of opinion several of the posters in this thread have flipped compared to threads in the past. Everyone is always ranting about manufacturers not being loyal and this is an example of just how loyal Fortress was to the existing dealer.
We share common protected lines with dealers in our area that consists of friendly competition as you put it and I agree that it would be unethical for one of those lines to favor one over the other but I think everyone in the thread calling it unethical is under the assumption that Termmul was signed on as a dealer, which he was not. Fortress made the choice to be loyal to an existing dealer.
So of the 4 dealers in your area that share a very protected line we will call brand X, if you had worked with a client and gone through the legwork of design and sales pitch to the point the client was sold on the product, then CI number 5 that is not a dealer(whether he is a trunkslammer or 20 year old company) gets wind, say from an ID, that you have this client sold on brand X. They call brand X and request dealer status. Upon closer inspection they realize this is the same project. Would you as a long established and good standing dealer not want a phone call from brand X asking if signing him on as a dealer will interfere with your sale that you have already put work into? Again, I respect Fortress and applaud them for their action. There are very few CI manufacturers that are still loyal to their dealers and not just the dollars they can make.
