Dealer sponsors or not..??

Theres been a few complaints about a couple of the Kawasaki Dealers that sponsor us of late which brings me too my question.
Do we want to have Kawasaki Dealers as sponsors.?
Does this alienate us from other Kawi Dealers.?
Are we getting any benefits.?
Are they getting any benefits.?

Currently we have 3 on the east coast, all of which names appear on the hundred or so T-shirts we printed, we advertise them on our site and generally recommend members to go to them as they "should" recieve a discount.
I'm not sure if any of them are doing us any favours and I have heard 1 is not giving the discount they originally offered.

Opinions please...

I think the only way to really go into a partnership with Kawasaki Dealers is to go into a written agreement with a Store discount/KSRC card.

Easy for me to say but not really easy to do. Or simply use people power and use one dealership and if it doesnt hold up simply move on and they will eventually get the point once they start losing business from KSRC.

The only way is up for KSRC and the member base is growing everyday, soon enough the Kawasaki dealers are going to have to sit up and take notice. Especially in Vic with so many active members.

As a sign of protest as I have no bike will not tyre kick at non KSRC approved outlets.

i think the poll should read yes, if we actually get what they say i.e. discount etc and no, if they are a bunch of C**ts

Dave, the last time I did an oil and filter, I went to Parra Kawa and managed to get the 10% but it was tricky, luckily the guy behind the counter was one of the more regulars and he recognised me and I also had a chat with Wayne on the way in, so that helped........but I reckon that if you wern't a regular you could struggle.......I think a card verification system would be good, or a protected serial no. pm'd to members who qualify........certain amount of posts/membership period/blah blah blah........
Seems a bit daft dropping the sponsors now that we all have new shirts promoting there business.
My 2cents..................

FWIW: I had my shirt on at Kawasaki Parramatta when Dave #3 was test riding the bike he eventually bought and two or three of the sales team mentioned it. They were aware of the club, and friendly. We probably would've got the discount anyway (I bought a helmet at the same time we bought Dave's bike and most places appear to give you 10% off stock if you buy a bike) but they definitely were aware of KSRC.

i think its this simple..if we go in there WEARING our shirts with THEIR name on it, then as a matter of morality they SHOULD honour the deal..i mean we asked for NO financial support in making the shirts, and i believe the deal was (correct me if im wrong here ) that we would put there name on our shirts as a "sponsor" if they gave all members a discount of some sort, no questions asked??
now if we werent in uniform, or a regular i could understand it, but hell we are there advertising....
i think we should remind them of the deal, see if there still interested, and mention how many shirts are doing the rounds, and if they want to keep there names on them for future reference they should start looking after us....
my rant is over..sorry...

Dave as you might have realised I'm a big believer of recognition cards...

If the so called "sponsers" are not readily accepting us as rating one customers so to speak and giving the discounts then we should NOT be advertising them as "sponsers". They do not contribute to the production costs of the T-shirts etc. (free advertising) yet we have to haggle still for our so called 10%.

My thoughts are these about "sponsorship"..

1. if we are to advertise a dealer or any trader, we should attain a card of sorts from them that automatically guarantees a discount on producing it.

2. clearly state in return we will promote their services

3. get some sort of assistance in printing costs etc. for such promotion

4. 5. and 6. I will extend on when less tired and jimmied.

But the general gist is that... Just what do we get from our so called Sponsers????? Some of them our members have such bad dealiings with, that they wouldn't go back to...


My 50 cents worth.

cheers

You would think with over 400 members you would not have problems with getting discounts.

Dave can you alter the poll by adding - Depends if they are fair dinkum?

I'm gonna fence sit on this one for a bit n see how the group feels, persoanlly i dont care cause its not hard to get a 10% discount at most bike shops. As for we Qlders our Sponsor was organised by S10 whom no longer owns a sportsbike & i also think the Main Kwika shop on the South side has or is about to changer hands N may be More interested in Talking turkey.
So I dunno ?????. What do the rest of the Qlders think ?.

Cheers Brett

Well, I just bought stuff for my ZZR's 40000k service and got more than a 10% discount at a shop I frequent. I'm a regular customer there, which makes a BIG difference. I reckon it's worth sticking with a business that knows you and offers good service.

Because of this I can't see myself using any of the discounts myself, but have no problem with the theory.

Well, I just bought stuff for my ZZR's 40000k service and got more than a 10% discount at a shop I frequent. I'm a regular customer there, which makes a BIG difference. I reckon it's worth sticking with a business that knows you and offers good service.

Because of this I can't see myself using any of the discounts myself, but have no problem with the theory.

I agree with this but as so many stores chew thro staff and managers i.e Parra Kwaka its hard to be known as a regular i used to get a discount at Parra on all accessries but as sson as their is a staff change its no more, i also heard once one of the spares sales guys got a stern talking to for giving a discount on a helemt just afyter he coughed up $12,000 for a bike from the same friggin shop....Its all about the benjimans$$$ these days unfortunatly

The shop to which I refer is run by two brothers, who are the staff. No problems with turnover in the three years or so I've been going to 'em!

I don't go to the large dealerships if I can help it. It's simply not worth the aggro.

Its all about the benjimans$$$

you guys have 'ol Benny Boy on your notes as well, eh?
well, i don't buy anything for my bike or myself... problem solvered.
seriously tho, i hate the way everyone wants something for nothing now-a-days (me included), what happened to the days of... you pay the actual advertised price, and it was FAIR! none of this well, they said they'd do it for $XXX.xx, so can you do it for $YYY.yy.... it's such a pain in the ass!! shop around BullShit... i hate it! why can't i just go to my local HONEST place, buy my shit and go RIDE.....
oh well, yeah, get us a discount on whatever you can (can't beat the system, join it)

Yankee I would agree with you (drive's me nuts that private sales have a margin added, so that they can negotiate down. Since everyone does this, you have to add a margin because people *expect* to get a certain amount off the asking price. WTF!?! Can't we just skip the insane BS and have a reasonable asking price? Can we please not turn simple stuff into involved sales pitches? ok... deep breaths...)
BUT, this is a case where a discount has been offered in return for a service. The service is that we walk around as advertising for the shop. If someone just expected a discount because they belong to a Kawasaki group, I would laugh myself stupid. But we lived up to our end of the agreement (providing advertising), and some are finding that the other side of the bargain isn't always being kept.

If the agreement had never existed, I'd be all for saying "Ahhhh, screw advertising, let's just have funny/cool shirts".