Fortress Vision - April 2010

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V ision April, 2010

Welcome to Spring, we are at the start of our big selling season right

The Vision

April, 2010 .............................

New Product..............2 New Stores...............4 Relationships.............5 Marketing 101.............6 Featured...................7 Contest.....................8 Press........................9

now! This time of year is my favorite time of year. The sun is up, people are coming out of winter’s hibernation, time to get selling! We have so many helpful ways for you to boost your sales too. Plenty of new marketing materials to check out in the midst of this month’s edition of The Vision as well as some inspiring stories from winners from the “Leave No Stone Unturned” Sales contest. The whole contest closed at the end of March so thanks for pushing hard to get Crush, Kreed and Vortex locked and loaded in your stores in order to capitalize on sales! Check out the Marketing page for some awesome tips on how to get sales up so you will be the next sales contest winner! We have had some fun and exciting visitors to the Fortress Headquarters this past month as well.

See who stopped by on page 8. As always good work to all of you! We are all so happy to have you all in the family. Remember to send in any photos and updates from the field so you can be featured in The Vision!

Blessings, Laura Mae

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New Crush Vintage 2010

Diamante

Diamante Oval, 60’s inspired butterfly frame with a sculpted brown line.

Sophisticated, and effortlessly chic shape.

Noel

Noel Vintage Inspired 70’s Laura B frame with an angular thick top and a thin bottom. Flattering sculpted angle and very light weight.

Diamante

Noel

Rochelle Rochelle

Rochelle Vintage blend butterfly/window pane silhouette with a peek-a-boo side frame.

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New Product X

New Vortex Styles

Radar

Pump

Tracer

Watchdog

X Nomad

X

Backdraft :: Beefy angular sculpted wrap, AC Version.

Nomad :: Angular action sport frame, flush mounted lens, rubber hydrophyllic nose pad inserts.

Crossbow :: Beefy angular sculpted wrap, Polarized Version.

We also have the Radar, Pump, Tracer and Watchdog back in stock so sell, sell, sell!

Crossbow

X Backdraft

Crush and Kreed stickers are now available online and come in sticker packs of 5 Stickers Per Pack, sizes and colors will vary per order.

Crush shirts are available on the online store. Sizes are Adult Small to X-Large and the available colors are White, Baby Blue (shown), Canary Yellow and Light Pink.

Kreed shirts are available on the online store. Sizes are Adult Small to X-Large and the available colors are Navy (shown), Black and Charcoal.

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New Stores Benjamin Surfboards If you’ve ever met Ben Liska you know that he expects his reps to perform and his merchandise to make money. Ben Liska opened Benjamin Surfboards in Corpus Christi, Texas in late 1975.

Benjamins is a key image store for Crush and Kreed eyewear in Texas as they also carry designer and fashion lines along with surf apparel and hardgoods. Benjamin’s uses WWII, 2-story restored Military Barracks to house a fully stocked surf board and skateboard shop across the parking lot from the main store.

Pretty cool! Super rep, Eamon understands retail business and Ben’s philosophy of his merchandise making money and has done a rock solid job of making sure that the store is set and ready for spring and summer season with a great presentation of Crush and Kreed eyewear! With awesome stores like Benjamins on board, its only a matter of time before many of the other key retailers in Texas will be carrying Crush, Kreed, and Vortex eyewear!

The Curl One of the most successful single door stores in the United States that we currently sell Crush and Kreed eyewear to is called The Curl. It is owned and operated by Sammy Duvall, one of the most accomplished water skiers in the world. The Curl has amazing foot traffic and the store can easily sell over 100 units a week on a good week! With a store that is able to turn product so quickly, Joe Surbaugh has done a fantastic job of keeping them in stock with the right styles in order to capitalize on these strong weekly sales.

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Relationships New Jersey area surf rep veteran Gary Clayton has some of the strongest relationships of any rep in the USA!! One of the keys to any successful business is relationships! Greg Mesanko otherwise known as “Grog” is the owner of the Billabong store in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. Gary and Grog have been doing business together for over 30 years! Greg started Grog’s Surf Palace in the 80’s and has become a legendary figure on the East Coast and a key retailer for New Jersey. Stores may change, but relationships can last forever! Crush and Kreed eyewear are proud to be such a BIG part of not only Grog’s Billabong store but many other specialty stores owned by Billabong including Beachworks, Honolua Surf and Xcel! Great relationships mixed with great products plus great service equals great sales!

Pancho’s Surf Shop in Pismo Beach, CA is another one of the best single door stores that currently carries Crush and Kreed eyewear. Jason Bickley travels the Central California coast in his “van that can” and does a fantastic job not only keeping Pancho’s stocked with Crush and Kreed eyewear but also on the customer service and relationship front. Panchos Surf Shop is arguably the best surf shop on the Central California coast and was started by the Hischer family and Frank and Connie over 20 years ago. Pancho’s is located in Pismo Beach in an area where the entire central valley population goes to the beach during spring and summer. Crush and Kreed eyewear have become the best selling brands at Pancho’s Surf Shop and much of that credit goes to Jason and his ability to show his shops like Pancho’s the money making part of what we do or the “science” of the business. By doing style counts and account reviews with retailers like the Hishers, Jason has total control of their business and a plan for their future. Jason is making his shops “nothing but money!” Ask Jason how much more money he has made by doing style counts!! On the top left is a photo of Jasmine from Pancho’s Showing off her new Crush Rochelle’s and on the right is Crystal from Pancho’s sporting the new Crush Diamanté in tiger stripes.

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Marketing 101

Walk into any retail store and the first thing you see is Merchandise Product. Eye appeal. Within a matter of seconds, your brain tells you whether you want to shop in that store or not. All the major brands are represented by their merchandising. How well a brand conveys their message to the retail customer depends on how well they have merchandised their product. In our business, the brands that have risen above the rest always depend on how well they merchandise their product in a store.

With Crush, Kreed and Vortex eyewear, we have a great opportunity to use our displays as the key focus for merchandising our products. The display virtually operates as our main showpiece to our products. The ability to keep the display cleaned and full of product along with making sure that the new headers are on is the best way to make the display a selling machine.

Regularly clean and dust displays. Place new headers on the display as soon as received to keep it fresh to the customer. Make sure that the display is full and the best sellers are on top. Place a few pieces of interesting shapes and colors in the middle to attract attention. Good basics and back stock goes on the bottom of the display. Do not leave a display looking like the one at the right. This is a perfect example of what not to do. Retailers like to see that their reps are not just shoving more product in the door but actually trying to merchandise their real estate.

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Featured Eamon O’Callaghan New to Fortress Eyewear is Eamon O’Challaghan. Based out of Texas, Eamon opened up about 10 stores with Mark back in February. Eamon believes that relationships are key in a successful business. Eamon says “First and foremost a good relationship based on trust will open doors. I’m just blessed to have a lot of retailers that support me based on a profitable sales relationship. Product is the other piece of the puzzle. Bad product, poor sales. It ain’t rocket science. It also helps to have a Boss with dashing good looks come in and seal the deal.

(Thanks Mark, ha!)” Eamon started with Quicksilver Accessories and with his hard work and dedication and ability to do count and fill was able to grow their business and has taken the same principles and used it with Crush and Kreed eyewear which has lead to his great customer service and success.

Happy St. Patty’s Day! Some of the guys in the office sported their green Kreed shirts in celebration of St. Patty’s Day. Looking good guys!

Randy Nemchock, Todd Shepard and Drew Downey are the fearsome threesome warehouse shipping and logistics team. They work harder than ever to make sure all your orders are processed and shipped in a timely manner. Todd Shepard is the Fortress Group warehouse manager and has been with us since September of 2008. He is married to Kara Shepard, and has two beautiful kids, Lucien and Maylin. He loves to go out shooting and dove hunting while dressing up in his favorite cowboy outfit on his time off with a little surfing and skating on the side. Todd is a great asset to have here at The Fort and is a wonderful family man.

Todd handles the flow of goods receiving and shipping and is a vital part of making sure your orders are proceeded correctly to the store and on time. He says that “Randy and Drew are the two best looking warehouse guys in O.C. and the only two guys I know who can sing every Bette Midler song ever recorded.” For your chain stores Todd is also an expert on putting together UPC codes and special needs that key retail operations have in order to create success on bigger accounts.

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Contests

Congrats to 1st winner from Texas, Eamon O’Callahan,! He won the contest for February and received a check for $250!

Sales Contest

Congrats to 2nd place winner from Washington, Brian Snelson! His winnings was a check for $100.

Congrats to 3rd place winner from California, Jason Bickley! His winnings was a check for $50.

The “Leave No Stone Unturned” Sales contest will close at the end of March. A big Congratulations to all February’s winners! Awesome work guys. Way to get our brands out there!

So far in the month of March, Brian Snelson is in first, Pete Linsmayer is in second and David Liu is in third. The contest will end on March 31st and the winners will be announced in the beginning of April. Look for next month’s newsletter with the winners in it.

The full contest is for three months, Jan, Feb & March. At the end of the contest the first place prize is $1,000.00, second is $500.00 and third is $250.00.

The monthly prizes as you can see above are $250, $100 and $50.

It is anyone’s ball game and some of the newest members of the Fort family are in the top three spots right now! The product sells itself, you just have to get into as many stores as possible.

Use all the new headers, new displays and the marketing tips we provide you in this newsletter every month and you will be the next winner!

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Press

Two time X-Games Gold Medalist Kyle Loza stopped by the Fortress Headquarters this month with Dan McGranahan to pick up a few pairs of his favorite Kreed sunglasses. Kyle bought a pair of Kreed ReTodd’s on his own off a shop display just because he loved the style! Kyle’s favorite pair that he picked out were the Uncle Neens (shown in the picture) and the Retodd’s.

Thanks for stopping by Kyle and wearing Kreed eyewear!

Facebook and Twitter

To better spread the Fortress Vision, we have also expanded over our social networking with Blogs, Facebook and Twitter. With all this networking we will have our name spread even better! Check them out for weekly updates!

www.facebook.com/kreedeyes

www.facebook.com/crusheyes www.twitter.com/kreedeyes

www.twitter.com/crushsunglasses http://kreedeyes.blogspot.com

http://crusheyes.blogspot.com

Every spring and summer Transworld puts together a buyers guide for the surf specialty stores. They always include Kreed and Crush sunglasses for their buyers guide. Kreed eyewear is featured in the May spring edition and Crush will be in the summer’s edition. Transworld is a marquee branding magazine and we are one of the only moderate priced that they actually feature and wear. Kreed’s aviator frame the Anthem was featured in with the other frames on page 146.

Fortress Eyewear is sponsoring Diane’s Beachwear for their “Twenty 10” promotion.

Their spring internet promotion is called Twenty 10 because they have 20 beach bags full of goodies that they are giving away in 10 weeks, 2 bags per week. We have sponsored them with some Crush glasses to put in the bags. Week 3 of this promotion is where we really come in. If customers spend a total of $100 on their website, they will get a free pair of Crush Sunglasses!

Check out their website dianesbeachwear.com.

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