STEEL CITY REPTILE EXPO! September 12, 2009!

I need to take a moment to address these statements made by Debbie & John Smith.



I also want to apologize to potential readers because this is going to be a long response.



Debbie & John: On the first occasion, I never had a standing order with you, so you weren’t taking care of my rats, you were doing what rodent breeders do. You were taking care of your rodents.



On the second occasion, I did say that I would need 100 live rats every Friday. And I fulfilled my obligation as buyer for 8-9 weeks until you started saying that you didn’t have enough rats for me and that was it. You told me this same thing for over a month. You left me without rats for 5 weeks with no answers as to why so I had to find someone else.



As you can probably see in her post, Debbie & John leave a lot to be desired in the communication department.



When Debbie & I talked about the show, I told her what I told every vendor that I solicited: “No one is considered registered until their application and table fee was received.”



We wanted this show to be risk-free to vendors by refunding all table fees to them. We also asked for pre-payment & applications to ensure that all vendors would appear at the show. We’ve all been to shows that have empty tables from “no-shows”. We felt that this sent a bad message to attendees and we didn’t want to have it.



Even if Debbie verbally committed (which she didn’t), I would not have considered that as confirmation and I made that clear to all vendors that I solicited.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

The Mars show has Vince as the exclusive frozen dealer and is barely worth us going but it's like 5 miles away.

I never said you couldn’t sell at the show. Is the Mars show responsible for your business failure also?

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

I needed all the cash I had to feed the animals. With over 1000 rats in your basement, you better not run out of feed.

If a $65 table fee was going to starve your rodents for the week, I think your business plan needs to be revised.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

So, why all of this whining and "hurt feelings." Well, we met Paul through Brad (who was our 'only' friend who encouraged us to breed rats) and raised rats for Paul on 2 different occasions. The first time, we were just getting started and we trusted our 'best-friend' Brad on what would be a fair price. $1.15 for small-live rats 'every week'. Smalls turned into mediums (a week of extra work & feed) and 'every week' turned into every 2 weeks (more work & feed just to freeze fhem.) It then turned into a 5 week strecth of Paul not showing up, leaving us feeding and caging his 100 rats until they were the size of Rodent Pros mediums. I had to finally end it when we were taking money from my paycheck to feed Pauls animals and we were almost broke. The second time Paul was in some kind of a bind. We were better breeders (given lots of inside tips from 20 year rat breeders), and most of all, we had new (to us) lab racks (that Brad got for us) to breed them in. We wanted badly to be Pauls rat guys.

I don’t even know why this is here. I bought rats from Debbie & John at THEIR VARYING ASKING PRICES. They were supplying a product to me. Prior to my purchasing animals from them, when they called EVERY WEEK to ask me to buy rats from them I told them that I was a busy person. Although I never had a standing order with you on the first occasion, you obviously wanted/needed me as a customer.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

Paul showed faithfully for his rats this time, but the price, again, proved to be a back breaker for a small time (200 breeding females) rat breeder.

How is this my problem? I paid you exactly what you asked for. How am I the bad guy? You NEVER talked to me about price.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

Both times almost killed us financially. Both times we had to stop the arrangement. Both times Paul (and Brad) degraded us as though we had no idea what we were talking about or how to breed rats. I'm sorry, but (good rule of thumb, everything before "but" is B. S.) we would never...tell Mr. Brachman how to breed gecko's...tell Jim how to breed Boa's...tell Porkchop how to breed frogs or ever tell Paul how to breed high dollar ball pythons (that we almost lost everything to feed!)

Once again, maybe you should have restructured your pricing or revised your business plan.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

So, in the end, Paul (and in my mind, Brad as well) totally threw us under the bus for Rodent Pro and their 35,000 e-mail list. Given the fact that Rodent Pro is the worlds largest rodent dealer, how many of those 35,000 do you suppose are able to show up in south-western Pa.? So much for helping the little guy that's local to our area! We have heard many customers tell us that they prefer our rats over Rodent Pro or Vince because of the quality and price! To them, we say, from the bottom of our hearts, "Thank You!" We did not buy our frozen rats (like Vince) (it's much easier to buy and sell), we bred them with devotion. We bought our frozen mice from Rodent Pro. Just the other day, Brad said to me (he has since also started breeding rats) "I don't see why you can't get $1.50 for a live small rat." How much then should a live medium rat go for when 'every week' is more like every 2 weeks or more? Just for reference, Rodent Pro normally sells frozen medium rats for $1.39, and on super sale, they sell for $1.19 (without shipping...frozen) At Brads discretion, we were trying to sell Paul 'live' medium rats for $1.15 (our frozen medium rats sold everyday for $1.25.) Whatever happened to the advice of my good friend "They are always worth more alive than they are frozen." Some friends huh? But then again, I know they see it more as "'Who can do more for me right now?"

Once again sounds like a pricing restructure needed to be done. I paid you exactly what you asked for.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

And to Paul...we did not make the decision to kill our top quality breeder rats and sell all of our reptiles and cages over "hurt feelings," or just "throwing in the towel." I gave you my word, I'd be at your show, I have always kept my word to you in the past. But I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that you didn't keep yours to us, it's not like it's the first time.

As I told every solicited vendor, “You are not considered registered for the show until we receive your vendor application and table fees.” Regardless, Debbie NEVER verbally committed to the show.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

I am reminded of something my father told me years ago, "you can always judge a mans character by how they treat someone who can do nothing for them."

And now you are questioning my character? Please, anyone reading this do me a favor before condemning my character based on Debbie’s words; Please search the BOI for my past actions in this hobby over many years.



As I said in my original post, Ben & I both struggled with the issue of “exclusives”. Due to business circumstances we felt that it was in our best interest to allow Rodent Pro to be exclusive for frozen rodents at this time.

Originally Posted by Home-Grown

There is a lot of work for 2 people to organize the breeding schedules of 200 females and deal with all of the poop of well over 1,000 live rats (5 large Rubbermaid totes every week!) Do we even have to discuss the smell! [b]It simply wasn't worth a little pocket money.[/B} Your great new show would have finally been a huge reward for us, but you went ahead and shit on us again anyway.



We made this decision because we got tired of the two biggest names in this industry, in this area (one of them, I really thought of as a true friend) sticking their males appendages into our backsides!

You’ve been breeding rodents in your home for over 3 years. I tried doing this one time and the smell was overwhelming. There’s no doubt you’ve made some sacrifices in trying to get your business off the ground.



I announced the show two months ago. It sounds like your business was failing miserably long before the announcement of our show.

I am a little confused as to why you would feel wronged by Brad in any way. He has nothing to do with our show and knew nothing of the exclusive with Rodent Pro until it was on our website. As far as I can see, he has helped you numerous times over the years.



The fact that you feel that you have been wronged by Brad is purely INSANE.



When I talked with you about Rodent Pro’s exclusive at our show, I tried to explain that you are more than welcome to sell live rodents just not frozen. Unfortunately, you hung up the phone on me before I could finish.



In your last post, you admitted to attending the Mars show regularly where it also has an exclusive frozen rodent agreement with Vince Clemens.



I’ve never heard you condemn any other show promoters. Why is it that our show ruined your business?

Originally Posted by KelliH

Yes the promoters certainly did lie to you and throw you under the bus. Big deal that Rodent Pro is going to send emails out to their national customer list. How many of those customers will attend this little show? Also Rodent Pro sounds to me like insecure babies that can't deal with a little healthy competition.

Kelli:



I have a question for you.



You don’t know the situation. How can you condemn me as a liar with the information provided?



I never lied about anything. There was a small change in the policy of my business.



I can’t speak about Rodent Pro’s policies regarding exclusivity. They didn’t become the World’s largest supplier of rodents by having a flawed business plan.



I am a father of five great kids. I have a job. I have many animals to clean and feed and I am promoting a new show. I don’t have hours and hours to sit down here to defend my character against claims with ZERO merit.

Paul Wyble
Steel City Reptile Expo Ltd.