# Sponsoring Members Guidelines - Info Post



## daveb

*Amateur Hobbyists, Professional Craftsmen and Vendors *

If you are a *Hobbyist or Professional Craftsman* and would like to show and sell your wares here - we have 2 subscription options to offer you. *Vendors *(Retailers) of products and services also have a subscription option available.

*The choice of level is yours to make based on what best suits your needs.

1. Hobbyist Craftsman* - an individual who partakes in a kitchen knife related trade or craft as a beginner, novice, or apprentice. This level is intended for the hobbyist that would like to recoup some of the expenses of their hobby through the sale of product (Not Services) Product may be sold as "off the shelf" or custom.

The Hobbyist can post in these forums:

--Show Your Work Can post Work in Progress & discussion threads. Each Hobbyist is encouraged to have 1 thread as a gallery of finished products.

--Sales 2 sale listing per month for two items.

--Passarounds Passarounds are permitted. Any rules or qualifications are to be established by the Hobbyist. KKF will not be responsible for any misadventures occurring during a passaround

--Media   Hobbyists may link to their personal web sites, twit accounts faceybook, etc, within their signature block. Bear in mind that the hobbyist classification is for the amatuer craftsman - if you've got a PR firm working for you, you might consider the Professional Craftsman level.

Fee - $150 (per year). Payment Options - 1 payment in full or 4 (automatically recurring) quarterly payments of $55 Note: The fee for Hobbyists has been reduced and the number of sales to be posted have been raised so as to encourage more participation at this level



*2. Professional Craftsman *- an individual who partakes in a kitchen knife related trade or craft who is considered to be an experienced, accomplished craftsman in his/her field. This individual may work in their trade/craft in either a full (or part) time capacity and may offer sales of product or services.


The Professional Craftsman will be provided their own sub-forum which they can populate as they would like. They will have increased PM limits and may use line banners & links, as well as homepage links in profile and signature lines. Passarounds are permitted. Any rules or qualifications are to be established by the Craftsman. KKF will not be responsible for any misadventures occurring during a passaround.

Fee - Annual subscription pricing available upon request.. Payment Options - 1 payment in full or 4 (automatically recurring) quarterly payments.

*3. Vendor* - a primarily retail sales based business of kitchen knives, related kitchen tools, sharpening stones, sharpening services, etc.

The Vendor will be provided their own sub-forum which they can populate as they would like. They will have increased PM limits and may use line banners & links, as well as homepage links in profile and signature lines. Passarounds are permitted. Any rules or qualifications are to be established by the Vendor. KKF will not be responsible for any misadventures occurring during a passaround.

Fee - Annual subscription pricing available upon request.. Payment Options - 1 payment in full or 4 (automatically recurring) quarterly payments.

*Guidelines & Expectations for Sponsoring Members:*

If you are a new sponsor to KKF we encourage you to read as many posts as you can in our forums. You'll see many of your peers are able to adhere to the posting guidelines and also add value in the other forums without making those discussions commercial in nature. You'll also quickly notice that our members regularly praise various sponsor's goods and services. You can't have a more effective way to promote your outfit than letting satisfied members do it for you!

You should expect in-depth, specific questions about your products and be prepared to discuss manufacturing process and techniques to the extent that information is available to the public. Proprietary materials or processes should be described as such.

Member product reviews and comments are opinions. You may not add or reply to product reviews on the forum for items you sell including responding to negative reviews. This is to prevent "shilling" or posting of reviews for financial motives. If you feel a review is false or inaccurate please contact a moderator.

You are welcome to respond to questions and participate in discussions in the various forums outside of your Sponsor sub-forum. However, you should not be plugging your sites or products in those forums.

This is the primary area of difficulty with KKF and Sponsors.

It is is a delicate balance to maintain and KKF requests you be very careful about this. You can talk about your experience with various products and answer questions about technique or product but again, be careful! 

Anything that could be perceived as a sales pitch should be avoided. Err on the side of caution. If you are unsure whether or not your post is acceptable; send it to a Moderator. Thats what they are there for!

Confine all sales activities to sub-forums as described above. Do not use the B/S/T forum to sell items or alert members to sales/promotions. Exception: Occasionally a Sponsor may want to sell a personal item that is not related to their business area (watches, cameras, etc). This will be permitted in accordance with guidelines applicable to any other member.

Do not contribute to re-directing discussion away from another sponsor's product/service discussions. Be respectful of other sponsors and avoid their forums.

If you want to do a product pass-around you are welcome to do so through your sub-forum as describe above. You will be responsible for setting the rules, responsibilities, coordination, etc.

Backlinks - we request links to be posted on your websites linking back to KKF. This helps build our search engine ranking. When search engines see links from here to your sites and from your sites to here it helps us all and is mutually beneficial

Unsolicited E-mail and PMs to members are strictly prohibited and are cause for immediate cancellation of membership at KKF.


*Contests:*

Sponsors are encouraged to have fun thinking of creative ways of highlighting new products and services via contest giveaways. Mark's (Burl Source) Bad Joke Contests are the stuff of legend. We think this should be a very fun forum and a rewarding one for vendors and members alike.

Vendors are allowed one contest per month.

As these contests are advertisements (albeit nice ones), sponsors may not request anything more than creativity from our members. No money, no postage, no donations may be requested in exchange for a contest entry.

Contest entries may be solicited by the members to reply in the thread, via PM, via email, and/or via sponsor's Vendor's webspace.

Vendors may not use the contest to collect member contact information for purposes of advertisement via private message or other means. To do so would be a violation of site Terms of Use, and would result in immediate suspension of Vendor privileges.


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