"Roadsmith" explained
10/24/2006
The Trike Shop has always experienced an identity problem with our somewhat generic name. Back in 1972, The Trike Shop was a unique name. But with the boom in the trike industry there are all kinds of “Trike Shops” now. And for those dealers that are named "Trike Shop of..," they are getting tired of people asking:
“What kind of trikes do you carry?”
“Trike Shop”
“Ya, I know that’s the name of your shop,
but what brand of trikes do you carry?”
When we run magazine ads or do shows, our name implies we are a retailer not a manufacturer. We’ve been struggling with this for years yet we didn’t want to change the name of our company. After a lot of discussion we realized that all we were missing was a Brand Name of our trike conversions.
General Motors has Cadillac that has Escalade.
Toyota has Lexus that has the LX470
The Trike Shop has the TS1800… something was missing.
So we are adding a “brand” of trikes available by The Trike Shop’s dealers.
They are named “Roadsmith” trike conversions.
Say it three times Roadsmith - Roadsmith - Roadsmith.
It’s really hard for us to call our trikes something different but we feel that this is a necessary transistion. There is never a good time to do something like this, but our business is only getting bigger, so now is the time. “The Trike Shop” will still be in all of ours ads and displays for years to come.
Again, we are not changing the name of our company but rather naming our line of trike conversions.
- Roadsmith HT1800 = HT for Honda Touring, 1800 for Gold Wing 1800
- Roadsmith HT1500 = HT for Honda Touring, 1500 for Gold Wing 1500
- Roadsmith HSC1300 = HSCf or Honda Sport Cruiser, 1300 for VTX1300
- Roadsmith HDT = HD for Harley Davidson, T for Touring
- Roadsmith HDST = HD for Harley Davidson, ST for Softails
We will advertise that this is a Roadsmith or a Roadsmith trike conversion; the model name is a very small part of the description. More like a part number of a Roadsmith to identify the exact application. We think this is a better long term naming strategy for our company than randomly naming a model after a butterfly or a snake.
A good example of this is Lexus. They advertise Lexus as the name you remember but the RX330 or LX470 is a smaller part of the message. When somebody says what kind of car you drive you say Lexus (Roadsmith). Another similar example is Yamaha naming their Cruiser motorcycle line Star Motorcycles. Notice the continuity of Royal Stars, Road Stars, Road Liners.