Ensure your supplier partners know the rules.

When looking to get into the collegiate wear market, there are a few more variables at stake for distributors that might not necessarily exist with other sectors. When one of her distributor customers got the license for three universities, Kippie Helzel, vice president of sales for Erie, Pennsylvania-based CPS/Keystone, had to sign on more than one dotted line to secure the order. University logos are guarded closely, and there are defined rules regarding how they can and cannot be used—apparel and hard goods alike. "They had to send us a lengthy document to sign … to acknowledge the license was proprietary, that we couldn't make changes to the logo," she explained.