First you need to call our Corporate Headquarters and make sure there's availability in your area. We like to keep our dealers separated so no one has any competition. Then you'll need to decide which startup package works best for you.
Because Friendly Folks is a small family owned company and we maintain a close relationship with our dealers, everything we do is over the phone. So feel free to give us a call anytime with any questions you might have or to discuss with us in more detail about getting started.

Unfortunately no. We like to get to know our dealers on a first name basis so please call our office at 201-365-4599

The beauty of Friendly Folks is that it literally sells itself so there's no specific experience necessary. We have successful dealers who are stay at home moms, college students, retired corporate executives and everything in between. What each one of these folks have in common is a desire to be successful and develop a business that has growth potential.

The best answer to this question has to be that being a Friendly Folks dealer is fun. We hear this all the time. It's a "feel good" business. You literally will be making people smile every time they receive a personalized gift.
And when you're having fun and providing a product that everyone wants, being a Friendly Folks dealer can be very profitable.

After you receive your start up package, you can be up and running within a few hours. You simply need to install the software, create some samples and you're in business.

Absolutely. You can upgrade anytime within the first 90 days of becoming a dealer.

You simply need to call them and request a spot. Then you'll need to set up a simple display, show up and take orders. It's actually quite simple. We have full step by step instructions on our Dealer Resource Center that covers everything from how to fill out the application, where to find other shows, exactly what kind of display you need and what you need to bring.
If you have any other questions about craft shows that you think would be helpful here, please fill out the box at the bottom or give us a call right now at 1-800-963-6557.

There is currently no answer here (there was a supposed to be a video link)

Yes, absolutely. We want you to be successful because that helps us too. Besides our Dealer Resource Center and our upcoming dealer forum, we're available all the time (usually on weekends too) to help you with anything that you need. Just give us a call!

It's easy and organizations are constantly searching for additionally ways to bring in money. We've been doing them for years and can guide you every step of the way. But first you need to choose who you'd like to have the fundraiser with. A school? Church? Day care? Boy scouts?
Then you'll need to send a sample along with an introduction letter (we have sample letters on our Resource Center that you can copy). Once they contact you, you'll just need to iron out the details, like how much money you'll offer them, when are they planning to start it and what are their goals as far as how much are they looking to make.
Then the next step would be to give the participants an order form (also on our Resource Center) and our full color brochure. Then the fun begins. Plan on a few late nights of printing and matting pictures. A fundraiser with a large group can generate literally hundreds of orders so having a little help completing all the orders is usually a good idea.
A Friendly Folks fundraiser is always a win/win for everyone. The customer gets a great product at a reasonable price and you and the organization end up making money. And if you can help the organization make the money they need, they'll keep coming back for years to come.

Absolutely. We offer a web disk that has all the images watermarked with your company name on it. Also, we're almost finished creating ready made dealer websites that you can have for just $14.95 a month.
Either way, we're glad you help you get set up on the web. As you know, most company's have a website and you should too.

You can name it anything you like. Most people use something like "Customized by Sue..." Or "Jenny's Creation," or "Personalized by Phil." If you have a few ideas, just give us a call and we'll help you decide.

Absolutely. After you come up with a company name, you can order business cards. Try Vista Print and they'll give you 250 cards for free. You can even add our Friendly Folks color logo and your card can say "Authorized Friendly Folks Dealer."

Yes. We have mall contacts from all over the country due to the fact that we attend mall trade shows. We can even help negotiate a better deal on rent based on our years of experience. Setting up in a mall can make you a TON of money but just know it's a lot of work and requires a decent amount of cash to get started. We've been in malls for years and sometimes at Christmas, we'll be in 6 malls at a time. So if you have any questions, just give us a call.

It's a great question and we hear this a lot. You can run this business by yourself. However, if you decide to go to a craft show or set up in a mall, having an extra person to help is a great thing. We've been at shows where there are lines of people waiting for a Friendly Folks picture. Trying to take the order, ring up the sale, print it out and make the cartoon all by yourself with 20 people waiting can be a little crazy. We've done it before but I don't recommend it. So if you can bring a spouse, friend or a couple of your kids to help out, you'll be glad you did. Plus, it's much easier to take that quick bathroom break!

The average selling price is $10-$12 for a matted picture. However, you're free to set your own price. Remember, lower is not necessarily better. People want to purchase something of value and if you price this too low they will not be interested in it. Once year, at the mall, we were offering beautiful framed pictures for $18 and sales were ok, but not what we were expecting. As an experiment, we raised the price to $20 and sales doubled instantly. We were so surprised but when I spoke to people, they said they needed to buy a Christmas present for someone and wanted to spend at least $20 on them. Otherwise they felt it wasn't a good enough present.
So value is often based on price. I learned a great lesson.

Most modern printers are great and all of them will work with our program. But which one do we use? It's the HP 8000 Officejet. It's an ink jet printer that's fast, has great quality printout and is much better on ink than previous generation printers. Use a high brightness ink jet paper and you'll print with incredible quality.

Our Print On Demand software contains all our cartoons and allows you to personalize them right on the screen and print them out. It's incredibly easy to use. Simply select a cartoon from the list, type what you want to be personalized, select the size and then click print. That's it.
You can create a personalized cartoon picture and print it out in just under a minute, which is great when you have a backlog of orders.

Simply print out the picture, trim off the extra paper with a scissor and then tape a matte to the front. Watch some of the sample training videos (on this site) and you'll realize how simple it is.

You do not need any special equipment to create these, just a normal ink jet printer. First, personalize the cartoon using our Print On Demand software. When you're about to print it, just select the "keychain" size. That will print a small (2 x 3 ) size picture. Trim off the extra paper and then it will fit nicely in one of our "snap in" keychains. For a magnet, it works the same.

Instead of printing on ink jet paper, you'll be printing on transfer paper. So when you're about to print out the cartoon, put in a piece of transfer paper in the printer and select the "mousepad" size. The software will print out the correct size and it will even flip the image upside down, which is necessary (double check that the appropriate "flip image" option is selected in your Friendly Folks settings menu).
Then, you can use an iron to get the image on the mousepad or t-shirt. It takes about 1 minute. If you think you're going to be creating a lot of these, you might consider getting a small heat press. You can purchase these brand new for about $300 or on ebay for about $150. Call the office for recommendations. A heat press speeds up the process and allows you to transfer the image in about 15 seconds, which is great when you have a high volume of orders to fill.

You can use the same process for tote bags, aprons, baseball caps and practically anything else you can think of!
We carry a full line of supplies like the blank keychains, magnets, mousepads, frames, different color mattes, backing sheets, clear display bags, etc. Our prices are lower than anything you'll find and we offer generous discounts as well.

Yes, you can choose darken skin tone in the program.