Information Goldmine

My column for the July-August 2026 issue of SHOT Business was titled “The Business Compass.” Its premise was that knowing where you are, and where you want your business to go, is essential to success. The next step in that journey is having the data that will help you set a direction and plan accordingly. That requires record keeping, a dull, but essential process. In essence, you need to become a prospector—not for gold or silver, but for the very information that can help assure the success of your business.

 

So, just what kinds of records do you need? Number-one item— your ATF records. The data they contain is super valuable. Example: “Time In” shows how long you have had a unit in the store. Anything with a birthday (i.e. more than a year) needs to go. Run a special to hurry it out the door. 

 

NICS reports will show by state the total number of units sold broken down into long guns and handguns. Many retailers tend to carry what they like, holding to the fake assurance that other dealers think (and stock) the same way. This is not at all a good plan, as we learned firsthand in our early days. We were handgun focused until we saw that our state sold three long guns for each handgun. Our assumptions were locking us out of 75 percent of the market.

From our very first day we tracked income and guest count by the day of the month and day of the week. That lead us to see that Mondays were not the slow day many would have thought. Why? Well, we asked that, too. We learned that many federal holidays gave people Monday off, which gave them time to come to the range to shoot and to shop. Through precise record keeping, we also learned that other holidays were good for business, so we made sure our doors were open, with few exceptions, on those days as well. Again, the records told us this.

Along the way we started asking our guests lots of questions. The answers yielded a treasure trove of valuable information regarding purchasing habits and preferred products, all of which allowed us to restock intelligently. We started noticing that the guest base was a mix of folks; we needed to know who they were so we could serve them more efficiently. That information came from the 4473 forms. The data was all there, ready to be mined. I took a legal pad and counted the number of men and women who filled out those forms. Turn out 53 percent were men, 47 percent were women. Then, I broke down the ages into ranges and counted those. Nationality was done in the same way, as was type of gun bought (handgun: revolver or pistol), (long gun: bolt-action, lever, semi auto). This all led to us studying where our guest base was coming from. Returning to the 4473s, we logged the five-digit zip code of each guest. From this, we learned we had sold to a guest in every zip code in the state of Oklahoma. It also confirmed we were drawing guests from neighboring states.

Another key set of records involved our wonderful sales team. All were good, but two were exceptional because they kept detailed notes on their guests. Steve and Will were not just sales folks, they were relationship builders. Each day they would come to the receiving area to see what had just come in. Then they went to their notes and reached out to a specific guest who had indicated an interest in that item. That kind of customer interaction and follow-up resulted in several million dollars in yearly sales for each of them.
Today when we help a dealer, distributor, or manufacturer in our consulting business, we look at the make-up of the area in which they have their business. We study the data and see if there are areas that could be serviced better. In one of our trips, we found that the name of the business was not truly reflective of the rich history of the area, so we proposed a new name. The name change helped drive renewed interest in the business, ensuring its eventual success. The data we unearthed also allowed the business to adjust product mix, staff, and operating hours.

What I’ve outlined above works. I won’t lie to you; it’s incredibly time-consuming, but it’s also incredibly valuable. Here are some of the things we tracked, things you should consider tracking as well: number of men and women, general ethnicity, age range, zip code, type of units purchased, number of guests by date and day, and holiday volume and guest count. You should also track the quantity and type of ammo, targets, and knives you sell. If you offer memberships, you need to track that as well along with range and classroom time (don’t forget the number of students). Other things to track include gun-rental volume, gun-cleaning supplies, gun-case volume, and leather goods.

The Simple Truth is the more you really know about your guests, the better you can serve them.