Changes at RAD - Broadheads

[RadSav]

Yeah business owner life isn't that fun from what I've seen.

It's a dream come true!  Start a business, risk everything to do what you love, spend all your time paying taxes and attorneys.  It's awesome!!

[The scout]

ya the American dream! I'm starting a business buying a house and selling a house with twin 4 yr olds, life is good

[RadSav]

ya the American dream! I'm starting a business buying a house and selling a house with twin 4 yr olds, life is good

Oh Man!!!  I don't think we would have made it if we would have had kids. 

First two years I paid myself $30K as required under S-Corp, paid income taxes and gave 100% of what was left back to the business.  I sold stock to repair the house after water damage.  We had basic cable at $13.95 a month and thought about giving that up when they went digital and we lost 50% of our channels.  If we had been required to purchase healthcare during those first two years we would never have made it over the hump.  I don't know how you do it with kids, seriously.  Your one brave SOB!  That or your one crazy (^*%$$  $&^(

[MLBowhunting]

One day at a time sir.........Looking up for sure. 

[blacktailcody]

Trying to get a local sporting goods store to sell them. What would that involve?

[RadSav]

Trying to get a local sporting goods store to sell them. What would that involve?

All a retailer needs to do is call us and send a copy of their resale certificate.  If they are licensed by the state to sell and they have a store front we are happy to help them expand their business offerings.  Due to the low cost of our products there is not a great risk involved in offering purchasing terms.  So it is our practice to allow the shops to prove themselves without the need for bank and trade references.  If they fail to pay on initial stock orders then we have both learned our lesson and we move on.  Neither is hurt in any significant way.  The upside to this is we can get product to a shop just starting in the industry, or an established business adding an archery department, within days rather than having to wait a week or more for a paid employee to conduct research.

Of course this is assuming we have the product ready to ship.  That was the purpose of the expansion of our manufacturing abilities.  To be very honest we are not yet there on the broadhead side.  But we are very, very close.  Probably just a few more weeks.  The ferrules are here, the blades are here and all we are waiting for now is the new packaging and finalizing the assembly process.  As far as peep sights go we have been on a near 100% 24 hour fill rate for almost ten years straight.  When we have had some anodizing rejections that have cut into the 24 hour time frame we often make it up by shipping expedited at our expense.  There is no reason to think we can not accomplish the same thing on broadhead orders now that we are controlling so much of our own production.  Once the new RAD Broadhead cards are here we should be almost instantaneously capable of that same fulfillment efficiency as our RAD Peep Sights.

The benefit of this for retail shops is they don't have a need to tie up large amounts of operating capital in stock-on-hand.  For most of Washington and Oregon an order placed on Monday can be receive by UPS on Wednesday of that same week.  Retailers will want to make sure they place orders in quantities that the freight charges can be spread thin among multiple items.  But the days of ordering in quantities of 144, so stock levels can carry through the peak season, are gone.  This also frees up a company to carry more choices for their customer without having an unnecessary stock burden.

Having been a retail owner, manager and purchasing specialist in my past has played an important role in how we designed the new MadMan, Triple Sec, and Titanium Signature lines.  Because it is so important to avoid those unnecessary stock burdens while at the same time offer consumer choice we designed these products blade first.  What this means is; If you stock a MadMan X, a MadMan HPV 3 blade, a MadMan HPV 100 4 blade, a Triple Sec. HPV 100, a DelMastro HPV 100, a DelMastro HPV Deep Six and a DelMastro HPV 125 you have given your customer seven different choices at three different price points.  BUT, you only need to stock a single replacement blade to service all seven customers.  This is because the same HPV blade fits all seven broadheads.  For inventory control, management and reduction of stock burden that is not an insignificant benefit.

Also of some benefit to the retailer is that we can combine both peep sight orders and broadhead orders into one single shipment.  This can help spread the growing freight expenses among more items keeping prices low and maximizing profits.  And since the vast majority of archery shops throughout the world carry at least one or two of our 200+ peep sight skus it should be easy to find a way to divide those freight dollars.  We also offer all retailers a very attainable "$500 - Free Freight" program.  That is not very many broadheads you would have to order to reach that threshold.  And let me tell you...free freight adds to the bottom line quickly!  In 2015 we paid over $25,000 to UPS.  Just imagine what we could have done if we could have put that in our pocket.  That could be two additional part-time employees or a dang nice sheep hunt!!


Anyway, have your local sporting goods store give myself or Lorraine a call.  We'll get them set up in a jiffy.

[quadrafire]

RAD
Congrats on your "New" company. Very exciting !
Thanks for sharing the business side of it, very enlightening to see what goes on behind the scenes of a manufacturing company from start to finish.

PS:You may want to take look a Smossy's Girl for package design. I just saw some of her decal work, it's topnotch   

[muzbuster]

I'm not an archery guy but that sounds like an awesome deal! Congrats, best of luck to you!!

[Special T]

So what was the motivation moving to kent? Shipping? Facility? Are you moving up from the vancouver area?

[RadSav]

Congrats on your "New" company. Very exciting !

The company is not new.  Just the Brand of the broadhead line and the manufacturing facility.

So what was the motivation moving to kent? Shipping? Facility? Are you moving up from the vancouver area?

I will stay down here.  Not sure you could ever get me to move back to King Co.  The motivation behind setting up the machining facility in Kent is that my brother refused to move down here.  I would love to have it closer.  Would have helped a lot, but brothers probably shouldn't be too close anyway   The shop was modified from an existing building on his property.  So other than the outrageously expensive machine our overhead, like it is here, is almost zero.

We will likely have to move soon.  The business has grown to a point we can barely contain it in our current Vancouver location.  Having the building in Kent well allow us to postpone our relocation for a few more years after we stop our monetary bleeding.  So that has been a plus in having it up there.

[quadrafire]

Sorry rad that was the point of the "new". Change in branding. Sorry if it came off wrong

[bearpaw]

Congrats, sounds great rad!

[RadSav]

Sorry rad that was the point of the "new". Change in branding. Sorry if it came off wrong

No offense.  Always good to clarify things. 

The change in brand was a necessary progression.  Sometimes bringing something back from ruins sounds better than it is.  And then with delivery difficulties over the past year all those old horror stories got brought to the surface.  New products, new facility, new quality, new packaging and a much stronger well established brand is the right decision.  It had been planned for some time, but with the recent demands and changes now seemed like the right time.

We have done very well with the RAD, Inc. brand for over a decade.  It has been known for attention to detail and a dedication to always improve.  That is what has been happening with the broadhead side over the past eight months too.  So after talking it over with my brother it seemed like a no-brainer decision to capitalize on that.  We are now #1 in peep sights.  Who knows, maybe we can challenge for #1 in broadheads soon too.  I know the quality is good enough and the hunting results have been good enough.  Now it's just up to our business plan and our work ethic.  I like those odds!

[quadrafire]

Anything In the works for trad oriented folks?  Say InThe 150-175  gr point range?

[RadSav]

Nothing in that weight range at the moment.  150 to 175 grain heads are such an extremely small part of the market we likely will not invest in that until we are firmly planted on some seriously hard ground.  However, we have been discussing a more traditional type of head.  If I could get a bright idea on how to make a better locking mousetrap for one it could happen in a reasonable amount of time.  But we don't want to just copy something the market already has.  It needs to be something with a clear benefit and easy use application.  So far all my prototypes have been WAY too difficult to build.  My mind is always digging and spinning though...we'll figure out a way someday.

Are you at all interested in a 145 grain three blade with a Ti-Con type ferrule?  Length almost in the Wensel ball park?  I have a prototype that works pretty darn good on that one.  Low investment too!  Could be a possible addition in 2017.