Starting A Gun Store From Scratch with Matt Boggs From Alpha Dog Firearms

About This Episode

In today’s episode of Tactical Business, host Wade Skalsky sits down with Matt Boggs From Alpha Dog Firearms. Learn how the pandemic highlighted the importance of self-defense and how Alpha Dog adapts to customers’ needs, from first-time buyers to seasoned enthusiasts. Explore more about their commitment to top-notch customer service and firearm education.

Insights In This Episode

• How the pandemic highlighted the importance of self-defense, leading to a surge in first-time gun buyers.
• Alpha Dog Firearms navigates complex and changing firearm regulations, both federally and state-specific.
• Matt highlights the importance of staying informed and compliant with regulations through industry contacts and software systems.
• They tailor firearm recommendations based on the customer’s intended use, hand fit, and comfort.

About Tactical Business

Tactical Business is the weekly business show for the firearms industry. The podcast features in-depth interviews with the entrepreneurs, professionals and technologists who are enabling the next generation of firearms businesses to innovate and grow.

Episode Transcript

Wade: Welcome to the Tactical Business Show. I’m your host, Virginia Beach based firearms entrepreneur and copywriter Wade Skalsky. Each episode will be exploring what it takes to thrive as a business owner in the firearms industry. We’ll speak with successful firearms industry entrepreneurs about their experiences building their companies, leaders and legislators who are shaping the industry, and tech executives whose innovations will reshape the future of the firearms industry. Let’s get after it. Welcome to the Tactical Business Podcast. I am your host, Wade Skalsky, and today we are talking to Matt Boggs from Alpha Dog Firearms. Matt, how are you doing today? Good.

Matt: Thanks for having me.

Wade: Yeah, it’s an Arizona week. It’s my second Arizona business in a couple days. So it’s it’s my old stomping ground. I’m excited to talk to you guys. Yeah, man. So I always like to start the podcast by asking people how they got into the firearms industry. And it’s always a little bit of a different story about how everybody gets there. So what was the sort of the arc of how you got to where you are today?

Matt: I didn’t grow up in a gun family. I just saw him on like movies, TV shows, that kind of thing. And quite frankly, I was working at a rental car company, just doing over the counter sales with a rental car company. I hated my job, and I saw that movie Lord of War Dogs, and I just thought that slinging guns would be a lot more fun than renting cars. I just decided to jump in and start my business doing that. I always had an affinity for guns. I had shot a few things, but I was not what I would consider a gun person. I had a Glock and I shot a shotgun, very basic stuff. And then I decided that I would rather get into into firearms and then started researching different things and started getting more, more knowledgeable as far as, like the two way community goes and then finding out more about gun rights and stuff. So I grew up in Michigan. We did the hunting area, but essentially my family was like, oh, guns are for hunting. Never really had that that two.a component to it. And then living in Arizona, obviously it’s a lot different as far as the mentality here is with the firearms. So yeah, I just started doing that and it started really seeing the need and the the challenges that’s involved with the firearm community. Open the store up and haven’t looked back since, uh, a lot of learning along the way. But this has been a really fun journey.

Wade: What year did you open your store?

Matt: Well, we opened the store and officially in 2017.

Wade: From the time that you got interested in that as a business to the time that you actually opened the store, how long did that take to go from, oh, I think I’m going to do that, to actually opening the doors.

Matt: Six months, maybe I get really when I get locked into something, I’m very into it. So obviously I was up, I don’t know, 20 hours a day researching, doing different things, trying to get money to open the store up, decided actually, I sold my house to fund the gun store. So I was like, I jumped in, like when I go into something like I’m going all in. It was not a let me just dip my toe and see how the water feels. My polar bear that in there and just jumped right in and took the lumps and learned along the way.

Wade: So yeah, that’s an interesting story because obviously it’s you came at it more as a business person, right? So you said, all right, so this is a business that I could get into. And then the sort of the two a side came along the way. Right. Do you have a different view on firearms now than you did when you started, or is it you basically have the same sort of view, or how have you grown in your view of the two way community since then?

Matt: When I grew up, we were not really in a gun, so my growing up it was essentially more like guns are for police and military and you get a gun to go hunting. And I didn’t really have any sense of strong need or right to carry a firearm. I just it was never really a thing getting this. Now I definitely see the need for firearms. I definitely look more into it now and go, okay, yeah, you know what? There’s a massive assault on firearm ownership in the US. I see the importance of it. So it’s definitely been a 180 as far as that goes. Where you look at that and go, okay, I can understand why we would need it and why this amendment is so important to the everyday American.

Wade: Yeah, absolutely. I think the other thing too, is when you dealing with a clientele, you have these people that are coming to you and there aren’t maybe some of them in the military, maybe some of them are police officers, but then you have regular everyday people telling you their stories about, hey, this is why I want a firearm. And I think it really helps. Once you start to delve into those different experiences, it really helps expand your view on, oh, this is why this is important, that this is accessible to everyone. Have you seen a change in the clientele from 2007 to now, like in the last, in that last nine years, have you seen or eight years or seven years? I can’t do math. I was told there’s no math today. Seven years. Have you seen it? Yeah, exactly. Have you seen a change in terms of more people coming out of the two a tent?

Matt: I still have the biggest thing and I Covid for what it was. I think honestly, Covid really opened up a lot of people’s eyes to understanding and seeing how important defense is, because I remember hearing stories during Covid where people would call the police, hey, I hear a noise or I’ve got this, or somebody’s doing something’s going on where they would normally call the police. And 911 dispatch was just like, there’s no way to work. You need to do this on your own. And I think a lot of people during Covid really realized how important, um, self-defense is and how important owning a firearm is. Just because I don’t want to say necessarily evil, but firearms are something that really evil. That really levels the playing field for a lot of people. Because when you think about, um, victims, a lot of times especially, you have that people thinking about victims, they’re, you know, disabled, they’re not paying attention to something. They’re they’re perceived as weak. And by having a firearm that really makes it a level playing field or people feel more secure by having a firearm in case somebody wants to go out and do bad things to them. I think when we open the store up was, you know, people came to the store and a lot of people came in where before Covid we’re already like gun enthusiasts. I saw a lot of people that already had a gun. Wasn’t like their first. I’m going gun buying experience. And a lot of those times when they were getting that first time gun buying experience, they were going to places that had a national reputation.

Matt: So they were going to like the Bass Pro. They’re going. At time when dicks was selling firearms, they were going to places that already had that that name because they already knew who those companies were. And the people that came in Alfrida were really just, hey, I saw your new gun store. I want to take you guys out, that kind of thing. They already had an interest in firearms. And then after Covid, I think everybody just was just googling places to get a firearm. And we were seeing lines out the door that were wrapping around the building just constantly all day long. And people who were just like, I’ve never had a gun. I don’t know anything about guns, but I just don’t feel safe anymore. And a lot of people just didn’t feel safe. And that’s where I saw a lot of that shift. And now coming back in, what, 3 or 4 years later, we’re seeing that transition going back out from that massive need back to people who have already owned a firearm, or those people who bought a gun during Covid and became a became became, I don’t know, supporters of the Second Amendment or they’re just like, hey, you know what? I really liked this gun, or I really didn’t like this. And they just got into hobby shooting, that kind of thing. So it’s just transitioned in and out a little bit. So it’s it’s been an interesting journey to say the least, since at least since Covid for us.

Wade: And there’s a the thing about firearms is there’s a big education bridge. Right. So for a new time owner. So if you don’t know anything about firearms, you didn’t grow up in Michigan, you didn’t grow up in a hunting family or whatever. There’s a pretty big education bridge to get you from. I’m thinking about buying a firearm to actually purchasing one, right? Because there’s the regulatory aspect of it. There’s the safety aspect of it. But once someone goes through that and firearms starts to get demystified, um, there’s so much depth to there’s so much depth to the whole industry. And so it really I think once people understand that it’s there’s so much more to it than just I’m just going to go buy a gun. Right? That’s just the beginning of the journey, not the end of the journey. Yeah.

Matt: It really is the the biggest thing for me. Like when I first opened the store, something that I really strive with my store is that we are known as the friendliest gun store in Arizona. Like whenever somebody comes in the store, it’s their first time walking to a gun store, or they’ve been to a million other stores before us, they’re going to be treated. It’s going to be top notch customer service. That’s absolutely paramount for anything. So we really work to distinguish a lot of what gun stores do, where they have that. When you walk into a gun store and you just feel like if you don’t know anything about firearms, you feel like you’re an outcast or outsider. And I tell the guys when I opened the store, I literally was researching different manufacturers, different because I did not know the stuff myself. And it’s very important, I think, that people realize that not everybody is born an expert and you have to learn somewhere. So getting into finding out what you like and then reading some reviews on it and then putting things in the hands, like getting a feel for how things are because every farm has different grip on it. Something I tell everybody myself personally. Glock. Everybody knows what Glock is and everybody has had a Glock.

Matt: Glock, and I’m not a Glock guy because when I shoot a Glock, the fit in my hand doesn’t really fit as well as I would like it to. And then I was talking to somebody else who knew a lot more than I do, and that was I was looking at Glock, and then they were showing me some Smith and Wesson’s, and he’s hey, you know what? Close your eyes. Pick a like pick a target, close your eyes, point the gun at the target. And what I found out was when I had the Glock, the way that was fitting in my hand was I would go on target, and I would basically be coming in a little too low, and I’ll have to raise my hands up in order to get on target. Whereas with like a Smith and Wesson, I just the feel in my hand naturally that puts out go on target was right there. So it was a lot of little components and little nuances that went along the way as well. So there’s a lot behind it, just seeing what feels good. And then obviously once you fire a gun, you can see what how it feels when you fire it and how it feels with the recoil.

Matt: Everything else. But it’s yeah, there’s just a lot more than the gun. There’s going to be the end or the end of the thing, because then you start going into training aspects and trying to learn how to manipulate, how to clean something that I want to make sure that everybody leaves when they leave the store is that they have at least a very basic understanding of the firearm that they’re purchasing. They understand how to field strip it, they understand the different components of it, and they can also figure out if something were to go wrong, how to get it done. I like to try to educate people a little bit, because obviously when people go into a range or they go outside to go shooting, they might not know all those little rules and stuff. So it’s very important. Hey, listen, when you’re doing this with the firearm, make sure the barrel is pointed safe direction. So we’re trying to educate people on the way as well because it’s essentially like driving. You have to learn this stuff. And having somebody who’s already been there and experienced and giving those little tidbits is always is always informative and definitely down the road needed in some cases.

Wade: Do you feel that because you came to guns late and you had to learn everything yourself in terms of even open the store about everything that experience is, has helped you on the customer service side to understand your clients more. It seems to me that would be an advantage for you.

Matt: Oh, absolutely. Just going in and having essentially having all those dumb questions on my own. Really. It makes me a lot more personable for people when they come in the store and they don’t feel like, oh, I have a dumb question because I’m like, look, listen, you don’t have a dumb question. You just don’t know what. You just don’t know what you’re asking right now. And that’s not it is what it is. So I think that’s something that’s really important and that’s something that I tell all my guys too, is. Not everybody’s an expert, so we need to make sure that we’re being very friendly and helpful when it comes to customers and their questions. And we’ve had we’ve had some very odd questions. And it’s it is what it is. People just don’t know. And unfortunately, when people come into a gun store sometimes and it’s not with everybody, but the negative aspect that a lot of the media portrays when it comes to firearms people, they think that there’s two things. They think either guns are going to be just the absolute worst tool in the world, that a gun just goes off and goes on a killing rampage on its own, or they think that they’re going to go into a gun store, buy a gun, and they’re going to be John Wick. And there doesn’t seem like much middle ground on that. So it’s been that’s something that you have to tell my guys is there’s a lot of components to education here as well. And that’s what we focus on and make sure that people are educated.

Wade: This episode is brought to you by TacticalPay.com. Every few years, it seems large banks and national credit card processors suddenly decide that they no longer want to process payments for firearms and firearms related businesses, and so they drop these businesses with almost no notice, freezing tens of thousands of dollars in payments for months on end. If you want to ensure your partner with a payments provider that is dedicated to supporting the firearms industry, or you just want to find out if you could be paying less for your ACH, debit and credit card processing, visit TacticalPay.com. Again, that’s TacticalPay.com. You touched on it earlier too, is that there’s not a one size fits all gun. Right? I’m a Glock guy. That’s. But I think I’m a Glock guy. Typically because my firearms instructor was a Glock guy. And so he’s I’m like, just give me what you have. Right. But now as I start to shoot other guns, I start to learn, okay. Yeah, there are other guns that I can test these out. And this is why I like it or don’t like it. And people, I think once people start to understand and that it’s a process to find that gun for you, that that’s important part for people to understand. How do you like when someone comes in and they say, okay, I want to get a gun. I’ve never had a gun before. Let’s say handgun, right? They say, I want to get a handgun. Is there a specific sort of framework or process that you take them through to figure that out? Like how do you approach that problem?

Matt: Typically I’ll ask them, what if they’ve shot anything in the past just to see if they have ever shot anything before and then start finding out what they actually plan on using and gun for. Because the one thing that I really think that people, when they think about a gun, they just think of a one size fits all kind of a product. And when I talk to somebody and they’re like, I want to have a firearm to carry on my person at all times or carry on my carry inside the waistband, that kind of thing. And then we start going into what size firearm they actually look for, because a gun that you’re going to conceal, carry is going to be completely different than a firearm that I would recommend if you said that you’re going to keep it in a drawer in your house. Those are two very big important aspects, because then I’m going to find out, are you looking for something that has more capacity to it? But honestly, now that manufacturers have come out with the like the 365 and the FN reflex, where they’re having these very concealable firearms holding between 13 to 17 rounds, that definitely is a game changer. So now it’s more or less finding out what fits in their hand, what they like as far as style goes and what they’re going to use it for to like, I’m not going to I’m not going to recommend a Glock 17 with the TLR one light for somebody who’s going to be concealed carrying a firearm on a waistband when they weigh £120, versus somebody who when I, they come in the store and they’re like, yeah, I want something for my home defense at night, I’m going to definitely recommend something that has a light on there so they can see what they’re shooting at.

Matt: And also have a larger capacity firearm, but also something that fits in their hands, too. And it’s really just a matter of putting stuff in hands and then just finding out what feels good and then just working from there. It’s one drawback that I definitely have in my store is that we’re not a range yet. That’s definitely something that would be beneficial because when I give somebody a firearm, like I say, hey, how’s this feel in your hands? But it’s a car. You know, you go into a dealership, you have to test drive the car to see if you like it. I can sit in 15 different cars. You go, oh, this is the perfect one, and find out that it’s just not what you want. And that’s really hard for firearms. So that’s one thing that ranges definitely have the advantage of. But getting people comfortable and just asking a lot of questions and then finding out like what kind of features functions that really work for them, but even small things that I never thought of before, like people that have like arthritis in their hands or tendonitis, they can’t necessarily manipulate the slide on certain firearms because different ones will have a different grip. So then I have to offer things like a Smith Wesson, like an easy shield or like a revolver, depending on really how bad their hands are, how or what kind of strength they have as far as manipulating slides and and working the magazine release. And so it’s a lot of questions really just finding out what the customer is looking for and then having enough product knowledge to know what would be the best suggestion for them, and then putting that in their hands, what they think about it.

Wade: When you were getting ready to start the store, right. So you hadn’t had a ton of experience with guns. You’re like, I’m going to open a store. Like, how did you even decide for inventory? That must have been an interesting process to go through in terms of how did you even figure out what you were going to bring into the store?

Matt: Yeah, that actually was really an interesting process. Essentially, when I first opened up, I just looked at I went on Google and I just googled top selling firearms of 2016, something like that I brought in. I’m not exaggerating when I say this. I literally opened up the store with eight firearms and 20 boxes of ammo. I had a couple Glocks, I had Smith and Wesson, I had the Jericho, and the only reason I had the Jericho is because I watched that movie War Dogs and the first gun that he had because, oh, if you didn’t know this was a Jericho and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna go to Jericho because it was in a movie. And that was legitimately how I started everything out. So yeah, it was, it was it was interesting. And then obviously, like, I got a hold of some different, different sales reps and some other distributors and went to different manufacturers and really just jumped in and found out what sells, what works and just learned along the way. And honestly, one of my greatest successes is just having really good, really good employees along the way as well.

Matt: I’ve had a lot of guys that came through and have helped out with their knowledge, with what they like in firearms, what they don’t like helping make some of those decisions when it comes to having inventory, because I did have some stuff that I thought would sell pretty well, and we just sat on it and sat on it and sat on it and they were like, hey, listen, let’s get this. And bringing stuff in. It’s been a it’s interesting. It’s been a challenge with inventory, no matter what you do, because it’s always what people want and hoping to grab the hot things. And even to this day now we grew from really nothing into. I think right now I’ve got 300 and some different firearms in store, and every day it’s still a challenge of. Okay. What do we bring in? What’s going to sell? What’s not going to sell? How do we do this and how do we do that. And it’s always been a challenge. But yeah, when we first opened up it was essentially going with, okay, I’ve got Glock, I’ve got Smith and Wesson and then trying to go from there.

Wade: How long did it take you to sell that?

Matt: Jericho? Actually, when I first opened up, I was selling the Jericho more than I was selling Glocks. Oh, really? I was, yeah, because I like people will buy what you recommend or what you like, and I honestly do like the Jericho so I, I would show it to people and I’m like, hey, look, it’s a heavy steel frame gun. And I would I would talk to a lot of people about it, and then they would try it and go, oh, wow, this is a really cool gun. At the time, I think the price point on it was like under $500. It was about the same price that you were getting a Glock for that had that really cool look. And I would tell people too, I’m like, hey, look, this is the gun that was in War Dog. If you ever saw that movie and they’re like, oh, I did see that. And I’m like, yeah, this is that Jericho he was talking about when they yeah, even this day we don’t sell as many now because that I don’t work the sell for nearly as much anymore. I have a staff of ten guys now that run the store, and I do things like podcasts and they do things like sell guns. We don’t sell too many Jericho’s, but if I was in sales for again, I would definitely be something I’d push because it’s a gun that I actually can for the price point. It’s one of those like, why not guns?

Wade: And there’s two really good business lessons in there, right? Business lesson number one is that from just a marketing perspective, is that enthusiasm sells. If you are enthusiastic about a certain type of gun, if you’re like a Glock guy or a sig guy or whatever, and but you have you have reasons for that. That’s a powerful selling technique because your enthusiasm is going to shine forth for whatever it is that you’re doing. Right. And then number one, and then I think the second lesson is that you don’t have to be a bass pro shop to start, right? Like, people think a lot. And this is a business podcast. So there are people are listening to it that maybe they haven’t made that leap yet of, oh, I’m going to, I’m going to go open a gun store. And then they hear your story. Whereas, dude, I had six guns in the store when I started, right. Or whatever. It was like, that’s a very powerful story because it’s going from 0 to 1 is the hardest part. And how long did it take you to get your kind of sea legs right? So you open the store, you got the six guns in there, and you start rocking and rolling. How long was it until you just woke up one day and said, okay, we’re going to make it, and I’m this is my deal. I own a gun store. Like, how long did that take? Do you think.

Matt: I still haven’t hit that yet? Every day I’m still like working and striving and doing things to to make the store better. And I’ll be honest, man, when I first opened the store, it was really hard to actually walk in the store and feel pride because it looked so bare. It looked so bad. If I walked in there, I had no kind of product in the store. It was honestly quite embarrassing, but it was one of the things that I had to grind through it. I had to persevere through it. Every day I come in, come in the store, and I would do what I could do. I yeah, I didn’t have a lot of guns in the store, but I still had the website. And so I would come in the store and look for this. I could still order things for them. It wasn’t it wasn’t ideal. But the biggest thing really is, is you have to you got to work in a lot of a lot of people when they come across something and it’s adverse for them, they give up. And that’s the biggest thing, is that you just you can’t give up. If you’re going to make it work, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get it done. And that’s what I did. And that’s what I still do every day is when we have something come in, I’ve got to we got to figure out a way to get it done. And that’s just the end of the story on that one.

Wade: And but you there is a barrier to entry to it too. Right. So you got to get the FFL. You’ve got to obviously you’ve got a brick and mortar store, you’ve got the inventory. And so it’s once you’re sitting there you’re like, okay, I guess this is what we’re doing. And I think that’s a good attitude to have is that is that you’re always striving to get better because there’s no end to firearms. There’s the depth of a firearm. I talk to guys who have been you talk to guys who have been in Special Forces for 20 years, and they’re like, yeah, no, there’s no they still learn something new every day about firearms. And I think that’s part of it, that what makes it so exciting. So I know Arizona is pretty gun friendly, but it’s like the rest of the states. It’s starting to trend the wrong direction in some ways. Is are you guys seeing from like an advocacy perspective? Is that impacting you guys a lot in terms of the regulation right now, or is that still the same as it’s been since you started?

Matt: It definitely got we have seen more regulations across the firearm industry. First they start like with the Trump administration when they banned bump stocks, they went out and they the ATF made some new ruling about what constitutes a firearm. So they the biggest hurdle and the biggest obstacle. And one of the biggest frustrations is that we have a branch of the government who is defining the rules for what a firearm is, but they don’t know what a firearm actually is, and they make something up and then they enforce it. So we had that bump stock ban. We had the ban on arm braces. We had they came out and said, what if you’re selling 80% lowers. You can’t sell. You can’t sell within a proximity of those 80% lowers anything that could be used to manufacture a firearm, because then it’s like manufactured. And so they they make up these arbitrary rules and then they expect everybody to follow it. And if you don’t follow it, unfortunately they have the power to revoke what you’re doing for a business. So that’s really the most frustrating thing is seeing that. And in the last couple of years, there has been a lot of what ATF rulings where they come out and they say, oh, we’re defining this now. We’re doing this differently. We’re doing this. We’re changing the 4473. We’re doing, you know, so there’s a lot of that going on. So yeah, there’s been. A lot more in the last couple of years. And then obviously with different states like California putting out their different bans on stuff. And with other states, Colorado and Washington come putting up their magazine bands. That all affects what we do too, because we don’t just sell firearms to the state of Arizona. We are a national or national retailer, so it’s a little bit difficult. Sometimes we have to know every state’s rules and regulations and who you can sell to, what you can sell. It’s it definitely is a little bit more challenging than it was seven years ago.

Wade: So from a compliance perspective, is that something that you handle yourself? Do you have people that you talk to, a network of other gun gun shop owners, or do you have attorneys that help you with that? Like how do you as a from a business perspective, how do you stay compliant with everything on the regulatory? Because you have to worry about the feds and you got to worry about obviously the states too.

Matt: Yeah, compliance is a big issue. So obviously that’s something that I have to work on. That’s essentially something that everybody on my staff has to stay alert of. But we have I do have a little team I’ve got I’ve got a couple people that I know that are already in the industry. So we’ll talk and we’ll discuss different things. I don’t necessarily have a lawyer on retainer or anything like that, but if there’s a question on stuff, I do have, people I can reach out to, and NSSF and NRA also come out with a lot of different things, and they’re like, hey, be aware of this and be aware of that. There’s different programs for retailers that come out and they’ll say, hey, do you up to date on this when it comes to your paperwork? Well, we use the electronic 4473 now. So we do all that digitally. So the company that we use the digital briefs for, they have a compliance team and they have lawyers. So they have a team essentially there to make sure that all the stuff that they’re doing is compliant. So the system will flag us. If somebody says they live in California and they’re buying a firearm, not in the California roster, it’ll say, hey, that’s not not something you can do. We do rely on the software a lot to catch a lot of those mistakes. So that definitely helps. But yeah, with the changing landscape of the firearms regulations, it definitely takes a village here to really do this and do it right, because the last thing you want to do is get in trouble with the get in trouble for doing something that you’re unaware of because, as they say, ignorance is no, uh, excuse of the law.

Wade: Yeah, no. And I think that’s an important thing is to to let people know. Look, it’s you have to have a network of people that are helping you. You have to have in terms of you can help protect yourself from the tech perspective, too, on the tech side. And so there’s a lot of different things that you can put in place to be a check against human error. And so it’s it’s it’s definitely exciting to hear that you guys are deploying that, and that you also have people on your side to help you go through that as well. But yeah, man, you have a really super exciting story. How do people find you? What’s the best way to find you? Let’s go through all your socials, your websites, all that good stuff.

Matt: So the website obviously is just alpha dog firearms. You can pass online anywhere on that. Funny enough, not really funny enough, but we had 60,000 followers on Facebook and Facebook shut our page down because we’re a gun store. So I think if you just go on Alpha, I think we made another backup page. I don’t know how much we actually have on it now, but if you just go to Alpha Dog Firearms on Facebook, same thing with Instagram. It’s just Alpha dog firearms, I believe. We’ve got a TikTok channel that we just opened up, which again, Alpha Dog Firearms. And then we also have Alpha Dog Firearms TV on YouTube. I just hired a guy to do some of our social media stuff, because that is an area, an aspect that I completely fail in because I just don’t have the time or knowledge to really go into social media stuff. So we definitely have a lot more social media stuff going out, but doing that and always you can come by and see us. We’re right in Tempe off of Mill and Baseline, you know, online or in store, and we’re open daily 10 to 8. And like I said, we’re the fitness gun store in Arizona. So it’s worth the drive no matter where you’re at.

Wade: Don’t tell your social guy not to sleep on Twitter, because I tell all my ghostwriting clients to go on Twitter because they’re friendly to guns. They’re not. You can’t sell on Twitter even like holsters or anything guns adjacent. But you’re not just it’s the least likely to get shut down on for guns. So I always tell people on the gun side is gun. Twitter is pretty, pretty friendly. And they’re okay on Twitter right now. But but yeah. Anyways, man, that’s awesome. Dude. I used to live right down the street from where you are and I can actually visualize exactly where you are. And I just think it’s such a cool story that you basically just decided out of the blue, I’m going to open a gun store, and then you did it, man. So a lot of people have big ideas, but they don’t follow through on them. So I think that’s definitely impressive. And I think a lot of people can get inspiration from your story.

Matt: Well, I appreciate it. So just curious, I can see like your background is a little bit blurred right now, but I can see a dog in the back, something that people don’t really maybe don’t know about the store. I didn’t name Alpha Dog Firearms Alpha Dog because I had a superiority complex. I literally did it because I have, or at the time I had three rescue dogs and I was just watching them play. And one of the dogs was, uh, Sadie was the dog that I had, and she was growling at the other two dogs for mess with the toys. And I just thought, oh, it’s funny, Sadie’s being the alpha dog. And that’s how I became the Alpha Dog Firearms. So I’m going to ask you, what kind of dog do you have back there? Because I actually like dogs more than most people.

Wade: So normally, normally she’s not there because but I got a late start today, so I didn’t want to be running too late. But. So she’s a border collie pointer mix and then but she’s a rescue so she’s a mutt. So we know what her mom is, but we don’t know what her dad is. But she’s mostly border collie and £45 of thunder, so she’s a pain in the ass. But we love her. Oh, I gotta love it.

Matt: No, I we tell people to bring their dogs in the store all the time, and that’s really what we’re all about. The dog, the. And the logo that is the copyright from Sadie. She said story. But I opened the store and about a week after I opened the store, Sadie died. And so we made I made the change to her as my logo. The story. And we’re very dog centric. That’s really what we when the Alpha dog firearms. It’s just for the love of dogs. So it’s the things that make America great, right? Guns and dogs.

Wade: 100% man I get yeah, 100%. And that’s the one thing too, is about your dog is always there for you. And people that aren’t dog people don’t get it, man. When the dog dies, it’s like part of your family dies. You never get over it. So that was our last dog. It was a Boston terrier, and we never still that dog anyway. All right, man, cool. Listen, I was like I said, you have a really inspiring story, and I think a lot of people will listen to it. And hopefully they’ll take that step to to become part of the two way business community. Because the more people that there’s, it’s a big tent and the more people like you that we can get in there, I think the more that we can get our rights protected. So I really want to thank you for coming on the show today. Yeah.

Matt: Appreciate you guys having me.

Wade: All right man. Yeah, absolutely. We’ll definitely talk again okay. All right. Thank you. You’ve been listening to the Tactical Business Show by TacticalPay.com. Join us again next episode as we explore what it takes to be a business success in the firearms industry.