About This Episode
In today’s episode of Tactical Business, host Wade Skalsky sits down with Mark Glavin from Fox Valley Shooting Range. Mark shares his journey from the corporate world to owning a gun range and retail store. From navigating business challenges to building a family-run team, he dives into the ups and downs of the industry. Learn how training, retail strategy, and customer service shape their success, even amid regulatory changes and competition. A must-watch for entrepreneurs and firearm enthusiasts!
Insights In This Episode
- Mark had no prior retail experience, struggled with inventory selection, and initially stocked many items not in demand in Illinois.
- Illinois’ restrictive gun laws, including the 2023 assault weapons ban, significantly changed their inventory and sales approach.
- Understanding the local landscape helped him position his range against competitors, including a national chain.
- Classes not only educate customers but also increase retail purchases.
- Offering membership plans helped ensure recurring revenue and customer retention.
Today’s Guest
Mark Glavin | Fox Valley Shooting Range
Fox Valley Shooting Range, located in Elgin, Illinois, is a premier indoor firearms training facility featuring twelve 75-foot lanes and two private 45-foot lanes. The range offers advanced amenities, including touch-screen controlled 360° rotating targets and a three-stage HEPA air filtration system. Founded by Mark Glavin to create an inviting environment for all shooters, it provides comprehensive training classes and membership options.
Featured on the Show
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, we’ll 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’re speaking with Mark Glavin of Fox Valley Shooting Range. Mark, how are you doing, sir?
Mark: Great. Very well. Thanks for having me.
Wade: I’d love to have you. I always like to talk to brick and mortar people, because I believe it’s a very important part of the two way businesses. And so I’m excited to chat with you about that. But before we get going, I know you’re in Illinois, and so how’s the weather out there? Everyone in the country right now is having a cold snap, so you guys are used to it.
Mark: There was rather warm a week and a half ago which dropped down to red or cold. Get a little snow this morning. But they’re saying by the end of the week early next it should be back into the upper 30s 40s. So yeah.
Wade: We’re getting snow in Virginia Beach, so everyone is panicking, but it’s all good. I’d like to start with what is the origin story of how you got to where you are now? Like, you know you’re in the two way business, but I’m assuming you didn’t start there right in your first gig. How did you get to where you are now?
Mark: No, no, I’m working on my third career. The last one, I spent about 25 years in the recycling business with metals refining. That rolled up in. We merged in with a big privately or publicly held company. And the corporate world ate me up and spit me out. And I was never so happy to get out of that. So about eight years ago, I hated my corporate gig and got to find something else to do. Uh, I started looking around what to do? How to do? I couldn’t stay there. My wife’s there and shoot me. So we’re at a gun range and we leave in, and they had a great time, and they said, oh, we gotta bring you back. So we get on the road. I mean, he’s, you know, grown. We’re everywhere yourself. No, no, it didn’t really didn’t feel too comfortable there. Wasn’t really into this. And I was like, well yeah, gun ranges are run by jerks. And that’s that’s just the way it is. I was thinking, why? Why is that so? Retail experience. So I started looking around and went to a couple of seminars on how to’s run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation and the NRA and said, yeah, this might work. Put a business plan together, see if I can make it work financially. And believe it or not, less than a week later, I got fired. Okay, okay, let’s let’s start walking down the road, talk to my wife and got the buy in from her. And she said she’d work with me. And we started down the road and one step after another. And it took about a year and a half to find the building, get the build out, get the permitting and get everything running before we were up and running.
Wade: That’s the universe telling you, hey, it’s time for a change. You had the plan ready to go. And how long ago was that when you opened the doors?
Mark: We opened July of 18. So we’re just coming up on seven years. All right.
Wade: So it’s July 18th. You’re about a year before all the nonsense hits or so. A year and a half, maybe. What was that first year like before Covid hit? What were the bumps and bruises that you kind of took during that time, going.
Mark: From two completely different industries. I knew nothing about retail. I mean, I shot, I had guns. My father took me hunting. So I been around guns my whole life. But not on a on a business basis. Uh, and, man, it was like being fed with a firehose. Uh, it was long. It was hard. It was great, though, but, uh, you know, a lot a lot of ups and downs. What what do you stock the shelves with? We got about 5000 square foot of retail showroom. And where do I buy? You know, we went on a freaking $800,000 buying spree. Just buying, you know, and then we end up with a lot of stuff that I didn’t realize. We’re in Illinois. You can’t hunt with anything other than a shotgun. I didn’t even think about that. And I had probably 40 bolt action rifles hunting rifles on the wall. The inventory was a big hurdle. What do people want? What don’t they want? And get in the store? Properly stocked.
Wade: One theme of the show that I find is that. Geography does actually make a big difference in terms of for the firearms industry. So one of those instances is what you’re talking about is, you know, what kind of guns in that area do people use? Um, the other one is where are you in Illinois and how does that impact you? Are you in a like a city area? Are you are there’s competition there? Like, how does your actual geographic location impact you?
Mark: When we opened up, there was one range store in the area, oldest guy Ben. He’s been there since the early 80s, and there was a couple others further east towards Chicago. So geographically we’re about anywhere from an hour to four, depending on what’s happening in Chicago, straight west of the city. So it’s a decent area, a bit of rural. There is some, you know, Elgin is a pretty diverse talents town we’re in, but it’s a nice area, uh, now. But since we’ve opened two other ranges that has opened up within 20 or 30 minutes from us, and one of them is a big national chain has USA in the name. We won’t go any further than that. But there they moved in maybe a year and a half after we opened. But I believe our business really hasn’t hasn’t changed much. You know, I mean, obviously the first couple of years were hemorrhaging cash at a dizzy pace, but fortunately our name got out there. People knew who we were, and that’s changed.
Wade: Talk me through your facility a little bit. We got the range, and you have the big retail. I mean, did you just build everything out right away? What was that process like for you guys? Deciding. Okay, we found this place. How did you settle on that place?
Mark: Yeah, yeah, we built up completely. Pretty much the way it is now is the way it’s built. So we got four lanes, 25 yards, about 5000, 5200 square foot of retail and then two training classrooms.
Wade: Do you feel like you’ve grown into the space, or do you feel like you have enough space, or how is that from a logistics standpoint?
Mark: Realistically, I think we have too much space. The retail is bigger than I think I need. Had I done it again, it probably would have been a little smaller. I’d maybe see if I can’t move a couple more shooting lanes, not just because it’s 5000ft² and you gotta stock 5000ft². That’s an inventory number. And I think now our challenge is going to be to find different, diverse retail items that people will want that we can stock the shelves with. Or, you know, you can’t have the exact same 500 selections of range bags, right? You gotta switch it up a little bit. And we’re working on that now. And, uh, finding new lines to bring in all the time, like, you know, we didn’t go to shot show this year. It’s some family issues come up. But that’s a great place to find the new upcoming products.
Wade: Yeah, I was hoping I was going to go to shot show this year didn’t end up happening, but I think that’s my plan for next year. All right. So you’re in business for about a year and a half. Covid hits what.
Mark: Happens? Well for the gun industry it was good. March 20th was the first month we actually were in the black. And then Covid came in. And right after that was the George Floyd riots. And people are coming in scared. They didn’t know what to do. They were scared. And a guy came in, was bug eyed. He looked around. Hey, man, you got a lot of guns here. And the gun store. I need two pistols. What are you looking for? I don’t know. I got off from work today. My wife told me I need two pistols. He had a foid card. He had an Illinois. You require a firearms owner’s ID card to buy a gun. So we. You know, we talked a little bit, and, you know, his wife came in and we hit it off for a couple of handguns. And, you know, never touched a gun before in their life. So we gave him some training schedules and begged him to please come back for some training, which they did. Um, but, yeah, it was crazy. We, you know, we were deemed essential, but we voluntarily took a two day hiatus just to clear the decks.
Mark: We had guns with 44, 73 seconds attached to them, stacked in every corner of the office we could find. So we had to, you know, take a couple of days just to straighten everything out and get our wits about us and an open back up and didn’t miss a beat from there. There was, you know, I hate to say it, it really hurt me personally to see my business thriving. And the restaurants down the street are closing up. Some people come in with masks on, had a couple bills come in. One guy came walking around with a freaking full face respirator, so everyone took it. They’re different levels, how they wanted to handle it. My customers, I didn’t require masks, so mask required sign on the door. But I’m not going to tell you how to live your life. You don’t tell me how to live my life. Of course we’re going back to old school civility. You don’t call me. I won’t cough and sneeze on you. And then we’ll go home.
Wade: So you come out of Covid, you kind of got the, you know, what do you feel was a couple of the reasons why your business started to do well. What were you focusing on that you were seeing returns on?
Mark: I told all the team members here, if you’re having a bad day and you’re just not in a good mood, call me up. I’m not going to be any good to you today because I’m just going to be in a pissed off mood. I’m not coming to work. All my guys and gals are Or happy, friendly, courteous, I think in the area or in the industry needs to happen. I’ve seen a lot of the gun stores that opened up in the last 5 to 10 years. They’re getting better. The old school ones are still the old school, where there’s a grouchy guy chewing on a cigar, sitting at the end of it at the gun counter. And that’s the attitude of all the employees. It’s a family business. Portray a positive, outgoing, upbeat personality. That’s the way that bleeds off into our team members. And people have found that it’s a friendly atmosphere. You’re not going to find a grouch. You’re not going to find anyone talking down at you. If you don’t know nothing about firearms, great, we’ll teach you. You don’t know the difference between a Glock 19 and a Glock 17. You know, when I started it, I asked my wife if she would help me out, go through the motions. She said, yeah, you know, I’ll walk right with you. And then my oldest son came on board and showed our followed shortly by my youngest boy. And then my oldest son got married and his daughter came with us. So it’s, you know, full family here. And, you know, I think that rubs you off to our customers. They’re happy to come in and see the whole family.
Wade: That is one through line for almost every successful firearms business. Is customer service, right? Like that is the number one thing that people that I talk to focus on because for whatever reason, it’s not as prevalent in the industry as you think it would be.
Mark: Yeah. And it should be. You know, I mean, the customers are the only reason we’re here. So, you know, you have to go above and beyond and, you know, they don’t care if the customers stop coming in the door. That’s not a good thing for a retail business.
Wade: So how did you find your people? Right. Because I know labor is a big it’s a big challenge for a lot of people. If you hire the wrong people, it’s going to cause you a big problem in your business. Did you kind of, like, know people personally, or what was the process that you found for hiring people, and is it different now than it was when you started?
Mark: We built a phenomenal team. We are so lucky that we have the team. We have personality. You know, someone comes in for an interview. I don’t care what you know about firearms. I don’t care about retail. I sit down with my oldest son, is taking on that task anymore, but sit down and have a conversation with him. Just an open conversation about how, you know, conversation like this. How are you doing? What are you doing? How’d you get here? You know, and if they’re nice, open, happy people. But we can teach them the guns that that’s easy. But, you know, you can’t teach. You know, you can’t be at the start very young to teach somebody to be a good, honest, open person. And that’s what we look for. And so the knowledge base of the firearms industry doesn’t really matter. You know, that can be taught.
Wade: Well at the end of the day you said it. It’s a retail business, right. So you just have to have certain core principles for retail. All right. So you’ve got your people going in. You’re doing well. Walk me through a little bit about your training program. How does that work with the retail side. How does that work with the marine side? Is it big. Is it little. What are your thoughts on that?
Mark: Well, we do the standard concealed carry, the renewal permits. Once we started doing concealed carries, we had a lot of people coming in, especially during Covid buying a gun. Go into the concealed carry class, strap a gun on their hip and thinking they have any reasonable ability to use that in a defensive scenario. So we started a defensive pistol series one through five one on basics. How do you get to your concealed weapon and draw it from a holster properly and safely? And then two goes on to engage in multiple targets three on the moving and shooting, engaging multiple targets all the way on out to five, which is how do you clear a house? We have a mock door set up on the range to teach people how to open the door and pi through the door to clear the other side of it. You’re working on more of those. I just started interviewing a gentleman yesterday. Uh, in the springtime, we’re going to start more long range classes here. We’re only 25 yards, but about an hour away. We have a 600 yard range, So when they start teaching people how to reach out and get out to 600 yards is moderate. But it’s, you know, for in Illinois, it’s about as long as you’re going to get uh, the training is going well, it can be better. What I find is that you have to change it up. So we have a defensive 1 to 5 series, which did really well. But the people in this area that want to learn that type of skill have learned it. So now the classes are falling off. My customer base that’s in the area that want to learn how to enter a room, they’ve already done that. So now we’re changing them up trying to come up with different classes. Optics are becoming extremely popular and so it will really teach them how to shoot with a with a red dot.
Wade: Yeah, that’s an interesting problem. I never really thought about that. That as you kind of go up the ladder on the training side, that’s a core group of people. Once they learn it, they’ve learned it, right? It’s not like ammunition where it just gets used. You need to go get some more. That is something that it’s a learned skill. So I never I never really thought about that problem, especially if you’re in a geographic place with a limited population of people. I mean, I’m in Virginia Beach and you can’t, you know, there’s a million. Everyone here is Special Forces or something, right? Yeah. And so when they throw a defensive shotgun class, my range, same dudes show up for it every single time. Right. So it’s just a core group of people.
Mark: Does the training classes you bleed into the retail side, people come in like the optics, red dot clashes. I am a firm believer in dry docks and I’m on the other side of 50. My eyes are failing and I don’t carry a gun that does not have a red dot on it because it is such a game changer. Guys come in my age, young parents, they’re shot. I say half a dozen guns on a rental car that have red dots. Try it. They come in, love it. But it’s kind of hard acquiring a target that’s up to trying to take the class. They take the class, and it’s a game changer. If their pistols are off the grid, they may buy a red dot if their pistol is not optic ready. Freddy, I buy their used gun and sell them a new gun with a red dot. So the training classes do bleed into the retail shop. We recently started a first aid course and we tell them in the concealed carry class, God forbid you ever have to use your weapon in self-defense and you have to put a hole in somebody. But we should try and stop that bleed and plug that hole until fresh and chilled. So we have a training class. Stop the bleed. How to put a tourniquet on, how to apply a chest shield, how to pack a wound. And they take the class and come out and walk over and buy a case. It works out well you know. And now you have somebody that has a concealed carry permit, has the ability to defend himself, and he’s driving around with a first aid kit in his car. God forbid he needs to use it, but he has the ability to stop the bleed for the first time for the profession. Show up.
Wade: Yeah, and there’s the synergy between those three things, right? So you’ve got the class to the retail, and then they like their new gun. They got to shoot it. They go to the range. So you’ve got this, kind of this. All those things are working together. 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. Walk me through a little bit about this bullseye league that I see that you guys are running. How did that come to be? And is that something that’s a profit center for you or something you guys just do for fun.
Mark: In the summertime, we competed against the golf courses of swimming pools, the baseball fields, all that stuff. On winters, it’s the ski hills and the movie theaters, so the summers slow down drastically. So we used it as a way to get people in the door, utilize our range. That’s their ventilation is on. It’s not making any money if no one’s in it. And it really did well, the same targets that they use during the leagues. We started selling them in bulk packs, and the guys would come in when they’re not, and they’d take those targets to practice. On our sales of target 22 pistols jump probably 10%, 15%. In fact, it was went through the summer. And then the guys that did it, they were begging me, can we please do another class for the wintertime? Pick your slowest time, I don’t care. Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 5, whatever the slowest time your range is, let us do another. So we did. And it’s the same guy, but I think we upped it to six man teams. And last time we had made six man teams. So there’s about as much as we can get in in the time slot with the 14 lanes we have now.
Wade: Does your range do is it on like a membership model or is it on where you can do by the hour or both, or how does that work for you guys. Both. Yeah.
Mark: Yeah. So we have two memberships. One is you get free range time seven days a week and the other one is Monday through Thursday. Okay, a couple of bucks for it. A couple extra bucks to go seven days a week. But it’s really nice in the winter time because on the weekends, we’ll have a half hour wait for a range ten minutes after we open until an hour before we close. So if you have a membership, you can go online and reserve the lane time up to a week in advance.
Wade: So there’s a lot of moving parts. Now did you I mean, so I guess you did have the retail, the classes and the range right out of the gate, right? Yeah. If you could go back now and say, okay, I know you said you’d have less retail space, what are some other things that maybe you would change about, or that you did change from the beginning to now? If you go back in time and change?
Mark: I mean, there is some building layout changes I might have made. There’s an area above the range that could have been used for a member’s lounge or something else, but the ceiling heights. I put the ceiling in the range 12ft tall, but really, does it need to be 12ft? If it was ten feet, it would be just fine. Then I would have been able to utilize the space above, you know, that type of thing. It probably would have been the biggest change. You know, in classrooms. We had three classrooms at the beginning, found out where we didn’t need them. It would have changed the classroom way out a little bit, but that’s about it.
Wade: Did you build the building or did you buy the building?
Mark: No, I built I bought the building. So it’s a condo type of building.
Wade: So do you guys have any plans for expansion? What’s your guys’s plan for the next 2 to 5 years, do you think?
Mark: Not really. I did look at an outdoor training facility about two hours away, but managing two facilities that far apart it would have been. I would have had to have hired a complete management team for it, just too far for for me or my son to to run. Being just that far apart. So I’m thinking, at least for me, I’m content where I’m at my boys. Hopefully if they want to either revisit the outdoor range or expand to another location, I would support them 100% if they had that in them. Be honest, I’m I’m on the other side of that. I’m trying to figure out a way to not be here six days a week and let my kids take care of it.
Wade: Well, I mean, it sounds like you kind of have a system down for it now, right? Everything just kind of runs the way that you try to dial it in. So it almost runs itself with your team. And that’s the dream for everybody, right? So that it’s the team knows what to do. There’s a system that we run when.
Mark: We go back to Covid. My son says, you know, dad, you built a family business, and now we’re all here all the time, and we’re never going to be able to take a family vacation again, you know? Well, you know, we’ll work it out. And shortly thereafter, this was early on in Covid. My wife tested positive right after we had a family dinner and said, okay, guys. Well, you know, let’s play by the rules. Again, this was early on. We didn’t know how bad it was going to be. So go home. We did some scheduling changes, called up some people and filled in some shifts. And ten days later we went back to the shop and merchandise was on the wall. Cash was in the bank and the team stepped up and it ranked none. None of us were in the building for ten days. And be honest, it was, you know, a little catch up on emails and phone calls and what have you. But the business ran and I think that goes to the team you put together. So, you know, anyone starting their range, you have to a lot of effort into getting the right people in the right spots.
Wade: Yeah, 100%. And it must have been really exciting for you though to have that happen because that sets the precedent. Oh, maybe we can systematize this. Maybe we can get this done.
Mark: Yeah. And early 22, the whole family buggered off for a week and a half cruise to Alaska. It was great.
Wade: Nice I love Alaska. That’s the two places that I would go back to are Alaska and Kauai. Like, those are the two places I would go back to.
Mark: I agree with you on both of those.
Wade: Okay. So what are some of the trends that you’ve seen change from the time when you opened to now? Is it pretty similar? And I know where you live. You guys are so highly regulated where you live and you’ve had the laws change so drastically since 2008.
Mark: Yeah. So right. Right after we opened up, they introduced the Illinois Gun Dealer Licensing Act so that now FFL is are regulated by state police as well as ATF. Uh, so that changed a bit. What really changed is when they did the assault weapons ban and January 9th of 23, the list of weapons that the governor deems assault weapons is extensive and illogical. So a lot of our guns have changed. You know, we have 1022 that have a thumbhole stock or deemed assault weapons. They can’t sell.
Wade: Well, you can’t sell an AR, right?
Mark: Any rifle that has a detachable magazine and either any one of these attributes a collapsible adjustable stock pistol, grip, grip the barrel irrespective of caliber. So or the pistol grip. You can’t have.
Wade: My Mossberg tactical shotgun. You can’t have an.
Mark: But a, a Ruger Precision bolt gun that can reach out three quarters of a mile and do damage is completely fine. So the types of guns that we’re selling are changing just because I can’t sell. So the demand for a new firearm guy wants to buy a new gun, you know. Okay, we’ll switch over. A pump gun. There’s some companies out there actually making a pump action AR 15. And that is completely legal. Oh, we will buy those so that that’s changed. And, you know, unfortunately, the way Things happened. It didn’t get taken to the Supreme Court, did not pick the case up in our last session, but thankfully, the happenings of the last couple of days. I think that the Second Amendment legislation put this on a national level will get better. Whether it’s going to happen to the state level, everyone’s got you know, that’s a good guess. And unfortunately, the fine state of Illinois is not very two way friendly.
Wade: No, but it’s in some ways it’s worse than California. Well it’s insane.
Mark: I think they have a ten day week. We were a three day week. But yeah, but.
Wade: I think you can buy an AR in California.
Mark: They don’t allow you to have a pistol grip. So manufacturers started putting a little blade of plastic behind the pistol grip so you can’t get your thumb around it. It’s interesting I said the same thing. It’s just a work around. Even those are not compliant in Illinois.
Wade: What about on the retail side? So like on the customer side, are you seeing a more diverse group of people politically or you know, I know that some other people I talked to, at least in different states, they’re seeing much more nontraditional gun owners coming in. Are you seeing that on where you guys are at?
Mark: A there’s not since the Covid thing and everyone getting crazy bunch of brand new gun owners got into the industry and I would say probably 25, 30% of those people never bought another gun and never used a gun. But 70, 75% have come back here time and time again. I’ve had some a lot of customers that never shot a gun before in their life, and now they’re here at least once a week. And so I see a lot of new people coming in, a lot of women. Women are becoming a bigger and bigger driver in the in the industry. So we’re getting women’s groups to meet here the first Thursday of every month and the second Friday of every month. They take one of our classrooms, have an hour long discussion on whatever the topic of the day is. And then they go to the range for an hour. We’re seeing a big spread of clientele.
Wade: I’m encouraged by that. And the reason is because I think that’s going to expand the political power from a grassroots level. The more that people are exposed to the two way community, the more like, oh, these are actually real people. And it’s a nice, supportive community. For the most part versus what people think it is.
Mark: Right. It’s not a bunch of hillbilly lying rebel flags and carrying guns over their shoulder walking in the door. That’s the perception that the media throws on the Second Amendment. They realize that they’re just regular people having a good time.
Wade: Well, even those hillbilly hicks were my people. They’re the nicest people in the world. There are very few other places in society. You’ll find strangers be more supportive to you and your safety.
Mark: Everyone’s watching out for the next guy, making sure everything’s safe on the range. You’re right, you know. And you know, you go to any shooting facility, whether it’s an indoor range field, skeet field, long distance range, you’ve never run across a mean person or someone that has a chip on their shoulder or not willing to help the new person out. You know what’s going on with my gun? Why is it not performing right? Or you know, what am I doing wrong on mission? This target, everyone is more than happy to help out.
Wade: Well, and one thing I love about ranges too, is that they allow. Especially ones where you can rent guns, is that it allows you to figure out what your gun is. Because if you buy a gun, that’s not a good fit for you. You’re not going to shoot it. If you don’t shoot it, you don’t. You don’t become safe with it. If you don’t become safe with it, you don’t become comfortable with it. If you don’t become comfortable with it, you’re not going to carry it. And so a place like yours, with a brick and mortar that allows someone to find what their gun is, I mean, that’s a great that’s a great asset for why brick and mortar ranges are so important.
Mark: Yeah, we have probably 100, maybe 110 guns on our rental counter. And the way we do it is it’s a $20 fee, gives you access to every gun we have. So you can take and swap out, start with a sig and see if you like the sig. Go to a block or to a Smith and Wesson. Go to a Springfield. Find out which one fits you before you end up buying them. And Yeah. You’re right. You buy a gun, you don’t like it, you better use a gun. It’s just like a used car, you know? You shoot it five times and don’t like it. Well, you just took a big hunk of a percentage off the gun, you know? You know, we definitely encourage people to get on the range and everything we did. The way the range is set up, we have two private bays that walls, floor and ceiling are bulletproof and ricochet proof. So once you’ve taken our concealed differential pistol one class, or if you haven’t demonstrated law enforcement prior experience, you can draw from holster. We allow people to draw from a holster on those two ranges. Oh, wow. No place allows you to draw from a holster.
Wade: I’ve never even heard of that. Walk me through how you did that. I mean, does that affect your assurance or how did you. How did. No, it’s just because of the bulletproof and the ricochet part.
Mark: If you’re on a private base, the walls and ceiling are bulletproof. The floor is lined with the ballistics rubber. Trouble. You have to demonstrate that you have the ability to draw from holster, not looking for speed, not looking for accuracy. Just that you can get to your handgun, get it out of the holster and press it forward safely. And once you demonstrate that, we allow you to draw from holster and obviously we give you an ID card that lets the range staff know that you have the qualifications to do that. And we put a lot of extra eyes on you. Make sure that everything’s going smoothly. And seven years on, we’ve never had an issue with it.
Wade: That’s a competitive advantage. I’ve never even heard of that. Like I’ve interviewed a lot of people for gun ranges and I’ve never even heard of that. I think that’s genius.
Mark: Yeah. Well, you know, again, you know, so far we’ve never had an issue with it. Uh, insurance company. You know, the insurance is not astronomical. I’ll be honest. I’m was pleasantly surprised starting this. How it in my opinion, reasonable insurance is for.
Wade: Well, and especially since over time, if you don’t have any incidents or problems. You know, obviously that gets better. Did you have that range from the beginning? Wow. And was that your idea? Who had that idea?
Mark: It was by happenstance. So when we laid the building out we can get 25 yard ranges in. But then the way the building lays out, there’s a 12 foot area that we can only get about 40ft because the way the building is laid out, well, you know, it’s an odd little corner. And so we’re just split it down the middle and we’ll make two six foot wide private backs for another couple of doors in there. Built the dividing wall between the two ranges out a bit. And then going through it, I was, you know, while putting up the ballistic walls together. They typically use them for shoot houses and it’s like 2.5in thick and they put it on the wall. And every X rounds you got to replace these panels. Well, they’re in the floor. So you know we line the floor with wall to wall, some door past the shooting bench. The benches have taken a round or two that I really wish had. But it’s kind of weird that, you know, we built a facility designed to be shot and shot in how much it gets shot. The carriers, we’re constantly repairing the target carriers because they get shot. The target carriers sometimes do bear the brunt of poor marksmanship.
Wade: Well, there’s two things that I try not to do is have aircraft mechanics. Tell me about aircraft mechanic stories. And I try not to look around in a range at the ceiling or in the doors. I try not to look too much there because.
Mark: You don’t want to take into the kitchen too often.
Wade: You don’t want to know how the sausage is made all the time. Awesome. So I guess if I came to you and I said, hey, I’m thinking about opening a range, what are a couple tips that you would give me if I was like a brand new person? You say, okay, well, make sure you think this through.
Mark: I mean, one thing that helped me out was get to know your demographics. Who’s your competition? How many people do you have within a 30 minute drive of your location. Originally, I wanted to put an outdoor facility with ranges out to 400 yards and trap and skeet fields, but I found out to find the space to do that. I’m an hour from anybody, and no one’s going to drive an hour to go to your range. So I’d say demographics, zoning, find a city that has workable zoning. I did find out that most towns and villages that don’t have a gun range, their building code and their ordinances are moot on the form. They don’t say it can’t happen, so fine, you know, look around and find out where the zoning might be a little easier to get approved. That was the hurdle. And then find the building. The biggest problem with indoor gun ranges in existing buildings is you need a warehouse with a lot of parking, and most big warehouse buildings have zero parking.
Wade: So yeah, my range, it’s funny where it’s located and how much parking it has. Yeah, it’s really good advice.
Mark: One more point. Get it as close to population as you can.
Wade: Yeah, yeah.
Mark: Because, you know, we have a residential community 150ft off the back wall of the range. And you want.
Wade: To decrease friction, right. So the least amount of friction in your business you can have. So you want high population density good facility and the right demographics I think that’s a really smart, smart starting point. Well listen, I’ve really enjoyed talking to you today. I’d love to have you come back on the show. How do people find you? Give me the website again. Are you guys on social? Yep.
Mark: So our website is Fox Valley SR. Com. Questions? Comments? Email is info info at Fox Valley SR. Com. We are on Facebook modestly. They they get a little tricky sometimes and we’ve been taken off a couple of times. We do have an Instagram. It’s a fox underscore valley underscore shooting underscore range. And then we’re working on getting on to Twitter.
Wade: Yes Twitter. That’s I’m very I write in the industry. I tell all my clients, get on Twitter, it’s the only place you’re going to be safe on. Although the winds have changed, maybe are changing a little bit, but you’ll always be good on gun Twitter. So yeah.
Mark: We’re Facebook, they’re okay with the reels. You can put videos up with guns all the time, and you put a post on Facebook that you’re having a sale on Glocks Wednesday through Friday. They’ll get done in a heartbeat.
Wade: Well, Twitter, they brought back the actual gun emoji. Right? So on Twitter you don’t have the fake gun pistol anymore. You can actually do the gun emoji. They brought it back. So yeah, Twitter is gun. Twitter is a great place. I know a lot of people on there. So. All right man. Well, listen, I really enjoyed talking to you and just have a great rest of your day. I’d love to have you back on the show in a couple of months and stay on after I stop the recording.
Mark: Have a good day. Thank you very much. All right.
Wade: Thanks again. 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.