About This Episode
In today’s episode of Tactical Business, host Wade Skalsky sits down with Keenan Allemond of Lateral Limits Works to talk about the challenges and triumphs of starting and running a firearms business. He shares his journey of finding a location, securing an FFL, and navigating inventory shortages during COVID. Keenan also dives into the importance of customer service, his approach to selling suppressors, and how he built a thriving business without spending a dollar on advertising. Don’t miss this deep dive into the firearms industry!
Insights In This Episode
- Offering barrel threading, Cerakote, and other modifications alongside suppressor sales creates additional business.
- Free installations for muzzle devices bought in-store encouraged more purchases.
- Staying flexible with inventory, regulations, and customer needs helps sustain growth.
- Staying updated on ATF regulations and maintaining meticulous records prevents legal issues.
Today’s Guest
Keenan Allemond | Lateral Limits
Lateral Limits is a gun shop in Garland, TX, offering more than just firearms. They’re a “Man Store” with coffee, leather goods, grooming products, knives, patriotic décor, and more. Founded by Marine Corps veteran Keenan Allemond, their shop is a welcoming space for like-minded individuals to connect. Whether you’re shopping or just hanging out, stop by for great prices, hot coffee, and good company. Veteran-owned and operated!
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 are speaking with Keenan Lamont from Lateral Limits. Keenan, how did I do in the last name?
Kennan: I did great man. You’re a natural.
Wade: Yeah exactly. Before we went online I wanted to make sure I got the name right and it was good. I’m glad we practiced it together, so that was good. I’ve done better than most, so I’m happy about that. So I’m pumped up to have you on the podcast today. But before we get into those exciting stuff you guys are doing out in Texas, give me a little background. How did you get to where you are now? What was the sequence of events that led you to Garland, Texas?
Kennan: So I had almost no intention of really moving here. Specifically, I graduated college at UL, the University of Louisiana, in December of 2019. I didn’t really apply for many jobs inside of Louisiana. We really wanted to move my wife and just wanted a different little change of scenery, etc. I applied for a couple of jobs in Texas. I got offered a job as a hunting guide. I’m a really big whitetail hunter. I got offered a job as a hunting guide at a ranch, which is what people with business degrees do for a living, I guess is guide. Hunts did that for about six months. My wife and kids moved up here. I complained, as most people do, you know about their job and etc. and she said, well, why don’t you just open your own business? And I was like, well, I don’t really know what I do here. And so she said, well, you obviously managed a gun store for someone else in Louisiana for six years. Why don’t you think about that? So I started doing a little bit of market research. I was really baffled with the number of gun stores that I guess, as you could say, are not here. I definitely thought moving from outside of Texas to here, I thought there’d probably be a gun shop on just about every corner, which there was not. So basically I went to a couple of the ones in the Garland area because that’s where we my wife got a job at. So I wanted to stay closer to there, and we discovered that they’re the ones that are here, have been here for a really long time, so things aren’t quite as modern. So we have a shop Pomeranian. I don’t know if you can hear him.
Wade: It’s all good. It’s all good. It’s production errors are a feature, not a bug of this program. So. Exactly.
Kennan: Don’t worry. Hopefully you’re good at. You. Got a good editor.
Wade: It just makes you a normal human being, man. And that’s what our people like.
Kennan: So cool. But yeah. So we started doing some digging. I went to a couple of the gun shops in the sort of area here, and I realized pretty quickly that if they can make it, I know for a fact I can. And four and a half years later, here we are. It just started with a simple nudge from the wife. And now here we are.
Wade: Well, two things. One, that’s awesome that your wife is so supportive because sometimes it’s entrepreneurs that that is not always the experience that everyone gets to have. So that’s number one. That’s awesome. And number two is like when you were growing up, did you have was your family into guns? Did you go through a hunting experience. It sounds like you did with the deer. With the deer? Yeah.
Kennan: So my dad doesn’t hunt. My dad’s not at all into guns. A lot of what I learned about hunting, specifically, I learned from my Uncle Stevie. He would always bring me hunting and stuff. And then as I got a little older, I got more into guns. I joined the Marines at 18. I was in the Marines. I did nine years and most of that was reserve time. But I ended up getting out in about 2020, so I would have stayed in. But, you know, I really felt God was tugging in my heart to open this business, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to really mess with both. Having a reserve unit in Louisiana, owning a business here, having to be here full time. So that’s where I learned. Obviously, most of what I know at the time about guns was I was a marksmanship instructor in the Marines, so I ran machine gun ranges, rifle ranges, all that fun stuff. And I was an armorer. So a lot of the gun stuff was there, a lot of the hunting stuff. I attribute a lot of that to my uncle.
Wade: Well, and that’s awesome. I there’s a lot to unpack there. I can’t wait to talk a little bit about the armorer side, too, because that’s one of my, one of my pet projects. But let’s talk a little bit about the gun store itself, right? So you do the market research. You say, hey, I’m surprised that there isn’t a lot of need that’s being met here. How did you pick the location? Because there’s one thing that I’ve noticed over the people that I’ve interviewed is that for geographic location, the state, yes. Is Texas is permissive or whatever. But within that, how did you choose a location, and did that location give you the benefits that you thought it would?
Kennan: Actually, that was probably the most difficult part about opening a gun shop in a sort of like incorporated area is location. And I’m not saying I chose this location. I’d probably say more along the lines of this location chose me. So one really difficult thing was finding a landlord who was willing to lease to a gun store. That was probably the most difficult thing. And also obviously in the budget that I wanted to to go with, because obviously margin on guns is pretty terrible. I knew I wouldn’t be raking in an absolute crap ton of money every month, so I wanted to find something that was moderately affordable that was close closer to where I lived, and I ended up finding this place. We’re off of a major street. We get about 56,000 cars on that road, passed by it every day, which isn’t a huge deal. I think that’s one thing that people in a business like mine, I think they focus a little too much on is, oh, I need people to see it. I need people to see it. It’s like, well, how often am I driving through a town? And I’m like, oh, I’m looking specifically for a gun store when Google exists, if they’re going to come to a gun store. I don’t think location is incredibly important, because if they need to go to a gun store, they’re going to drive to wherever it is, you know what I mean?
Wade: Yeah. And I find that’s interesting that you had that experience. We interviewed a guy who had a furniture store, and so he opened up his gun store in his building, in the furniture store. And his theory was, well, we’re going to have all this foot traffic from the furniture store. And that just wasn’t his experience at all. There’s almost no crossover at all. And I think your gut, if you’re really into guns, you can have an impulse buy as a gun. Yes, you can impulse firearms, right? But for most people, buying a gun is not an impulse buy where they’re walking down the street and they’re like, oh, I’m going to I’m going to go get this gun. So I think that’s really an interesting point that you make there. All right. So you make you decide, okay, great. I found this location great for my lifestyle. It’s close to where I live. This guy will rent it to me. Did you find that the the logistical part of the licensing and the with the stuff, with the city and all that? How did that go for you? Was that better than you expected or worse than you expected? How did that all go?
Kennan: Both. And I know that’s a weird way to answer that question, but. So I had a home based FFL in Louisiana. Uh, I was told by my Louisiana IOI that basically it would just be a simple change of address form. So I was like, all right, cool. Obviously I opened a Texas LLC, I moved everything over. I submitted the change of address and all that other stuff. Well, the director of the field office here in Texas called me and was like, hey, you know, my name’s Paul. I work for the ATF. I’m working through your form here. Small problem is that you have a Louisiana FFL under a Louisiana LLC. Now you’re trying to do it under a Texas. So he’s like, unfortunately it wouldn’t be as simple as a simple address change because you’re also changing your LLC, etc.. And I was like, oof, Paul, well, now we’re at a bit of an impasse here. We have a problem because I’ve signed a lease. I negotiated three months of free rent. I can’t afford to not be in business during those three months like I need an FFL. So he helped me out a lot. He basically found a pretty cool workaround. So basically we registered my Louisiana LLC operating as a foreign entity within Texas. We were able to get me an FFL in like a week. As a matter of fact, I still I tell Paul all the time I owe him a bottle of whiskey for helping me out with that. So that was pretty daunting because I was really nervous because obviously getting an FFL can take, what, four, six months, something like that. So I was like, man, I can’t afford to just be paying rent on a building and not have an FFL for six months. But as far as working with the city, it was super, super easy.
Wade: That’s great. Yeah, I was a lawyer for 25 years before my current gig as a writer, and that’s really what I thought. I was like, oh man, just do what you’re operating as a foreign corporation. But that’s the thing is, that’s not common knowledge for people. And so the legal stuff, you were very fortunate you were able to have that work around. But that’s definitely something I think people need to make sure that they look into is the legal side of things, especially for the licensing. But then the second issue, though, which I think is really good, is that a lot of times in the space people, they’re very anti-government, which I understand, like the two ways. Like, you know, they they feel like the government is infringing upon their rights. But you there are good ATF agents out there. Oh, yeah, definitely there are. If you can have a good if you’re in business, you need to have a good relationship with your ATF agent.
Kennan: Oh, definitely. Yeah. So I’ll go. I don’t really pester them, but I like to ask questions and understand things. And hey, why is this ruling? Why is the ruling verbiage the way that it is? What does this mean if this comes in? I’m really big on that because I consider myself more of a student of the craft than one of those guys. That doesn’t. I strive to at least learn something every single day, whether it’s the most menial thing or really understanding why a ruling was written the way it was. Asking those questions proves a couple of things. One, that you’re trying to learn. And then two, if, let’s say, for example, if you get an audit and you make a mistake and they say, well, it is possible it’s one of the five deadly sins, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can pull your license if you go to these FFL consultations, show that you’re actively trying to be better at the licensing part. I think there are a lot more understanding.
Wade: Yeah, well, they’re human beings too, right? So that’s the thing is, it’s a and the one thing about business is that it’s a relationship. Everything is a relationship business.
Kennan: Oh, definitely.
Wade: All right. So you get that early scare, you fix it right. You’re like, all right, cool. We got this three months of rent. Walk me through that first phase. Like, how did you pick inventory? How did that go?
Kennan: Oh, that was actually, this is probably the most interesting part, I think, of this. My starting story is getting inventory because I opened in September of 2020. Right. So right in the midst of Covid, we’re on the cusp of an election. An inventory was super, super hard to get at the time. So a lot of these, a lot of gun stores folded during that time because they couldn’t get inventory to sell, right. So it worked out really well for me because I have a really good working relationship with RSR Group, which is probably the biggest distributor, if not the second largest or whatever, and they’re right in Fort Worth. So a lot of times I would order stuff, I would get it next business day. So what I learned pretty early on is you got to spend money to make money, right? So what I would do is I would build like little accessory orders, holsters I had just opened. I didn’t have anything. Right. So I needed all these little odds and ends. So I would place like a little $500 accessory order every week. And I learned that when I submitted that order, because a lot of gun shops weren’t submitting orders for that, they just wanted guns. They just wanted suppressors. They just wanted ammo. They wanted the stuff that sold and made big bucks versus I’m like, hey, I would rather sell ten scopes and make 35% margins on ten scopes and not have to do any paperwork really on those, then have to sit and then sell two guns to make way less, way worse margins and have to do a crap ton of paperwork on.
Kennan: So I learned that buying these little accessory orders, submitting them to my service professional, he would always call me to be like, hey buddy, thank you for the accessory order while I have you. Would you like a Glock 43 x? Would you like a Glock 48? How about a I can’t do a whole case, but how about five boxes of nine millimeter hollow points? And I learned that the more I kept saying yes, the more inventory they kept sending me. So that was one really big deal in the beginning was getting like decent inventory to sell. But like I said, I just learned that, look, if I spend 500 bucks on accessories a week, which not a big deal, if I spend 500 bucks a week on accessories, I’m going to get offered at least 4 or 5 guns. The profit I make off the guns will pay for the accessories. Now I have no money in the accessories, you know what I mean? And it’s just this revolving door sort of thing. So yeah. Choosing inventory. When I first opened, I didn’t really say I’d choose it. I just said yes. I’ll take it. Yes, I’ll take it. Yes, I’ll take it. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times I’ve told Joe no. In the first year I was open because I knew it would eventually sell.
Wade: So yeah, because you got the demand going right there and he’s not offering you some obscure gun. So and that’s actually a really good that’s I’ve actually never thought about it that way because obviously as salespeople, they’re always going to want to upsell you to something else. Right. And so they’re going to find a way to try to make that transaction more profitable for them. So you just like you said, you backdoor the guns on the accessories and you’re still making money on the larger margin anyway, right?
Kennan: Exactly. Because it’s all obviously all commission for them. So the bigger the order, the more money they make. But also instead of most gun stores are just waiting for them to call and be like, hey, I got a Glock 19, I got this, I got that, and they’re only buying guns, right? Versus me. I’m like, hey, I’m taking the initiative. I’m submitting this order first. Usually I’d be the first person he’d call and he’d just work down his allocation list. Sometimes I’d take basically the whole damn thing.
Wade: Yeah.
Kennan: Which worked out perfect for me.
Wade: Yeah, well, and the demand was so high at the time because. Because Keenan was taking all the guns for the country. You’re going to get a lot of people mad at you now, like. Right.
Kennan: I was hogging them all.
Wade: Yeah, exactly. So. All right. So. So how did those first three months go? You’re not paying any rent. You just opened the door. How did you start to drive customers? Like, what was your marketing plan? Did you have one? Was it more word of mouth? So.
Kennan: Yeah, to this day, I have not spent a dollar on advertising. Four and a half years. Not a single dollar I’ve ever spent on radio. Everything I’ve ever done was either stuff like this going to some trade shows, but 95% of our advertising is probably just straight up word of mouth, just straight up word of mouth. So one thing I learned really quickly, especially in this industry, is customer service at your little mom and pop shops. A lot of times dudes will come in to smaller mom, and I’ve seen horror stories. It’s like, oh, they always want to sell only 19 elevens or pink snub nosed 357 to women. Crap like that. When people come into our shop, it’s a completely different vibe than if you were to walk into an older school gun shop, right? When you ask questions at some gun stores, you’re probably treated like some sort of second rate citizen, like you’re bothering them. You should already know the answer. Google exists, why are you bothering me? Blah blah blah blah blah versus with us you come in. I really don’t care if if you’re going to come in, only ask a couple questions, maybe handle a couple guns and then leave because that’s still a positive experience for you. You’re going to leave. You’re going to tell someone how nice we were to you even though you didn’t buy anything. Obviously some businesses, you go in, you mess around with a couple products, you say, okay, well, thank you very much for your time. You go to leave, they’re instantly going to talk shit on you and be like, oh, I can’t believe that dude’s just kicking my tires and all this other stuff versus with us, I’m like, hey, as long as you leave with a positive experience, it’s not as good for my checkbook. But you know, if you leave with a positive experience, you’re probably going to tell someone about it. And that will instinctively drive in another set of customers, which will eventually buy something.
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. Well goodwill is an asset that people don’t. That they fail to understand. And that is the other concept behind geography that I hear in these interviews. Everyone talks about customer service. Right. And everyone says that one of the main reasons we’re successful is because we set ourselves apart from everybody else because of customer service. Right. Correct. So you have the benefit where you’re in a location where there’s not a lot of competition because there’s not a lot of gun stores. You’re doing customer service. You’re in a new location, so you’re getting things going. Are you doing a slow build in terms of your your services? What beyond do you do? Are you an armorer or do you do gunsmithing?
Kennan: Yeah. So we started offering a plethora of different services, and a lot of them are through third party stuff, which is fine. Most people don’t care because our turnaround time is still fantastic. Now I do the cerakote in-house and our turnaround is blazing fast. The average turnaround, the industry standard on Cerakote is probably about 4 to 6 weeks. I’m pretty selective on what projects I want to take, and usually I tell people like, hey, if you drop your shit off on Thursday, I’ll have it ready for probably Wednesday morning of the following week. So we’re looking at sub one week now, pending obviously any issues. The spring goes flying detents break, parts break. It happens right? That’s life. But our turnaround times are blazing fast on Cerakote services. We offer a decent amount of in-house gunsmithing. If it requires our milling stuff like that. We third party it out, but our turnaround time on that, even involving a third party is still sub two weeks. We can chamber and ream barrels. We can rethread rechamber. I mean, we can do all different stuff here. So yeah, we’ve really opened up all the services because I’ve learned, obviously, that not many places around here offer services like that. Like I’ll even let people come in. And Keenan, can you live fireside in my rifle, which was a big culture shock for me because in Louisiana everyone did their own stuff, because everyone had a buddy who owned at least 15 acres of property within five minutes of you.
Kennan: So you just go to your buddy’s property site stuff in. Obviously you go to a really big like industrial metroplex thing, like the DFW area. A lot of people have to pay for that. Like, oh dude, I got invited last minute to go hog hunting this weekend. Keenan, can you cite this in today? Yeah, absolutely. I’ll throw your stuff in my truck and head out, But the I think our major probably our biggest, the best decision I ever made was starting to sell suppressors like by far that’s and it’s not even close at this point. We probably sell, I think so far today. What time is it? 230. We’ve been open for six hours or something like that. We sold seven suppressors today and that’s margins on suppressors are exponentially better than guns, right? There’s a lot more paperwork involved, obviously, but once you’ve done 5 or 6, you do 5 or 6 to a trust. It’s all about the same thing. It’s just knowing what to put, when to put it, what the ATF looks for when you make mistakes, stuff like that. But I’ve learned that by us offering that not many places around here do it, and a lot of places sell suppressors, but with us, we make it completely painless.
Kennan: You come in. Hey, Keenan. I’m interested in the suppressor. Okay, cool. Well, are you what we call as a decibel chaser? Do you want it to be as quiet as possible? Do you want it to be light as possible? Do you beat the crap out of your stuff? There’s different criteria. Just like when buying a gun, right? I want to get you a suppressor that fits your needs and your budget. Now, a lot of times we try to tell people like, look, the budget is the least of the concern with the suppressors. It’s going to be a buy once, cry once thing, because if you buy a gun, you hate it. You can probably turn. Obviously private party sales are legal in Texas, so you can turn around and sell that gun next week if you’re not crazy about it. Suppressors are not at all like that, so having a form for suppressor to you selling it is such a pain in the ass on the private market and stuff like that. So basically what we normally tell people is like, look, you pick the suppressor that you want, make sure it’s absolutely the one that you want because it’s going to basically be with you for the rest of your life. So swing for the fences, buy once, cry once, get you a good can. So basically our whole process from start to finish fingerprints, passport, photos, filing the form for picking the suppressor you want probably takes us about 30 minutes if I’m moving slow.
Kennan: If you have a trust, obviously as an attorney, you know, it’s a little bit more involved there. But we’ve basically gotten it down to a science. I can even notarize the document if your trust isn’t executed yet, which we obviously offer that free if you’re buying a suppressor from me so we can knock out everything, which I’ve learned that the more services you offer in your location, the better for you, because it’s such a turn off. When I first started selling suppressors, I’d have to tell people, oh, well, you need to go here to get fingerprinted. Bring me the fingerprint cards. Right. You need to go to the post office and get passport photos. You need to come back. We’ll finish filing the form via paper. A 30 minute job ended up taking six weeks. Right? Because people would get busy, their lives would get in the way. They would always come back with one fingerprint card instead of two. I’d have to send it back. So I learned that if I can knock out everything right here, right now while the customer is here, they’ll absolutely love it. And we’ve noticed that our return customers on suppressors is probably in the high 80 percents. Wow.
Wade: When did you start doing suppressors?
Kennan: So I got my original SOT probably back in 2022, which I didn’t own a fingerprint kiosk then, but I bought one about a year later and it’s paid for itself probably 50 times.
Wade: So you were perfectly poised for when the suppressor approval rate went from like six months to all of a sudden everyone’s getting them in two weeks. Did you have that? Pretty much. Yeah.
Kennan: Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. So when we first started slinging cans, obviously it was still paper. It was taking a year, which was a huge turnoff for people. A lot of people are okay with dropping $1,000 on a suppressor, but they want the suppressor in sub 60 days, right? Or vice versa. So I’ve learned and obviously it was really difficult for me at that time, three years ago to float, you know, because I think at one point we had like 160 something suppressors just in jail. Right. So I’m like, well, if I only take 50% deposits on these suppressors, that’s a lot of money. Just sitting there not doing anything for me. And so I couldn’t really afford to only take 50% deposits or whatever. So we would have customers pay in full, which I understand sucks. But it’s like, well, I as a business can’t float that for a year, right? So it’s a little different. Now a lot of people are perfectly fine with dropping a grand and they come in on a Tuesday. We’re seeing suppressors get approved on it by Friday. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Wade: First of all, we can all agree that suppressors should not be a restricted item. They’re a safety purchase. They have nothing to do with fire. I mean, they’re not a firearm.
Kennan: No. And I completely understand that. But I think the problem is and I mean, some people get perturbed when I say it like this, but I don’t ever see the NFA going away, which is unfortunate. And I definitely don’t see suppressors being removed from the NFA just because of how much money it generates. We’ve been doing it for damn near 100 years now. The government knows that we’re going to continue paying for it. But like I said, the one turning point is that the ATF started using AI technology and such to do the forms. So now they’re getting approved fast as hell. So that is one major upside. Obviously our suppressor sales have gone through the roof since that’s happened. And then also, the fact that we offer everything here really helps out.
Wade: Well, that’s a big and I think the principle to take away from that is the more friction you can reduce for the sale, the more sales you’re going to make. Exactly. Yeah. And that comes down to how do you process your payments. How can you let people pay? Do we do the paperwork for you? Do have we done this a million times? It’s like, are we friendly when we’re doing the paperwork, or is it making it seem like it’s a pain in the ass? So I totally agree with all of that.
Kennan: Yeah, like I said, from start to finish, even if you have a trust, I have to execute it. We have to fill out a 5320 the absolute longest it would take me if that’s all I’m working on is about 45 minutes. But then what we tell people is, all right, now, we obviously keep your prints on file. I keep a copy of your trust on file if you want a form for it to a trust. But we keep all that stuff on file, and then you’ve already have your E forms account registered. So yes, this suppressor took us 30 minutes to do. But the next one I guarantee I can have that thing knocked out in five minutes.
Wade: Yeah, yeah. And that’s actually most businesses I think, aren’t willing to take on the record storage responsibilities for that. Right. But that’s a huge competitive advantage that you do that.
Kennan: Exactly. And then on top of that, I’ve noticed that the services and the suppressors, they always go hand in hand. Right. Because if you buy a suppressor. Oh, generally our first question when you want to buy a suppressor is, well, what caliber are you interested in suppressing? Uh, I just have a 556 that has the threaded barrel right now. But what other caliber rifles do you have? Oh, I have a 36, but it’s not threaded. Well, we can thread it for you. Yeah, right. So now we’re threading it. Generally, after we thread it, they usually want some sort of cerakote while we have it taken apart. Now we’re charging a cleaning fee. Now we’re threading the barrel. Now we’re coating it all while now you’re getting a suppressor. Right. Which the more threaded barrels you have, the more muzzle devices we’re going to sell. Right. Which we don’t really charge for installation of muzzle devices if you buy it from us. And a lot of people really like that because sometimes they come in and I’m like, all right, you’re looking at $20 per muzzle device to install. But next time, buddy, if you need, you can buy it from us for the same price. Rice, but I’m not going to charge you to install it as long as you buy it from me. So yeah, I’ve noticed that the services and the suppressors, they’ll always go hand in hand.
Wade: Well, if you have my prints on file, I’m not going to go anywhere else. Like, why would I go anywhere else? Even if you’re more expensive? Because I’m lazy, like most people are lazy. It’s like I already went through this once. All right? Keenan and his crew made it great to go through. I don’t care, I don’t want to save. Maybe I save a little bit of money going somewhere else or trying to do it. I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to go. Keenan. He’s going to take care. So it’s worth it.
Kennan: A lot of people like a lot of smaller gun shops. They’re very hands offish. They don’t want to have to deal with all that. And I understand like a lot of people think that selling suppressors can be very daunting. And it is. But like I said, once you do, maybe let’s say 20 of them, it’ll come to you. Second nature. It’s pretty simple. And so a lot of gun stores they use like the whole silencer shop method. Right. So basically they’re standoffish. They don’t do anything. They basically just facilitate a transfer. But the major problem with that is that with Silencer Shop and it’s a great business model, but with Silencer Shop you’re just adding additional middlemen that just aren’t really required. So there’s some dude that you’ll never meet that has to. What is it like, validate your account and all this and check that it just extends everything versus you come in here as long as I have the suppressor you want in stock, which a lot of people love because most silencer dealers, they’re just like a facet for the transfer. They only have like two suppressors on deck versus here we have about 60 that I’m ready to sell right now. They come in. Oh, shit. Keenan. That’s exactly the suppressor I was looking for. All right. Cool. Give me your ID, start doing your prints, knock everything out. You know, on a Tuesday, you’re getting the suppressor. By Friday. You only have to talk to me one time. That’s when you come in. And then basically, once it’s approved, you show up, you do the 44, 73. And if you owe me something, that’s when you pay it. So it makes everything a lot more streamlined on me. And then you’re also if you do the Silence Shop method, you’re basically splitting the profit with Silencer shop, right?
Wade: More steps, more money.
Kennan: And obviously I wanted to get into cans because margins can be 30 to 50% right hand guns. You’re looking at 15 to 20 on a good day versus a suppressor. It’s super simple for me. Storage is very easy. It’s not some big long gun that I have to store in a safe. It fits in a little box, right? I’m making 30 to 50% on it. And then on top of that, we charge a fingerprint fee and all this other stuff. So it’s like I said, I’ve noticed that not a lot of shops want to do it. But I’m telling you, if there’s nobody in your area, you’d be stupid to not. The biggest hurdle is obviously buying like a fingerprint kiosk, which I think the one I got was like maybe ten grand. 11 grand. You’ll make that back in, what, 50 suppressors? 40 suppressors.
Wade: So yeah, everything that you’re talking about, you’re willing to do the hard stuff up front and then it just starts to compound on itself. And that’s the thing. Like okay, so we’re going to offer these extra services. Yes. It’s a pain in the ass in the beginning. We’re going to have to outsource some of this. But all of that compounds together to give you this sort of momentum that you have. And now it seems like you guys are really rolling.
Kennan: Oh definitely, man. Like I said, at this point in the business, we definitely sell more suppressors than we do guns, which I’m cool with. I like it, I like the niche that we found ourselves in here in the area. I love it and it does extremely well for us.
Wade: Well and cans are just cool. They’re just cool to mess with.
Kennan: Yeah, and now at this point we’ll get customers hit us up. They bought a can from me six months ago. Oh, I saw Huck’s Works. Just released the new 36 t. Can you get one? You bet your ass I can get you one. I can get you whatever you want, whenever you want. You just got to give me some some time. Sometimes they’re back ordered. They take a little while. There’s exclusivities with silencer shops sometimes on these new suppressors. So it’s like, look, I can get you what you want. You just got to give me give me a minute. And like I said, a lot of people really like that. That now I’m doing the hard work to track down the suppressor for you, I order it. Hey, Wade. Your suppressors in route, buddy. It should be here. Form fives are taken about a week. I’m sorry. Form threes. You know it gets here. Cool. Hey, bro, I got your stuff in. I got your fingerprints on file. We can even start some of the paperwork while you’re not here. That way, when you walk in, you just verify, validate, click submit, pay your $200 pound of flesh. Hit the road. Hey buddy, I’ll see you in a couple of days when it’s approved. And people love that because now I’m doing the work, uh, to find what you want. All you got to do is tell me what you want.
Wade: Well, and that’s a classic. I’ve got a guy. Right. So if you’re exactly. And especially if you’re showing off your suppressor to your buddies and they’re like, oh, let’s go shoot. That’s so cool. Like, where’d you get it? Oh, I got a guy. You gotta go talk to Keenan. Right? So it’s the ultimate it’s the ultimate easy sale. Is that when someone else is saying, hey, this was so easy, I loved it. It’s all I had to do because you said it. I think suppressors and that process can be intimidating for people. And if you take out all that friction, it really does open a whole market for you, right?
Kennan: And so many times people come into the shop and they’re like, whoa, you can buy. Those are legal. Oh yeah man. Absolutely. We have a video up on our website. I had it all professionally made and it’s pretty. And it basically explains the entire form for process. It’s like 15 minutes long. I answer a lot of questions. What are the pros and cons of individual filing versus trust filing and all this? Should I go should should I Should I go direct thread? What does all that mean? So I’m like, hey, look, before we go down this entire rabbit hole and I answer every question that I’ve already answered 100 times. Go check out. Go check out the video. You know, instead of me, you keeping me on the phone for 20 minutes, go check out the video. I mean, it’s specifically for these. The only thing that’s changed since I made the video is the turnaround times. At the time I made the video is like probably six months. Now you’re looking at damn near six days. People are like, oh my God. Okay, cool. I’ll check it out. And lo and behold, about 20 minutes later I’ll get a text message. I’ll be there on Friday. Hey.
Wade: And there’s two things about that too, right? That you just told me. It’s one is that it’s reducing friction again. Right? You’re like, go watch a video. And then you then they’re captured, right? They’re not calling around to get a bunch of different opinions or whatever. Like they’re you you take them to a video and then two, you said, yeah, then text me. You’re giving people a personal cell phone. No one does that. Right? Right, exactly. You’re reducing friction. And that’s the that’s the overall theme of what’s really making you guys successful over there. What do you see as the plan for the next few years? Are you just going to keep growing what you’re doing now? Are there any new areas or expansion? Another shop like what’s the next couple of years are in store for you guys over there?
Kennan: So I have thought about potentially getting a second location, which I would never give this one up just because this has been my baby. Like when I first opened, I think I had 14 guns total when I first opened, 11 of them were on consignment. You know what I mean? So like, I’ve really grown it. We started with 30 something grand in inventory. Now I’m up to 336, I think, in sellable inventory. So I don’t think I would ever really want to let this go just because what I’ve created, what I’ve done here, and also I put a lot of money into the building. Obviously we got really broken into really bad in July of last year. They drove a car through the front. So I’ve really fortified the front building, installed way, beefier bollards, etc. so I have a lot of money just sitting here, so I don’t know if I’d ever let this location go, but I would like to buy like property, build like an outdoor range, especially because with outdoor ranges it’s obviously a lot cheaper. You know, insurance wise, stuff like that. I don’t have to pay for ventilation as you do on an indoor range. Plus a lot more like actual gun guys go to outdoor ranges than they do indoor ranges, right? So but with that I’ll be able to host events, bring out suppressor vendors. Hey, y’all want to test these suppressors for free? Cool. Here’s what you do. But I have looked a little bit more into the like a little bit more north for that where land is cheaper.
Wade: Yeah of course. And that’s the thing that always in these businesses is you’re always building one thing on top of another, right? Everyone wants to go, like a lot of people want to go right to the end, and they want to raise the money and just go buy it and build it. But you don’t have the institutional knowledge of what you’re doing and even what you want until you go through, instead of going right to Z doing A, B, and C. So that’s exciting, man. Well, listen, we’re at the end of our time. How do people find you? How do they watch that video? You’re going to get so many people watching this video now. So where do they go? What’s your website? How do people get Ahold of you? Where are you on social?
Kennan: Yeah, definitely. So basically all of our socials just lateral limits. We’re I think it might be Zuck on Facebook, so you might have to search a little harder on Facebook and Instagram, but it’s literally just lateral limits. And then our website is just WW lateral l a t e r a l if you want to watch that video, if you have any questions, especially on the NFA stuff, you’ll scroll about a third of the way down. You’ll see me standing in front of the suppressor display. You’ll scroll down a little bit, you’ll find that video, and it’ll probably answer just about every question that most people have on suppressors. And if you do have a question after that, you’re more than welcome to call us. It’s A9728360565. My direct extension is 701, which you can text that number anytime. If you have any questions, you can give me a shout. We ship all over the country and then even too, like I’ve helped people, they’ve called and be like, hey, I want to, you know, I want this suppressor. Okay, well hold on. I end up finding it in stock at a dealer near them, saves them shipping transfer fees, etc. so we’re more than welcome to answer any questions that people may have. Place orders, all that fun stuff. We’re just we’re here to try to help grow, especially the NFA industry. So.
Wade: And also in that video, it looks like you have a righteous Van Dyke mustache going right there too. Like you have the whole thing with the yeah.
Kennan: I shaved that. I got a little annoyed with the with the soul patch thing going on, so I shaved that off. So now I just have the mustache, bro.
Wade: That’s not a soul patch. That’s like a 13th century cavalier swordsman kind of thing, right? Exactly.
Kennan: So yeah, I got annoyed with it. Sometimes it would curl and I’m like, yeah, it’s just too much. So now I just do the stache, but the hair is significantly longer than it was in that video.
Wade: So my hair is significantly balder than I’ve ever been before. So there’s that. So. Well, listen, man, I appreciate you coming on. I really enjoyed talking to you. I’d love to have you on the show again to see where that arc is going, because you guys are doing some exciting stuff over there and I can’t wait to talk to you again.
Kennan: Cool. Thanks, Wade, I appreciate it.
Wade: 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.