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Posted: 1/13/2021 4:33:16 PM EDT
I recently reached out to our assigned RSR "Service Professional" as something we order a lot of, that no one else really sells, was out of stock, and I wanted to order a significant amount of them. (you will have to trust me that this is not something that is out of stock due to "COVID" or "market demand")
I told him I wanted "30" of "part X" and here was our conversation: "Oh, the buyers only have 10 on order. You will just have to put it in your favorites and check to see when it is in stock" (RSR Group website does not email you when the product is in stock, you have to check it by logging in.  )"Yeah, but I want 30 of them. The manufacturer has hundreds in stock." "Well, I don't think our buyers would want to buy that many." "I don't think you understand. I want 30 of them. I will put in a purchase order if that is what it takes." "Yeah, maybe you should just order them direct from the manufacturer" It is cheaper for me to order them through the Wholesaler than the Manufacturer. And I literally tried to hand you several thousand dollars for 5 minutes of work and you simply blew me off.  After talking to other Dealers, they have the exact same experience. Regardless of the "Service Professional" they have it is always an older guy who claims he is there to help you, and then when you ask for help, and want to give them money they won't lift a finger. What do these guys get paid for?  Another Dealer suspects they are a relic of the pre internet age, and/or that management has no idea what is going on. The other theory is they have their favorite old school customers they will hook up, and blow off any newer guys as there is no incentive to help them. Any insight onto this is appreciated. Sven Manticore Arms |
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Posted: 1/13/2021 5:09:34 PM EDT
[#1]
Reminds me of the IT hardware & software industry. Why do I buy through a VAR in 2020 instead of just going thru the company that wrote and makes the damn thing?
I always chock it up to the same thing... just how shit worked 30 years ago. |
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Posted: 1/13/2021 9:49:21 PM EDT
[#2]
Quoted: What do these guys get paid for?  It's not completely their fault. They're probably not allowed to develop greater sales volume if the "allocation" is not there in the computer system for them to offer it. Larger allocations are only available to the Service Professionals in greater standing. They're told they could become one eventually. It's probably a lie. |
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Posted: 1/14/2021 9:13:58 AM EDT
[#3]
It's all about allocation. Your few thousand $,$$$ PO isn't worth squat compared to the several thousand $$,$$$ POs they get from their long standing, brick and mortar customers.
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Posted: 1/14/2021 12:36:30 PM EDT
[#4]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It's all about allocation. Your few thousand $,$$$ PO isn't worth squat compared to the several thousand $$,$$$ POs they get from their long standing, brick and mortar customers. This is why half the wholesalers in the industry have gone under in the last 5 years, and why wholesale isn't even going to be thing in the gun industry in 20 years, lol. Being on both the Customer and the Vendor side, it makes me wonder how many lost sales of product we have had at RSR when a Service Professional couldn't be bothered to put in an order for a Customer who wanted an order of our product through RSR. If you treat a customer like they are a burden, the customer will simply go somewhere else. This is the exact reason we are seeing Dealer Direct become more popular. "Whenever you have some little guy come to you, remember, every big company started as a little company, and they will remember how you treated them that first time" -quote from one of my mentors |
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Posted: 1/14/2021 1:18:46 PM EDT
[#5]
RSR is the epitome of inefficiency.
Several years ago I ordered three dozen Glock ball caps, three dozen Tshirts and a twenty pistol magazines.....shipped in five 18x18x24 boxes. Everything fit into one box with plenty of room left over. Think I would be charged for the unnecessary boxes, I called my "Sales Professional".........."Oh, the computer tells our order pickers how many items should go in one box, its just a glitch."  |
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Posted: 1/14/2021 1:22:15 PM EDT
[#6]
Quote HistoryQuoted: "Whenever you have some little guy come to you, remember, every big company started as a little company, and they will remember how you treated them that first time" -quote from one of my mentors Why RSR should be ashamed considering where they started:RSR's sordid past |
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Posted: 1/16/2021 12:36:04 PM EDT
[#7]
I got my ffl in October. I’m not a big player, but I could be as my other businesses offer me plenty of cash flow. I’m not quite ready to place million dollar orders yet but I’ve been astounded at how useless sales reps at all my distributors are. “Just add it to your favorites we’ll call you when it’s in” and then never get called.
I tried to pre pay for 50k rounds of 5.56 and not a one would do it. Just have to put it in my favorites. |
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Posted: 1/16/2021 12:58:46 PM EDT
[#8]
Quote HistoryQuoted: ....I tried to pre pay for 50k rounds of 5.56 and not a one would do it. Just have to put it in my favorites. Of course not.......thats a consumer quantity. Ask a salesman in any business.....would he rather have twenty accounts buying 100 pallets of product a week, a hundred accounts buying 200 cases of product a month or 5000 accounts buying 300 cases a year? |
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Posted: 1/16/2021 1:08:57 PM EDT
[#9]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Of course not.......thats a consumer quantity. Ask a salesman in any business.....would he rather have twenty accounts buying 100 pallets of product a week, a hundred accounts buying 200 cases of product a month or 5000 accounts buying 300 cases a year? I’m a salesman in my day job, our minimum order is one, we treat every customer like we want their business. I deal with fleets that buy 500 trailers off me at a time and I deal with owner ops that buy one every 3-5 years and I deal with guys who buy one trailer their whole life. They all get my attention because it’s literally my job to sell them something regardless of quantity. |
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Posted: 1/16/2021 3:27:49 PM EDT
[#10]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I’m a salesman in my day job, our minimum order is one, we treat every customer like we want their business. I deal with fleets that buy 500 trailers off me at a time and I deal with owner ops that buy one every 3-5 years and I deal with guys who buy one trailer their whole life. They all get my attention because it’s literally my job to sell them something regardless of quantity. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Of course not.......thats a consumer quantity. Ask a salesman in any business.....would he rather have twenty accounts buying 100 pallets of product a week, a hundred accounts buying 200 cases of product a month or 5000 accounts buying 300 cases a year? I’m a salesman in my day job, our minimum order is one, we treat every customer like we want their business. I deal with fleets that buy 500 trailers off me at a time and I deal with owner ops that buy one every 3-5 years and I deal with guys who buy one trailer their whole life. They all get my attention because it’s literally my job to sell them something regardless of quantity. You are missing the point and while I understand how you handle sales in the trailer biz, thats not comparable to the guns/ammunition distribution. First, I don't think you are a distributor of trailers to retailers, YOU are the retailer and possibly the manufacturer as well? RSR/Zanders/Lipseys/Sport South aren't manufacturers and aren't retailers but distributors. Second, would you rather spend two hours of your time selling those 500 trailers to a fleet, or two hours selling to one guy you'll never see again? While it's your job to sell to anyone, whose phone call or email you would return first.  Thirdly, volume and frequency of sales. Distributors don't have one or two sales guys, but often dozens.........RSR for example has around fifty across the country. Lastly, how in demand are trailers? How quickly can you fulfill orders? How many trailer manufacturers use a distributor and don't sell direct to consumer? How many trailers you have sitting around gathering dust? vs The demand for ammunition and the number of ammunition manufacturers in the US. |
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Posted: 1/17/2021 10:03:55 PM EDT
[#11]
Quote HistoryQuote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: "Whenever you have some little guy come to you, remember, every big company started as a little company, and they will remember how you treated them that first time" -quote from one of my mentors Why RSR should be ashamed considering where they started:RSR's sordid past Yeah I brought that to their attention as well when I got the call they decided to restrict non brick and mortar FFL's to accessories only. Despite the fact that I spent thousands with them every year, it made no difference. Told them to delete my account. |
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Posted: 5/1/2021 12:08:11 AM EDT
[#12]
When I had a store in Ft Worth, I lived about 10 minutes from an RSR warehouse. They made it a huge pain in the ass to pick up instead of ship (which of course we had to pay for), then did away with it completely.
We stopped using them. Seems they didn't really want to work with us. Alamo and Lipsey's got a bunch more business after that. |
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Posted: 5/2/2021 10:15:23 AM EDT
[#13]
I cant Lipseys to allocate me anythng.Before I had my FFL they used to call me every morning telling me they had some accessories I wanted in stock. Now I call and email them and they won't even answer.
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Posted: 5/2/2021 10:36:46 AM EDT
[#14]
Don’t worry....when their business drops off again they likely will make the extra effort to call you with specials to hawk product.
Until then, place it in your favorites. 
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Posted: 5/2/2021 3:45:55 PM EDT
[#15]
It is a sellers market right now. That means their is little incentive to lift a finger to do work, other than take your order and sell "what is on the truck".
Almost all of the gun industry operates on a pre-internet sales/distribution model. It is hard to believe there are even distributors still. All it is going to take is one major MFG to figure it out and they are all gone. |
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Posted: 5/2/2021 9:03:42 PM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It is a sellers market right now. That means their is little incentive to lift a finger to do work, other than take your order and sell "what is on the truck". Almost all of the gun industry operates on a pre-internet sales/distribution model. It is hard to believe there are even distributors still. All it is going to take is one major MFG to figure it out and they are all gone. The biggest hurdle is that gun mfgs can sell to fewer customers (distributors) and in much larger volume than direct to retailer sales. I'm sure someone at the gun mfgs has put pencil to paper on this topic and it still must be more profitable to do business the way they are. At least I haven't been getting the calls from the Davidson's reps trying to get me to buy 10 garbage guns that nobody will ever buy just to get one brick of allocated 22LR ammo. I got countless calls like that back during the Obama scare. RSR is still one of my favorite distributors. |
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Posted: 5/2/2021 9:32:01 PM EDT
[#17]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The biggest hurdle is that gun mfgs can sell to fewer customers (distributors) and in much larger volume than direct to retailer sales. I'm sure someone at the gun mfgs has put pencil to paper on this topic and it still must be more profitable to do business the way they are. It is not more profitable. They lose a lot of the profit because most of the profit of a gun sale does not go to the MFG. They are just set in their ways and do not understand e-commerce and the FFL system helps perpetuate this model. They also like the current system with parties, shows, etc. It is not just the gun industry. It is lots of industries. Even the computer industry did not know how to do it till Dell showed them. One by one, they will eventually change or perish. |
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Posted: 5/3/2021 11:58:00 AM EDT
[#18]
I use several distributors Rsr, zanders, chattanooga, sports south, orion, bangers, crow and a few others. I use Rsr more than the others. At the start of covid they were back logged 30days to ship but they fixed that. Now they are 1 or days. They are the most organized, best packaged and best invoicing distributor I use.
Asking for 50k of 556 in Jan ad a new dealer is a joke. There are people that do millions of dollars a year with them that are still waiting for 50k of ammo. You have to wait your turn. |
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Posted: 5/3/2021 1:51:03 PM EDT
[#19]
Working there was an eye opening experience for me. My first real intro to real sales. At face value it sounds like OP just has a crappy rep. If the manufacturer has items in stock not allocated he should be able to put in a special order for them amd when I was there it wasn’t hard. Sometimes there was some weirdness with the buyers and they did have the ultimate say.
How much business does OP do with them? As with any business non regular customers that don’t spend much don’t get much of any priority. Honestly I can’t even imagine doing it right now. Everything allocated and hard to come by. Everyone fighting over every box of ammo mag gun etc. |
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Posted: 5/3/2021 1:57:15 PM EDT
[#20]
Quoted: I got my ffl in October. I’m not a big player, but I could be as my other businesses offer me plenty of cash flow. I’m not quite ready to place million dollar orders yet but I’ve been astounded at how useless sales reps at all my distributors are. “Just add it to your favorites we’ll call you when it’s in” and then never get called. I tried to pre pay for 50k rounds of 5.56 and not a one would do it. Just have to put it in my favorites. It’s because you don’t get it. You get to be a big player by patronizing these places repeatedly so you get allocated product. $50k isn’t even close to what many spend monthly on just ammo and some are probably 2-3 times that. Lot of the big guys like federal sold direct but nobody wanted to pony up for the minimum and then wait for it which is why the distributor model became so popular. Then when everybody is out they think they can wave money around like it’s going to change the fact that there’s over a years worth of backordered product on the low side. |
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Posted: 5/3/2021 2:05:53 PM EDT
[#21]
Quoted: It is a sellers market right now. That means their is little incentive to lift a finger to do work, other than take your order and sell "what is on the truck". Almost all of the gun industry operates on a pre-internet sales/distribution model. It is hard to believe there are even distributors still. All it is going to take is one major MFG to figure it out and they are all gone. I think once you get to a certain size it’s just easier to have a intermediary. There has to be a reason they all do it. Now with ammo and powder manufacturers going direct maybe it will swing back the other way. |
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Posted: 7/3/2021 6:14:32 PM EDT
[#22]
Just got a notice from RSR that my rep retired after a long career there- although my experience with him was not unique to "service professionals" I suspect he was coasting in the last 6 months before retirement.
Sven Manticore Arms |
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Posted: 7/4/2021 10:25:48 AM EDT
[#23]
This was a very illuminating thread, gentlemen. Thank you.
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Posted: 7/10/2021 1:53:38 PM EDT
[#24]
You have to build a reputation with your distributor before any panic, then they take care of you during a panic. I tried to sign new contracts with new distros carrying a particular product and I got the same treatment.
I spoke to a few distro reps before and they all said there are a high volume of customers who wants to do business with them only in peak times to hawk product and flip it without a continuation of business in the future.... so they take care of their base first. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 8:00:46 AM EDT
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: You have to build a reputation with your distributor before any panic, then they take care of you during a panic. I tried to sign new contracts with new distros carrying a particular product and I got the same treatment. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 2:01:39 PM EDT
[#26]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Exactly, it's all about the relationship. The reps are going to take care of their long standing, highest spending customers first. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: You have to build a reputation with your distributor before any panic, then they take care of you during a panic. I tried to sign new contracts with new distros carrying a particular product and I got the same treatment. That's true but if your assigned customer wants to order in stock merchandise that's your job. It's a simple process. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 2:55:17 PM EDT
[#27]
Quote HistoryQuoted: That's true but if your assigned customer wants to order in stock merchandise that's your job. It's a simple process. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 3:36:57 PM EDT
[#28]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If it's in stock, we can order through the website. If it's allocated, your rep might not have any allocated to them to sell. The bigger reps get more allocations than lower volume reps. So if you are a low volume dealer assigned to a low volume rep, I'm afraid you ain't getting allocated products. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: That's true but if your assigned customer wants to order in stock merchandise that's your job. It's a simple process. Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 10:11:27 PM EDT
[#29]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. I do agree the distribution model in this industry is antiquated. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 10:16:30 PM EDT
[#30]
Quote HistoryQuoted: My bad. So many reasons why they didn't decide to buy that particular product; maybe they had an open PO and were waiting restock, maybe there was a falling out between the distro and the manufacturer, so many ifs. I would've called the manufacturer to see if a deal could be reached. I do agree the distribution model in this industry is antiquated. The only other store I can think of that has its wares behind glass when you walk in is a jewelry store. 68 GCA locked the industry into a 19th Century retail model. "Hi, I'm the gatekeeper for your 2nd Amendment rights! How may I be an asshole to you today?" |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 11:02:53 PM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: My bad. So many reasons why they didn't decide to buy that particular product; maybe they had an open PO and were waiting restock, maybe there was a falling out between the distro and the manufacturer, so many ifs. I would've called the manufacturer to see if a deal could be reached. I do agree the distribution model in this industry is antiquated. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. I do agree the distribution model in this industry is antiquated. Too many manufacturers don't want to deal with the end customer. Maybe with continuing advances in technology and automation that will go away but it still exists in so many industries I guess we're stuck with it for a while. |
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Posted: 7/11/2021 11:05:33 PM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The only other store I can think of that has its wares behind glass when you walk in is a jewelry store. 68 GCA locked the industry into a 19th Century retail model. "Hi, I'm the gatekeeper for your 2nd Amendment rights! How may I be an asshole to you today?" Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: My bad. So many reasons why they didn't decide to buy that particular product; maybe they had an open PO and were waiting restock, maybe there was a falling out between the distro and the manufacturer, so many ifs. I would've called the manufacturer to see if a deal could be reached. I do agree the distribution model in this industry is antiquated. The only other store I can think of that has its wares behind glass when you walk in is a jewelry store. 68 GCA locked the industry into a 19th Century retail model. "Hi, I'm the gatekeeper for your 2nd Amendment rights! How may I be an asshole to you today?" All kinds of stuff from vehicles to soda pop still use distribution models though. I think you just get to a size/volume where it's not worth it anymore. |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 1:39:57 PM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: It is a sellers market right now. That means their is little incentive to lift a finger to do work, other than take your order and sell "what is on the truck". Almost all of the gun industry operates on a pre-internet sales/distribution model. It is hard to believe there are even distributors still. All it is going to take is one major MFG to figure it out and they are all gone. With sufficient size and volume, direct is still a thing. Plus buy groups are also a thing. |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 2:07:09 PM EDT
[#34]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. To be fair, it's not the sales rep's job to order from the manufacturer. That's the RSR buyer's job. They negotiate prices, delivery schedules, and budget for the wholesaler. So, for a small dealer to say to a RSR sales person "Please order me this from the manufacturer right now" he'd really be interjecting his special request into a pre-existing forecasting>sales>ordering>manufacturing>shipping sequence that was put into action a long time ago. The rep told him the right thing: Go direct with the manufacturer. The price may be different, because the maker might not have an in-house staff and system to ship small amounts of things at the drop of a hat. They set their prices to be attractive to use the distributor because the manufacturer "outsources" this bit of customer service/sales to distributors (and gives the distributors a price break to do so.) |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 4:33:09 PM EDT
[#35]
Quote HistoryQuoted: To be fair, it's not the sales rep's job to order from the manufacturer. That's the RSR buyer's job. They negotiate prices, delivery schedules, and budget for the wholesaler. So, for a small dealer to say to a RSR sales person "Please order me this from the manufacturer right now" he'd really be interjecting his special request into a pre-existing forecasting>sales>ordering>manufacturing>shipping sequence that was put into action a long time ago. The rep told him the right thing: Go direct with the manufacturer. The price may be different, because the maker might not have an in-house staff and system to ship small amounts of things at the drop of a hat. They set their prices to be attractive to use the distributor because the manufacturer "outsources" this bit of customer service/sales to distributors (and gives the distributors a price break to do so.) Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. To be fair, it's not the sales rep's job to order from the manufacturer. That's the RSR buyer's job. They negotiate prices, delivery schedules, and budget for the wholesaler. So, for a small dealer to say to a RSR sales person "Please order me this from the manufacturer right now" he'd really be interjecting his special request into a pre-existing forecasting>sales>ordering>manufacturing>shipping sequence that was put into action a long time ago. The rep told him the right thing: Go direct with the manufacturer. The price may be different, because the maker might not have an in-house staff and system to ship small amounts of things at the drop of a hat. They set their prices to be attractive to use the distributor because the manufacturer "outsources" this bit of customer service/sales to distributors (and gives the distributors a price break to do so.) You do make a good point about the Salesperson not being a Buyer, and in a company the size of RSR they are most definitely different people. That being said, getting blown off by a Distributor is the reason the Distributor model is going away in our industry. A Distributor is nothing more than a middle man, and it is the easiest tier of pricing to knock out of the equation when there is pricing pressure in the industry. There are more than half a dozen other Distributors that learned this the hard way in the last five years in our industry. I also like to remember as a businessman that every large customer or account you have started as a small customer. Ignore the small customers and you are literally killing off your business growth, and possibly even stability, for the future. A middleman entity was given the opportunity to make a quick $10,000, and they ignored it, and it cost me money out of my pocket. Their only job is to resell a product and make it worth my while, they assigned zero value to the only service they offer. I won't forget that in the future. [shrug] Sven Manticore Arms |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 8:27:55 PM EDT
[#36]
Quote HistoryQuoted: To be fair, it's not the sales rep's job to order from the manufacturer. That's the RSR buyer's job. They negotiate prices, delivery schedules, and budget for the wholesaler. So, for a small dealer to say to a RSR sales person "Please order me this from the manufacturer right now" he'd really be interjecting his special request into a pre-existing forecasting>sales>ordering>manufacturing>shipping sequence that was put into action a long time ago. The rep told him the right thing: Go direct with the manufacturer. The price may be different, because the maker might not have an in-house staff and system to ship small amounts of things at the drop of a hat. They set their prices to be attractive to use the distributor because the manufacturer "outsources" this bit of customer service/sales to distributors (and gives the distributors a price break to do so.) Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Did you read the OP? Rep wouldn't order product from manufacturer that was in stock. Not talking about allocated product in stock. To be fair, it's not the sales rep's job to order from the manufacturer. That's the RSR buyer's job. They negotiate prices, delivery schedules, and budget for the wholesaler. So, for a small dealer to say to a RSR sales person "Please order me this from the manufacturer right now" he'd really be interjecting his special request into a pre-existing forecasting>sales>ordering>manufacturing>shipping sequence that was put into action a long time ago. The rep told him the right thing: Go direct with the manufacturer. The price may be different, because the maker might not have an in-house staff and system to ship small amounts of things at the drop of a hat. They set their prices to be attractive to use the distributor because the manufacturer "outsources" this bit of customer service/sales to distributors (and gives the distributors a price break to do so.) It's a simple process and was done all the time. If the buyer was really busy it might take a day or two but usually not. My guess is the Rep didn't want to do it and blew it off by asking his customer to order directly. |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 8:35:43 PM EDT
[#37]
Sounds like a made up job title to me for some asshat to put on their business cards.
Like how everybody is some sort of "technician". Janitor is a bathroom floor scrubbing technician. Uber Eats driver is a meal delivery technician. You favorite hooker is a ball gargling technician. Quoted: I also like to remember as a businessman that every large customer or account you have started as a small customer. Ignore the small customers and you are literally killing off your business growth, and possibly even stability, for the future. I enjoy our sales and marketing and management guys at work talking about this sort of stuff. One of the takeaways I got from our own gameplan is its easier to expand an existing account than it is to land a new account. In order to get net new customers, you have to have marketing and pipeline and a sales funnel and onboard the new customers and all that jazz. Sometimes that takes a pretty significant investment in both time and money. Once we have the customer, the best thing we can do is to make them successful and want to keep spending their money with us. It sounds like the "service professional" is not somebody who is in a position to care if RSR group and their customers are successful or not. Maybe somebody so low on the totem pole that they barely get paid and their check is not tied to how well the company does. |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 9:26:20 PM EDT
[#38]
Quoted: Sounds like a made up job title to me for some asshat to put on their business cards. Like how everybody is some sort of "technician". Janitor is a bathroom floor scrubbing technician. Uber Eats driver is a meal delivery technician. You favorite hooker is a ball gargling technician. I enjoy our sales and marketing and management guys at work talking about this sort of stuff. One of the takeaways I got from our own gameplan is its easier to expand an existing account than it is to land a new account. In order to get net new customers, you have to have marketing and pipeline and a sales funnel and onboard the new customers and all that jazz. Sometimes that takes a pretty significant investment in both time and money. Once we have the customer, the best thing we can do is to make them successful and want to keep spending their money with us. It sounds like the "service professional" is not somebody who is in a position to care if RSR group and their customers are successful or not. Maybe somebody so low on the totem pole that they barely get paid and their check is not tied to how well the company does. There was actually a company wide mandate that everyone stop using any references to sales reps or anything involving sales. These are SERVICE PROFESSIONALS dammit. You could actually get in trouble if you didn't change your email sig and sent any out after a certain time. Good ole modern corp life. |
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Posted: 7/14/2021 9:36:54 PM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Almost all of the gun industry operates on a pre-internet sales/distribution model. It is hard to believe there are even distributors still. All it is going to take is one major MFG to figure it out and they are all gone. You mean like PSA? Thats a big part of their business model and they are open about it. Direct sales from the manufacturer to the customer. They do very well. But a big down side to that is they are hard to come by for most people who don't buy guns online. None of the big box stores carry PSA products around here. Joe Blow redneck can't just walk into cabela's and grab a PSA gun. Some of the local stores carry them. Some of the local stores refuse to do business with PSA, because once upon a time they tried to be a PSA dealer and they would order products and then those same products would show up on the website for cheaper than their dealer price was. If cabela's did carry PSA stuff, they'd be screwed here. Cabela's price matches any store within 100 miles. We routinely have them match PSA website prices on pmags and such. Imagine if they sold PSA guns and we could go in their store and they'd have to sell them at the same price as the website. It would eat up all of their margin and they'd end up losing money on it. |
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Posted: 7/15/2021 11:13:28 AM EDT
[#40]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Sounds like a made up job title to me for some asshat to put on their business cards. Like how everybody is some sort of "technician". Janitor is a bathroom floor scrubbing technician. Uber Eats driver is a meal delivery technician. You favorite hooker is a ball gargling technician. I enjoy our sales and marketing and management guys at work talking about this sort of stuff. One of the takeaways I got from our own gameplan is its easier to expand an existing account than it is to land a new account. In order to get net new customers, you have to have marketing and pipeline and a sales funnel and onboard the new customers and all that jazz. Sometimes that takes a pretty significant investment in both time and money. Once we have the customer, the best thing we can do is to make them successful and want to keep spending their money with us. It sounds like the "service professional" is not somebody who is in a position to care if RSR group and their customers are successful or not. Maybe somebody so low on the totem pole that they barely get paid and their check is not tied to how well the company does. Quote HistoryQuoted: Sounds like a made up job title to me for some asshat to put on their business cards. Like how everybody is some sort of "technician". Janitor is a bathroom floor scrubbing technician. Uber Eats driver is a meal delivery technician. You favorite hooker is a ball gargling technician. Quoted: I also like to remember as a businessman that every large customer or account you have started as a small customer. Ignore the small customers and you are literally killing off your business growth, and possibly even stability, for the future. I enjoy our sales and marketing and management guys at work talking about this sort of stuff. One of the takeaways I got from our own gameplan is its easier to expand an existing account than it is to land a new account. In order to get net new customers, you have to have marketing and pipeline and a sales funnel and onboard the new customers and all that jazz. Sometimes that takes a pretty significant investment in both time and money. Once we have the customer, the best thing we can do is to make them successful and want to keep spending their money with us. It sounds like the "service professional" is not somebody who is in a position to care if RSR group and their customers are successful or not. Maybe somebody so low on the totem pole that they barely get paid and their check is not tied to how well the company does. I am sure he was just a very tiny cog in the big operation and his "give a shit" meter was at zero. For him it was just more work than he wanted to deal with. The irritating part is RSR makes a big deal in all their marketing emails on how everyone has a "Service Professional" to take care of them. Every single person I know who deals with RSR has said that their Service Professional is useless and pointless, and is nothing more than a gatekeeper. I am sure high up the chain at RSR the "each customer has a Service Professional" sounds great, but the reality is for the majority of customers it is a waste of time. Probably just the typical side effect of a company growing so big that there is a disconnect between the upper levels and base levels of the company. Sven Manticore Arms Sven Manticore Arms |
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Posted: 7/15/2021 2:23:30 PM EDT
[#41]
I wonder how many there are now. Think there were around 50 when I was there. The big accounts definitely got taken care of most of the time.
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Posted: 7/15/2021 5:17:54 PM EDT
[#42]
Quote HistoryQuoted: I wonder how many there are now. Think there were around 50 when I was there. The big accounts definitely got taken care of most of the time. @ALASKANFIRE What's up, buddy? Is this where you are hanging out these days? LOL! Ahhh...the good ole days at RSR! Everybody is a ninja until it's time to do some ninja shit.  Anyway, started an 02/07 here in beautiful MONTANA! My RSR rep is squared-away...of course I know the secret handshake and am spending GOOD money with him. Told him I want Key Dealer before end-of-year. Life is good, when you coming up for a visit? Keep The High Ground G |
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