Tim Joseph

….since 2019, we introduced it.

Tim Joseph

And the reason you probably have never heard of it is because Stoeger is not known for this particular platform. We're known for shotguns, have been known for shotguns for a long time. Stoeger has been around as a company for 100 years next year.

We have introduced what we believe is a very good pistol. So that's why you're hearing about the pistol now.

I'm trying to make some inroads into that market and introduce this new platform. To continue to grow the following that we believe this pistol will have over time.

Tim Joseph

(Laughing) …in some respects, very happy to hear that. We certainly rather hear that than the opposite.

And you asked the question:“how DO you establish pricing for a new product?”

I thought about it, and then I thought about it some more. And it’s a very difficult question to answer. There is the mathematical side of it, which is pretty easy to figure out : figure your cost of goods, what it's going to cost you to transport that product into the marketplace, what your margins need to be, and what you ultimately want to do with that product. That's the somewhat easy part of it.

The other part of it isn't so much a science as an art, I guess. There’s always the chance of getting it right or getting it wrong. It’s all the things that then go along with that particular product.

How good is the product?

What is the brand capable of carrying your current customer base that likes your current products? What are they accustomed to paying for them?

So too just use some far-flung examples. If you have a brand that is an entry level brand pricing, something that's three times normal market value out, there would be an anomaly. Your customer base will probably not follow you there. Maybe over time, they will but certainly not initially.

There's the other question- if you have a good reputable brand and you price things too low. There's a question of “what's wrong with the product?” You know, there must be something wrong if it's that low.

We've tried to straddle that line with the pistol. And I don't know if we've gotten that 100% right.

We will certainly make adjustments over time. But we wanted this pistol in a lot of hands.

And what we're hearing consistently back from people - and we’ve heard again this week when we've had over the writers here at Gunsite- Is this a great pistol.

It's shooting very accurately out of the box.

It's it's easy to shoot.

The low bore axis makes it makes the muzzle flip very minimal.

We're hearing great things and we've we've been hearing that for the last several years - when people get in their hands.

Many people are going “boy, I like this better than X brand or I like this better than Y brand”

But we decided we want to get a number of these pistols into the marketplace….but I want to say there is no plan to bait and switch. We are trying to put out pistols at a lower price point where we believe they fit into the Stoeger line - in general.

But we're also introducing pistols that don't have a lot of magazines, that may not have the extra back straps….in order to get an entry level pistol that people can can get and can be really happy with.

So that is the market that we're in today.

We will absolutely be introducing colors. We will be doing some things to these pistols that will gradually increase the price point, but we'll take it up from the existing price point of view.

We have pistols that at 299 price points, so that will that will grow, there may still be some entry level pistols with a minimal amount of accessories in box. But we plan to grow that. We think the platform and the pistol itself has the, the bones to be able to add things to it.

Tim Joseph

Brand building - for us - is everything. Our basis of authenticity. And there are - I won't name names - some examples, even out of our industry today of some who have misstepped with their consumers in a big way.

Brand is the world where I have come up - I have I have responsibility for marketing and product teams at at Benelli.

Today, marketing is primarily my side of the business. I've worked for brands like Orvis and Woolrich and Cabela's. Without the brand, you really don't have a foundation to do the things that you want to do.

Now, that can also be somewhat limiting. There are parameters at any given time with a brand.

I used to talk about branding - a lot - with particularly in Cabela’s. I would go around and give basic seminars on brand because some people thought branding was just putting a name on a product. They thought branding was just putting your name on a product.

Here’s a great example of this from Cabela’s: there was a buyer who decided he was going to do Cabela's golf clubs. And it got through the system before anybody caught it.

And we wound up with a whole bunch of Cabela's golf clubs. Cabela's really didn't have any expertise in that marketplace. And, yeah, it was kind of cool that Cabela's name was on it. But it was certainly a stretch to take that brand into that particular marketplace.

So there are parameters that you really have, if you want to remain authentic to your to your customer base. You have to be careful about how far you extend yourself with the brand.

So we had to be careful about that. And we watched that, like a hawk. To be very, very careful of managing our brands within their spaces.

It does get to be a tight rope sometimes - because we do jump back and forth between the various brands that are underneath our umbrella.

But I'm very fortunate to have a team of people who can pretty readily jump those lines when they're thinking about this brand. They sort of magically take off one hat put on another one.

Because we know our customer base, we know what we can and what we can’t do.

We always want to be true to the brand and true to our customer base.

Tim Joseph

For me personally - and that try to extend that into the companies that I work with - its authenticity because so much goes into that.

If you're inauthentic in your price, with your your branding or your messaging and your advertising, then you are inauthentic.

If you are an authentic with your product then suddenly decide you are a company who is in the sporting business, and you want to do golf clubs, like I said, those things can can erode your authenticity.

There are great examples out there of companies that has happened to - companies many people thought were too-big to fail.

You look at Sears and Kmart and you look at Penny’s and they didn't change with the times.

By the time they did change, it was out of desperation. They tried to grab another group of people to be friends with and left their other friends behind.

That's a dangerous position for a brand to be in. And I don't ever want to be sitting in the brand chair if/when that happens with the company that I'm working with.

Tim Joseph

I think the best companies and the best brands have some sort of centralized vision. We refer to it occasionally as a North Star.

What is your North Star?

What do you want to be?

Who do you want to be to your consumer?

As you're creating these things, it is so easy to be pulled off of that North Star. You're sailing in the direction of the North Star, and suddenly you see an interesting island that you want to go kind of pursue, you can lose sight of what that Northstar really is. And I think for me, that metaphor really applies. It's the way that I look at it, what do you want to be to your customer? There are case studies of other companies who have made this mistake.

At any given time, half of your brand experience is owned by your consumer, or maybe better, but at least half is owned by your consumer.

Companies who have made their biggest mistakes, think that all they have to do is change their brand - and the people will just follow them to them.That is often not the case.

And the bigger you get, the more established you get, the harder that is to do.

I think people forget or think, “I'll just change this and people will just accept what I've changed.”

That that's a danger. It's a very dangerous spot.

Don't ever forget that.

Your customers brought you to the space that you are whether you're a startup or whether you’ve been in business for 100 years. Your customer base brought you there.

If you plan on changing that - plan on differing from that greatly- you do so at your peril.

It’s best to have a very good plan as to how to change without losing all the people that brought you to the party.

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• Chris Dorsey
• Alan Gottlieb/SAF & CCRKBA
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• Q&A With Jonathan Shults, Co-Founder/CEO SilencerCo.
• Joe Bartozzi: President/CEO National Shooting Sports Foundation
• Jared Smith: Taking Over AMMO, Inc.
• Robert Nioa: Coming to America