Here is a copy of the proposal I presented to the ATA ... as promised. I am terribly sorry that it didn't transfer well from my original printing. The content or intent is not lost, however. Bear.
Promotions and Membership Recruitment and Retention Presentation for the Amateur Trapshooting Association Executive Committee and Executive Director Lynn Gipson.
PROPOSAL PURPOSE & MISSION
This is a request for funding to implement a program designed to achieve two things. To bring new shooters to the gun clubs most interested in working with the ATA membership promotion and to bring non- registering recreational shooters and new shooters into the ATA fold. Additionally, we will be soliciting the former members on which we still have contact information.
This initial effort will be directed by Executive Director Gipson and myself with the enthusiastic support of the Amateur Trapshooting Association and its Board of Delegates. It will, initially, be locally initiated in two pilot regional target regions ... Most of the state of Illinois but with emphasis on the St. Louis, Missouri metropolitan area which includes Sparta/WSRC and the Greater Phoenix metropolitan area.
It is my great honor to be considered to help the organization that I have great affection. I have already been assured that we have the support and enthusiasm of both region's delegates inclusive to all three pilot program states.
The Goals Are Simple
1. Introducing more people to the local gun clubs who may be interested in shooting trap
2. Aid gun club management in teaching the game of trap and all it's components to new shooters
3. Build the ATA Big 50 program through direct aid for each gun club we feel has the best potential to convert shooters to ATA registered shooting
4. Develop a plan, basic of all sales efforts, to systematically "follow-up" with all interested shooters
5. Reintroduce ourselves to any and all of those who tried registered shooting in the past and didn't stick with it
6. "Mine" for shooters from the other clay target sports
7. Develop a relationship with both national and local media and outdoor writers in each state. This should include each states' DNR or Conservation Dept.
publications
8. Become partners with the most suitable non registering but willing gun clubs that are interested in increasing their membership and holding ATA shoots.
After all, the gun club is as much our customer as the shooters
9. Apply the same methods (as in item # 8) with those gun clubs already throwing registered targets and want to grow their membership and throw more targets
10. Identify possible groups of future ATA Big 50 shooters from local industry and other businesses that are looking for good activities for their employees. Employee Human Resource depts. are keen to have industrial teams in as many activities as possible. It makes for a core of pride for their employees and lends to a "family" atmosphere for the company
11. Identifying and soliciting local retail sporting goods, gun stores, gunsmiths and any other business that would benefit from new shooters in their neighborhood
12. Identifying and soliciting national retailers like Walmart, Cabella's, Bass Pro, Dicks, Sportsman's Warehouse, Gander Mountain, etc., at both the local store and corporate level and use them as points of promotion. An "On Site Promotional Kit" for a table top display should be provided and manned by our local ATA/club representative or the national sales/promotional director, at each business location at optimum times of the year for the greatest traffic
13. Develop a "Promotions Kit" geared for the gun clubs to carry on the business of promotion for new shooters with a pathway to the Big 50 and ATA registered competition
14. Develop an "introduction to the ATA" DVD for each club and representative to present to prospective shooters at all points of customer contact
15. Repackage the ATA's public image as more of a concrete "product" that more "customers" will see it's worth. As an organization we are going to examine our "product" and realize that we have an old "tradition" that is possibly holding us back in it's current form and distribution. I believe we need to reexamine our association with the Trap & Field magazine and bring it on as a premium for membership. We need more control of our image through a better partnership with the publisher of "The Official Publication of the Amateur Trapshooting Association". After all, we are their only customer beside ads
MY NEEDS
1000 Official ATA Business Cards
6 ATA logo casual shirts
2 ATA logo caps
Expenses for official ATA travel and phone
Expenses for official home office supplies
Your enthusiasm and good graces
PERSONAL INTRODUCTION
I was born into a family of sellers and sportsmen. My ATA Life membership number is 17 50780. I became a member of the ATA in 1974. I am 65 years old. My mother's father opened a Western Auto Associate Store at Litchfield, Illinois in 1941. Those that remember those stores know that they sold just about everything. They were the small town "family store" that may have sold your parents your first bicycle or mower or shotgun. My dad took the store over from grandpa in 1958. I was already a veteran as I started working there at age 8 in 1956. My dad is the best and most honest and effective salesman I ever knew and I patterned my sales career after his example. My interest in firearms came early on and we stocked, sold and traded all sorts of firearms until the store's close in 1995.
After leaving my family's business I became the sales manager of Brubaker Motor Company in Litchfield, Illinois. Later a truck fleet customer of ours, Zimmerman Equipment Company, asked me to travel a 5 state territory selling their corn, milo and rice dryers. When Zimmerman moved I became employed with Bratney Equipment Company, Des Moines, Iowa. I served them as a sales/engineer in Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas, both selling over 200 lines of grain, feed and seed processing and conveying products and complete "turn key" processing facilities. I ended my "commercial" career as the Vice President of sales and marketing for Production Automation Systems Company in St. Louis, Missouri, a manufacturer of custom automated product handling machines. I served on the board of the Grain Elevator and Processors Society an an associate member at large, as well.
Trapshooting came into my life when I was eleven. It came in the form of working at the Litchfield Sportsmans Club in Litchfield for my uncle Frank Roach (dad had 8 brothers and two sisters). I used to set targets for 35 cents a case there in the beginning and, eventually, served on the board of directors as the secretary/ treasurer and later vice president, in my late twenties. I loved trapshooting from the beginning. I also served on the Edwardsville (IL) Gun Club board and helped guide their clay target shoot program. I am a better target setter than a target shooter.
I loved trapshooting so much that it became my incentive to become a better shooter, a better worker and, hopefully, a better man. It pushed me into better paying jobs or greater excellence throughout my sales career with the idea to make more money to shoot more targets and still live a nice comfortable life. At this point my target count is well past a quarter million ATA registered targets.
Now, as I enter the rank of the ATA veterans, I want to help the ATA strengthen its position as a great American recreation. I think my life experience as a salesperson and marketeer and one who has trained many in the art of sales prepared me to assist the ATA in a program specifically designed to increase our long term membership. I believe that we can double our member roles in about 5 years.
ATA BIG 50
The ATA BIG 50 is a brilliant idea ... It lacks "hands on" promotion and execution ... but brilliant, all the same. The promotion of this "ATA/Gun Club Interface" and an introduction to registered shooting was and still is an excellent tool. The BIG 50 has the potential to transition club shooters to ATA membership and registered trapshooting.
We have to enhance our commitment and work harder to partner with each and every interested gun club. Implementation will take a renewed commitment by the ATA and we are going to have to spend much time and some funds to get it done. Since there are few trapshooting clubs actively seeking our help, we're going to have to make the effort. This job will have to be funded and manned by the ATA. Our plan must show the gun clubs that being associated with the ATA is valuable and should be integral to their operations. As it relates to the average club shooter ... we have to make it easy to become familiar and eventually a member, at some level, to the ATA. There needs to be a partnership between the interested clubs and the ATA. The gun clubs are our customers, just as much as the shooters.
FOLLOW-UP, FOLLOW-UP, FOLLOW-UP
After "first contact" has been established, the most important part of any sales/marketing is a comprehensive program of "FOLLOW-UP". In the past we have relied on the old "if you build it ... they will come" and "after they come ... they will be in love with us" technique. Unfortunately, that doesn't work anymore ... especially if your trying to KEEP the shooters you nurtured in the beginning. The ATA needs to present it to it's members as more than a "keeper of the records" ... it needs to be seen as the competitive shooters' fraternity (sorority) ... the OFFICIAL part their trapshooting experience. To do this we need to further the work of the current ATA office and it's efforts to improve the website and to develop a consistent mailing presence to both our best/most active members and to continue to "ask for the business" of all shooters, regardless of their level of participation. This may be the most expensive part of our plan ... initially. If it's done in a targeted and concentrated way, however, it will be inexpensive compared to the results. There is nothing exotic or magic about a comprehensive sales campaign ... but done properly, all sales folks know it works.
PRESSING THE FLESH
Any good sales campaign needs human contact. Almost everyone is complimented when asked to participate. This plan will develop a primer for the gun clubs and their needs to be local and state representatives of the ATA to bring the plan to the shooters, personally. It cannot be emphasized enough that our ATA state delegate system needs to be included in making this promotional program work.
I am aware of the disjoint between the ATA helm and their delegates, but that must change. The Executive Committee and the Executive Director needs to "reach out" to all of the state and provincial delegates and their alternates with the goal to bring them to into the fold of this promotion. We have to assume that this is part of what each and every one of them want as much as the helm of the organization does. We all know that this will be a daunting job. All boards of directors have their "do nothings", mavericks and detractors ... but that doesn't mean that the helm can't lead by example. Hopefully, with communications to shooters, state boards of directors, ATA delegates and gun club administrators, the current disjoint communications will improve. Letting them know that the ATA is doing something to bring and keep more shooters will unify most of the delegates. How can they object to the promotion of the sport, that I assume, they love ? We have to convince the delegates that this will make them heros amongst their charge.
