diveshop

Meet Liz Robinson, co-owner of Ted’s Shooting Range, located in Queen Creek, AZ. Ted’s Shooting Range offers firearms educational classes, and includes a gun range, a retail firearms store, and a dive shop.

Some topics of discussion

• A multi-faceted business: classes, range, and retail (5:27)
• Shooting as a skill that offers a level playing field (8:19)
• A sales boom: “Liberal” first time gun buyers (12:17)
• A perspective on guns: “It's a tool of a sport that I love to use.” (13:44)
• For traumatized women, guns can help them “feel like they're getting control back of their life.” (15:36)
• 2020-2021: millions of new gun owners (17:24)
• A woman-owned company: earning a place in a predominantly male industry (36:18)
• Women gun owners: “we don't treat them like they're stupid” (37:40)
• Race and gender politics in business (throughout)
• Guns and the current political climate (throughout)

Business lessons and ideas

• A serious responsibility: when you have to say no to a customer (18:05)
• A partnership between two very different people is a good thing (20:12)
• “If you have an employee that just is not working out, don't don't hold on to them for too long.” (22:15)
• Personnel issues: “I listen to my employees a lot, not just the management, it’s the employees.” (22:13)
• “I won't tolerate racism.” “Won't tolerate it in my employees. I won't tolerate it in my customers.” (22:36)
• “Lead by example, how you treat them is hopefully how they're gonna treat the customer.” (28:37)
• Success is “how I feel inside.” (30:10)
• Franchising hesitancy (30:48)
• “Be flexible. Because you never know where a good thing is gonna come from.” (33:24)
• “If you're so rigid, it's going to just in some cases, I think it just destroys businesses” (34:15)

Miscellaneous interesting stuff

• Who the heck is Ted? (:34)
• “When I was eight, I was a janitor.” (2:48)
• A toy gun under her pillow (6:40)
• “My kids starting shooting at 3 and 4.” (7:06)