The Domino Effect

A few months ago, I wrote an article about the importance of mentoring women in shooting sports (“Are You Part Of The Solution?” May 2020). In discussing the camaraderie that continues to build with a mentorship program, there was one short phrase trainers and new female shooters both used: The “domino effect.”

According to Wikipedia, a domino effect (or chain reaction) is defined as: “the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events.” With millions of first-time gun owners today, it’s something capable of transforming the trajectory of the shooting sports.

Pandemic Brings New Views On Hunting

A “domino effect” effort I’m personally involved with is a mentorship program for first-time female hunters, the Ladies Adventure Camp Experience (joinlace.com). Generally, we start new hunters with a hog hunt and continue on to other types of hunting down the road.

COVID-19 certainly created a shift: Women who I thought would never consider pulling a trigger on an animal have undergone a change in perspective as a result of this crisis. In talking with the new female hunters we have coming to the next camp in November, hunting is a consideration for them for the first time in their life.

It’s part of the domino effect for you to teach someone a new skill and then encourage him or her to pursue the next steps.

Dealers, you’ve personally experienced the huge increase of firearms sales since March. However, you’ll likely note not all of these firearm sales were self-protection items. Rather, there was an underlying need for a hunting rifle or shotgun to provide peace of mind for customers — giving them a Plan B if there was no food left in the house.

Encourage Self-Reliance

Touching on the issue of COVID-19 for another perspective, I also reached out to a “gal pal” of mine, Tammy Bohn — co-owner of Sturgis Guns in Sturgis, S.D. Like many firearms retailers, Bohn can’t keep up with the demand from new gun owners and has been unable to keep guns and ammo on the shelves.

The majority of these new gun owners have little to no experience with home-defense-type firearms, so Bohn’s working with one of her local firearms instructors to start offering a free monthly range day. (In addition, plans for an indoor and outdoor gun range are underway.)

“Being in a state with a pro-gun governor (Gov. Kristi Noem) has also significantly benefitted Sturgis Guns during this period,” Bohn shared. (Gov. Noem made national headlines for her stance on keeping South Dakota open during the pandemic.)

In some ways Gov. Noem’s COVID-19 position triggered another domino effect by encouraging people to be more self-reliant — thus creating more business for Sturgis Guns and other South Dakota firearms companies.

Focus On “Helping”

Another way to look at the domino effect: It can relate to simply reaching out to a neighbor, or being more visible in your community as a whole.

Does your store or range have a Handgun 101 program (appealing to inexperienced first-time gun owners) in addition to a concealed carry class (which would cater to those with more experience)? Or, perhaps you can encourage the first-time gun owner to take a hunter’s education course. Maybe members of your range who are vested in your store want to help bring in more customers, but you aren’t sure how to do it.

On the NSSF’s website, SHOT University webisodes are a ready-made resource on how to increase your domino effect (free to members).

Mid-July, NSSF hosted a webinar discussing social media (“Using Social Media Effectively in Times of Crisis”) and one of the sound bites I wrote down as a takeaway was “turn fear into fun.” Michelle Scheurmann, principal of BulletProof Communications, led the webinar and encouraged attendees to use social media as a source of service, not sales, during the pandemic.

Along those lines, “helping” is the new “selling” today, and the domino effect from helping is going to do great things for your store and relationships.

Domino Effect In Action

This concept came up in my own life recently at our rural family cottage on Lake Huron. Our next-door neighbor is newly widowed and I only knew her name was Anne. Our previous interactions were kept to a wave and head nod.

I invited her over for coffee, and after spending some time together she asked about the various 2A T-shirts she sees me wear. I explained how I became active with firearms in my 50s and my participation in a number of NSSF programs, like the +ONE Movement.

“helping” is the new “selling” today. the domino effect from helping is going to do great things for your store and relationships.

The story about Anne doesn’t finish with this one lesson, however. The very next week I was introduced to her younger sister who lives in Minneapolis and came for a short visit. She’s deathly afraid of firearms, in large part due to watching mainstream media of the riots that have plagued her hometown this summer. She inherited some hunting rifles and handguns from their grandfather and had no clue how to use or even store them safely.

While our time together didn’t result in a range visit, it did lead to empowering her through research on a local retail gun store that would deliver a gun vault — plus setting her up for some local training lessons.

It’s all part of a domino effect. (Another way to think of it: use this as a new way to network.) How successful we are now, as an industry, will pay dividends later.

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