Page 11 - Alabama 811 Magazine

nd FlagShooter
she has been my biggest cheerleader throughout the entire process.”
It worked in your backyard, now what? Paul said, “Well, it did work,
but we didn’t know if anybody would buy it or find it useful. Initially, in
case someone did see value in it, there was the patent process we had to go through and then how do we market it if that becomes necessary. I hired our first employee in January of 2010. Most of the industry knows that our first employee was Bob Bishop who was a great asset to me for many years. By the end of 2010, we began to make the trade shows. We began to get orders. So, now was the time to start building the units. We had an assembly party
in my shop to fill orders that began to trickle in.”
Did you also manufacture the special flags? “Interestingly enough” he said, “that was not my vision. But we realized early on that we’d have to get in the middle of manufacturing flags as well as the shooter. There were a lot of lessons to learn during this phase. When things went wrong, we realized that we couldn’t call tech support...
we were the tech support. So, we learned a lot. Through 2011, we were filling some orders and learning how to manufacture flags. Then we began
to get reorders. That was exciting because to us it meant that what we had done was working and loyalties began to develop. Strategically early on, we wanted to work within a five- state region. My thinking was if there are problems, I want to be able to
get to the customer and resolve the issue personally. And that proved to be the right move. Once we became comfortable with how rugged the unit was, it was time to expand.
Are you where you thought you’d be?
Paul smiled as he said, “Not sure where I thought we’d be, but initially I thought folks would gravitate toward the safety benefits of the FlagShooter. Especially, saving their backs from having to bend over and even more so in hard ground. But what we failed to fully appreciate was that the locators saw an equal benefit in the amount of time they saved because now they could shoot flags in either the frozen ground or the driest ground that they encounter. I believe those are two major reasons that we have over 8,000 FlagShooters in the field nationwide and we continue to produce and ship millions of flags every year.”
Looking ahead, what’s next? Paul slowly answered, “First, we want to
take care of those companies and individuals who have been so loyal
to us. That will always be our first commitment. Having said that, I see myself as an innovator, a designer
as someone who wants to provide solutions where issues arise. We’re working on some ideas now. One thing some folks may not know is that we are a very large producer of straight flags. It makes sense, right? A lot of folks use flags that don’t use a FlagShooter, so we can meet their needs as well. Currently, FlagShooter flags are in
all colors, including white. As laws change requiring premarking proposed excavation sites in white, we’ve noticed many excavators are moving to the FlagShooter, in large part because how much time they can save when marking in white. There are other opportunities out there as well. We want to continue listening to the experts in the field. More than likely, they’ll tell us what needs to be done next. And I want to be in that conversation.”
Closing thoughts. Thanks Paul! You are truly a great storyteller, innovator and dream chaser. For those of you who haven’t had the opportunity to meet Paul or connect with FlagShooter, check out their website at www. flagshooter.com.
2023, Issue 2 Alabama 811 • 9