Wild Bill's Concealment Holsters...Rant, sort of

Well, I know two holster makers and I can tell you they sure try hard. But then I don't hear a lot of complaining about them either. I've made my living as a craftsman and small business owner for over 20 years now and until you've been there you can't believe how tough it is. You only make money when you are at that bench producing. You are not making money while answering innumerable questions on the phone, answering e-mails, etc. All the experts say to hire some help. Ever tried that? Hire someone who is skilled and cares about the quality like you? That's a gut buster there! Then they tell you to train someone, yeah right. They take away all your production time, that means less income, break your tools, ruin material and then demand a raise.

I'm not making excuses for people but the folks I know are positively buried with the rise in concealed carry. They've tried everything to make it more efficient and tried bringing in help with the predictable mess following. We either need more makers who are not cheap rip off artists or lots of patience with the few top shelf craftsman we've got! I'm not commenting on Wild Bill's but the lot of holster makers and craftsman in general and probably *****ing about the lot of the small businessman in general.

There was a whole thread on a similar topic here on another forum....

http://forums.1911forum.com/showthread.php?t=186871&page=2

ELCruiser said:

Well, I know two holster makers and I can tell you they sure try hard. But then I don't hear a lot of complaining about them either. I've made my living as a craftsman and small business owner for over 20 years now and until you've been there you can't believe how tough it is. You only make money when you are at that bench producing. You are not making money while answering innumerable questions on the phone, answering e-mails, etc. All the experts say to hire some help. Ever tried that?

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While I can appreciate that it's no excuse for miserable service. There are PLENTY of people that manage to run a business and still treat customers like human beings. Telling someone they are going to get a holster in 3 months, taking their money up front and still not gettin it 9 months later tells me this person is only interested in getting the money and don't give a whit about the customers. What you are asking is the customer accept the business owners poor ability to run a business. When did this type of service become a standard and when did people start expecting customers to accept it?

There's a difference in someone being on the phone all the time and at least being honest when an order is taken on how long it will take. If I put in an order and am told 3 months and almost a year later I still don't have it then the person lied, period. Especially if there others having the same thing happen. So I don't feel sorry for someone that blatantly lies.

If someone can't run their business good enough to treat their customers like decently I think they should look for another line of work, period. If they were working for someone else and provided service like that they would be fired.

Now, I hate to focus on holster makers as this applies to everyone and I got excellent service from Mark Garrity of garrity's and Nate of UBG. I highly recommend them and they delivered when they said they would, gave excellent service and concentrated on being a well rounded business.

Take Eric Larsen as an example. He took tons of orders payment up front, got a lot behind and wound up filing bankruptcy. Lots of people got ripped off and never got nothing for their money. Brommeland got way behind, I have heard a lot of complaints on him and his answer? Stop all phone communications and severely limit emails. This is how to run a business? Either file bankruptcy or stop dealing with the customers? Either hire someone to help or don't oversell, period. If you don't want to pay someon enought to get good help, then don't sell multiple times what you can actually put out as a one man shop.

If you can't get the product out when you tell customers you can you have poor business practices as frenchy said. I think most of it is blatant lying, by some of course, as they know well it won't be out by when they are telling their customers even when their lips are moving.

I HAVE ran businesses not owned, automotive repair businesses, and I can tell you there are other parts of running a business than just the money making part. Dealing with costomers and problems are all part of it. Just working on the cars and not dealing with the customers or warranty work would indeed be pure heaven but again that's miserable business practices as is just working on holsters and not dealing with the customers.

That's my rant but then I was raised to believe you don't have to accept bad service. If someone wants to run their business themselves and not hire someone/pay them enough to help them out then that person should only take in the orders they can actually handle for a one person operation while fulfilling their delivery date and being able to treat their customers like customers and not just take their money and treat them like garbage.

It's not all holster makers by any stretch, but there are sure several that are focused totally on the money and barely, if at all on the service. Vastly overselling what one can put out when they say they can is greed pure and simple. I don't have to run their business to see that.