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America’s Best Bowstring

Living Up to Our Name

By Bill & Sherry Krenz

Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of higher intentions, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution. It represents a choice among alternatives.

Nestled into the rolling hills of central Ohio is the picturesque village of Millersburg, a self-reliant jewel on the edge of the state’s Amish Country. It’s a place where simple traditions complement a productive and enterprising spirit. It is also the home of America’s Best Bowstrings.

“This was once mostly a farming community,” say Jerry Mullet, the founder and president of America’s Best Bowstrings. “But over the years, that’s slowly changed. Today, only a small percentage of the Amish families in this

community still farm. Most are now involved in the manufacturing of quality furniture, or home construction or are engaged in a variety of small and productive businesses. In fact, if there’s a theme interwoven into the fabric of our community, it’s to always do things right. Whether you farm or make furniture or even make bowstrings, people here take great pride in doing things well. I clearly remember as a child hearing the old saying over and over again, ‘Whether the task is great or small, do it well or not at all.’ Even today, those words pretty much sum up our work ethic and our view of life.”

Jerry Mullet began shooting a bow when he was about 16 years old. He took to it like a duck to water.

“My uncle Daniel lived in Indiana,” relates Jerry. “He was an archer and IBO competitor, and he got me started. I quickly fell in love with archery. In short order, I was traveling with my uncle to compete in IBO Triple Crown events, shooting in lots of local 3D tournaments and bowhunting at every opportunity. That went on for years. I even bowhunted for elk in Colorado and in Canada for black bear.

“Among my strongest archery memories, however, were all those IBO events where I was exposed to a whole new level of archery accuracy, world-class shooters and gear. I was enthralled with it all. I also met many of the best shooters, a surprising number of whom helped me to become a better archer and competitor. The help they gave me and the expertise they shared got me thinking. I wondered how I could, in turn, pass on that knowledge to the archers in my own local community. I decided that the best way to do that was to open a small archery shop.”

In May of 2002, Jerry Mullet opened In Sight Archery. What began as a part-time endeavor gradually grew into something much larger, fueled primarily by Jerry’s penchant for quality service.

“In the beginning, I had very little inventory,” Jerry remembers. “But that wasn’t what I was about. I opened the shop to help people. I resolved to bring to our local community all the knowledge, expertise and excitement that I had found in archery. I couldn’t afford a lot of merchandise or a big show room, but what I did have was the ability and the desire to help our local shooters better set up and tune their equipment and understand the fundamentals and advantages of proper shooting form.

“Slowly, one thing led to another, the pro shop expanded and our equipment sales grew, although we remained extremely service- and teaching-oriented. For us, the main focus was on what we could do to make our customers happy and satisfied before they left. In all the years that we’ve run the archery shop, the most lasting lesson has been that quality customer service is the most important thing. Helping customers properly––helping them with their gear and their shooting and even making sure they understand exactly how and why everything works––means that those customers leave our shop with lots of archery enthusiasm. And it’s that enthusiasm that keeps those customers coming back. They also spread that enthusiasm for archery, and secondarily for our shop, to their friends. That’s how our customer base grew and continues to grow.

“We believe that when a customer walks into an archery pro shop, they expect more than just to be sold a bow or a new sight. They’re looking for answers. They want solutions. They want to understand. They come to a pro shop to find that expertise and that personal one-on-one help. That’s why we continue to work so hard at putting the ‘pro’ in pro shop.”

That same focus on helping people shoot better and enjoy archery more caused Jerry and his staff to begin making custom bowstrings for their customers.

“About five years ago, we started building strings and cables specifically for our shop customers. To be honest, we just weren’t satisfied with the strings and cables we were able to buy. I also had some ideas how a better quality bowstring might be made.

“We built some specialized machinery and tried a lot of different approaches until we finally evolved a process that delivered the sort of strings and cables that we felt our customers deserved.

“Initially, our only goal was to build strings and cables for our pro-shop customers. We had no thoughts of taking our string making beyond that. But what happened was that our customers and shop shooters kept asking us if we fully realized just how good our homemade strings were. One of our shooters, Aaron Dillon, came to me one day and said, ‘Jerry, I’ve had my bow in the back seat of my car for three days. It’s July, it’s hot and it’s super hot in my car. I left my bow in there to prove a point. I marked my cams, and absolutely nothing has changed. The strings haven’t stretched and the peep is still perfect. This is incredible. This is awesome. How did you do this?’

“That incident finally got me thinking outside of the box that was just our pro shop. I began asking myself if this process was that good and works that well, why not try to expand our sales efforts outside of our own pro-shop doors? Why not help even more archers with their bow setup, tuning and shooting problems?”

With that in mind, Jerry decided to contact a pro shooter by the name of Chance Beaubouef.

“I’d been following Chance’s archery career. He was an incredible shooter who had won nearly every major indoor archery tournament possible, an arena where shooting and equipment perfection is tested constantly and to a degree not seen anywhere else. I’d met and talked with Chance occasionally at tournaments, and I was also impressed by his humble and helpful manner.

“I called Chance and I told him that I was thinking about starting a custom bowstring company. I asked if he would be interested in trying some of our strings. Chance was open to the idea and intrigued by what I told him about our manufacturing process and the results we were achieving. Bowstrings and cables are among the most crucial components of any bow. You can’t shoot a compound bow without them. If a string or cable stretches or creeps, your tune will change, your impact point will change, the size of your groups will change, even arrow flight can change. I explained to Chance that our goal was to build a string system that was so stable that things didn’t change, no matter what. All you had to do was go and shoot, with no worries.”

Jerry sent Chance Beaubouef several sets of strings and cables to try. Three weeks later, Chance called Jerry back.

“How can I get more of those strings?” were the first words out of Chance’s mouth. Chance Beaubouef has shot and won with nothing but America’s Best Bowstrings ever since.

“That call back from Chance, and his enthusiasm over how well our strings and cables worked on his bows, was key in my decision to finally and officially launch America’s Best Bowstrings as a national company.

“The following year, I did much that same thing with noted 3D competitor Dan McCarthy. Like Chance Beaubouef, Dan was impressed, and after switching to our strings he won five major 3D tournaments in a row, including the IBO Triple Crown. Dan told me, ‘Jerry, this is incredible. I can now just shoot and not worry about re-tuning my bow after every grueling event. All I have to do is focus on shooting every arrow as perfectly as possible.’

“Our focus, of course, had to shift somewhat. We had to get the word out about America’s Best Bowstrings. That started, I suppose, with the name of our company.

“The name didn’t come about until after our unique manufacturing process and our quality bowstrings had been developed, and we knew for sure that we had a great product. I wanted a name that would instantly tell people who we were and what we were about. We mulled over lots of possibilities, but America’s Best Bowstrings really said it all for us. In the end, the name choice seemed simple. It also gave us something to live up to.

“To get the word out, we initially concentrated on the tournament market. Our philosophy was that if we could become established in the tournament market with those shooters who are the most discriminating archers in the world, that would provide our strings strong and exciting credibility. We next used the success of those top shooters who embraced and did well with our strings in our print-advertising campaign to dramatically spread the word even
further.”

In 2007, America’s Best Bowstrings made another bold step. They hired the PSE sales-rep group to sell America’s Best Bowstrings nationwide.

“We felt that move would provide better sales coverage and emphasis nationwide,” Jerry reveals, “and that quickly proved to be the case. With the PSE sales force, our nationwide sales really took off.”

Things were really looking up for America’s Best Bowstrings. The quality coming out of the little community in Ohio was beginning to pay off. Then the company got an even bigger break.

“In 2008, PSE called us and said they wanted to put America’s Best Bowstrings on all of their 80-pound PSE X-Force bows. The PSE sales reps and dealers loved our strings. PSE founder and President Pete Shepley was personally shooting our strings. And the red-hot X-Forces were PSE’s highest-performing bows. We were very flattered and we quickly agreed, but what I think PSE was really doing was testing us. Could we provide PSE with large quantities of bowstrings and cables and still maintain the quality? That was the question…and that’s exactly what we did.

“By that point, we had long been guaranteeing length tolerance to plus-or-minus .010 inch, with virtually no shoot-in time, no creep and no peep rotation, and we didn’t make those claims lightly. We stood by that guarantee because we knew that our strings stood up to those claims. Our proprietary EST Process (Equalized Strand Technology) ensured it. In addition, we literally hand-checked each and every bowstring and cable before it went out the door. Every one, every time. We made sure that strings went out right. If a string wasn’t right, it didn’t go out.

“Pete Shepley eventually told me, ‘America’s Best Bowstrings are making our best bows even better.’ By the end of 2008, our job as a supplier for PSE had expanded, and we were providing strings for all of the PSE X-Force and MoneyMaker high-end, high-performance bows.

“At the same time that we were becoming a better supplier for PSE, we were also becoming a better vendor for our ever-expanding dealer and distributor network. Part of that was because we knew exactly what it was like to be a dealer depending on a distant manufacturer for quality merchandise. In our own pro shop, we had learned how to buy, stock and sell merchandise the hard way––we made mistakes. At times, we bought poorly. We bought too much or too little. Or we bought at the wrong prices. We knew all that because we’d done it. But that experience allowed us to structure our own buying programs and pricing to make them friendly for archery pro shops everywhere. Because we know both sides of the coin so well––retailer and manufacturer––it’s allowed us to create programs for America’s Best Bowstrings that work for everyone that we’re selling to.”

In a relatively short time period, America’s Best Bowstrings has carved out an enviable position within the archery industry. The company and its products are known and respected. That’s clearly grown out of a strict adherence to an elevated quality standard, a concerted effort and lots of work. Also, to ignore the Amish influence in all that would be an oversight.

“There are lots of misconceptions about the Amish culture,” admits Jerry. “We’re not a different religion, and we don’t all wear old-time clothing and utilize horse-drawn buggies. Some sects do, but not all. Ours is simply a different way of life. We believe in the Bible, in our families and in being productive. We have a strong desire to do things right. That includes how we live and work. We also have a great respect for our traditions. One of those is that, in general, Amish people would prefer not to be photographed and certainly not to have their photographs publicly flaunted. That’s why, out of respect for our people and our way of life, I have elected not to appear on the cover of this magazine, which is the usual case for Inside Archery cover stories. My Amish heritage has shaped who I am and it certainly has a positive influence in all that I do.”

Attitude, combined with quality people and quality products have made America’s Best Bowstrings what it is today.

“Every employee in our company is a key member of America’s Best Bowstrings. When we have company meetings, we talk about ensuring the quality of our products, and we talk about the successes that archers everywhere are having with our strings. We talk about Chance Beaubouef or Danny McCarthy winning yet another big tournament or about customers who kill a big buck. Our employees all know that they have a role in every one of those successes.

“Production Manager Marvin Barkman, for example, keeps everything running smoothly at America’s Best Bowstrings. Marvin is a previous small-business owner and brought a wealth of manufacturing and management skill to our company. National Sales Manager Jay Miller was originally a customer in our pro shop. In time, Jay became a valued employee. His background in both sales and manufacturing, and his ability to relate to retailers, distributors and consumers, has proven a great fit with us. He’s helped take America’s Best Bowstrings to the next level and grow the company substantially.

“Still,” Jerry confesses, “when you boil everything down, we are where we are today because of the quality of our strings. We believe that if you’re a product manufacturer, that’s the way it should be. Quality is everything, We have a hard time seeing it any other way.

“What’s so special about our bowstrings and cables?

“I get asked that all the time,” says Jerry. “What I tell them is that it’s peace of mind. We don’t compromise on the quality of strings. Shoot-in time is almost nonexistent with America’s Best Bowstrings. There’s no creep and no peep rotation. Archers are able to install our strings and then forget them. That’s the peace of mind we provide. That’s the way we live up to our company name.”

For more information on America’s Best Bowstrings, call America Best Bowstrings at (330) 893-7155 or log onto americasbestbowstrings.com.

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