Bowhunt America

Article Topics

Andy Simo of New Archery Products

1 review

Re-Inventing a Company

By Bill and Sherry Krenz

Today is not yesterday. That is one of the few cardinal rules of our existence.

What we once knew, even what worked so well at one time, tends to gradually slip away as things inevitably change all around us. That happens both in life and in business. The key is to keep up. In fact, the most effective way to cope with change is to help create it.

One perfect example of an archery company that today is progressively dealing with change is New Archery Products. The company was on top of the archery game for decades, then down a bit, but is now diligently working its way back up once again. It’s rolled with change, sometimes pushing the changes, at other times being buffeted by them.

“It pays to keep track of where you are on what sometimes can be a rollercoaster,” explains Andy Simo, founder and president of New Archery Products. “For over two decades we’d been on top of the market, leading the way with the best-selling broadheads and first-rate arrow rests. From the late 1970s well into the new millennium we actually changed the way bowhunters looked at those two product categories. We raised the product bar, developing better broadheads like the NAP Razorbak 5, the immensely popular Thunderhead and the Spitfire, and we innovated new and better arrow rests like the NAP Plunger Flipper Rests and our later QuikTune arrow rest series. Retailers and archers around the world responded to those ultra-quality products and we prospered.

“But as the new millennium rolled in, radical changes were underfoot. Those changes, we believe, were societal changes, not just archery market changes, but they nevertheless began transforming once again how bowhunters thought and how the archery market did business.

“Our business philosophy had always been based on the idea of offering ultra-quality products which would sell and stand on their own merits. Like many small businesses, my wife Cherie and I started our business in our basement. I was an archery enthusiast but I was also an aerospace engineer, Obsessed with getting peak performance from my bows, I modified limbs, I experimented a good bit with lighter weight bowstrings and I began tinkering with new concepts for better arrow rests. That was in the late 1960s and the arrow rests of the day were pretty simple affairs, mostly just carpeted shelf rests and a few stick-on types. What I eventually developed was the NAP Flipper Rest, a radical new arrow rest for the times that featured a Teflon-sleeved stainless-steel arrow support arm that flipped out of the way at the slightest touch. In spite of the fact that they were the most expensive arrow rests of that day, I sold them almost as fast as I could make them.”

At the same time, Simo began working on something entirely new––broadheads.

“I was never satisfied with the broadheads on the market.” Says Andy. “Most shared the same problems. They didn’t fly straight. They weren’t consistent from head to head. They didn’t penetrate especially well. And you had to hand-sharpen them. I started with the premise that a much better broadhead that was ultra-consistent, flew perfectly, had structural integrity, penetrated deeply and was pre-sharpened would sell well regardless of price.”

The initial result of that work was the revolutionary Razorbak 5 broadhead, introduced by NAP in 1975. It featured five pre-sharpened blades permanently mounted in a rotating blade cartridge, unprecedented consistency and exceptional flight and penetration characteristics. Regardless of its then-high price, the NAP Razorbak 5 was an immediate hit with bowhunters everywhere. It was the most advanced, best quality broadhead ever offered.

“In those early years we did only moderate amounts of marketing and advertising,” reveals Andy. “We placed small black-and-white ads in a few key print magazines and that was pretty much it. We didn’t even have sales reps. Our products sold largely because of their high quality and because of the positive word-of-mouth that spread the NAP news.”

Slowly but steadily, New Archery Products grew. Andy moved the company out of his basement and into a leased storefront in 1977. In 1980, based on increased sales, NAP moved to a 5,000 square-foot building and then, just a decade later, into its present 29,000 square-foot custom-built facility in Forest Park, Illinois. Along the way, the company developed two of the most successful broadheads of all time––the NAP Thunderhead and the NAP Spitfire in addition to a host of state-of-the-art arrow rests. By the year 2000, New Archery Products had become one of the most successful archery-accessory companies in existence.

“What we missed, though,” says Andy, “was that the world was changing. Our success had been built on the notion that a quality product was enough. It had been proven to us in the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s that if you offered the best-quality broadheads and arrow rests, archers would eventually learn of them and buy them. A great deal of marketing and other sales efforts were just not needed.

“Then, roughly a decade ago, that and a few other key things began to quickly change in our society and marketplace. One of the big changes was the rise in the effectiveness of intense marketing campaigns. A quality product was no longer enough. In the new age of communication, buoyed up by vastly improved print and electronic advertising possibilities, new products could be brought to market with startling speed and effectiveness, provided the marketing was splashy enough. To some degree, you could now actually beat the competition with marketing. Strong, effective marketing also displayed the power to propel new companies to the forefront with amazing quickness. Run enough print ads, sponsor enough television shows and you could sell just about anything.

“Where we admittedly missed the boat at NAP is that we didn’t see this coming. The role of marketing and advertising is now so much greater today than it was 20 years ago, probably by a factor of at least three. With better communication through improved magazines, television possibilities and the Internet, consumers and trade buyers can be influenced and swayed so much faster and more effectively.

“Another key change has been that quality is now much more widespread. Take compound bows for example. Look at all the really superb, high-quality bows that are readily available today. It’s genuinely difficult to choose (which also heightens the impact of marketing).

“An even more broadly applicable change is that as a society we seem to have less and less time to do things, even make buying decisions. Few bowhunters, for example, personally take the time to test a wide variety of broadheads today. They go instead with magazine write-ups, celebrity recommendations or quick Internet searches. With improved technology availability, it seems we do more but devote less time to each thing.”

The upshot of all this is that the fortunes of New Archery Products faltered a bit as significant change rumbled through the world and the archery market, felling time-tested business ideas like earthquakes cracking and dropping buildings.

“In our case,” Andy adds, “we kept going down the same path without fully recognizing that things had changed in how products sold, in how quality across entire product categories had risen and in how consumer mindsets had changed.

“Fortunately, we are a forward-thinking company, used to pushing change. Once we identified our problems, we set out to make the necessary corrections.”

For most companies, owning up to such oversights is a herculean task in itself. It’s not a simple matter to be truly objective in self-analysis. Plenty can’t begin to manage it. New Archery Products seems to have mastered it.

Andy Simo is forthcoming in his assessment. “We identified two fundamental areas that required immediate change to re-fit our company for this new age. The first is to dramatically improve every aspect of our marketing. The second is to ramp up our new-product development.”

The marketing of a company and its products is nothing less than a battle for the minds of its customers. Those minds can only absorb, understand and embrace so much, which is why it is so crucial today that a company’s marketing be focused, consistent and impactful.

“We have long been an engineering-driven company,” declares Simo. “We know how to make quality products. But new-age marketing wasn’t on our resume. To address that properly we knew we needed new thinking, probably younger, more aggressive thinking. We also felt that we needed someone from outside our company for that task, someone devoid of the pre-conceived notions that any longstanding company inevitably clings to.

“After a lengthy search, we hired sales-and-marketing expert (and lifelong avid bowhunter) Brady Arview. Brady came to us after business stints at Winchester Ammunition, Mossy Oak and GSM, all solid outdoor-industry companies. He joined NAP in May of 2009 as its new vice president of sales and marketing.”

“Sometimes I think my life and career path was all in preparation for New Archery Products,” says Arview. “I grew up just south of Pike County, Illinois. and remember following my father through the brush and tall grass to deer stands when I was just a toddler. When I was very young I began bowhunting and just never stopped. Bowhunting is my passion. But so is marketing and sales.”

“Brady’s chief initial task is to re-invent how everyone sees and perceives NAP and every one of our products,” Andy declares.

“That meant a wholesale re-branding of the company from top to bottom,” states Brady. “In the past, the NAP philosophy was to tout individual products over the NAP brand. Each product had its own, different-look packaging, for example. That worked in the ‘80s and ‘90s because product quality was everything. Bowhunters knew they trusted Thunderhead broadheads and that was enough. It also dovetailed perfectly into Andy’s concept that quality products could and would stand on their own in the marketplace.

“But today that is no longer valid. Today’s bowhunter has many more quality products to choose from, has less time to make that choice and is therefore much more likely to resort to brand-recognition and advertising influence than ever before. There is always a risk in such wholesale company-presentation changes, but Andy and his team had already identified that there was an even greater danger in blind conservatism.

“We began our NAP marketing re-invention by updating the company logo, making it sharper and more modern. Then we attacked the company’s packaging with a passion. We scrubbed all the stand-alone looks and unified everything under a single, consistent new NAP theme and look that was darker, bolder and more edgy. That made every NAP product stand out on the shelf. Furthermore, it enabled everything NAP to pull together.

“At the same time we repainted all of our other marketing efforts with the new NAP look and theme––print ads, website, TV commercials, point-of-sale banners and posters and more. Everything now presents that same updated, edgy and unified feel.

“It’s key to have a strong brand following today. Essentially what we’ve done is re-introduce a longstanding but underutilized brand so that today’s consumers will naturally want to be a part of it. It will be cool to use an NAP product, a broadhead, an arrow rest, a stabilizer, NAP vanes or QuikFletch and whatever we come up with next. There’s an edgy new attitude with NAP, and it’s already having an impact.

“Of course, right along with that new and authoritative brand attitude is a host of exciting and new NAP products for 2010.”

“A few of our better competitors have eaten our lunch in recent years,” Andy Simo admits. “For us that means we must reframe how we think about competition. We now have a sign in everyone’s office that says ‘Love Your Competitors.’ Our new view is that strong competition provides better inspiration. It pushes you to constantly outdo them. We’ve also instituted a new in-house guideline that dictates that for the first couple of days in which we examine a competitor’s product, no one is allowed to bash that product. Our first order of business with such competitor products is to identify the good things about those products, the very things that are making them sell. What we’ve discovered is that if we launch straight into a critique of a product, we are far less likely to be inspired by that product. But if we dwell initially on those things that are good about a specific competitor’s product, we may well find the inspiration to top that product.

“Good examples of that are the new NAP BloodRunner broadheads that have been receiving so much positive feedback from bowhunters everywhere. In recent years, the splashy marketing of rear-deployment broadheads has captured the imagination of lots of bowhunters. We looked closely at those heads, saw what bowhunters liked about them and then developed the even better BloodRunners.

“The NAP BloodRunner broadheads, now available in both two-blade and three-blade models, are the next-generation of rear-opening broadheads. Unlike older style rear-deployment heads, NAP BloodRunners cut no matter what! They are hybrid rear-deployment heads because they act like a fixed-blade head but expand dramatically upon impact for massive entry and exit holes. There are no clips, O-rings or gimmicks of any kind. NAP BloodRunners are the very first no-fail expandable broadheads.

“Also brand new for 2010 are the NAP Thunderhead Edge and Spitfire Edge broadheads. We initially introduced the very first Thunderhead all the way back in 1981. It was an instant hit, we revised it periodically and for nearly two decades it was the best-selling broadhead on the planet. For 2010, the exciting new Thunderhead Edge is shorter for easier tuning, features offset and deep-set blades for maximum blade retention and tactical serrations to slice through flesh and saw through bone. It too, is a new standard in broadheads.

“The new 2010 Spitfire Edge is the popular NAP Spitfire expandable on steroids. Its razor-sharp offset blades with tactical serrations leave a huge cut channel resulting in startling blood trails.”

Brady Arview jumps back in the discussion. “Additionally exciting for 2010 is the all-new NAP Apache Arrow Rest,” adds Brady. “The new Apache is a total-containment, drop-away arrow rest that’s tough as nails, reliable as the sunrise and is conveniently adjustable without tools. Maybe best of all, the new NAP Apache is surprisingly affordable. The NAP Apache Arrow Rest offers everything that discriminating bowhunters want today, plus a best-selling price.

“One of the things that continues to amaze and please almost everyone is the growing popularity of NAP’s innovative QuikFletch System. NAP QuikFletch looks classier with its integrated shaft wrap and shoots better with its pre-positioned NAP vanes. It also installs on arrows in just a fraction of the time required for messy, conventional fletching. Individual archers love NAP QuikFletch and savvy dealers are learning that QuikFletch saves them hundreds of hours of fletching time each year while providing arrows that look, shoot and sell better.

“New in NAP QuikFletch for 2010 are Pro Series versions. Choose from Michael Waddell Bone Collector QuikFletch, Lee and Tiffany The Crush QuikFletch or Ralph and Vicki Archer’s Choice QuikFletch.”

For Andy Simo and New Archery Products it has been quite a ride, and continues to be.

Founded 39 years ago in an arrow-filled basement in Georgia by an aerospace engineer who worked on the Saturn V moon rocket but was also an over-the-top archer, New Archery Products rose to the top of the archery world. It set new standards for broadhead, arrow rest and fletching quality.

Today, New Archery Products is re-inventing itself, striking out into a new age of archery with a new attitude and renewed enthusiasm along with sharper, edgier marketing and exciting new products.

While not always easy to see coming, change is inevitable. It impacts all of us. In business it can cause sales to go up or down. NAP has seen change do both. But today, the company is on the forefront of change. Today NAP is creating change and producing progress.

For more information, call New Archery Products at (800) 323-1279 or log onto newarcheryproducts.com.

Enjoy this article? Share it!