Business Spotlight: Aiming for the Future

Nick Newman, his wife Debbie and the rest of the crew at Cherokee Firearms LLC run a serious business. With around 180 models of guns, shelves stocked full of ammunition, an assortment of knives, carry and conceal classes, and plenty of other accessories in stock, this operation is no joke.

However, when it comes to the way the group does business, they like to enjoy each other’s company. The combination helped Cherokee Firearms produce $1.2 million in 2015 revenue. That’s a long way from when Newman began the business from his home.

“I started the whole project with $5,000 in my pocket,” Newman says.

In 1988, Newman obtained his license to sell firearms and began attending gun shows. He opened a showroom in 2005.

“It was a home-based business and it grew and grew and grew,” Newman says.

Now, he’s growing into new $2 million digs, where the store will sell some 20 brands of ammunition and 40 gun brands, including Remington and Winchester. Newman plans to relocate the 1544 N. National Ave. gun shop to Kansas Expressway and College Street, where he bought a 1-acre parcel last fall.

Property reload
The next phase of Cherokee Firearms will be built on the site of a former mill. After 75 years used as a flower and feed mill and more recently for antique sales and hydroponics, Newman demolished the aged metal-sided building to usher in his plans for a 9,000-square-foot gun and ammo shop, complete with an indoor shooting range.

“We already have an engraver, we have a gunsmith, we have reloading supplies, we have black powder, holsters and everything else to do with it. So that’s really kind of the last piece of the puzzle for us,” Newman says.

The 1500 W. College St. property’s history as Hawkins Mill, Aqua Terra and George & Joann’s Antique Mall will give way to Cherokee Firearms by year’s end, Newman says. Construction has yet to begin on the Jack Ball Architects-designed store, which is quadruple in size. Olsson Associates Inc. performed civil engineer work, and J&M Engineering LLC served as the project’s structural engineer.

Target customers
In building his business, Newman’s goal was to find employees that were reliable and trustworthy. His team has jelled together over the years, and Newman now describes his 10 employees, including his wife who handles marketing and promotions, as a “kitschy and eclectic group of people.”

The sentiment is evident on Cherokee Firearms’ web presence. With nicknames for each staff member – from gunsmith “Jonny Hotwrench” to engraver Jim “Scratch” – and numerous jokes across the site, it’s clear the employees of Cherokee Firearms aren’t a bland group.

Customer David Toner, a paramedic from Ozark, says he appreciates the knowledge and understanding the employees of Cherokee Firearms had for him as a relatively new firearms consumer when he purchased his wife a Ruger LCR handgun in April.

“I had an idea of what I wanted, and they took a lot of time to help me make an educated decision,” says Toner.

Toner says it was a low-pressure sale, and he’s since returned to look at shotguns.

“I don’t plan on going anywhere else,” he says. “I hate traveling into the center of Springfield, so that’s actually saying a lot for me.”

Newman says 20 years ago his business sold more hunting rifles and shotguns than it does today, but now two out of three sales are handguns.

“That speaks more to people’s experiences,” he says. “People are going to continue to be more worried about self-defense and protection rather than the way things used to be.”

Checks and balances
Though firearms are the most expensive items in stock, running from $150 to $2,500 apiece, Newman says guns produce the lowest profit margins.

“It’s like when you go to the car lot and they want to sell you a car,” he says. “Where they really make their money is on the financing. For us, new gun sales is a pretty cutthroat market and there is lower markup on that than anything else in the store.”

Cherokee Firearms has recorded steady growth the past three years, and Newman attributes some of that to election years.

According to the FBI, the number of background checks before a gun purchase is on pace this year to rise by 4.5 million over last year, potentially the largest annual increase. Through June, gun sellers have conducted 13.8 million checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

NICS checks increased by 3.1 million in 2012 – during President Barack Obama’s re-election term – to 19.6 million firearm background checks. Last year, the tally rose to 23 million. The FBI notes the number of firearm background checks is not a one-to-one correlation to gun sales.

In Missouri, the number of annual NICS checks has hovered in the 500,000 range since 2012, but this year is on pace to top 600,000.

Still, Newman says it’s a gamble to move west to the planned store and indoor shooting range.

“In 10 years, where I hope to be is in a new building and everything is going so well that I can retire,” he says.