SHOT Show 2010 Wrap Up

Unbelievable. That's what I'd say about this year's SHOT Show held at the Sands on January 19 - 22, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Ok, so the facility wasn't what we are used to in the Convention Center, but that didn't seem to stop attendance. A little bird from NSSF told me that attendance was higher this year than last and maybe ever! In spite of the fact that it felt like you had to hike miles to get to see everything, I think everybody came away with a very tired, but very positive attitude.

It's always exciting to see our clients in print, but we have to tell you it's just as exciting and validating to see our company in print. If you didn't catch our mention in the SHOT Show Daily, click here.

Laura Burgess Marketing would like to thank all our industry friends for stopping by to say "hi" and we wish we had more time to chat with all of you that have helped make LBM a success. Remember, if you need any of LBM's client's most recent press releases and images, log on to http://www.lauraburgess.com/ and click on "Clients" and chose your client. On the right hand side of each client's page are the press releases in PDF form and hi-res images.

We also took a lot of video footage while at SHOT this year of our clients. We can tell you all we want about how great they are, how cool SHOT was, but there is something to be said for being able to witness it yourself. So check out our latest endeavours into the world of cinematography and watch some of our man on the street client videos below:

• Watch Terry Naughton, VP of Marketing, BLACKHAWK!, as he discusses the new product lines at their Media Event on January 19, 2010.
• Hear from KodaBow President Chuck Matasic and Sportsmen's Outdoor Strategies TV Host Bob Walker as they discuss the brand new Walker SE Crossbow.
• Learn helpful tips on how to achieve the proper shooting stance from SIG SAUER's Team Captain and National Champion Shooter Max Michel.
• Learn helpful tips on how to achieve the proper grip on your gun from SIG SAUER's Team Captain and National Champion Shooter Max Michel.
• Learn about the Sentry Solutions product line from President Mark Mrozek.

We're looking forward to a successful 2010 and can't wait to see you all again at SHOT 2011.

The Year in Review at LBM

It feels like SHOT Show 2009 was just the other day, but here we are gearing up for the start of SHOT Show 2010 in just 21 days. As the time on the clock ticks down toward 2010, we at Laura Burgess Marketing would like to take a moment to reflect on 2009. It was a big year for our company and we only hope that the impact of 2009 will help us to better serve our customers in 2010 and beyond.

From Sole Proprietorship to a Full Family Run Company
I founded LBM in 2003. At the time, my husband Eric was working as a Director in a local multi-million dollar window design company while our daughter, Ashley, was just starting her sophomore year at Babson College. None of us knew six years ago that by the close of the first decade of the new millennium that all three of us would be working for the family business.

Eric, always a silent partner in the business, joined the company publicly in January 2009 as the Vice President and CFO. His experience in business management and operations became a quick asset to our company as he discovered new ways to operate LBM more efficiently.

Ashley followed suit in July 2009. Having worked in various marketing departments for corporations on tasks such as direct mail, trade shows and events, social media marketing, website management and public relations, to name a few, she and LBM decided it was the right time to bring her on board.

A Growing Company Leads to New Innovations and Offerings
With the addition of Eric and Ashley to the team, we were able to discover new offerings that would better serve our clients. Ashley introduced the company to social media optimization. Through networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, we learned how to broaden our client’s brand names and perceptions, in addition to reaching the customers directly for feedback, offers and service inquiries. Not only were we able to create our own social networks to better understand what our clients are looking to gain from us, but we now offer the creation, operation and management of social networking sites for our clients.

In addition to social media optimization, we increased our collateral development services. We tripled our design team to provide our clients with the best match for their brand at a more affordable rate. Having always offered press kit development, LBM now goes beyond mere assemblage and distribution. LBM now offers design and print management for various collateral endeavors including, but not limited to: brochures, catalogs, folders, corporate fact sheets, case studies, sales sheets and CD replication.

Finally, LBM now offers the ability to survey our client’s target market, whether that is their customers or their desired vendors or writers. Through a state of the art survey system, we can make your survey as specific as you’d like or as broad as you like. All results are instantaneously recorded and analyzed, giving us the ability to provide our clients with information as soon as they request it.

LBM Discovers New Markets
We’ve always been dedicated to serving our friends in the law enforcement, military, shooting and hunting sports industry, after all, it’s what has given us our start; however, 2009 brought additional markets to our attention. With Eric’s over 20 years experience in the home building market, in addition to being a life long boater, as well as Ashley’s experience in the marine industry and receiving a USCG license at the age of 16, it seemed natural for us to open our doors to serving companies in these industries as well. While our venture into these new markets is still fresh, we want to assure our old friends in our current industries that we have not, will not, nor can we ever forget about you and serving you with top notch professionalism.

LBM Develops a Pro Team…Well, Sort Of
I’ve been in the law enforcement, military, shooting and hunting sports markets for over 17 years now and have worked with, promoted and watched many pro teams and shooting events during this time. This year, in the spirit of developing our family business, we decided to try our luck at our first Three Gun Match. We set our sites on the Seventh Annual Three-Gun Match Set at the Hartford Gun Club, sponsored by the Shooting Industry Masters, this past July.

Our team consisted of Eric, our brother-in-law Stuart Gagneux, his son and our nephew, Ryan Gagneux and I. We worked well together and each of us excelled in one of the disciplines where the other person (or several people) lacked. While we’re not going pro anytime soon (Max Michel, your title is safe for now!), we did have a great time, got to meet great people and plan to participate in more Three Gun matches (and maybe other events!) in 2010.

While 2009 may have been prophesized as a doom and gloom year from many economists, it proved to be a positive and promising year for team LBM. We’ve tripled our company size, expanded our offerings, redesigned our logo, delved into new markets and have created our own sporting team. Yes, 2009 has been a good year for our company and we hope that the good fortune we’ve seen has spilled over to the service and professionalism that our clients have received. With 2009 wrapping up in just a few short days, we eagerly await to see what 2010 has in store for us.

From all of us at LBM, we wish you a happy and prosperous new year!

The Countdown Begins

Well folks, this is it. The days are getting shorter and the time on the calendar is winding down as we approach the end of 2009. I'm sure all of you out there are working over your 2010 budgets and reviewing your game plans for Q1. An important step in helping your company to grow in the coming years is to always review what you've done in the past and see how you can improve on it and make it better for the future.

That's what we're doing here at Laura Burgess Marketing. We're offering our first time ever Year End Satisfaction Survey. The goal of our survey is to find out how you, our loyal customers, vendors and writers, are enjoying our services. We also want to find out how we can improve our current services, and what we can offer to you in 2010 that you may find helpful. So go ahead, take 5 minutes out of your day and complete our survey. Let us know how we can be better to make YOU better!

Oh, did I mention that by taking our survey you'll automatically be entered into our raffle for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card? The survey will be open for the entire month of December. The winner of the raffle will be announced the first full week of January. Thanks in advance for participating!

International Training, Inc. - Where You Can Learn to Shoot and Drive - At the Same Time!

At Laura Burgess Marketing, we don't get out much. Usually you'll find us strapped to our PC's doing all that PR stuff that gets our esteemed clients all the media attention they truly deserve. Well, Tom Harm and Greg Reid of International Training, Inc. in Dilley, Texas told us to get off our butts and come see their digs just south of San Antonio. So, we left the cool autumn of New Hampshire and flew into big country.

International Training has been around awhile. They are not one of these fly-by-night training companies that seem to spring up out of nowhere touting all the latest firearms training methodology and spinning military and cop jargon as fast as a Metal Storm machine gun. ITI is the real deal. They've been training the elite of the elite military units for decades. The staff all come from law enforcement or military backgrounds and training is what they do best.

Let's get to the facilities. ITI is unique in that they not only train in firearms usage but driving on-road and off-road, in water, under duress, under attack, and in real-world-other-country urban scenarios. You can learn to ram your vehicle in order to clear a blockade (rush hour traffic is not considered a blockade), or reverse driving techniques, or evasive maneuvers as well as motorcade and convoy evasive techniques.

They've got over 280 acres with access to many hundreds more where you can train for 1000-yrd sniper shots, or some intimate CQB in their combat town. With five firearms ranges on the facility, you can literally shoot a variety of targets, a variety of distances, and a variety of scenarios.

Ok, that covers driving and firearms, but ITI has more going on. How about blowing things up? ITI has that too. Their explosives area has a large observation bunker for students during explosives training and is made of filled cinder block construction with wing walls and observation ports. At ITI all students leave with the same number of fingers and toes and what they came in with.

Their Team House is new and LBM has to tell you, it's nice! All the comforts of home - a fully applianced kitchen, TV room, two full bathrooms and two bunk rooms providing comfort down home on the range for up to 12 persons.

So, whether you are looking to learn to shoot, master driving in Boston, have some fun with the girls during their popular Women's Only Weekend programs, or increase that skill set before your next secret squirrel mission, this is the place to do it. The weather here is near perfect every day, the staff incredibly knowledgeable, and the facility is first class with eight classrooms and more planned. This would be a great place to host corporate events from security training, media events, or leadership building.

BLACKHAWK LE/Mil Writer Seminar

The BLACKHAWK! LE/Mil Writer Seminar was held October 26 - 30, 2009 at Command Center in Norfolk, Virginia. This blog is by Eric Burgess, Owner/Partner of Laura Burgess Marketing.

Having assisted in the BLACKHAWK! LE/MIL writer seminar, I can certainly attest to the value and interest of the event. Sixteen industry writers were treated to an outstandingly organized seminar consisting of info laden presentations and hands on shooting evaluations of BLACKHAWK! products. Attendees enjoyed SERPA holster familiarization at the range with Todd Jarrett. They were shown how the SERPA system is designed to work seamlessly with the mechanics of the draw, as universally taught by trainers. The position of your finger on the release occurs naturally, ending with the index finger along the side of the frame, as the draw is completed. Todd led the participants through a series of drills designed to showcase how natural drawing from the SERPA is as well as the outstanding retention capabilities of the SERPA line of holsters. The next day, writers were treated to range time with the Knoxx Stocks line of recoil reduction rifle and shotgun stocks. The reduction (up to 80%) of felt recoil that these stocks afford is really apparent when mounted to 12 GA slug guns or .300WIN rifles! The final day's shooting event was a choice of paintball or skeet. The clays included skeet and wobble trap, but the paintball participants took no prisoners. All sported little round bruises under their now multi-colored gear, but some caught a round to exposed parts of the body and added blood for realism. Very Halloweenish! A great time was had by all. We look forward to the Outdoor writer seminar in April 2010.

Horse Rescue & Rehabilitation Facility, E.P.O.N.A., Receives Life Changing Renovations

The volunteers of E.P.O.N.A., a local 501 (c)(3) organization dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of abused and neglected horses, knew something big was happening that day. Informed weeks early of a big announcement, at least 30 volunteers came to the barn on the morning of October 13th, despite it being unseasonably cold and rainy. What they got that day they never could have imagined.

As the volunteers stood huddled under umbrellas and rain coats in front of the barn, the sound of sirens, cheering and clapping coming up the road became deafening. Suddenly, a fleet of Home Depot trucks and flat beds came down E.P.O.N.A.'s driveway, led by police escort, filled with wheelbarrows, sand, tools of all kinds and approximately 90 volunteers from Home Depot, Celtic Design Build, LLC, Davis Landscaping Construction and Scott Stone Construction. Project Pawsitive, a new reality-based television show geared at providing eco-friendly renovations to deserving animal rescues in need, had chosen E.P.O.N.A. to be the worthy first beneficiary of their efforts.

E.P.O.N.A. was chosen to receive $30,000 worth of renovations to repair their leaking roof and aging paddocks, to level out the stall floors, to expand the grain room, and to run power and water down to all paddocks to prevent the water troughs from freezing over in the cold New England winter months.

While the generous donations made by Project Pawsitive and The Home Depot Foundation will go along way in helping E.P.O.N.A. to achieve their goals of rescue and rehabilitation for abused and neglected horses, it is the continuous support of the community that will help E.P.O.N.A. further their goal in the years to come. Click here to find a wish list of the most needed items by the barn. To find out how to volunteer at E.P.O.N.A., please visit our online volunteer page for more information.

Click here to watch the trailer for Project Pawsitive and E.P.O.NA.

Click here to find out more information on E.P.O.N.A., or how to make a donation.

For hi-res images of E.P.O.N.A., visit E.P.O.N.A. on Flikr.

To find out more about the renovations that are taking place at E.P.O.N.A., please click here to read the press release.

Giving the Love of the Outdoors Back to our Soldiers

Next time you put your orange on or don your camo to take your gun for a walk, think about our men and women who won't be able to go hunting this fall because they are either serving our country over in Iraq or Afghanistan, or because they have suffered from stress or an injury in a prior tour of duty. Don't you feel lucky now? Maybe a little guilty??

It's payback time! Whether you are like us, working in the shooting sports industry, or just an average outdoor loving Joe or Jane, you can give our soldiers the fresh air, mountain views, fish-on experience of a life-time by donating or sponsoring a soldier at www.freedomhunters.org. Freedom Hunters is a non-profit outdoor adventure program under American Military Family dedicated to taking active duty, wounded, Gold Star and families of the deployed on hunting and fishing trips to relax and recoup. Through the generous contributions of conservation groups, outfitters, corporations and land owners, Freedom Hunters honors individuals from all branches of the military with experiences of a life-time.

If you want to help you can donate product or cash, sponsor an event, help cover expenses for a specific adventure, honor a selected service member, or get your company to become a sponsor!

So the next time you see a soldier in the airport or the grocery store or anywhere, stop and say thank you and click here for give back!