Name of business: Rude American Bat Company
Address: 3911 W. Oquendo Road, Las Vegas, NV 89118
Phone: 1-855-BAT-RUDE (228-7833)
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.rudeamericanbatco.com
Hours of operation: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday (but really 24/7)
Owned by: Staz De Stout and Vince Miller
In business since: August 2012
Describe your business.
Rude American Bat Company makes and distributes baseball bats, specifically the MOAB (Mother of all Bats) and related products.
Who are your customers?
Our customers want the best. Only performance counts for them. A baseball bat is the most important part of equipment for a player and when done right is an extension of the player himself.
What makes your business unique?
In this day and age, it is rare to hear about a new American manufacturing company in any industry. The same applies to the bat business. Just about all bats are made overseas. In fact, the big names that seem to be American icons are, for the most part, made in China. One of the unique things about Rude American is that our MOAB bats are made in the United States.
Our bats are made at the edge of the performance standard, and we spend twice as much in certification and inventory to provide a speed-engineered model and a power-engineered model for every size of every category.
Bats are not one size fits all. Players typically see a bat in a retail store, feel it and look at it. But feel and looks are not enough. Performance satisfaction can be determined only by doing a live demo of the bat.
It also is important to note that we have created the most complex graphics ever to be on bats. There is a reason most manufacturers have their names on one side of the bat and the model with light graphics on the other. Our graphics roll throughout the bat. We are the only ones to have done this.
What is your business philosophy?
It’s simple: Best product. Best service.
We believe most players aren’t swinging the right bat for their swing style. We encourage players to swing our bats before they buy one.
Once a player is in the cage for a demo, we know that he is holding the best-performing bat in its class, and we are providing him an additional competitive advantage by having him go through our demo process.
By utilizing this process, the player can pick up 2 or 3 miles per hour of additional ball speed off of the bat because he now is swinging the right bat, perhaps for the first time in his career. Each mile per hour is the equivalent of 6 to 7 feet — the difference between a fly out and a home run or an infield put out and a line-drive base hit.
We cannot beat the big companies in advertising. We must beat them in product and customer service.
What’s the most important part of your job?
To get the word out, make players and parents aware of our products, and get them to demo the bats. Once they have done a demo, the rest is easy.
There is a lot of territory to cover, and we have our work cut out. Finding the right area representatives to represent our products also is key.
What is the hardest part about doing business in Las Vegas?
Getting to local players and teams is relatively easy. The challenge is getting our products out for demo testing in other parts of the country.
What is the best part about doing business in Las Vegas?
We eventually will get to meet all of our vendors, as everyone comes to Vegas sooner or later.
What obstacles has your business overcome?
Plenty. When you look at the competition, they all are gigantic 80-pound gorillas — Wilson, Louisville Slugger, Easton, Demarini, Nike and the like — with very deep pockets and incredible resources. Playing in that arena is certainly not for the faint of heart. It is a very competitive market. The influence of the big-name brands is far-reaching.
Also, devising an action plan to make bats in America was a major feat. Through extensive research, we were able to put all of the pieces together, but there were definitely hurdles. We were delayed for six months building and testing six prototype versions of our first bat. We weren’t satisfied that we had the very best bat and went back to the drawing board. We missed opportunities in order to be sure we had the best product.
Our bat graphics also were a challenge. The issue held us up for more than three months. We eventually figured it out and are pleased that we stuck with it. The players love our graphics, and you can tell a player is swinging our bat from 50 yards away. We achieved, or maybe even exceeded, our goals. However, the complexity of those graphics make the bat considerably more labor-intensive to build.
How can Nevada improve its business climate?
Nevada is a great place to do business in comparison to other states.
I would like to see Nevada take a stance on smaller government regardless of what we do as a nation. Smaller government that supports small business is always going to be the best way to help the average person in America. If Nevada blazes the trail, perhaps the United States will start acting like the United States again.
What have you learned from the recession?
That America didn’t learn anything. We still are way out of line with our spending.
It’s sad because the entrepreneurial spirit that drives our bat business is the American way I knew growing up, but it is not promoted anymore. Even so, with perseverance, tenacity and a strong work ethic, things can and will get done in American business.
A company can be successful despite the economic downturn, but it must do everything right. Leaning on our government or following suit will not get it done.
We have learned from the recession that we have to be very careful that every dollar is spent on the wisest possible use and that we deliver the best product and customer service. Given those rules, success can still be achieved.