BlackBat Stakes Industry Claim

Bob Reeves and Howard Bagby have taken BlackBat Trueline Stakes from humble beginnings to Hollywood.

The longtime friends started the survey stakes venture about two years ago, Reeves said, “when we purchased the assets of a company that was dabbling in this business, but not getting very far.”

Fast-forward to present day, and production has increased “16 or 17 fold,” Reeves said, to the point an estimated 6 million to 8 million BlackBat stakes have been sent into the marketplace. Additionally, novelty versions of the company’s stakes are expected to be featured in some episodes of HBO’s vampire-themed television series “True Blood,” perhaps as early as July 15.

“It’s folklore, but we’re having fun with it,” Bagby said.

More specifically, a sales website is expected to be up and running within the next week, offering the same style of stakes featured on “True Blood,” as well as a line of T-shirts, caps, posters and other items.

“As far as product placement goes, it’s about the best win you can have,” said Cameron Clement, owner of Fort Smith marketing and advertising firm C3Brandworks. Clement initiated the deal with HBO by sending a bundle of BlackBat stakes to “True Blood” set decorator Ron V. Franco.

Finding a Niche

Reeves and Bagby said the primary benefit of BlackBat’s commercial stakes is two-fold. For starters, the stakes are made of top-grade pine or hardwood, whereas most of its competitors rely on scrap wood for their product.

The use of scrap wood, both men said, leads to a lot of broken stakes in the field. Reeves said a breakage rate of 25 percent to 30 percent is common.

Because BlackBat stakes are made from higher-quality wood, though, Reeves said its breakage rate is less than 5 percent. And while BlackBat stakes are used for construction projects, they’re also used on larger-scale projects like roads and pipelines.

“If a guy’s job is to walk a mile and a half and stake it, and he breaks half his stakes, he’s got to go back and walk it again,” Reeves said. “That’s a big cost in terms of lost time.”

“These people are driving hundreds, maybe a thousand, of stakes a day,” Bagby added. “If you’re having to replace that many of them, that’s a pain in the you-know-what.”

BlackBat stakes also are produced to feature a smooth finish. Again, this is something that differentiates the company from its competitors, who predominantly make stakes with a natural, or rough, finish.

The smooth finish is especially helpful for surveyors who write coordinates on their stakes.

“Surveyors have to be precise,” Bagby said. “When you’re talking about staking a three-mile section of pipeline, if you’re off even one degree, you’ve got a problem.”

That kind of problem can lead to “a million-dollar mistake,” Reeves said.

Based on demand, BlackBat’s clients seem to agree with Reeves and Bagby.

“BlackBat is the best supplier of wooden stakes we have ever used,” Advanced Measurements and Solutions owner Chuck Champlin said in an online endorsement for BlackBat. Advanced Measurements and Solutions is based near Little Rock.

“Our surveyors find the stakes helpful because they like the quality of the stake and its smoothness. Once they try this product, it is the one they are looking for on their next order.”

Room For Growth

While the two declined to talk about specific revenue totals, Bagby said the company has had “millions” in sales since March 2011.

Reeves and Bagby took ownership of the previous company on Aug. 1, 2010, but spent months re-evaluating the business model and re-branding it as BlackBat before the full-scale launch in March 2011.

Bagby said BlackBat has enjoyed at least 10 percent growth in each month since then, and that May “was more like 40 percent.”

BlackBat currently is doing business in Arkansas and all of its bordering states, as well as Kansas and North Dakota. As a result, the company is looking for a larger manufacturing space.

Currently operating out of a facility of about 6,000 SF between Alma and Van Buren, BlackBat employs 10. It also maintains office space in Fort Smith.

Reeves said the company plans to add three or four production employees in the near future, too, another sign that times are good at BlackBat. And that’s exactly what he and Bagby hoped for when they made the decision to purchase the previous company’s assets and invest in new equipment like the high-capacity saws that allowed BlackBat to ramp up production from 1,000 stakes a day to as many as 10,000 an hour when needed.

“That’s Marketing 101, right?” Bagby said. “Find a need and fill it.”