What Happened in 2016

New Company

Maybe you saw this coming or maybe you were caught off guard when you found out or maybe you still have not heard this bit of news. As of February 2016, Jason Sturm and The Edge Pro made a huge transition by purchasing Nebraska Blades.

This has been both a fun and crazy transition and has gone even smoother than we had expected in part to fantastic customer bases of both Nebraska Blades and The Edge Pro. We are grateful for the patience, loyalty, and feedback from our customers through this transition and we are even more excited to see what 2017 has to offer!

New Shows

                We hope you had the chance to get out and see us in 2016 as we made it out to three trade shows. The First Trade Show was the Wolff and Edge Pro Show in Columbus IN, at the beginning of April. Our second show was later in April in Georgia at the Bonika Shears Scissor Jam. Our final trade show of the year we were at the NBTSG Show in Kansas City at the end of September.

                Despite our desire to be at more shows and to meet more of you, 2016 slipped away from us and the schedules of personal life and the growth of business only allowed us to make it to three trade shows. Stay posted in 2017, we will be announcing our shows soon and we would love to see you and catch up with you on life and business!

New Sharpeners

                This was a record setting year for us when it came to training sharpeners. In our shop alone we had the privilege of training over 25 people which combined more than 35 full days of training on clipper blade sharpening, clipper repair, dryer repair, scissor sharpening, knife sharpening, and much, much, more!

                2016 also set the bar high for selling our Nebraska Blades machines too. We have been more than blessed to have sold almost 150 Nebraska Blades Machines around the world.

New Products

                We had the opportunity in 2016 to become a distributor for some new companies within our industry! In 2016 we became a distributor for Saneks Barber Supplies, Kings Research Barber Supplies, and Lucky Tiger Barber Supplies. While these are not new items for us to have and sell they have gone down in price because we are able to get them factory direct!

                Not only do we have new vendors but we have also bulked up the barber supply side of our store and warehouse. We went from carrying not quite two dozen types of barber and beauty clippers to now having over sixty kinds of clippers and trimmers in stock and that number continues to grow as the demand grows.

New Employees

                Did you hear some new voices on the phone this year? In 2016 we added three new employees to our staff and had one move on into another career path. We hired Wes, Johnny, and Latrice all for part time help pulling order, assembling clipper blades, answering phone calls and other helpful things around the shop.

                While we managed to hire some very good part time help this year we also lost a long-time employee and friend to another career path. In September, we said so long to Ronnie as he took an Associate Pastor position at church here in Iowa. While it is sad to see him go, we excited to see him in a vocation he is passionate about.

New Year

                2017 has a lot to offer as we seek to continue serving you with the best quality parts, products, and customer service possible. We will continue to work hard for you and your company because without you and your company growing in 2017 we cannot grow in 2017.

                Stay posted with us for exciting new updates on upcoming shows, updates to the Nebraska Blades Machines, new training videos, new website, and so much more yet to happen in 2017.

                Thank you for your faithful business this past year and we look forward to talking with you in the year to come.

Training

     Inventory has been wrapped up and with the holidays over we are ready to resume a normal schedule around here... whatever that is.  This past week we had two trainees learning on scissor and clipper blade sharpening.  One of our trainees was learning everything for the first time and going back home to start day one of her business.  Our other trainee had been sharpening for a while but had some holes he wanted to fill in with a day of training.

     For our trainee that had been sharpening already, his training was valuable for him right away when he got home.  The value for him, was that for a full day he was able to describe his problems, show us what he was doing, and be trained how to correct the problem.  After he had returned home he double how many blades he sharpened in an hour, and he knew how to fix the blades that weren't working properly.  In the course of a week he went from dreading a clipper blade pick up to encouraging people to leave them with him.

     Our brand new sharpener trainee left with a good grasp on getting her business started and the skills needed to achieve that.  After seeing how things worked with the other trainee she is writing down questions and observations as time goes on and looking to come back in the future to fill the holes she may have.  

     If you have been thinking about some one on one training for yourself please consider spending a day or two with us.  Training is $500 per day and is customized to what you are wanting and needing to learn.  Feel free to contact us through our website or our phone (866-963-1990) to talk through details like what you are wanting to accomplish in training, and how many days that would take, and traveling logistics.  We want to come along side of you and help you become the best sharpener you can be, however that may look.  We find that we end up learning a lot in that process as well!  If you have any questions at all please don't hesitate to contact us.
   
     "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
                                                                  Proverbs 27:17

Inventory

     As the year comes to a close there are so many things to look forward to.  Holidays, special meals, and a fresh new year start are just a few things that come to mind, but with the good comes the bad.  Every year about this time we have to schedule out time to do a physical count inventory.  We do not have the exact days scheduled yet, but we will be closing for a day or two to count our inventory.

     We thought this would be a fun time to give you a small glimpse of our inventory time.  As of today the system is saying that we have 40,000 parts in stock, and grand total inventory would be just below 60,000 items spread out over about 65 different vendors.  After everything is counted it gets put into the computer and then we are good to open again.  This has been about a three to four day process in the past.

     Here are some of the top sellers that have kept us busy this year.  As you would probably guess, the Andis blade drives were our top seller this year at 20,500.  Other top Andis parts were guides, sockets, and foam pads.  Blade parts led the way for Oster and Wahl was led by Arco cutters and platforms.

     It has been, and continues to be, a fun adventure finding out the best way to manage all of this product.  From how we stock product here, to when orders are placed to factories, we are working to cut lead times to get it in your hands faster.  We are also working on improving the communication from the factories to you. They are always changing prices, part numbers, availability, and such and we want that information to be readily accessible to you.  We hope this blog is a way we can help with that along with continually updating our website.  We will post details of when we will be closed for inventory as soon as we have those. Thanks for reading!

     "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
                                                                    Proverbs 27:17

2015 Snapshot

     This year has been full of changes for The Edge Pro and we just wanted to give you a little picture to catch you up to speed.  In our building we have made some changes to help with flow and inefficiencies.  We added a second shipping line which has allowed us to be able to ship most orders the same day they are placed.  We also reconfigured the work stations to primarily give us more room for inventory, but to also flow better to each respective job.
     We are always trying to make sure we are carrying the product our customers need, and a change we made this year was picking up the Show Gear line of scissors and blades by Kenchii as well as their entire line of grooming and professional products.  We are also carrying several new clippers from Andis and Wahl.  We have also devoted more time and resources to developing our website theedgepro.com to be a more useful tool.  You should be able to find more changes there along with our new products.

     The Edge Pro family has had changes in growth as well this year.  With our second shipping line we hired Rachel (Emily's best friend) to help with shipping.  Rachel has also helped with the website and many other projects since August and we are thrilled with her addition to the family.  This summer was a very busy as Zach, Jason's son graduated from high school in June.  In July Jason's daughter Kristina was married to Jake and in September his daughter Emily was married to Brandon.  Between them in August Ronnie and his wife Olivia were married, so it has been a big summer of changes and additions.

     This year we also began our partnership with Wollf Industries and host two Wolff/Edge Pro trade shows.  We had about ninety attendees, between the two shows, come for training on clipper blade and scissor sharpening as well as clipper repair.  It is also fun to connect and put faces with names and learn new ideas from others throughout the sharpening community.  Our next show will be in Indiana at the beginning of April, but we are still finalizing the last details so I will post more on that later.  

    We are thankful for the opportunity to get to work with and build relationships with each one of you and hope to keep building that.  We are also thankful to God for his blessing and provisions for everything in our lives.  Thanks for reading!

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
                                                   Proverbs 27:17