Ed Christner on Op One Vet: Mission, Marketing, and Future Collaborations

Ed Christner from Op One Vet joins to discuss the organization's mission, achievements, and products. The conversation covers marketing strategies and the perspectives of operating as a nonprofit versus a for-profit entity. Ed highlights Op One Vet's national presence and participation in various events, sharing insights into their future plans for collaborations.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Starts here in the Surgeons Buffalo Chip, thescene projects.
I am here with Ed from Op One Vet.
We're gonna learn more about their operationand what you guys are doing, not just for
veterans out here, but cotton slingers.
Cotton slingers.
Ed, why don't you go ahead and and tell us alittle bit about your organization?
2018, you started and what's happened
since then?
2018, we started we started a relentlesslypatriotic apparel, and, our motto is changing

(00:29):
one veteran's life at a time.
We did that through tracked wheelchairs.
We've had great success with that.
We're on our twentieth unit that will be givingaway Thursday night at the freedom celebration.
We're also giving away our first OutriderCoyote.
It's a four wheel electric bike, off road,great for hunting, fishing, getting on the

(00:54):
beach, motor transportation.
Transportation.
We do that through our brand ambassadors.
We got four brand ambassadors across thecountry.
One in Texas, one in Florida, two in Indiana,and then myself.
We recently added my son as the vice president.
He'll be taking over marketing and while I workon wholesale so we can get across.

(01:19):
We've got 2,200 major clients and over a 100sponsors.
So it's pretty huge.
Well, and you guys got some great clothing.
We kinda we didn't get to see all the physicalstuff, but we saw all the designs on the wall
down, you know, in the main amphitheater sitethere.
So you're you're a clothing retailer who has amission to help one vet at a time through that.

(01:42):
So what's kind of the function of it?
You're not a nonprofit.
You're a for profit retailer.
But how does it kinda turn and and, you know,you're spending, obviously, your own money,
profits into getting these these incrediblemachines to put paraplegic and quadriplegic
vets into these.
Absolutely.
We've came up with the marketing program.

(02:04):
We've got a large large following on our socialmedia, around 20,000 followers, all the
platforms.
That's another thing my son's gonna work on.
But, yeah, we follow the IRS tax code.
And so when we give away a track share, wedon't give them a $10.10 99 to say that we gave
them a $18,000 track share.

(02:25):
It's marketing.
So we market our company through that.
And the same with the sponsors.
They get advertising on our website, and that'sexactly what we're doing is we're advertising
them 75,000 miles across the country.
Right.
It's a lot of the same mechanisms that anonprofit would do without all the extra tax,
paperwork, and stuff.
I spent seven years under the government'sthumb, and I'm I'm about smaller government.

(02:48):
And there's thousands of nonprofits, and Ididn't wanna we employ veterans, patriots.
These guys, most three of us are disabled vets.
So it's good to get us out and do somethingthat we feel good about.
You know?
Yeah.
Well, and you're getting out is exactly whatyou do.
Yeah.
You know, you don't have one centralstorefront.

(03:09):
You have these, you know well, I don't knowexactly what you had termed them, but you
have 2,200
you have 2,200 brand ambassadors across thecountry.
Right.
Right.
That speaks a lot more than just having, youknow, one Kmart to vop one pet racket.
Yeah.
We roll around in a city.
Every other week, we're in a different part ofthe country.
These cities know us.
Our top five are Dallas, San Antonio, SaintLouis, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa.

(03:36):
And then you got Knoxville, Nashville, youknow, our top 10.
But, yeah, those are areas that people know usreal well.
We roll into a business, and some of the times,they'll buy all their employees' shirts,
dealerships.
That's just been our go to.
But knowing that they'll see you twice a year.
Right?
You say every six months or so, you're tryingto run over everywhere that

(03:57):
you guys, so
you just got a big circuit that you guys arerunning That's
it, brother.
All year round.
Yep.
We do Airbnb's.
The camaraderie is great.
It gets guys fired up, keeps them fresh.
Are you hosting events while you're in each ofthese cities too, or is it more just kinda land
there, see your friends, and sell some someshirts and move on?
We have done three pay it forward rides inSaint Louis, and we get invited to nightly

(04:20):
events, bike nights, you know, that sort ofthing where we'll go set up.
But it's an operation.
I mean, we've got a pretty big setup, so wedon't wanna go to something that's gonna have
25 to a 100 people.
It doesn't make sense for us.
We get more people out on the street.
Sturgis is our big one.
We're trying to get into Rednecks with Paychex.

(04:40):
It's another one that we'd like to get into.
We used to do Daytona.
That was so spread out.
But this is our home.
We own the building here.
Buffalo Chip's been great to us,
and this is our second home.
Awesome.
Well, I'm so glad to have you guys out here.
We're gonna be shooting a ton of content latertoday.
I took some pictures of the machines lastnight, but it was so dark over there that it it

(05:02):
just didn't do them justice.
Right.
So we're gonna get back down there today.
We're gonna take some more pictures soeverybody at home will be seeing exactly what
you guys are putting these vets into.
And I'm absolutely thrilled to know you guys.
I can't wait to work more together.
Well, hopefully, we can build out some biggerevents for you guys to come and check us out
too.
So awesome.
That that's OpOneVet.
Everybody get online, check them out, andyou'll be seeing more from them on the scene

(05:23):
projects guaranteed.