They Speak Woman

This past weekend, Shoot Like A Girl came to Glendale, Arizona, as part of its 2026 Grand Safety Tour, stopping at the Bass Pro Shops location within the larger shopping complex surrounding State Farm Stadium, where the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals play.

The event marked the sixth stop on their 2026 Grand Safety Tour. This year’s schedule has a total of 18 stops lined up, 16 of which are hosted by Bass Pro Shops—a major industry partner.

Under the organization’s Safe LivinG brand, there are four additional stops: one at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, and three at Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) locations at Fort Stewart, Fort Bliss, and Fort Hood.

As Connie Harrison, a team lead for Shoot Like A Girl, explained to me, they aim to schedule roughly two events a month. This year’s tour began in Boulder City, Nevada, at the NSSF Industry Day at the Range.

While Harrison headed up the nine-woman team in Glendale, Shoot Like A Girl’s full team consists of 45 pro staff members—all women—who serve as instructors in firearms, archery, or both.

Their primary focus is to provide women—though many men attend alongside spouses or partners—the opportunity to get hands-on experience with a bow, a pistol, or a rifle inside their state-of-the-art 53-foot trailer.

Shoot Like A Girl is an experiential marketing company, which means they provide an immersive in-person experience designed to create a positive, memorable—and sometimes emotional—connections.

Because it’s women doing the work—women who understand how their audience thinks and why they ask the questions they do—the organization sees its mission less as marketing and more as ‘empowering women to participate in shooting sports with confidence.’

That’s a stark contrast to the predominately male-driven experience many women encounter when entering a gun shop for the first time. Spend enough time in most—thought certainly not all—gun shops, and you’ll notice the difference in how men sell and how women purchase—or don’t.

That’s because women have a different purchase process than men, especially when it’s something new to them, like a firearm or a bow.

Women are often more effective at introducing firearms and archery equipment to other women because they share a critical advantage—shared perspective.

“We speak woman,” said Harrison.

It may sound like a simple, even flippant, three-word phrase. But it speaks volumes. Many industries tailor marketing to female consumers—from beauty products to cold medicine to minivans.

Unfortunately, this is one area where the firearms industry has lagged—highlighting the need for an organization like Shoot Like A Girl.

Its trailer serves as a rolling billboard, logging more than 38,000 miles in 2025 alone. It also functions as both showcase and range, outfitted with deactivated display firearms—similar to those seen at SHOT Show or the NRA Show—alongside bows and related gear.

Inside, the front half houses an archery range to give visitors the opportunity to draw and shoot a bow for the first time. The back half is an indoor firearms range equipped with an adapted FATS shooting simulator from InVeris which eliminates the need for live ammunition.

All of this is designed to invite women into the shooting sports, welcoming them and answering their questions woman-to-woman.

Harrison summed it up this way, “It gives them the opportunity to have a first touch experience and a hopefully positive first touch experience. Take away the mystery, take away the fear, and show them how the things work, and meeting each person, each lady, where she is on her own personal safety journey.”

Watching some of the visitors on Sunday interact with the trailer and the pro staff you understand right away the value in this kind of marketing approach.

I spoke to Jesus Hernandez, who, after visiting Bass Pro Shops on Saturday and discovering the experience was free and geared towards women, brought both his wife, Adriana, and mother-in-law, Maria Fernandez, back on Sunday.

Neither woman had ever shot a bow, and Jesus noted that Adriana had been considering purchasing a firearm. The opportunity to explore both shooting and archery in a safe, women-focused environment made for an ideal introduction.

After watching them and chatting with Jesus, it was hard to say who enjoyed it more—the women or Jesus.

Harrison, who has been with Shoot Like A Girl for the last six years, and worked 15 shows last year, described the appeal and gratification the pro staff finds in each stop.

“We’re not the ones doing it. We just walk alongside them as they do it. We encourage them and get to see them excited that they can handle it.”

Harrison continued, “As females, we can show them what works for us and why, and then they can make their choices based upon what they think works for them and why. So for women, especially, we need the whys.”

What Shoot Like A Girl does better than most is communicate with the female buyer—a skill they bring not only to events, but also to the retailers they support

They speak woman.

– Paul Erhardt, Managing Editor, the Outdoor Wire Digital Network