For one local Nationwide insurance agent with a hidden hobby, business and pleasure share the same office space.
Insurance can be a dull gig. It’s characterized by stacks of paper work, endless menial tasks, and an agent stuck in an office that no one ever comes to anymore. That is unless you’ve converted your agency into a spot for a burgeoning side hustle. From outside, his office which is squeezed into the mini strip mall at a gas station, looks like nothing more than another local Nationwide facility. The inside however tells a much different story.
Layered with the prismatic colors only achievable by one fringe sport on the rise, the office has become a haven for the growing community of disc golfers in the state of Georgia, and nearly the only shop of it’s kind.
When we look back on the pandemic’s impact on the economy, we see a wake of depravation that left small business owner’s crippled. For Lincoln Griffin (44), an insurance agent for Nationwide, this meant a stark deceleration in visitors to his office in Buford, GA. But this didn’t mean he had less time on his hands. While others feared this was the end, a dip in business presented an interesting opportunity for Lincoln. It was now the perfect opportunity to test out that idea that had been ruminating about in the back of his mind. It was time for a passion project.
Not many businesses can claim that they benefited from the pandemic. When I asked Griffin if his shop found success despite the pandemic, he responded by telling me “It wouldn’t exist without the pandemic.”
When Dog Gone Good Disc Golf first opened it’s doors it was the only known brick-and-mortar disc golf store in the entire state of Georgia. A local business catering directly to the ever increasing disc golf community was a commodity hard to come by. Since then we’ve seen disc golf shops pop up in Savannah, Cartersville, Griffin, and more.
Like many new players to the sport, Griffin started as a fan of the traditional frisbee. “My love was just going out and throwing frisbee, I had never played official disc golf, I had no idea there were any disc golf courses around here.” But when Facebook advertised a newly installed course in Haw County in January of 2020, he finally tried it out for the first time. “Me and my son went and played, and we loved it.” Like many newcomers to the sport (myself included) he and his son played with ultimate “lids” rather than proper disc golf discs. “I think we went for like 4 or 5 days straight. I mean I got hooked, I got really hooked.”
The following week he went searching for real discs to buy. The first stop was Dick’s Sporting Goods. No luck. Academy Sports + Outdoors. No luck. Play-It-Again Sports? Some luck, but not enough. “No one could help me,” Griffin tells me. “So I went and bought a couple of discs online, and when they got here, I hated them. I didn’t like the way they felt. It was frustrating.”
At this time, Covid was becoming more prevalent and with the reality that insurance is mostly handled over the phone or over the internet these days, very few people were coming into his office anymore. So he got to thinking. “There has to be some other people like myself that get frustrated by having to order this stuff online ‘sight unseen’.” So he came up with this idea, “What if I put a little section of the discs in my office?”
“Well there was a particular weekend, the second weekend in March, where Covid really started impacting things, and the insurance business just slowed down. And I was like ‘Ok maybe this is what’s it gonna be for a little while. Why don’t I make this other deal happen’.”
So he reached out to a couple companies, found out what it would take, signed a few agreements, ordered a very very small amount of discs, and got started. All this happened in a week.
The following week the insurance business went right back to normal and with it, his usual workload. But he didn’t stop. In fact the disc golf business blew up, and he now balances both business’s all from one chair.
If you go to the shop you’ll probably see him come out from behind his desk to ask if there’s a specific disc you’re looking for. As an insurance agent, he knows how to deal with people, but disc golf is a new frontier. “The retail side is a completely new side to me. It’s very different from insurance. I’ve had a lot to learn, and I’m still learning. I opened up an online shop last year and it went horribly.”
When they first opened they didn’t have a check out system. “I knew it was a risk. It was such a small start size, but there was a point where I had to make a decision on how I wanted to go. I could either grow it, or keep it this small things, and I thought it was worth while to grow. And I still do.”
Griffin’s initial idea was to carry around 400-500 disc at most. “I laugh at that now,” he says. “My expectations sales wise got beat within one month.”
Griffin has a fine cut off for his insurance job. His contract has a definite retirement date. But the disc golf store will keep going.
Lincoln Griffin, Owner of Dog Gone Good Disc Golf tells us the hidden meaning behind the shop's name