Wiley Sprayer Manufacturing County, Inc.
Owner: Raymond Wiley
Location: 302 Avenue 2 Southeast, Atkins, Ark.
Company History: Raymond Wiley was involved with an earlier business enterprise that he said was a lot like the co-op stores, "in fact we were as big or bigger than them,” he said, but it went out of business. “We started over again 24 years ago designing sprayers.”
Products and Services: “We design and build all different kinds of sprayers. They are used for spraying pastures for weed control, we’ve sold some for the highway department to spray the medians on Interstate (highways), we’ve sold to counties and schools, they are used in chicken houses. All purpose sprayers are what they are.”
Staying ahead of the competition: “When somebody buys a sprayer rig, we spend time with them with the calibration chart we give them and we go through the whole system so they’ll know how to operate what they have. We stress simplicity and quality of workmanship and we are real cautious not to be negative about other people who make the same types of things. Sometimes even the large companies don’t have exactly what we make and they’ll just send them (customers) down here. We’re talking about implement dealers, businesses like that.”
Business Philosophy: We do very little advertising. Most of our advertising is word of mouth and through the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association. My wife and I started this business with zero, nothing. We were in debt. And we chose to go with quality and simplicity or not go at all. We wanted to build a good product. We’re a Christian-oriented family. We treat people the way Christ treats people. And you know, in the 24 years we’ve been here we’ve not had one person owe us money or given us a hot check.”
