Make The Most Of Your Gunsmithing Department

Shooting Industry, Sept, 2001 by Jim Gardner

It is no secret that the economy is suffering its share of ups and downs. Retailers know that the effects of a queasy market are soon detectable at the sales counter. However, in lamenting the situation, it is easy to forget that a soft economy can actually generate sales -- if you know what areas of your operation to promote and how best to go about it.

These are the times when your gunsmithing operation should be promoted to its maximum potential. The same customer who can not justify the outlay for a shiny new Weatherby or Remington is a perfect candidate for your gunsmithing services. Your job is to help him to become as excited about sprucing up his current hunting rifle as he would be about purchasing a new one. How do you do that? Here are five proven techniques to build your gunsmithing profits.

Seasonal Specials

Just as you do on the sales floor, offer seasonal gunsmithing specials targeted at your customers' various interests. Most of these are obvious, and you are probably already following this approach. It is easy, however, to procrastinate and fail to promote specials to their fullest.

Most of the time, gunsmithing specials are driven by various hunting seasons. For waterfowl and upland bird seasons, the most logical gunsmithing services to promote are mounting recoil pads, repairing damaged bead sights, and a detailed strip and clean.

Many of your customers do very little maintenance on their shotguns. Due to the large number of rounds typically fired through them, these guns are frequently in fairly scroungy condition. A "Get Your Bird Gun Ready For The Season" special, promoted at least six weeks prior to opening day, should help keep your repair shop humming.

Big-game season also offers opportunities for your gunsmithing business. You can expect to bore-sight a lot of scoped rifles. This presents an excellent opportunity to sell your customer a new scope. If the rifle he brings in is wearing a scope that is beat-up, has lost its turret covers, or has just out-lived its time, then offer a good deal on a new replacement. A smart retailer will carry a wide range of optics, from inexpensive imports to Leupolds, Swarovskis and Zeisses. The margin on optics is frequently healthy, so consider offering to mount and collimate the new scope gratis to close the sale.

Other services to offer your big-game hunters are glass-bedding jobs, re-crowning damaged muzzles, installing recoil pads, and detail cleaning. If your shop is equipped to handle it, refinishing wood and metal is another possible job to sell. While the time required for such work may not fit well with the nature of a pre-season special, it's the right time to sell the service. Arrange to have the customer bring his rifle in after the hunting season for gunsmithing work that requires more time to complete.

What should you do between hunting seasons? Increase your gunsmithing business, of course! What are your customers doing during the off months? Is there an IPSC or IPDA league in your area? Pick a month in the summer and offer gunsmithing specials to appeal to these shooters. Some services to offer include: fitting new sights, trigger jobs, reliability work, match barrels -- the sky is the limit with some of these guys. You, of course, will need a gunsmith who is capable of doing good, quality work in these areas.

Is cowboy action shooting taking off in your area? Those hombres spend a passel of money for action jobs, for repairing tired old Model 97s, for shortening double-barrel shotguns, etc. If you can offer these gunsmithing services, these modem-day cowboys will spend a lot of time and money in your establishment.

Sample/Demo Guns

Not only is it a valuable service to your customers, it is a darn sight easier task to sell your 'smithing services when you have samples of your gunsmith's work available for inspection. Take, for example, a customer who expresses an interest in having the action tuned on his DA revolver. You could spend 10 minutes lauding the benefits of this particular job; or, if you have a sample available, you can simply hand it to your customer, and watch his face light up as he feels that butter-smooth trigger for himself. Odds are that you have just made a sale.

Here's another example. The next time Joe drops in to buy a couple of boxes of heavy duck loads, make it a point to show him a shotgun that your shop has mounted with a thick, soft Pachmayr Decelerator recoil pad. Being a savvy businessman, you already know that Joe is still shooting his dad's old Model 12, with that hard plastic buttplate With a bit of good salesmanship, you will have Joe remembering how the Winchester usually beats him up with those heavy loads. After Joe spends a minute feeling how soft that Pachmayr pad is, all that is left is to write up the service ticket.

Sample firearms are most valuable for the shop that specializes in custom rather than general repair work. If your shop does a large volume of custom 1911 modifications, you should offer a selection of good-looking custom guns for inspection. These should show the full variety of work your gunsmith is capable of performing. This might mean having a full-house IPSC race gun and several variations of your more common carry guns in the display case.