It’s Good To Be The King.

All the practical shooting sports have one thing in common (besides using guns): They all have evolved towards optimizing the sport for the top 10 percent (or less) of competitors. If you’re not a GrandMaster, don’t even CONSIDER running for USPSA President, which is silly because they’re might be someone with years of experience running non-profit organizations, but because he/she is a lowly B Class shooter, the voting members won’t consider them to be qualified. You go to a match, and the stages are set up so that the top shooters are challenged to push their limits, rather than set up so a beginner can learn about stage tactics and hit factor. Heck, it’s a minor miracle if a beginner can shoot all, given the gear requirements for each type of competition. 

But Kevin, you say, that’s competition, not training. We’re different here! 

Are we? Why do we think that firearms training is exempt from this same sort of thing? Are the techniques and methods of instruction we are teaching suitable only for Tac-Con attendees? Is our time spent on learning how to split hairs on the shot timer, or learning how to welcome new shooters into the concealed carry lifestyle? 

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to cater to your best students, because frankly, they’re also your best customers. The ROI for maintaining a loyal customer base is WAY higher than the ROI for acquiring new customers (link). However, every loyal customer was, at some time, also a new customer, and without new customers, you don’t get loyal customers. 

Ah-ha, you say, if the ROI is so much better, I’ll just concentrate on the loyal customers, and skip acquisition! 

Allow me to introduce you to the idea of customer turnover. All customers go away eventually, so it’s vitally important to keep recharging your business by introducing new customers into the beginning of the sales lifecycle. 

And if you don’t know what ANY of those terms are, I’ll have another Internet Marketing for Firearms Instructors class in a few months.