Selling Eye, Ear & Body Protection
Active hearing protectors at the range are not only a comfortable way to enjoy range time,
they also play a crucial role in safety — enabling instructors to better communicate with students during live-fire sessions.
Surveys show more customers buy guns today for home and family protection than for hunting or target shooting. The gun is not the only protective element they need. If they’re going to develop shooting skills, they need ear and eye protection.
Moreover, the very choice to be armed implies the logical realization they may one day face a violent armed criminal who threatens their life or the lives of their loved ones. It is logical to assume, then, that the perpetrator will likely be sending force in their direction in the form of bullets, blades or whatever.
In a gunfight, the bullets go in both directions. Does it not make sense for the armed defender to have something that will defeat the incoming fire?
Yes, I’m talking about body armor — which can provide peace of mind, and a lot more. Just like ear and eye protection, we have good reason to offer the customers “bullet protection.”
And yes, I’m talking about body armor in the same breath as ear and eye protection. It’s protection against a predictable threat. Conveniently, a supplier has emerged who can provide you with state-of-the-art merchandise in all three areas.
Meet WarBird
WarBird was recently founded by Matt Davis, the son of Richard Davis, the inventor of soft body armor that can be worn daily, concealed. Matt literally grew up in the business. He watched as a thousand-some lives were saved by his father’s Second Chance brand armor, and as an adult, he founded and led Armor Express, whose vests saved hundreds more.
Richard Davis also founded the popular gun sport of bowling pin shooting, and Matt grew up watching its major national event every year. The occasional bounced-back slug or buckshot pellet taught him the importance of eye protection, and the constant din of handgun, rifle and shotgun fire taught him the fine points of ear pro.
He put it all together with his new WarBird enterprise, in which he sells consumer-direct but also offers up to 50% discount to dealers.
He knows, as you do, smart customers like to see and handle a product before they lay their money down for it. He told SI, “All prices are FOB WarBird in Traverse City, Mich. (dealers pay shipping).”
Let’s look at some of the selling points of these three product types.
Value Of Body Armor
Body armor is valuable to the armed citizen in many ways. Keep a vest by the bed. When you hear the kicking at the door or the burglar alarm goes off, it’s quick to put on.
Show the customer they can grab a handgun and aim it toward the bedroom door while putting on a vest. If the straps are fastened on the gun-arm side and open on the other, they won’t even lose their sight picture if they use their free hand to slip it past the gun and over the gun-side shoulder. They then can use their free hand to slap the Velcro panel closed on the weak-hand side.
Also, remind the customer a ballistic vest in the house is also a safe backstop for dry-fire. A bullet inadvertently launched through a wall is a humiliation at best and a life-taking tragedy at worst. It’s good to have one thing in the house designed to absorb gunfire! A vest on a floor or chair can also serve the same function as a clearing barrel on a police range or at a military base.
Just as many of your customers who can legally carry actually do so only when they think they’re going someplace dangerous, remind them a vest is something to put on when they are “going someplace dangerous.” Anyone can become a stalking victim overnight; it’s going to take them a while to get a vest they can wear inconspicuously in public if they don’t already have one at home.
Teaching newbies to shoot can be dangerous. Several of the Second Chance saves were instructors accidentally/negligently shot by their students, even on police and military training ranges. I wear one when I’m teaching anything potentially risky, like shooting on the move: The student’s finger is already on the trigger when he stumbles.
Dr. Roger Enoka, the leading physiologist who has studied accidental discharges, reports postural disturbance such as what I described above is one of the main causes of accidental shootings. If your customer teaches, he or she is a potential body armor customer.
Active Hearing Benefits
Active hearing protectors make loud sounds quieter and small sounds louder. In a previous column inspired by one of our readers (“Finding Out What Your Customers Want,” Sept. 2024), we discussed the tactical advantages of those features in a home-defense scenario.
The WarBird brand is rechargeable, Bluetooth compatible and more importantly, directional. Matt specified the wearer should be able to tell where the sound came from. True stereo muffs aren’t enough: You sort of hear the sound in the middle of your head and have to look around to see from where it emanated. In hunting, they blunt the devastating report of a .300 Magnum but let the hunter hear small sounds that might have been unnoticed by the naked ear and pinpoint the source.
For long periods on the range instructors, students in long classes and those at all-day matches need comfort. I picked up my pair of WarBird muffs at my favorite week-long match, the Pin Shoot in Michigan (pinshoot.com) and for the rest of the match and a 40-hour class I taught the following week, I found them more than satisfactory for comfort.
Eye Protection
Eye protection is, of course, critical for shooters. I spoke with one of the timekeepers at the Pin Shoot who told me every year her long-term wear of tinted eye pro gives her an eyestrain headache. Not this year, however, because she was wearing the new WarBird glasses.
Matt Davis tells SI, “WarBird eyewear incorporates our proprietary 4SHADOW lens technology. The four pillars of 4SHADOW lenses are: 1) Z87.1+ ANSI rated for impact protection [And yes, they have been tested and meet this standard],
2) polarized, 3) 100% UV blocking and 4) high resolution for premium optical quality.”
I wore a pair for part of the Pin Shoot and all of a class, and they’ll be my default eye pro on the range from here on out.
These three product categories are all potential profit centers for you, and WarBird is basically one-stop ordering for them.
For more info, visit warbirdpro.com.
