Unlock Hidden Profits

Whether or not you have a range on premises, a “training income stream” is within reach at your shop. Even in the many states where constitutional carry has cut the once-mandatory concealed carry training, the smart gun shop owner or manager can add a training income stream or enhance one that already exists. Let us count the ways.

Training Excellence

The shop with a range already can bring in those who want to learn the gun — or learn it better — along with those customers who already understand shooting and just want a place to do it. A good example is PAC Range in Mandeville, La. 

PAC opened just recently, in July 2024. Owners Leslie and James Peters were shooters who didn’t care to shoot outdoors year-round in Louisiana. (The temperature was 98 degrees ambient on the day SI visited, with a 112-degree heat factor.) They found many indoor ranges lacking in one way or another. Accordingly, they spent an estimated $4 million to build an indoor facility. It is state of the art in every way, including a plush members’ lounge, a splendid (and splendidly stocked) retail sales floor … and a classroom.

Christian Paille was hired as general manager, not only for his past-proven ability to run ranges but also for his ability to teach and supervise firearms-related classes. He assembled an excellent, highly capable roster of trainers. Paille’s standard to be accepted in the teaching cadre consists of two traits: trainers not only had to be good at imparting knowledge but also proficient shooters.

In Paille’s office are two pieces of paper on a wallboard. When Hannah Long, the highly accomplished daughter of ace firearms instructor Bill Long, applied for a job, Paille took her out on the range after the interview. One of those pieces of paper was hung downrange at 5 yards, and Paille used his own carry pistol to fire five shots into a tiny one-hole group the size of a single .45 bullet hole. The other piece of paper was hung for Ms. Long, who proceeded to draw her own carry gun and fire a one-hole group only a fraction of an inch larger. She was hired on the spot and has earned an excellent reputation as a trainer for PAC.

More Than Just Tuition

PAC is a young business, but Paille notes the training input is on track to add 20% to 25% to the company’s profits.

It’s not just the tuition. For customers who just come to shoot, not to take classes, one high-tech range bay goes for $30 per hour. But the average customer spends $60 to $100 per session. Perhaps they enjoy the range so much they’re delighted to stay longer than planned, and it might be that they buy more ammunition accordingly.

Likewise, on the training side, those who come to be students tend to spend more than the tuition.

Paille told SI, “They often buy their training ammo from us. Before they leave, they might buy some carry loads the instructor recommended. A lot of beginning students will come with suboptimal guns, suboptimal holsters and suboptimal belts. We have much better equipment we can rent to them, which they realize as soon as they use it. They buy those things, or similar guns and gear from us before they leave or shortly thereafter.”

No Range? No Problem.

If you have a room and it can be turned into a classroom, so much the better. If not, you may be able to rent a gun club with, say, an outdoor range and a clubhouse that will serve nicely as a classroom.

Every year, I teach at the Harrisburg (Pa.) Hunters’ and Anglers’ Association. We use the indoor range for dry-fire, the indoor archery range as a dojo for hand-to-hand self-defense elements, the outdoor ranges for live-fire and the meeting area as a classroom. 

It is profitable for both the visiting instructor and the club. There’s room for the gun shop managing the student recruiting and registration to make a fair share from such an undertaking, too.

If you have a classroom but not a range, most instructors need some lecture time and the classroom will do nicely for this. If you offer a class that garners more students than the classroom can hold, it may be worth it to rent a local hotel conference room for the purpose. It will often be less expensive to rent a VFW hall or something similar.

Many instructors have lecture-only programs — no range required. One of our finest instructors on the “thinking side” of armed self-defense is John Hearne, who has only recently retired from a distinguished career in federal law enforcement and whose lectures are a well-attended staple every year at Tom Givens’ famous Rangemaster Tactical Conference in Dallas.

Of course, you can often find NRA instructors locally and save travel expenses for basic classes through the NRA.

Ancillary Sales

With outside trainers, make sure beforehand what the deal is on who gets paid what. The better-known instructors realize your time and efforts in letting your customers know about the class, etc., are valuable and you should share in the profits. But there are more profits available.

Remember Christian Paille’s comments above about students who find during the class that they need or at least want better guns, gear and ammo? Find out from the visiting “name” instructor what guns, ammo, holsters, books, etc., they’re going to be recommending for their students, and have said product(s) in stock when the class rolls around.

In one city where I teach every year, the classroom program is taught at a local church and the live-fire at a separate private range. However, there is a gun shop that has been very helpful in advertising our classes, and keeps “the best stuff” in stock a lot of shops don’t have. We have been known to arrange after-class caravans of students to the shop, and it has been quite worthwhile to have someone working there late after class when 20 or 30 new customers come in to buy the stuff the instructors have recommended they can’t find at the shops back home.

Back in the day I taught through Lethal Force Institute, which was affiliated with two other corporations, Armor of New Hampshire and Police Bookshelf. All were headquartered in the same facility. There would be one evening after class when we would give the students the option of coming over; almost all took us up on it.

They could find the books they’d been reading about in the gun magazines, the high-performance ammo their own local gun store didn’t stock, top-quality concealed carry gunleather and even get fitted for body armor and wear it out the door. (All students, of course, had been vetted and we had copies of their concealed carry permits, etc.)

One top-quality firm that will wholesale body armor and not limit you to selling only to police and military is WarBird (warbirdpro.com). A typical hour or two after the class resulted in several thousand dollars in sales.

So, you see, training can increase a gun retailer’s income stream even if they don’t have their own live-fire range. 

Read More Shooting Industry October 2024 Issue Now