Here's something you might not know. Many of these gun companies have their own moves to drum up sales. Any gun person has seen various promotions for customers who buy their products during a certain period of time. But many don't know the other step... some of these companies have special promotions for gun sales staff, too. Because if they get something, they'll push the product.
For example, a famous one is Bushmaster's promotion. I have no idea if they still do this, but for a period of time if sales people in the shops presented the paperwork that proved the sale of one of their products, they got a certain number of lobsters for every certain amount of paperwork. Yeah, no kidding. I was shocked the day our box arrived and I popped open the top to find a dozen live lobsters inside. I had personally been awarded two live lobsters from this lot, and I was tasked with getting them home. In nothing. So for the 30 minute ride home from work I had two lobsters walking around the passenger seat of my car. When it arrived that time again the following year, I "forgot" to collect the paperwork for my lobsters. It's kinda hard to eat something that keeps crawling into your lap for warmth on the way home.
Most companies compensate the sales people with a small cash bonus (S&W was known to give out $15 per handgun, and Springfield Armory and Ruger allowed you to collect points towards a free gun, which sounds a lot easier than it actually was).
The shop I worked for at the time had been chosen as one of the gun shops allowed to participate in a Benelli program. The deal... the sales person in the chosen stores who sold the most Benelli products won a free Super Nova of their choice, one per chosen shop.
Now, for those not familiar with Benelli, they are very good shotguns... with a very big price tag for a production gun. The Super Nova is a pump action shotgun, and it held the smallest price tag out of their selection. The one above, at that time (about 2006) was $560. Their semi-auto selections at the time were reaching above $1500 a pop, some breaking that $2000 mark. So selling Benellis in quantity - especially over the one month period the contest took into consideration - was no small task.
At the end of the month I had paperwork proving four sales of Benelli shotguns. So did one other sales person. We had a tie.
The winner was decided by a "guess the number I am thinking" game. The store owner told a witness his number and me the other sales person had to guess as close as possible. His number was nine. The other sales person said four, I said six. The shotgun was mine.
I decided to be the weird one, so I chose the Super Nova with the Advantage Timber camo finish and ComforTech stock with a 26" barrel. Which shocked everyone working there, all of who wanted the shorter, black version with the pistol grip stock.
I spent a few months with customers and others telling me to give the shotgun to someone else because a female can't possibly handle a 12 gauge shotgun.
Well, in response, I kept my shotgun and took up sporting clays! So there! :P
I am one of the weird masses who names my guns, and I take great care and pride in those names. This shotgun is nick named the obvious "Nelli" but her name is actually "Zes." Dutch for six, the number I chose to win it. I don't shoot it often anymore, but still have it and care for it.
Zes has stories of her own at this point, the most popular being the flash flood I got caught in with my "puller" at the sporting clays course. The area was in the middle of a several months long drought when a sudden thunder storm moved in and caused the lake to flood over the course. My puller and I were soon up to our chests in water, me with the shotgun over my head. He found something we could use as a make shift raft to get us to higher ground before we had to swim there, and when we realized we lacked a paddle, Zes ended up in the flood waters, used as a very efficient raft paddle. When I got home and got dried out completely, I cleaned her off and found a new selling point for the duck hunters who came into the shop regularly. Not a spot of rust formed and no damage was to be reported. Zes passed a test no other gun I've ever owned had to try out!
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