Sales Suggestions

Our Culhane line of training manuals can provide your aviation business with a healthy, continuous revenue stream, year after year. The following are some basic guidelines to help you sell our industry leading training products.

Make sure that your customers know that you carry Culhane training manuals! Our training manuals are the INDUSTRY STANDARD for Canadian self study aviation exam prep training courses and referenced sample exams for all levels of pilot licences and ratings, fixed wing and rotary wing. Our training manuals have been used by the majority of Canada's pilots since 1988, and we have sold over 100,000 units since we first started publishing our texts. Dealers carrying our product will find that our training texts will SELL THEMSELVES! Simply ensure that you have a good selection of our CURRENT titles, present them well in a visible, prominent location and your customers will buy them. We advertise regulary nationally and there will be a large pool of pilots that will be seeking our products from our authorized dealers: take advantage of this customer traffic flow and make sure these potential customers know that you carry our line!

Be sure that you stock both the Ground School Courses and Written Test Books and remind customers of the purposes behind them. Our training manuals are divided into two major divisions - our Ground School Courses, which provide the background theory, and our Written Test Books, which provide supplemental exams. Since our manuals are intended to be used as a pair, for the particular licence sought, they should normally be sold in pairs i.e. Ground School Course and Written Test Book. For example, if a customer intends to purchase one of our Ground School Courses, without the matching Written Test Book (or vice versa) you should ensure that the customer is made aware that the Written Test Book should also be obtained since it is linked to the course and will greatly enhance the customer's scoring prospects on the written exam. Some customers are aware of this and simply prefer to buy each required manual at different times to save costs i.e. once he or she has completed the course, he or she would return to purchase the test book. Accordingly, our dealers should keep sufficient inventory of both our courses and test books.

Inform your customers that our training manuals have a proven TRACK RECORD. Our training manuals have been on the Canadian market since 1988, and since then, many TENS OF THOUSANDS of fixed wing and rotary wing pilots, AME's and flight dispatchers have succeeded on their aviation writtens using our system. Given this successful track record, those that purchase our manuals will be following a proven method of self study that has succeeded and has delivered in the past.

Stock a wide selection of our titles! There are a variety of Culhane titles to fit specialized aviation interest demand such as for flight dispatchers, AME's, helicopter pilots etc. for which there is good niche market demand beyond the "mainstream" PPL/CPL aeroplane licences. You would be surprized at how many aeroplane pilots "cross over" to become flight dispatchers, convert from fixed wing qualifications to helicopter etc.! Stock some of these specialized texts and you often find it worthwile since there is very little quality study material available.

Remind customers that we offer free amendments and updates to our training manuals on our website. Some customers may not be aware that since there is a rapid rate of change to the aviation training system in Canada, we regularly post amendments to our manuals on our website in the "updates" section. This can be useful for students who need to keep current on any recent changes.

Ensure that a customer has obtained all secondary study items when purchasing our manuals, such as flight computers, chart rules, protracters, etc. Some customers may not be aware that certain equipment is needed even at advanced levels: for example, at the ATPL level, customers using our manuals may prefer to have a CR-type circular flight computer for many of the questions and exercises.

Culhane inventory. For inventory purposes, remember that in most aviation product retail operations, sales will closely follow the number of licences issued, from most popular to most specialized. There will be many more customers that will seek Private Pilot and Commercial Pilot level products than will be interested in Helicopter or Airline Transport level products. Thus be sure to keep the greatest inventory at the more basic licences and order proportionally less advanced materials. As well, remember that yearly sales of our training manuals will tend to generally follow HISTORIC PATTERNS. For example, if you have sold 100 copies of the Private Ground School text in the last calendar year, your current calendar year numbers should not be radically different. By closely examining historic sales numbers, this data can be used as a basis for making current orders. As well, it is better to slightly OVER-ESTIMATE customer demand by keeping a little more inventory than it is to UNDER-ESTIMATE customer demand and not have sufficient on hand inventory to satisfy demand. Remember that our annual rebate program offers some protection for excess inventory, and excess inventory can always be sold via a clearance or sale, while having too little inventory will result in lost sales revenue, and make customers less likely to shop in future at your store if they have the impression that the product they want will not be on hand (generally, pilot customers looking for one of our training manuals are in a big hurry to prepare for a written test and do not want to have to wait to obtain one of our training texts).

Participate in our Annual Rebate! Our annual rebate offers the opportunity to have any unsold expired inventory replaced and upgraded FOR FREE with our current titles (subject to making an independent order). It is VERY IMPORTANT to participate in our annual rebate because that way the dealer will ensure that their Culhane inventory is CURRENT: customers of Culhane training manuals know that we issue fresh editions of our training manuals every year and dealers trying to sell out of date texts will find them hard to sell. Don't be lazy - when you get our rebate offer, ACT PROMPTLY and complete our rebate form and send us your expired editions for upgrade before the rebate expiry date: participating in our annual rebate will be profitable for your business and will ensure that you will continue to profit from the sale of current editions of our titles.

Dealer prices and discounts: shop around! Depending on your ordering volume, it may be more advantageous to order directly with a Canadian aviation products wholesaler/distributor rather than with us. For example, if you only need a few titles, discounts offered by our authorized wholesalers/distributors could be better than ours. Be sure to shop around to get the best discounts on our product based on your ordering patterns. Since we supply distributors and wholesalers with our products, we take no issue whether dealers prefer to buy direct from us or from our wholesalers/distributors since our sales are enhanced in either case.

Product visibility and presentation. Keeping product in displays where it will be visible to customers is important. If the product is kept in a closed cupboard, desk or storeroom, customers may not be aware that the particular title(s) is on-hand and available.

Advertising/Promotional Images/Catalogues. Please let us know if you require colour images of our products for print advertising - we would be happy to provide you with camera-ready artwork for your promotional needs. We can also provide product catalogues on a cost-recovery fee basis.

Include our catalogue in your customer mail list! Putting your company stamp on the reverse side of our annual catalogue as "your Culhane distributor" and including this in your customer mail-outs/promotions will cost very little and will be of excellent promotional benefit.

Online Training Products. Remind customers that our training texts will be necessary to complete our online ground school and online exams (so as to access charts, tables and performance data). Thus, customers interested in completing online studies with our online products will need to purchase our texts from our authorized dealers.

<< Return to Contents Page, Dealers