Personal selling
Being a ski or snowboard instructor involves a lot of personal selling when delivering a lesson, I know that since I am one. But the instructor itself cannot do too much without the proper back up of the Ski and Snowboard School and the ski resort’s promotion of the lessons.
Of course, sometimes, anywhere on the mountain, when engaging with customers helping them to get around (for example) could lead to the selling of a lesson.
As one of my supervisors once said: “You just have to give them the never ending lesson”. Yes, I know, it’s super cheesy! But it makes sense…
When instructors are out there teaching their customers how to ski or ride they are delivering a tailored service. There is also a relationship between the provider and the client, and the longer and bigger this relationship is the more specific the service gets according to the customer needs. For example, lets say there is a student that wants to learn how to turn better but at the same time is afraid of mid-steep slopes. Then, the instructor would have to get to know this person, find out what makes he or she tic, and create an exercise (or drill) with a certain progression to make the student learn without fear.
Being an instructor is a high selling job, but not in a way that you open your jacket and you have a full store ready to be sold, it is more as in keeping the customer hooked with the lesson and the learning process. Therefore, the relationship approach is very useful: lessons have a long-term focus (you want this customer to keep on coming and getting lessons with you) and the problem-solving role has to up and running from the get go (adapting your teaching methods to different types of learners have to endure throughout).