Good points. I'm typically extremely long winded, so it's been a challenge to keep articles to a reasonable length, and unfortunately that means not identifying each and every situation possible. However, I should have included this, because increasingly it's become that way. Seems like almost every shop has an operator that's on someone's staff, or that's at least being sponsored by someone, or has a good connection. Obviously if you've got an operator that's on staff with somebody, he's going to push that equipment even if he is still fulfilling his responsibility to the customer to sell them what they need. One small caveat is that for quite a few guys, it's not necessarily to represent that brand, it's because it looks really good on your resume, and because it appeals to a group of bowlers. Some bowlers look at a pro shop guy just as a business guy and are more apt to listen to a fellow bowler, even if that bowler isn't very good. But hey, if the pro shop guy is out bowling and are good enough to be on somebody's staff, that makes them appear like a bowler that just happens to work in a shop, which a lot of people are more comfortable with. I don't know why the correlation, but a very high percentage of people associate a high level of skill with a high level of technical knowledge. Yeah you'd expect people that are good at something to know what they're doing, but we have several high average staffers we drill for that don't know a THING about layouts or ball specs or anything, they just bring new balls in and let us take care of it. Lol they're just extremely good at throwing them . . However, on the flip side, it makes several people cautious because they don't know if they're getting talked into something just because the pro shop guy is on that company's staff.
I DO want to start writing thought process articles like this though, taking a situation and presenting the logic for it and against it. Too much information out there is just dry technical stuff, and while I do want to conceptualize that, most of the biggest decisions out there are things like this. If my pro shop guy is on staff with somebody, can I really trust him to sell me the right ball? I've asked myself this and several questions like it, and keep coming to the conclusion that you have to educate yourself and really understand as much as you can. Another big one is that people like to throw around terminology to make themselves sound smart even though they don't know what it means, and that can make a lot of people feel dumb or ignorant, when in fact there's nothing wrong with what they do. A big beef I have is college kids and talking about adjustments. "Well, it hooked early so I moved 2 and 1 left." Ok . . 2 with your feet, 1 with your target, I get that . . but was it the right adjustment in the first place? Maybe you got slow, overhit it, missed your angle of rotation, missed your target in the first place, etc. But people will hear that and it will get their heads going in the wrong direction, so next time they throw a ball and it overhooks, "well I guess I need to move 2 and 1 left . ." you know? Bowling has gotten complicated, yeah, but it's also been severely overcomplicated by things like this.
Lol see? Rambling . . but stuff like this is where I think I "fit" in the bowling world, or where I can help. I have a blue collar mentality about bowling, I loved watching back several years ago when it was just a guy, a ball, and his intuition. Now it's too mathematical and mechanical . . but at the same time, it's still the same game, it's just been complicated. The technical stuff definitely has a place, but a LOT of people still feel like I do, most of my customer base still has the "I don't care about all those numbers and that crap, I just want a ball that's not going to roll out if I have to get deep," attitude. So instead of trying to convert them or make them feel bad about being behind the times, I interpret and "translate" the technical stuff for them, while still being able to talk technical with the guys that are into that. Ironically enough though, some of the technical guys have just learned a lot of terminology that they really don't understand . .
This is a very good article. Deals with the confusion a bowler will have, simple requests that a bowler has, and deals with the unknowns that a pro shop operator will have.
the only drawback I see with the article (and I honestly can't blame the author for) is if said pro shop operator has a 'bias' (lack of a better word) towards a given brand. I say that because I guess I hearken back to days when a pro shop had nearly every manufacturer's product in their shop. Then, a bowler would have true choice as to what he/she wants, and could compare company to company and ball to ball.
Nowadays, it's much tougher, because you may have pro shops in which the proprietor of that shop is a ball rep for a given company, and (whether due to lack of space in their shop, contractual obligations, etc.) loads up their entire shop with gear from their sponsored company, and pushes that first.
You can't blame the proprietor; they are a rep for that company. But on the other side of that coin, how can one comfortably be able to compare and select the ball that is right for them, if they can't directly see it in that given pro shop? Go to another shop, which the proprietors there know nothing about your game?
I guess I may be adding a bit more to this, as the author puts it, "an increasingly frustrating and worrisome process". Perhaps another article sometime after this that addresses rapport with a pro shop proprietor?
BL.
