Reeling in Customers: Either Fish, or Cut Bait

I have returned from a much needed vacation to the Canadian outback where I enjoyed a week of fishing with no phone, TV or newspaper.

Every year, I travel to the far western reaches of Ontario for our annual fish camp outing that has been a part of my family tradition since 1961, when my father first went with his buddies to the same waters we fish today. I started going with my dad in 1984, and now his 16-year-old great-grandson, my grand nephew, is representing the fourth generation to wet a line in these great Northern waters.

On this most recent outing, I started to think about writing a blog post based on the similarities between fishing for dinner and casting a net for new FBO customers.

Planning the Trip

As many times as I have gone on this fishing trip, there is still a fair amount of planning to do. Same goes for developing a sound marketing plan to increase your FBO business.

Blogger Ron Jackson and 16-year-old grand nephew Chas holding a 20-inch Walleye on a Canadian fishing trip.As author Stephen Covey says in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, you have to begin with the end in mind. Because I’ve been on this trip before and have had success in hauling in some nice fish, I can visualize my goal: A 29-inch, 10-pound Walleye!

Same goes for the FBO business. You know the type of valued customer you want to attract, so you should visualize reaching your goal, whether it’s five more new customers or 50. And you should be updating these goals annually.

Research shows that a business can lose up to 30 percent of its customer base annually due to attrition or churn in the marketplace. Factors include companies downsizing and selling their aircraft; companies going out of business; mergers and acquisitions; new flight destinations; and the worst case scenario, defection — losing a valued customer to a competing FBO.

New customers are paramount to keeping a healthy balance sheet.

Fish or Cut Bait

You have set your goals, you have written your business and marketing plan, and you have followed your map to your destination. Now you have to ask yourself, “Are you going to fish or cut bait?”

Sometimes we can take planning and strategizing too far. We can call too many meetings and second-guess our way to being highly ineffective. As one of my bosses at a Fortune 500 company years ago said, “If you don’t get started, you’ll never finish.”

And so it is with catching fish or a new customer. If you don’t get your pole in the water, nothing will happen.

Years ago, I read a book titled Bunkhouse Logic by Ben Stein. The premise was about the same. You can’t win at anything unless you first get started. You’ve got to start the cattle drive and you’ve got to finish the cattle drive, point A to point B. Also, if you want to win at poker, you first have to get yourself to the table. In other words, you have to get your feet wet and sometimes force yourself to get started.

Using the Right Bait

Catching a good customer on your terms is a far better scenario than catching a customer on his or her terms. Remember the blog I wrote titled Building Long-Term Profitable Customer Relationships, Part 2: Do You Feel Lucky?

In this post, we discussed the danger of attracting the wrong customer by subjectively lowering the price of fuel. Remember, you have to use the right bait in attracting the right profitable customers if you want to keep them for the long-term.

You have to give them a reason for choosing your FBO by providing them with a sense of delivering a real customer value proposition (CVP). For instance, done properly, the CVP can be the right combination of clean and attractive facilities, fair fuel prices and a knock your socks off customer service experience.

Now that is baiting your hook with something more than corn from a can. 

Keeping Your Fish Healthy and Happy

When a person goes to a fish camp in Canada, he is there for primarily one reason: catching fish. So the fisherman is up at the crack of dawn and fishes all morning and then from late afternoon until sunset, which is usually after 9:30 p.m. this far North.

Therefore, having a live well in the boat is a great asset so the fish stay fresh.

So it is with attracting new customers to your facility and keeping them. You have to figure out a way to keep them happy and satisfied while they are in your facility.

In my post Building Long-term Customer Relationships, Part 3: Don’t Forget the Cheese! I talk about delivering a memorable customer service experience that will keep your customers coming back for more. Here is a recap:

The use of Cheese in our proprietary customer service training course serves as a key reminder to CSRs, as well as other employees, to practice exceptional customer service. A few fundamentals of great customer service are:

• Smile. Remember to say, “Cheese,” to yourself, as if someone were taking your photo. Even when answering the phone, put on a smile, and the customer on the other end will sense they are talking to a happy person.
• Add a little extra when delivering customer service. Cheese represents the added touch, the little extra that puts a smile on the customer’s face and makes them keep coming back.
• Remember a customer’s name. In the FBO environment, adding cheese can be as simple as remembering a customer’s name. Most people react positively to being called by their name and are impressed when you remember. Are you the restaurant owner?
• Go the extra mile. Going the extra mile could be something as simple as showing the customer where the pilot lounge is located instead of pointing in the general direction.

If you’ve had success in casting your net for customers, I’d like to hear from you. Please email me at Ron@thejacksongroup.biz.

Ron Jackson

Ron Jackson is co-founder of ABSG and president of The Jackson Group, a public relations agency specializing in aviation and FBO marketing. He has held management positions with Cessna Aircraft and Bozell Advertising and is the author of Mission Marketing: Creating Brand Value and co-author of Don’t Forget the Cheese!, the Ultimate FBO Customer Service Experience.

The Value of a Business Plan in Managing Your FBO

“A business plan is primarily an organizing tool used to simplify and clarify business goals and strategies, which might otherwise appear complex and intimidating. However, a business plan is also a sales tool. … Having no plan is like sailing the seven seas without a compass, digging a ditch without a shovel, or hunting for pirate's treasure without an 'x' marks the spot. Without one, you're better off heading down to the horse races and betting on the 'Win Three.' A plan helps keep you on schedule, makes it easier to recognize success and failure, helps pump you up when things aren't going so well, and most importantly, provides an essential focus.” – Peter J. Patsula, The Entrepreneur's Guidebook #9, "Supercharging Promising Projects with a Plan of Action.”

In some of our previous blog posts, we have mentioned the need to develop a strategic business plan, not only as a way to define business goals, but also to help formulate your personal goals, such as detailing an exit plan from your FBO business.

As most of you know, if you want to borrow money from a bank, the SBA or other sources, one of the first things they will ask you for is a business plan. This alone is a good reason to develop one. However, beyond this basic need, a business plan can be much more and serve your business in many different ways.

The quote above illustrates the many benefits in developing a business plan. As any pilot knows, without a proper flight plan, you will never get to your destination efficiently.

Developing a plan can be intimidating, but it’s not too bad when you keep it simple. Do some organized research on your business; ask some fundamental questions; do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis; conduct a market and pricing analysis; then lay out your plan in an organized manner.

Plan Basics

Let’s look at some basics involved in developing a plan:

Company Description: First, we need to establish the baseline information for your firm, including the type of business you run, the management and employee structure and a statement to define the mission of your company as well as a sense of your vision and direction for the growth of the company.

Industry Analysis and Trends: Define the marketplace you operate in now and the near future; this includes seasonal factors, maturity of the industry, etc.

Target Market and Audience: Define what markets you serve and detail any new business areas in which you wish to operate. Also define your target audience or audiences (customer groups) you would like to attract to your business.

The Competition: Define and isolate your competition by looking in detail at not only your competitors on your airport but also within a 50- to 100-mile radius.

Strategic Position and Risk Analysis: Consider doing a SWOT analysis to evaluate your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Included should be an internal survey of all your employees to gain their input as well as vendors and suppliers who know your industry and perhaps sell to your competitors. Find out what may differentiate the way you do business from your competitors and use this to position your brand in the marketplace.

Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy: Analyze what you are doing to promote your business now, and develop new ways you can penetrate existing markets and branch out into others. Also, define your sales goals and objectives in terms other than the amount of money you want to make. Rather, state in terms of actionable items that can be obtained and measured in terms of results.

Operations: Review your existing business and how it operates — labor, equipment, technology, customer service and management information systems.

Community Involvement: We all know this is a relationship business, so include in your plan what you are doing, or willing to do, within your own general and business community. If you’re already involved, think what you would like to do better.

Development, Milestones & Exit Plan: Detail your long-term goals, growth strategy and exit plan including a timeframe to complete.

Financial Plan: This is the bottom line. Determine what the business is doing from a profit-and-loss point of view, and define the short-term and long-term capital needs to get where you want to go.

Guide Points

To sum up the critical path in starting, developing and finishing a plan, think of these three simple guide points:

• Develop a fundamental understanding of where you are today.
• Take a realistic view of your options moving forward.
• Think of your plan as a roadmap to success, a guide you refer to along the way to keep you on course.

The whole point of a business plan is to have firm ideas of where you are and where you want to go while realizing there are some hard choices to be made along the way. In the end, keeping focus is the key ingredient to success, and a plan will help you keep that focus.

Have any additional thoughts? Please email me at jenticknap@bellsouth.net.

John Enticknap

John Enticknap founded Aviation Business Strategies Group in 2006 following a distinguished career in aviation fueling and FBO management, including as president of Mercury Air Centers. He is the author of 10 Steps to Building a Profitable FBO and developed NATA’s acclaimed FBO Success Seminar Series.