By Ron R. Jackson and John L. Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the fifth installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation
“Expect the best, plan for the worst, and be prepared to be surprised.”
-Denis Waitley
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the fourth installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
“History is a vast early warning system.”
-Norman Cousins
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the third installment of our continuing AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
"Your success in life isn't based on your ability to simply change. It is based on your ability to change faster than your competition, customers and business." — Mark Sanborn
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the second installment of our new AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series focuses on the various strategies needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
As a follow-up to our first survival tip, ‘Keep Your Customers Close…and Your Margins Closer’, let’s examine a syndrome that has been occurring with FBOs that also run an MRO business.
By Ron Jackson and John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Welcome to the first installment of our new AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection Series: FBO Survival. This series will focus on the various strategies and tactics needed to survive the daily rigors of running a successful FBO operation.
Our first survivor tip, ‘Keep Your Customers Close … and Your Margins Closer’, is inspired by dialogue in the film, The Godfather: Part II. It means, in order to survive today’s economic FBO climate, you need to focus on your two most important revenue generators: your valued customers and your fuel margins.
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson
Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Recently, we attended the National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA) Schedule and Dispatchers (S&D) Conference in San Antonio. While there, we had the opportunity to address a group of FBO leaders regarding the present state of the industry and where we saw the future headed in 2013.
Throughout the year we have many opportunities to talk with FBOs from various parts of the country. At the NATA FBO Success Seminar, we conduct twice a year, we network and exchange ideas and information with FBO owners, operators and managers. Also, we receive feedback from this blog we write for AC-U-KWIK FBO Connection.
By Ron R. Jackson, Co-Founder, Aviation Business Strategies Group
In a previous blog, we talked about making the customer your fan. It’s a reversal of roles … a conscious change in attitude by your customer service staff.
Keep in mind, your customer service staff consists of anyone that comes in contact with the customer. This would include customer service representatives (CSRs), line service technicians, flight instructors, charter pilot and the FBO owner or manager.
By John Enticknap, President, Aviation Business Strategies Group
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” - Niccolo Machiavelli
According to Machiavelli, selling your FBO can be a perilous process. But in my experience, you can even out the bumps and curves by developing a logical plan, well enough in advance, that will lead you to a successful transaction.
By Jim Gardner
As the saying goes, there is good news and there is bad news. Which would you like to hear first?
First, let’s look at the good news for the FBO Operator. We are in the continued midst of a soft aviation insurance market that began in 2006. Since then, aviation insurance rates have declined to their lowest point in history.
Now, the potentially bad news, beginning in the winter of 2010, many in the aviation insurance industry are predicting a return to a Hard Market.
What is a Hard Market? It is generally characterized by fewer underwriters bidding on a particular risk - resulting in fewer options, increased rates and premiums, decreased limits of liability and less ancillary coverage offered. In addition, there are more stringent underwriting requirements on training with less flexibility for the operational managers.
Editors Note: From time-to-time, FBO Connection bloggers John Enticknap and Ron Jackson invite aviation industry professionals to write a guest blog. For this post we invited Mercer Dye, President of Dye Aviation Facilities, an aviation design and construction management company.
By Mercer Dye
The truth is, most of us in the FBO design and construction business can’t afford the luxury of a guaranteed perfect project - and frankly, no one ever gets one anyway.
As in any endeavor, successful FBO construction projects depend on the owner, or in this case, the FBO owner having reasonable expectations and willingness to participate in the equitable sharing of risks.
By John Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
“The goal is to transform data into information, and information into insight.” - Carly Fiorni: President Hewlett Packard, 1999-2005
Do you really know what’s going on at your FBO? It seems many businesses operate on a day-to-day, crises-to-crises basis with the managers just along for the ride.
This has validity in numerous market segments, not just in the aviation services industry. During our NATA FBO Success Seminar, scheduled in Dallas on September 12, 13 and 14, we will discuss this and many other topics. However, for this blog post, let’s concentrate on data collection and what we can do to improve our financial numbers. Then, turn it into insight we can act on to operate our businesses more profitability.
By John L. Enticknap
“All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.” - Calvin Coolidge
We’re halfway through 2012, so let’s do a gut check to see how the FBO industry faired for the first six months of the year. Then, let’s take a look at what we can do to help our bottom line for the remainder of the year.
At the beginning of 2012, we wrote three blog posts that I encourage you to review.
Part 1: 2012 Business Outlook for FBOs
Part 2: Decreasing FBO Costs in 2012
Part 3: Improving FBO Productivity in 2012
To summarize our 2012 FBO economic forecast, in January we said if your FBO has a five percent growth for 2012, your firm will be a star! That is still very true. We thought for a while that the growth rate may be greater in the first quarter of the year, but growth was a meager 1.9 percent. There was a slight up-tick for the second quarter that may push us past 2 percent. However, our overall prediction for the year of a 2.2 percent growth rate will most likely be the norm.
By Ron Jackson
“Being a fan doesn't mean being there from the start. It means being there ‘till the end.”
-Anonymous
It’s time for a role reversal in the FBO customer service industry.
Ever since the term “customer service” was first used, our corporate view has been to put the customer on a pedestal and do everything to make them happy. That’s all fine and dandy, as Forrest Gump would say, but it’s a rather dogmatic and reactive approach that can make your customer relationship fragile and leave your employees feeling frustrated.
By John L. Enticknap
What does an external audit program have to do with delivering a better customer service experience? Let’s explore the possibilities.
One of the most popular events at the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) FBO Success Seminar, conducted by the Aviation Business Strategies Group, is a discussion on lowering FBO insurance rates through better operations management. This includes training the CSR and executive staff on safety, customer service, technical procedures and practical application of quality aircraft ground handling techniques.
By John L. Enticknap
Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new. —Og Mandino
As a principal of Aviation Business Strategies Group, I’m always tuned into the FBO industry and attend various workshops and seminars to keep abreast of our ever-changing industry.
At the National Air Transportation Association (NATA) Leadership Conference and Day On-the-Hill, which I just returned from, I had the opportunity to rub shoulders with more than 200 industry leaders and get a sense of what is happening to the FBO business on a macroeconomic scale.
Cash Flow and Controlling Expenses—Managing Your Business
(Part 2 of a 3-Part Series: Planning a Successful 2012 FBO Business Strategy)
By John L. Enticknap, Aviation Business Strategies Group
The buck stops with the guy who signs the checks.
—Rupert Murdoch
In the first installment of this series, we discussed our FBO Business Outlook for 2012. At the recent NBAA Schedulers & Dispatchers Conference held in San Diego, we had a chance to discuss this outlook and the current business climate with a number of FBOs in attendance.
Many we talked to agreed with our forecast of a slow uptick of around 2.5 percent average industry growth in 2012, with some individual FBOs experiencing up to 5 percent growth or even possibly more. We met a number of FBO owners and managers who indicated they were ahead of the 2.5 percent growth rate for 2011 and expect to do better than the 5 percent growth projection for 2012. And of course, some indicated 2011 was a flat year and they didn’t expect to do much better for 2012.
For this installment, part two of our three-part series, we want to discuss ways FBOs can better manage and even decrease their costs in 2012.
Part 1: Our FBO Business Outlook for 2012
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. —Mark Twain
Recently we received a call from one of the major business aviation publications asking for our outlook for the FBO business in 2012. As writers, practitioners and consultants to the business aviation community, we are often contacted by the aviation trade press for our views on various industry subjects.
We have our ears and eyes glued to the FBO market, and recently completed one of our FBO Success Seminars for the National Air Transportation Association (NATA), so we have a pretty good pulse on the health of the industry.
Looking into the FBO Crystal Ball for 2012
First of all, in today’s political environment—especially with an election year upon us—it’s hard to get a good read on what’s going to happen in 2012 on a national level that will affect our FBO industry either positively or negatively. If you’ve watched any of the debates, you probably think ‘ol Mark Twain hit the nail on the head. You might as well wet your finger and hold it up in the air to see which way the economic wind is going to blow.
Or, Sometimes You’ve Got to Tell Them How the Cow Ate the Cabbage!
By Ron Jackson
Recently we completed our fall NATA FBO Success Seminar in Atlanta and we had a great turnout of FBO attendees representing locations from as close as the Atlanta area to as far away as Grand Rapids, Michigan, and points in between. We were fortunate to have as one of our sponsors AC-U-KWIK, and Jodi Espinoza made a very informative presentation.
One of our discussion topics at the FBO Success Seminar is how to work with customers who want everything but are not willing to pay for anything. Sound familiar?
The old adage “The Customer is Always Right” is usually true. However, every once in a while you run across customers who break this general customer service axiom. They seem to know everything, want everything, and want it now. Unfortunately, these customers usually don’t purchase a lot fuel, if any. Yet we manage to spend an exorbitant amount of time, resources and energy trying to make them happy.
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