August 18, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Four Steps to Discover Your FBO’s Natural Rhythm!

August 18, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group

In our previous blog we discussed how every employee and department in an FBO needs to pull together like sections of a well-tuned orchestra in order to create a harmonious customer service environment.

Because every department touches a customer in some way, customers can sense when there is discord. Instead of one sound coming from one orchestra, they begin to hear many drums and many instruments playing haphazardly.

So how can FBOs pull the orchestra together, make many departments and teams move and sound as one and create an operating environment for delivering the ultimate customer service experience?

Here are four steps to creating departmental team harmony and discovering your own FBO’s natural rhythm.

Step 1: Develop and share the big picture. All employees should know the heritage of the company, where it is headed and the defining role they play.
Step 2: Lead by example, and empower management and supervisors to lead with enthusiasm, exhibiting encouraging behavior for employees to follow and do the jobs they've been hired to do with professionalism.
Step 3: Encourage and permit employees at all levels to have a voice in the process and be an instrument in the orchestra. Recongnize everyone contributes to the success of the FBO and is a valued stakeholder in the company.
Step 4: Follow through, and act with integrity. Everyone is watching, including the customers. Employee's actions reflect the company culture. Share company values, and include them in the performance reviews.

By preparing to meet the requirements of each of these steps, the FBO owner, operator or manager can create an operating environment for the team that is fun to work in and becomes a comfortable space for the customer.

About the bloggers:

John Enticknap has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience. Ron Jackson is co-founder of Aviation Business Strategies Group and president of The Jackson Group, a PR agency specializing in FBO marketing and customer service training. Visit the biography page or absggroup.com for more background.

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July 14, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Take Time for a Midyear Checkup

July 14, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group

Now that we're halfway through 2015, it's time to take stock of how your FBO has performed this far and review your goals and objectives for the year.

This midyear review is an excellent opportunity to take a look at all aspects of your business and review the metrics that give you a relative benchmark of performance.

Fuel Sales: Utilizing your dashboard and YTD budget reports, compare fuel sales for each of the first six months against the results of the first six months for 2014 and your budget forecast. Are you trending up or down or maybe staying about the same? Are you going to hit your sales targets?

Fuel Pricing: Review your posted retail pricing for each month, and complete a market survey, both on the field and in the region.

Fuel Discounts: Figure the average of what you actually sold a gallon of fuel for, taking into account all discounts including contract fuel pricing, etc. You also may want to break out these costs by category to include base customers, transient customers, contract fuel, commercial into-plane and government/DOD.

Review all your expenses: Remember to include wages/salaries, utilities, building maintenance, insurance, supplies, rent/lease, loan payments, etc. Are they in line with your YTD budget?

Recalculate what each gallon of fuel costs to pump into an aircraft.

Figure Your Fuel Margin: Compare these margins YTD with the results of 2014.

MROs: Figure your hourly productivity rate for your shop and each technician for the first six months of this year. Compare these findings against the results of 2014. How are you trending?

Review Your Airport Lease: Now is a good time to think about negotiating a lease extension.

Review Capital Improvements: Are you on target to start or finish your capital improvement projects?

Review Safety Procedures: Now is a good time to conduct an internal audit of your safety procedures.

Insurance Review: Call your insurance agent, and get together to review your insurance story. A good insurance story can save you money.

Review Your Credit Card Transactions: Are your CSRs asking customers for the preferred card? The one that has the lowest interest/processing rates?

Review Your Base Tenant Leases: Have the leases renewed at the same rate or is there opportunity to negotiate better terms?

Review Your Customer Service Training: Take time to observe how your employees communicate and deal with your customers. Are your customers willing to recommend you without hesitation?

Now, tell us how you are doing. We'd like to hear from you to get a sense of how the industry is doing. Have you had more transient traffic these first six months compared to the same period in 2014? Do you have an opinion of whether there is an increase of in-flight hours compared to last year? Are fuels sales better, worse or about the same?

About the bloggers:

July 07, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Example of Contagious Company Culture: You've Got to Love Southwest Airlines, Part 3 of 3

July 07, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group

In this final blog post about developing a contagious company culture, we'd like to share a short case study of a celebrated aviation services company that has put it all together and shines above the rest: Southwest Airlines.

True, they're not in the FBO business, but for the sake of this blog post, let's call them kissin' cousins.

Company: Southwest Airlines
Commenced Operations: 1971
Years in business: 44
Years of Profitability: 41 plus and counting
Market Positioning: Low-cost fares
Market Positioning Symbol: Peanuts
Founder/Figurehead: Herb Kelleher

Many have attributed the contagious company culture instilled at Southwest Airlines to Kelleher, a rather colorful business figure who once accepted the challenge of Kurt Herwald, then the president of the FBO/MRO Stevens Aviation, to an arm wrestling match for the right to use a marketing phrase: Just Plane Smart.

"A company is stronger if it's bound by love rather than fear,” Kelleher has said while describing the internal culture at Southwest Airlines.

Perhaps coincidentally, Southwest started its operations at Love Field (DAL), Dallas, Texas, and still marries the heart symbol/graphic with its brand name.

Not so coincidental is Southwest's consistent profitability and its reputation for extreme customer loyalty. The two harmoniously go together, like peas and carrots. And at the heart of its customer loyalty is an internal culture that thrives on purpose.

In past blog posts we've talked about developing a company vision statement that is forward looking and describes what a company wants to become. Southwest's vision statement is: "Our vision is to become the world's most loved, most flown and most profitable airline."

But Southwest also created a purpose statement that essentially states why a company exists: "We exist to connect people to what's important in their lives through friendly, reliable and low-cost air travel."

Both the vision and purpose statements are meant to inform and inspire the primary employee stakeholder group. And to drive home the basic tenets of the purpose statement, Southwest developed a series of short videos. Although you can find them on YouTube, they are primarily targeted for viewing by employees.

They're slices of life and highlight the efforts of employees who go the extra mile because the internal culture inspires and gives them permission to do so without hesitation. Click here to view the video about the company’s vision and purpose statements.

In summary, a contagious company culture is one that is contingent upon a management style that nurtures instead of controls. It acknowledges and celebrates its employees’ strengths and encourages good employee behavior while recognizing their contributions.

As we teach in our Don't Forget the Cheese! FBO customer service training program, what employees seek most from an employer is not a monetary reward, but simple recognition of a job well done.

What has your FBO done to create an outstanding company culture? Let us know in the comments.

About the bloggers:

June 08, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Develop a Contagious Company Culture, Part 1 of 3

June 08, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson
Aviation Business Strategies Group

A spirited and contagious company culture is one of the most important elements in running a successful FBO operation. It's an essential ingredient in delivering a great customer service experience because it sets the tone and feeds the passion of the operation.

Customers can sense and feel a company culture. It can make them feel warm and fuzzy or be a complete turnoff.

By definition, company culture is the "way of life" within an organization. It's exhibited by the behavior and demeanor of the employee stakeholders and expressed in the way the customer service experience is delivered.

As part of our Don't Forget the Cheese! customer service training, we are often asked by our FBO clients to help them analyze their company culture and then offer leadership training to their managers and supervisors to facilitate change.

One of the tools we use to analyze company culture is to conduct internal and external SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) analysis. Through this process, we can gain valuable insight into what's working and what's not.

If an FBO has an excellent track record of establishing long-term, profitable customer relationships, they are probably doing a lot of things right.

On the other hand, if an FBO is experiencing one or more of the following, then it's in need of a cultural makeover:

Unusual or abnormal customer churn/defection.
Lack of consistent repeat customers.
Few or no customer recommendations.
Employees feeling disenfranchised/not part of the process.

The character or tone of a good company culture needs to be contagious. It starts at the top and, through the process of observation and osmosis, resonates down through the organization where it is absorbed due to continual and consistent exposure.

The reality is that great company culture does not magically appear on its own. It's up to FBO management to set the stage and create the proper environment for a desired culture to take root and flourish.

In part 2 of this series, we'll review the key elements in developing a contagious company culture.

About the bloggers:

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