We help companies in the Aviation industry make more sales.
Here’s how:
ABCI has been in business since 2005. Our specialty is Long Cycle MarketingSM. This style of marketing is particularly effective in the aviation industry; as well as other large-ticket, high-trust or complex products and services. Long Cycle Marketing is characterized by a systematic approach that includes an incentive for targeted prospective clients to “opt in” based on an informational incentive (usually a free white paper, report or ebook.)
In exchange for high-quality information the prospect then begins a cycle of progressive, long-term, low-key, low-cost and educational contacts using a mixture of media, including social media, direct mail, email and other methods as determined based on the demographics of the target prospect. Long Cycle Marketing is designed to position our client as the knowledgeable expert and source of information on the topic, as opposed to being viewed as a salesperson or vendor. The prospect is thus moved further along the sales process. After the sale takes place, Long Cycle Marketing continues to nurture the relationship so that testimonials, referrals and resells become a natural consequence.
Of course, this whole process depends on publishing interesting, high-quality, relevant content that your customers enjoy reading or viewing. We produce excellent articles, podcasts, and video to educate your customers and prospective customers about the unique value you bring to the table.
 ABCI’s exclusive Long Cycle Marketing process is available in three service levels, designed to meet the needs and budgets of different clients. Our Light Aircraft Marketing Program is a budget-friendly, low-cost option in which our client’s team does much of the content development with our training and coaching. The TurboProp Marketing Program is for larger, more sophisticated clients who prefer to outsource some components of their marketing system to us and collaborate on others. The Business Jet Marketing Program is a full-service, white glove service level in which ABCI assumes the responsibility for the achievement of our clients’ marketing objectives.
ABCI provides instruction for aviation professionals in our professional course, the Aviation Marketing Master Class.
ABCI has also published a book on the topic of marketing in the Aviation Industry, titled Flight Plan to Sales Success: New Media Marketing for the Aviation Industry (available through Amazon.com)
Visit ABCI on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/marketingforaviation or on Linked In at http://www.linkedin.com/company/aviation-business-consultants-international-inc.
or our blog, www.AviationBusinessConsultants.com for more information and samples of our work.
 Without sales and marketing, planes and people sit idle. We’ve seen the necessity of good marketing and good salesmanship first hand in the last couple of years.
When the economy is good, a company can do well with the following:
- A good product (it didn’t have to be great.)
- A decent advertisement or appearance at a trade show (it didn’t have to be particularly imaginative or effective, and results didn’t have to be measured.)
- A salesperson or salespeople that mainly took orders. No great product knowledge, extraordinary perseverance, of sales skill, was required.
Post 2006, however, things have changed. We’ve seen good companies with good products go out of business.
When sales don’t happen, factories shut down. A & P mechanics, pilots, dispatchers and receptionists might as well stay home. Flight instructors find jobs delivering pizzas between lessons. Warehouses full of product gather dust. Airplanes languish in hangars, (or worse, outdoors) depreciating, pointlessly leaking insurance money and storage fees. Even caterers and janitors suffer.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
We understand the value aviation brings to every other industry and to recreation and quality of life. Aviation gets people and things where they need to be quickly, helping companies be more competitive and serve their customers better.
Great salespeople and skilled marketing can bring energy, life, money and power back to an important industry.
It’s simply a matter of matching the right customer (that has the need and the ability to pay) with the value proposition and communicating in a meaningful way.
With our sales consultant, Mark Leeper, we’ve created a new ebook. Download it now!
 Prospective clients often express a lot of frustration.
“We have a beautiful web site. We spent a lot of money on it. But we aren’t getting many customers who say they find us on the web.”
If you have a beautiful web site that you’re very proud of, you should make sure it’s being seen by people other than your current customers, family and friends.
Years ago, before there were millions of sites on very similar topic competing for the attention of people on the web, Search Engine Optimization was much less necessary, and much less complicated.
Given the millions of sites on the Internet, that isn’t going to happen just because you’ve bought a nice domain name and put some money into a good-looking web site. That’s like installing a great phone system and expecting customers to randomly dial numbers until they reach you and start buying your products and services.
SEO is not quite as simple as buying an ad in the telephone directory, but it’s the same principle.
Of course you CAN do “simply buy an ad,” using paid listings. (also called Pay Per Click, PPC, Google Ad Words, Sponsored Site Listings, and other services.) We recommend paid listings for very specific, short-term objectives. If you have an event coming up and you need to get the word out quickly, you can have a paid listing campaign start this afternoon that will get you good results. But it will also cost somewhere from seventy-five cents to over twelve dollars a click, depending on the keywords you choose.
For your long-term, sustainable advertising, we recommend making your site as attractive to the search engines as possible so they list it without charge. This involves a variety of techniques, some are common-sense and some are quite technical.
Here are a few of the many common-sense techniques
- Think like a prospective customer. What words is your customer likely to type into Google or Bing when he needs the particular product or service that your company offers? Those words are a often a great starting point. Make sure you use those key words and phrases on your web site, particularly in page titles and image tags.
- Publish material that shows your expertise. If you have published a lot of material related to your topic on your website, and your competitor has only a page or two, the search engines are likely to “conclude” that your site is a better, more authoritative source of information on that topic. All other things being equal, search engines will list your site first.
- Publish a variety of media. Some people search the web for articles on a particular topic they’re interested in, others will search for photos, video, or audio such as podcasts. Everybody has a preference. A variety of materials on your web site, (besides the point above about having more material) gives search engines more opportunities to show your materials to prospective visitors.
- Publish frequently. Search engines want to provide visitors with the best, most recent information available on the topic being searched for. So even if you published an article on a similar topic six months ago, your competitor that posted an article yesterday is more likely to be favored by search engines at the moment. (Again, all things being equal.)
There are many other factors that go into the search algorithms. Among them are preferred length of titles, preferred structure of metadata, preferred keyword density, post length, link density and structure, and so on. There are entire conferences of nerds that take place over several days that focus on the nuances of search technology, ethics, culture, future developments and so on. We use two separate software packages, (HubSpot and SEOMoz) two different professional organizations (American Writers and Artists International AWAI and Glazer-Kennedy Insider Circle GKIC) with their books and webinars to keep up with this technology. We work on our client’s sites month-in and month-out to ensure that they continue to get good results. Why the constant effort?
- Because it’s a cost-effective way to help new customers find you when they need you. Having customers find you on Google, Yahoo or Bing brings a steady stream of new customers exactly when they’re looking for your product or service, as opposed to an advertisement or trade show which might catch them at the wrong time in their buying cycle.
- Because their competitors could hire an SEO company as well. Smart competitors are always changing the way they do things. We want to be the second to know if one of our client’s competitors have employed an SEO strategy. That allows us to respond and stay ahead of the game.
- Because the search engines keep changing the game. Search engines are run by people who spend all day, every day plotting ways to get around the crazy tricks people play to get to the top of the search engines. People use duplicate content, stolen content, “article spinning” or software that creates multiple copies of the same article to make it look like original content; or “link farms,” which are automated reciprocal link exchanges (you leave a link on my site and I’ll leave a link on your site even though they have nothing in the world to do with each other.) The key thing to know about these automated, “easy” tactics, some of which are sometimes called “black hat SEO,” or playing tricks on the search engines, is that if a machine has done it, a machine can detect it.
As the search engines compete with one another to serve the best, most current, most authoritative content to their visitors, you know they are investing more in technology than a company for whom SEO is a sideline. Tricks and fakery can work for a short time, but the search engines have invested a lot more time and money in their reputation than most of the clients we counsel who have been tempted to try such tactics. Sites can be dropped from the search engines just as quickly for violating the “ethics” of the search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo,etc.)
Are you frustrated with how many customers are NOT finding you on the web?
Our Marketing Flight Plan includes a Search Engine Analysis, as well as a competitive analysis, that you will find enlightening.
For many, it’s also the first step toward a dramatic increase sales results. We have three service levels for working with clients – the Light Aircraft Program, for those who are fully-staffed and just need some pointers and coaching for optimal results. The Turbo-Prop Program is a collaborative relationship where we provide great marketing materials and automation to round out an excellent sales and marketing system, and our Business Jet Program, which is our white-glove, full-service marketing program for companies that want to spend more of their time serving customers and contract with us to focus on bringing them new ones in the door and old ones back. Read more about our service levels here.
 Somebody needs to tell him that this just isn't going to work. I was shredding old papers from last year, and had a revelation.
We have an extensive questionnaire that prospective clients complete as part of our Marketing Flight Plan Service, in which we offer a consultation, an SEO analysis, a 31-point website usability checklist, and a competitive analysis. For the past eight months, we’ve required this before we accept anyone as a new client.
Why do we make it harder for people to work with us?
Because we want to be sure we’re working with the right people!
Of course there are other very good reasons. It gives s an excellent starting point to talk about a consulting or coaching relationship, get off on the right foot, understand our prospective client’s priorities and objectives, what’s already been tried and to what effect, what resources we have to work with, and so on.
We used to offer this service for free. We have since began to charge a nominal fee ($270) for it.
Why do we charge for this service?
Because we found that we were spending a lot of time working with prospective clients that didn’t have a chance for success.
The investment was a signal, to them and to us, that we expect them to put some thought and effort into it. And to let them know that they could expect valuable information in exchange for their energy and money.
Some examples of things that we saw on these questionnaires, were from before we charged for the service.
- Last year’s expenditure for all marketing activities – $0 or “?”
- Budget for next year for all marketing activities – $0 or “?”
- Expectation (From a flight school) -To double business volume in one year, while spending less time dealing with students and their problems.
- Expectation – “To outsource all marketing and customer service so my business will run without all these interruptions from customers.” (Most people research marketing solutions because they want more customers. )
- Question – “What is the one thing that should I study or implement to bring in customers?” (Answer- many things.)
- Question – “What one book will tell me everything I need to know to be able to sell every time?” (If you find this, let me know!)
- Competitive advantage – “My product sells itself.” (Okay, so why did you just complete a 10-page questionnaire to ask for help selling it?)
So, how do you fail in marketing? By working with people who are unwilling to invest time, energy or money in their own businesses and their own customers. The world has always been full of them, and as long as they are out there, my spam folder will be full of offers promising people “the easy button” or “a turnkey solution” or “the magic bullet.”
If you try one of those, let me know how it works out for you!
 Janus is the Roman god of choices, doorways, beginnings, and endings. And it's a good way of illustrating the phenomenon of multiple faces or personalities. Many of the companies we consult with have split personalities. Here are some of the ways multiple personalities can manifest within organizations.
- The salespeople are enthusiastic, helpful and responsive. Their customer service representatives are, shall we say, less so.
- Substantial inconsistencies are seen between a company’s Facebook page and the same company’s printed materials.
- One advertisement emphasizes that a product is an excellent value, the next offers the same product at 50% off.
- The owner’s manual uses one name for a particular feature, while the sales materials call the same feature something else.
Inconsistencies are a problem in marketing in any industry, but they are particularly troublesome in aviation marketing.
Aviation professionals are used to being very detail oriented. They tend to be very analytical and verify everything against checklists.
At best, confused customers take more time from your sales staff as they answer questions and sort things out for them. At worst, confused customers doubt your sincerity or credibility.
How do you prevent inconsistencies from getting in the way of sales?
Appoint a consistency czar.
Every company has a person that drives everyone crazy by asking questions and pointing out details. Take this person to (a very nice) lunch. Give him a raise if you can. Formalize the position. Put his new (or additional) title on his office door. Buy him a box of red pens. And above all, listen to him. Mentally count to ten before you respond next time he points out an annoying detail.
Ensure he has a chance to look at every brochure, web page, or product sheet before it’s published. Make sure this one person sees everything, even if (or especially if) sales materials, customer service materials, web pages and social media presences are run by separate people or departments. Run everything buy him, and fix (or at least consider) everything he puts a red mark on.
The benefits:
- Your organization will look much more professional.
- Your sales process will function more smoothly.
- Your sales cycle will get shorter.
- Customers will ask fewer questions.
- Customer satisfaction will be higher, because they had clearer expectations.
- You will prevent problems, arguments, or possibly even legal issues.
In case you’re wondering, ABCI has a consistency czar. And yes, he drives me crazy. But we certainly couldn’t be successful without him.
 We had our first live coaching session today, and in spite of a thousand things that could have gone wrong, I’m always amazed at how things have a way of working out for the best.
We had a three hour power outage the morning of the session and I thought we’d be on a noisy generator. Mark Leeper, our sales consultant, had a cable modem go bad on him this morning. But the power came back on, the Internet spirits cooperated, and we had a great session.
In fact, one of our members (Taylor Greenwood) dropped out of the session for a bit. He told me later that he had to leave the session to take a call from a prospective client that is now an “actual” client that he’d been pursuing for awhile. (I’m sure he used some of the techniques he learned from the session!)
If you missed it, here are a few notes -
Mark shared his (very different) perspective of marketing – emphasizing great sales presentations – in person and on the phone.
Here’s his formula for sales success:
- Attitude
- Accountability
- Action
Most people gloss over attitude as “soft” skills and want to get right to technique, but attitude is usually the difference between success and failure for salespeople – probably more than any other profession, except maybe professional athletes. Prospective clients can tell if you don’t have their best interest at heart. It’s not about manipulation, it’s about finding the best solution for the client, which sometimes is financially rewarding, and sometimes not. But always rewarding.
Accountability becomes a problem for people in small companies or entrepreneurs who do their own sales tasks. Mark suggests that you find someone to be accountable to, just as having a lifting partner at the gym will make it more likely that you show up and give your best effort; rather than simply dropping in casually when you feel like it.Mark makes regular appointments with his sales manager and accounts for every lead, every day. He emphasized that being responsive in the sales process sets the tone of the whole business. If you can’t get back to someone on a regular basis in the sales process, they assume you won’t be responsive with customer service, either.
Action is about moving past all the psychology and technique and getting it done. “You can’t steer a parked car.” And you can’t perfect your sales technique while you’re safe in a classroom or in your office or in your home reading textbooks about sales. You have to get toe-to-toe, or at least ear-to-ear, with customers to make sales.
Mark also provided specific techniques for getting in touch with the decision-maker, working with gatekeepers (rather than having them work against you) and effectively using voice mail. He even suggested ways to get the client to make 70% of the sales presentation himself. And how to avoid leaving loose ends after a sales call or meeting.
He answered questions about using scripts, how often to call back, and setting yourself up to try again later when a prospect declines.
If you missed it, we’ll be sending the video and audio files to our Aviation Sales & Marketing Coaching Members.
Now that we’re comfortable with our new technology and format, I’m really looking forward to February’s session – February 8th at 1:30 MST we have another great guest instructor who will answer your questions about applications, mobile apps, inventory systems, e commerce and other technology and how they can add a lot of horsepower to a marketing plan.
Not a member?
Join now!
 If you’ve ever had a look at your website and seen a “cute” (or not so cute) message that you didn’t put there, you understand the sinking feeling of having your carefully crafted marketing image suddenly turned into something that you don’t want anybody to see.
This is as close to a “marketing emergency” as it gets.
Frantically calling your “economy” web hosting services might get you some sympathy.
“Your site was hacked? Let me check. Oh yeah. Ha ha! Definitely hacked! Bummer, dude! Once you get that fixed you should change your passwords on everything.”
But most hosting services offer no real help, beyond a suggestion that you be more careful with your security practices in the future.
So, you’re left to piece together what happened, what’s still there, what’s been destroyed, what can be TRUSTED, and what to do next. Meanwhile, your marketing efforts are, literally, sabotaged until you can get your website back into its usual presentable, engaging and powerful self.
One of our clients’ sites was hacked over the holidays. We’ll probably never find out who did it or why, but our IT folks started working on the problem immediately, and got the site restored with no data loss, together with enhaced security measures to deal with this type of threat.
Another website of a client has a form which receives contact information in exchange for a white paper. The form was apparently being filled out by a robot that was populating the form with random characters, so our client’s inbox was flooded with poor quality leads. Within hours, we added a “captcha” code widget that prevents spam while allowing human beings to easily complete and submit the form.
These types of problems are NOT what we like to think about when we’re putting marketing programs together, but if you rely on the least expensive web host and technical staff you can find, you’re on your own when problems occur.
ABCI has very experienced technical people on staff, we ensure they stay up to speed on the latest security practices, and we use a variety of software that we constantly keep updated.
This month, we added “Updraft,” a WordPress plugin to all of our clients’ sites. This plugin makes daily, offsite backups to our cloud-based backup space hosted by Amazon. This is in addition to the regular backups made to the hosting server. We can’t be too careful.
We also make it a practice to have a human being check each site and make updates as needed on a regular basis.
Of course, you can always build a site for less – there are services where you can “build your own site” and host it for $9.99 per month or less.
No site is immune from hackers and spammers. While working for an unnamed bank, I discovered that the bank actually employed a few “reformed” hackers on probation for computer crime convictions. Google and Facebook have extensive staff that do nothing BUT prevent, investigate and respond to hacking and spamming attempts. Your best bet as a business owner is to find the right balance between security and cost.
Some things to ask your webmaster or site host:
- Who is responsible for updating security software?
- What precautions are taken against hacking?
- Are backups made automatically? How often?
- Will you restore the site after a hacking incident?
- Will you enhance the security to prevent this type of attack in the future?
- What action do you take if I’m getting a lot of spam on forms?
When you get that sinking feeling, do you want to have a trusted partner you can rely on, or spend hours trying to get in touch with a teenager in the Philippines, or Romania?
Premium web hosting, including security measures, hacking and spamming response is included with all of ABCI’s marketing packages. (Light Aircraft, Turbo Prop, and Business Jet level.) It’s our philosophy that your marketing system is only as good as the security of your website.
 In most businesses, sadly, sales is an act, not a process.
-Dan Kennedy
In aviation in particular, we’ve found that companies fail in sales for one of two reasons
- They consider sales as an afterthought, thinking that the “product will sell itself,” or
- They consider each sale as an improvisational act, impulsively cold-calling leads, offering ad-hoc discounts, or otherwise “trying things” in an attempt to make a sale.
Sometimes it can be a pendulum between the two – companies start out with ultra-low-key (or nonexistent) sales efforts, then when the cash flow situation (or the salesperson’s personal finances) start to get desperate, the desperation becomes apparent to the client.
Whether they turn people off with high-pressure sales tactics or not, desperate salespeople are ironically repellent. This applies to anybody who comes into contact with the customer – whether this person is designated by a “sales” title, wears plaid golf pants, or is the CEO of a company. Lack of confidence on the part of the person interacting with potential buyers makes people suspicious. They think a nervous salesperson must have a reason, and jump to the conclusion that the reason for the salesperson’s unease translates into danger for them – something illegal, immoral or fishy is going on. So, the prospective customer finds reasons not to buy, and the salesperson gets even more desperate.
How can you avoid these extremes?
- Integrate sales as part of the marketing process. If you’ve done the marketing correctly and taken enough time, sales becomes easier. Your marketing materials have brought you leads that are educated about your product, have decided that your product is a good possibility to meet their needs, and have come to you when they have a need. Having a “full pipeline” of prospective customers is one of the most important objectives of an effective marketing system.
- Be proactive about sales. The majority of aviation companies vastly underestimate the importance and difficulty of marketing and sales, and do nothing about setting or meeting realistic sales objectives until the lack of sales becomes a crisis. Even when you have a “full pipeline” of prospective customers, it usually takes human interaction from an intelligent, skilled salesperson to get over that final hurdle to a completed transaction.
- Get some help. In many aviation companies, people wear several hats. Its fine not to have dedicated sales staff, as long as the people who are responsible for making sales have the knowledge and skills to make it happen – whether they’re also the CEO, the chief pilot, the service provider, doctor or legal expert. Engaging a coach so that you can confidently make an effective sales presentation may be the biggest factor in improving your sales figures for the year.
Aviation products and services are typically high-trust, complex transactions. They aren’t purchased on impulse or whims. It usually takes well-positioned, well-designed and well-written marketing messages plus repeated interactions with an articulate, knowledgeable and confident human being to “close a sale,” or consummate a transaction.
Sales Presentation Checkride
We’re thrilled to have Mark Leeper on board as our VP of sales. He’s agreed to provide right-seat perspective on your sales presentation. For an introductory price of $299, Mark will sit in on one of your sales presentations on the phone (a real one, or Mark will pose as your “prospective customer,” and provide a thorough review with some very helpful pointers.
Don’t wait until your salespeople start getting desperate. Give us a call at 702-987-1679 to schedule your Sales Presentation Checkride today!
Our Long Cycle Marketing system is based on rational, respectful interaction between the company and the prospective client over a reasonable period of time. Now, our coaching programs includes rational, respectful, confident interaction with a salesperson as well.
ABCI is thrilled to welcome Mark Leeper as Vice President of Sales.
Mark specializes in relationship marketing, customer and lead follow-up systems as well as business incentives and rewards.
ABCI has always concentrated on the parts of marketing that we’re good at, leaving the actual sales presentation up to our clients. Some of our clients were getting lots of leads but could be closing sales with more of them. Mark is a great coach. He can diagnose problems with the sales presentation and help our clients fix those problems, making ABCI’s marketing that much more effective.
We’re excited because Mark has such a talent for that crucial part of the process. The best marketing in the world doesn’t amount to much if the sales presentation falls flat when you get in a room or on the phone with a potential customer.
Now we can offer consultation and coaching on that critical step.
Mark’s experience -
Mark Leeper has an entrepreneurial bent, and is the owner of startup Seabright Company, a sales consulting and management concern. Prior to Seabright, Mark was CEO of Advanced Laser Technology, a practice management company, specializing in the development of medical laser clinics. Under his supervision and implementation of a comprehensive business plan, Advanced Laser Technologies expanded to 8 clinics throughout WA, CA, NV and AZ.
Mark attended Pacific Lutheran University and studied business administration.
With over 25 years of sales and management experience, Mark graduated from the Zig Ziglar Performance Training Institute and is a Certified Trainer and Facilitator.
Mark resides in Gig Harbor, WA with his wife Carolyn, and 14 year old son Jeff. Mark has grown up with the aviation bug. His father-in-law is a WWII P51 Ace; and his father, Don Leeper, is a Retired Air Force Lt. Colonel fighter pilot.
Mark is a licensed pilot since 1980 with IFR and Commercial ratings.
Meet Mark at our January Sales & Marketing Coaching Webinar on January 11th. The topic, of course, is Sales Presentations. The webinar is free to Coaching Program and Master Class Members, watch for your invitation in email.
Not a Master Class or Coaching Program Member? We have a limited number of free tickets to the webinar, email paula@avaitionbusinessconsultants.com if you’d like one.
 “I want to improve my company’s sales in 2012″
Fine.
How much improvement do you expect, and how are you going to make it happen?
New Year’s Resolutions are popular, but also popularly discarded before January is over. It’s usually not for lack of willpower – it’s because there are a number of problems with them -
- A year usually is too long to break down into daily actionable tasks.
- Conversely, a year is usually too short to use for long-range planning.
- Resolutions are usually not very specific, measurable, attainable, or relevant.
ABCI highly recommends three and five year business objectives to manage your company’s growth, but when it comes down to personal and professional resolutions, we prefer setting monthly sales and marketing goals.
We outline the process in our Sales and Marketing Calendar lesson, but here’s a synopsis:
A Word about Goals and Objectives
When it comes to setting goals and objectives, there is a word (an acronym, really) that can be quite helpful. The word is “SMART.”
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
Choose a “SMART” objective for sales, and a supporting objective for marketing. Then, you can build your pipeline of potential customers and clients over time and ensure an excellent (and growing) cash flow for the company.
Decide on a Sales Objective for Each Month.
If you have more than one product, you may want to rotate the focus so that your marketing efforts are balanced. If you have a de-icing product, you may want to focus on that in the fall and winter. Air conditioning maintenance repair would do better in spring or summer.
Decide on a Marketing Objective for the month.
Determine where your marketing system is weak or could use more attention. What is your most pressing issue? Which phase or activity is the weakest? If you have a great sales process but not enough leads, focus on a prospecting activity first. If you have lots of leads but aren’t making enough sales, focus on your sales presentations. If you have lots of enthusiastic veteran customers but few new ones, spend a month working on a referral process.
It’s a good idea to create objectives to each phase to keep your system balanced, but address your most pressing needs first. Create an objective that is attainable with 30 days of effort. Some ideas include the following:
Phase One – Prospecting (Pre-Sales)
- Attract 20 new leads per month by creating an ebook or white paper that website visitors can download.
- Engage with your top 10 most-desired prospective clients with a targeted Facebook campaign.
- Work with a videographer to create video materials like product demos or video tours.
Phase Two – Credibility and Closing (Sales)
- Request recommendations for your product on LinkedIn.
- Get some sales coaching.
- Create articles about the most common concerns or objections to purchasing your product and publicize them on your blog.
Phase Three – Referrals, Resells and Recaptures (Post-Sales)
- Encourage current clients to mingle with prospective clients at a Trade Show event.
- Devote one month to creating a great referral program.
You may have noticed links throughout this article – each of them refers to a specific lesson that we delivered in our 2011 Aviation Marketing Master Class.
This is the first day that these courses are available “a la carte,” without an ongoing subscription. We’re doing this for two rather self-serving reasons:
- Some companies need an instant boost to help their cash flow before they can afford our other services. The right information at the right time can do just that.
- Some people want to see a sample of the quality of our courses before subscribing.
Downloading one of those courses accomplishes both of those things for us, but what is more important is what they do for you. If you want usable, actionable techniques with examples that have really worked for aviation companies, you can now get precisely that information when you want it. Each lesson includes an instantly downloadable video, together with a workbook and action list. Many also contain sample documents and audio files.
So, if you need some specific information to get started with those (ahem) New Year’s Resolutions (read Smart Goals and Objectives!) download just what you need to get started today.
Your satisfaction is absolutely guaranteed.
As you’re closing out the books on 2011, here’s a question:
How were your sales numbers for this year?
If you’re like most companies, they’re down quite a bit from three years ago.
There are anecdotes of companies that are doing well – but it’s certainly not as easy as it used to be.
In our practice, we’ve found that companies that succeed have the following in common:
- Offering a product or service that is truly valuable to their customers.
- They provide excellent customer service.
- They have their costs under control.
- They have a committed sales and marketing culture.
- They are systematic about their approach. (This actually applies to all of the items above.)
We can help with that sales and marketing culture and your systematic approach. Our Sales and Marketing Coaching Program is designed to give your company powerful information about what really works with other aviation-related companies, not textbook theory, guesswork, or what we like to call “random acts of marketing.”
If you’d like to see a significant difference in your 2012 sales numbers, get your sales and marketing staff to set aside an hour a week to work on your sales and marketing system. Implementing even one of the many items from each month’s Action List will more than pay the tuition for that month’s lesson.
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Read The Book on Aviation Marketing!
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ABCI’s exclusive Long Cycle Marketing process is available in three service levels, designed to meet the needs and budgets of different clients. Our Light Aircraft Marketing Program is a budget-friendly, low-cost option in which our client’s team does much of the content development with our training and coaching. The TurboProp Marketing Program is for larger, more sophisticated clients who prefer to outsource some components of their marketing system to us and collaborate on others. The Business Jet Marketing Program is a full-service, white glove service level in which ABCI assumes the responsibility for the achievement of our clients’ marketing objectives.
