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 30, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Team Chemistry-A Key Component of Contagious Company Culture, Part 2 of 3

June 30, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

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

In Part 1 of this series, we said a spirited and contagious company culture is essential in delivering a great customer service experience because it sets the tone and feeds the passion of the operation.

A key component of this type of culture is team chemistry. Good, athletic teams with winning cultures will often point to their internal chemistry as a factor for their success.

But where does good team chemistry come from? How does it take hold and why does it flourish in some companies and not in others?

Certainly, having the right combination of team members plays a big part. But perhaps more importantly is having the right management team in place that's been trained or knows intuitively how and when to nudge the ship in the right direction. It’s important to lead by example, set the tone, act and react consistently, and recognize and reinforce good behavior.

FBO management that has a team-oriented mindset will effectively infuse a healthy culture into the organization where it becomes infectious and adopted by the stakeholder employees.

Many companies try to impose repair for their internal culture problems by attempting to manipulate the behavior of their employees. Quick-fix gimmicks like providing monetary rewards or merchandise incentives may alter a behavior pattern in the short term, but the effects are often short lived and it doesn't take long for the same old habits to find their way back into the culture.

The remedy? Change the cultural mindset; cure the problem.

Changing the cultural mindset is a conscious decision and, yes, it can be done. In other words, the manager or management team first has to be able to recognize when there is an internal cultural problem. As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, an independently administered SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis will help determine what's working and what's not.

Then the management team has to be willing to adopt a cathartic or energizing process that involves all the employee stakeholders. When employees feel their opinions count, an adjustment in mindset takes place. They become more open to change.

Remember, it's not the chemistry of each individual team member that counts. What matters most is the team chemistry that thrives collectively and is managed wisely.

In our next blog post, we'll provide an example of an aviation company where team chemistry flows freely and is highly contagious.

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:

April 21, 2015

FBO Tip of the Week: Keep Your FBO Operations Simple

April 21, 2015/ AC-U-KWIK

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

No doubt many of you’ve heard of the purported business idea of KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid). Although it’s not a phrase we like to throw around, here’s what we can glean from it for the FBO industry: Keep your FBO operations simple.

When one waxes philosophically about the FBO business, it’s sometimes easy to get caught up in some of the popular management disciplines such as business process reengineering (BPR), matrix management and consensus management, among others. Again, let’s keep it simple and boil it down to the four key things an FBO manager should really be doing:

Plan.
Organize.
Control.
Measure.

At our NATA FBO Success Seminar, we discuss these elements in detail. However, for this blog post, here’s our take on the four simple ways to manage your FBO without getting caught up in complex ideas and procedures.

1. Simple Plan

Beyond the customary detailed business plan, FBOs can keep their planning process simple by establishing short-term and long-term goals and objectives.

The short-term goals should be built around achieving expected/specified fuel or maintenance sales and determining margins and productivity rates. This would include a simple strategy and identifying the tactics required.

The long-term goals should consist of action items to be achieved over a longer period involving line items such as improving facilities, lowering insurance and credit card rates, negotiating a better fuel contract, and obtaining a longer term lease. Think in terms of writing each goal starting with an action word, such as build, promote, create, establish, lower and obtain.

2. Simple Organization

Create a simplified organization of qualified managers and supervisors. Set clear operating procedures, guidelines and, above all, communicate both your short-term and long-term goals and objectives.

Even better, get your managers and supervisors involved in the planning process. This promotes employee buy-in and raises morale.

3. Simple Control

Use data to run your business. Get and use daily reports to know what your business is doing. You can print reports or develop electronic dashboard reports from your accounting system. Industry software, like TotalFBO, has these built into their programs.

4. Simple Measure

Measuring results is critical to your planning process. Therefore, it goes full circle. Also, managers and supervisors should be informed of measurable results on a frequent basis. It becomes both an incentive and a driving factor for your business.

Perhaps the simplest way to measure results is to establish benchmarks for each of your business goals, particularly in the areas of revenue streams such as fuel and maintenance sales. You can also set a benchmark for achieving better customer service through the use of customer satisfaction surveys. (This will be discussed in a future blog.)

Remember, in measuring revenue for fuel sales, keep your margins in mind. If you sell a lot of fuel (volume) but your margins were lower than your plan, you need to adjust your findings accordingly.

The same goes for maintenance sales. Be sure to measure your productivity rate as well as your revenue (dollar volume). You may be generating more sales, but your productivity rate might be putting you in the red.

One More Tip

FBO operators who become slaves to complexity are at risk of running a reactive business and thus reactive with their time. Therefore, here’s another simple tip.

Try working “unplugged” for one hour every morning during the time set aside to plan, organize, control and measure. This means no internet/surfing connection and absolutely no phone calls, texts, etc. This will give you a sense of accomplishment that simplifies the daily routine.

About the bloggers:

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