Member Highlight – Bryan Pilcher, AeroStar Training Services

One of the biggest benefits for our Aviation Marketing Master Class is the opportunity to network with aviation professionals. Our Facebook Group Facilitator, Bert Botta, is interviewing one member a week to help us get to know one another better, make better referrals to each other, and generally learn more about the smartest people in the industry.

Want to be featured?

1. Become a member of the Master Class!
2. Contact Bert Botta and get on his interview schedule!

We’re looking forward to learning more about smart aviation professionals!

1. How would I spot your ideal customer for you or your company?

I’m the marketing director for AeroStar so it would be anyone in the airline industry who has a connection with a training center. Any airline without their own training centers, who would send their pilots to us for training.

In addition, we work directly with pilots who desire to get their ATP, Jet Transition, 737 or A320 Type Rating. We work with 141 schools & the Aviation Universities as well.

Our potential customer could be at trade shows, or it could be the regional airlines, or some of the overseas airlines. Our “low hanging fruit” is really overseas airlines operating 737 or A320’s without their own training centers.

2. How would I best describe you, or your company’s unique benefits, approach, products, services, and value proposition?

We’re a FAA part 142 & EASA Certified Training Center with locations in Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Las Vegas. We provide training for Type Ratings in the B737, 737 NG, 737 Classic, and Airbus A320.

We provide the ATP and CTP (course training program – syllabus) courses. We offer unique value, and our benefits are the student gets an ATP much faster than at other schools, and on their own schedule, in some cases as fast as 8 days.

We offer a unique flexibility to accommodate the students schedule, state of the art training technologies, the cost is lower than our competitors, and our instructors are Airline Captains which typically have more experience than the competition. Our foreign students can get a W1 visa for their training. We also take VA benefits and a lot of schools don’t.

We utilize brand new 20 million dollar, Level D, Full Flight Simulators. We have iPad training apps that the students can take home with them to use, prior to training so they arrive prepared. We’re part of a new exclusive FMS training program, and we have a FMS simulator also.

3. What might prospects say that would trigger me to be able to refer them to you or your company?

“Man, I could definitely advance my career or I could get that interview that I haven’t been able to get if I had a type rating but I don’t know where I can get a type rating in a short amount of time, or for less cost.” Or, I came out of the military and I want to use my VA benefits to get an airline job.

Or, if one of our prospective clients is with an airline that needs to train pilots and they don’t have their own training center. Who offers a solution to outsource our training for the 737 or A320 that is FAA & EASA certified?

Or “Where could I find a fast track program for the type rating that has a FMS trainer available via iPad or PC so I can be knowledgeable on the aircrafts systems by the time I get there?”

4. What is your marketing process once your prospect receives a referral?

If a prospect that was referred calls or emails us I will typically answer any questions they have and share our features/benefits/value proposition. Then, I’ll enroll them or ask for the deal.

If they are not ready to buy, I get their contact info and begin a drip marketing/follow up campaign. It’s usually one email a month and a call after 2 or 3 months to follow up. Also, I am certain to find outwho referred us and proceed accordingly.

5. How did you get where you are in your professional life?

I loved aviation and I started working for flight time in high school. Then I went to Embry-Riddle, got a degree in aviation management and that opened some doors. Then I started flying and made some connections.

My experience in the business world, owning my own business, got me noticed and hired at AeroStar. I recently got 3 articles published in airline training industry magazines. “Some of my writing surprises me. I’ve never been a trained writer; I just figured it out on my own.”