Many aviation companies overlook customer education.

The bad news is, this is a big mistake.

The good news is, your competitors are probably making this mistake!

Here are three reasons customer education can lead to better sales and higher profits for aviation companies!

 

Transcript

Paula Williams:

Hey, welcome to this week’s episode. I’m Paula Williams.

John Williams:

John Williams.

Paula Williams:

We are ABCI, and ABCI’s mission is…

John Williams:

To help all you folks out there in the aviation world to sell more of your products and service.

Paula Williams:

Absolutely. Today, actually the next three episodes, we’re going to be talking about something that you may not think is directly connected to sales or marketing. But as time goes on, and as things evolve in the world these days, we are finding them becoming more and more important to sales and marketing, right?

John Williams:

Yes.

Paula Williams:

Right. What that is, is customer education. So, today we’re talking about three ways that customer education drives sales. We have another episode planned where we’re going to talk about three ways that you can use customer education. Then we’re going to get into the how to. Talking about the specifics of should you be doing tip of the week, should you be doing webinars, should you be doing on-demand courses, or whatever? Right? So, first we’re going to talk about what it is, and why you care. Right?

John Williams:

Exactly.

Paula Williams:

Okay. Yeah, a lot of the people that we do business with, and that we do sales and marketing for, probably never really thought about customer education as part of their sales or marketing campaigns, or part of their sales or marketing efforts. But…

John Williams:

Well, the first thing you want to do when you talk to somebody and trying to sell is to become their friend and partner and trying to help them understand what your product does. And this understanding is education.

Paula Williams:

Exactly. There are actually a lot of things that are different about aviation. One, we have a very long sales cycle. Number two we have complex products. Number three, they have very high value, often, transactions. So those three things add up to the fact that this is not an impulse buy. Right?

John Williams:

Not for most of the people out there buying.

Paula Williams:

Exactly. So the focus of today’s episode is going to be three ways that education drives sales, and how you can use those to better sell more stuff without being salesy. And without being aggressive and without being any of the things that you probably don’t want to be, that people don’t like about sales. Right?

John Williams:

Right.

Paula Williams:

So number one, people feel better about investing in things they know a lot about.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Number two, people don’t trust salespeople, but they do trust teachers. Number three, people love to talk about things that they know a lot about. That drives referrals and other things that really make a difference in aviation, because we keep saying the money in aviation is made after the sale. On the second sale or on the referrals or other things.

John Williams:

Well, I was thinking about trusting teachers. They trust teachers who they know know what they’re doing.

Paula Williams:

Exactly. That is true. I mean, that’s not a universal or anything, but nothing is a universal. There’s a lot of people that really like their salespeople too. So, of course there are exceptions to every rule.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

But you probably met more teachers that you trust than salespeople that you trust.

John Williams:

I don’t know. I’ve met an awful lot of salespeople.

Paula Williams:

That you trust?

John Williams:

Well, if I met a lot of teachers and a lot of salespeople, I think is probably about even for me.

Paula Williams:

Oh, you’re being a contrarian. I trust teachers more than I trust salespeople, at least in that role. But you know, about the subject area that they’re teaching about.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Okay. So first of all, we’re going to talk about a math equation, but we’re not going to get gross about it. We’re just going to talk in general numbers. Not even general numbers, are going to talk in general concepts about a couple of things. One is customer acquisition cost. Right?

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Then there’s a point where you get a payback on your customer acquisition cost. Sometimes it is immediately after the sale. Sometimes it’s a ways in. Especially if you sell a subscription product or have something that has a real expensive onboarding process or something like that. So, there’s the customer acquisition cost. We all know that it costs more to acquire a customer than it does to keep an old one. Right?

John Williams:

Yes.

Paula Williams:

Okay. So, then there is the lifetime value of that customer. That lifetime value of a customer ends at the point where you lose the customer, or we have what we call churn in the marketing business. Right? So the marketing nerdy terms that we’re talking about today are customer acquisition cost, customer acquisition payback, lifetime value, and churn. Okay? Right.

So, what we’re trying to do is to reduce our customer acquisition costs and increase that green area. If you’re looking at the screen, you’re going to see a red area. In this example, this company actually sells a subscription product. So, they go into the red to sell that subscription product. And the first month, they’re a little bit in the red. After that first month, they get their customer acquisition cost paid back. So now they’re even. Then from that point forward, anything that they get from that customer is profit. So, they’ve already done all the overhead. They’ve already done all those things. Then the longer that customer stays with them, the bigger that green triangle and the longer and higher it becomes. Right?

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

So, the longer it goes before you have a churn, the longer that green triangle is. Then the more that customer spends the higher that green triangle goes. Does that make sense?

John Williams:

So your lifetime value goes up.

Paula Williams:

Lifetime value goes up. Two ways to improve the lifetime value, either make the customer last longer or make that customer spend more money with you.

John Williams:

Yeah. And just for the record.

Paula Williams:

Okay.

John Williams:

Even though I may be sounding contrarian, it brings out the best in you.

Paula Williams:

It does. Right. I guess somebody has to do it. Right?

John Williams:

Exactly.

Paula Williams:

Okay. But you do understand all these terms and it makes total sense?

John Williams:

Not up to me, it’s up to them.

Paula Williams:

Oh, I Know. But you’re being the contrarian. So, if you’re going to do the job, do it well.

John Williams:

I’ll remember you said that. You all heard her. She said that.

Paula Williams:

I did. Right. Okay. So all of that makes sense. Customer acquisition, customer payback, lifetime value, churn.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Okay. Cool. All right. So with that in mind, our job is to make more green and less red.

John Williams:

Over simplification yet again.

Paula Williams:

Uh-huh (affirmative) Okay. So, first thing we talked about, people feel better about investing things that they know a lot about. So, some examples of this are Apple. Right? They spent a ton of money when I was a kid in school, every single computer I put my hands on in school was an Apple. In the library, in the classroom, in the university, in any special labs or anything else that I was doing any special projects, the discovery museum that I went to, all different things. They all had Apple computers.

The reason is because Apple donated the computers, and they also provided education for teachers on how to set them up, how to make them work, how to prevent problems with them. I guess that’s not true. Before I was in about third grade, we had some other computers, and they were always broken. I mean they were never usable. Something was wrong with every one of them, every single time. But once we got the Apple computers, they all worked all the time. It’s partly because they donated the computers, and partly because they provided education to the teachers and other people about how to fix problems.

John Williams:

And no, we’re not getting anything from Apple for all this either.

Paula Williams:

No, we’re not. Okay. So two things. One, Apple was providing these to the teachers, and to the librarians, and to the other people, and making it super easy for them to set up and use these computers. The other thing is that by getting them in the schools, they were ensuring that the next generation, when they grew up, their computer of choice was going to be an Apple.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

No matter how much more expensive they happen to be. All things aside and money not being an object, like that ever happens, but all of the things aside kids prefer Apples. I think that’s almost always universally true. And even now.

John Williams:

It’s true with you anyway.

Paula Williams:

Yeah. Is it true with you?

John Williams:

But for not that reason. Yeah.

Paula Williams:

Okay. Same thing though I would say with you and maybe Harley Davidson. You know a lot about Harley Davidson’s. You know a lot about Barracuda firewalls. You know a lot about some of the different things that you use, and rather than encounter another learning curve, if there is the option your bias is going to be to go towards something that you know works rather than gambling with something new. Right?

John Williams:

I’ll do research.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

When it comes to hardware and software for this place, I’ll take something new if they can show me it’s better.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) Okay. But you start your research probably with what you know so you have a basis for comparison, and that becomes the standard by which you shop.

John Williams:

Yep.

Paula Williams:

Okay. So, you can be in that position if you become the product that your customer knows the most about by providing more education opportunities and other things and making that part of the education process. Getting into the school system if you use something that texts are going to be using, you want to get into the universities where they’re learning their profession. If you have a product for pilots getting into those schools and things where they’re learning their profession, you want to be in that position, same as Apple. Right?

John Williams:

Oh yes.

Paula Williams:

Okay. So that’s number one. People feel better about investing in things they know a lot about. So Mr. Contrarian, any other arguments to that?

John Williams:

When the time comes, you’ll hear them.

Paula Williams:

Okay, cool. So, our second contention today is that people trust teachers more than they trust salespeople. So, this is a graphic from Forbes. So according to this, if you’re in the medical professions or anything like that, then you have a serious advantage that the rest of us probably can’t duplicate. But the highest thing on this list that we can leverage or emulate or anything like that is teachers. They are more trusted than police officers, more trusted than accountants, more trusted than clergy, more trusted than journalists, bankers, lawyers, business executives, any of those things. Most certainly above car salespeople and members of Congress who come in.

John Williams:

It’s been sourced through the Gallup Poll from 1025 25 adults.

Paula Williams:

Yep. I think that is pretty accurate in my… This feels right to me. I tend to trust more teachers, not all teachers of course, and not all salespeople I don’t trust. But in general, all of the things being equal, I think that’s about right.

John Williams:

Interesting.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative) What do you think?

John Williams:

I’ve had too many issues with too many college level instructors.

Paula Williams:

Okay.

John Williams:

Professors.

Paula Williams:

All right. You’ve never had issues with car salespeople or any other salespeople?

John Williams:

Oh, one or two.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

But not worth mentioning.

Paula Williams:

Okay. Well, we’d be interested to hear what you think, and of course you can put that in their comments if you agree with John, or if you agree with me. Because I’m right. So, that is the way that goes. All right.

John Williams:

You heard it here first.

Paula Williams:

Right. Okay. Another thing is that people love to be seen as experts. So, if you are ever at a gas station or a diner or anywhere else where bikers congregate, you are going to hear more expert opinions on carburetors versus fuel injectors, and more opinions on a fairing versus no fairing, and any number of different things. People know a lot about these kinds of things, because this is what they love, and this is what they spend their time on. They love to share what they know, because they number one, they like to help people. But also they like to be looked up to and be seen as an authority, and be seen as someone who knows something.

So, if you teach one of your customers about your product or service, and they start telling their colleagues, they will do that naturally just like these guys at the diner talking about their motorcycles. They will sit around and talk about a CMS system. They will sit around and talk about their insurance guy. They’ll sit around and talk about anything that they feel like an expert about because they like to help people, and because they like to be seen as an expert.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Would you agree with that?

John Williams:

I don’t know about being seen as an expert, but based on their knowledge and experience.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

They’ll argue with you.

Paula Williams:

Yeah. And they love to help people, and that’s just a human nature kind of a situation. All right. Harley Davidson, using them as an example, you would think that they were a motorcycle company. You would think that they made motorcycles. Right? I mean, that’s what you think that they do. That’s what you think of when you think of Harley Davidson.

John Williams:

That is what they do.

Paula Williams:

Okay. So, they also do at least four that I could find, and I probably could find more if I dug a little bit longer, four different academies or training programs that they have. The first one is of course their riding academy. They’ve got at least three different courses in their riding academy. They have a mechanic school with certification programs for people that work on Harley Davidsons. They sell those, they market those to Harley owners and Harley aficionados, and other people, not necessarily just people who are in the profession. Right?

John Williams:

Right.

Paula Williams:

They have a hands-on Harley program that is a curriculum for the school system. They put this in children’s museums and they put this in different places, and they have school groups come through and learn STEM, which is the science, technology, education, math, or science technology environment, and math. Anyway, the STEM is very popular these days. Also, it is what, at least in America, we think of as some of the most important classes, and the classes that our kids need the most help in because we haven’t been doing all that well compared to other countries. So there’s been a big effort over the last five or 10 years to improve those four areas. And Harley Davidson of course, has their answer which is Hands-On Harley, which has exhibits where they’re actually doing things with motorcycles of course. To talk about torque, to talk about fuel, to talk about combustion, to talk about all kinds of different science and technology and math topics using Harley Davidsons as a way to make that more interesting and more fun.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

You had a math problem for one of your kids. It wasn’t with a Harley, but it was with an exhaust manifold?

John Williams:

Yeah. Well.

Paula Williams:

The best way to teach kids is to have a topic that they want to know, and then to make an application that they want to use. Right?

John Williams:

I was asked if I wanted to convert the dual exhaust on a V8 to a single exhaust to get the same flow through how large would they single exhaust pipe have to be? So, I then worked my way through it and works. I said, first you have to figure the diameter and measure the diameter of the pipe, the two pipes. Then the cubic volume coming out of each one. Then you have to add those together, then you come up and you back out of that and get the diameter of the resulting pipe.

Paula Williams:

Right. The person you were talking to about this prior to this had never really exhibited any interest in algebra.

John Williams:

Well, they didn’t understand what good math is.

Paula Williams:

What earthly good does this do me right? Until it comes to fixing up this truck. Right?

John Williams:

That was just one… I mean, math is everywhere in the world, but most people don’t understand it.

Paula Williams:

Exactly.

John Williams:

Anyway, his remark was, “I need to go back to school.”

Paula Williams:

Right. Okay. So, the point being, they’re investing in their next generation of Harley riders by getting into the school system. By doing that. Then the fourth one is the Harley Davidson Motorcycle Museum, which has an entire set of education programs about the World Wars, and about the mail system, and about transportation, and about all different kinds of things. The evolution of the engine, all kinds of different things that the evolution of different kinds of technology having to do with motorcycles. All of those things are education programs that Harley Davidson is using to increase the number of people who are interested in Harley Davidson’s. The number of people who care. The number of people who want one, because they feel comfortable buying one. And they’re positioning themselves as teachers, not as salespeople.

John Williams:

Matter of fact, we visited a Harley dealer in Colorado on a trip.

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

They just had a cancellation on a ride on their electric bike.

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

John Williams:

He asked me if I wanted to go. I said, “Absolutely.”

Paula Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

John Williams:

So, they gave me the five minute…

Paula Williams:

Briefing. Yeah.

John Williams:

On a thing, we went out and rode. Let me tell ya, that thing’s a real machine.

Paula Williams:

Yeah.

John Williams:

It’s a go get her.

Paula Williams:

We’ll have to link to your electric Harley ride. Because I know you were a skeptic about the electric Harley.

John Williams:

Well, electric motorcycle in general. I mean, this one will do 175 miles on a charge, and it’s four hours to recharge.

Paula Williams:

Right.

John Williams:

But it’ll outperform anything on two wheels.

Paula Williams:

Right.

John Williams:

Non electric.

Paula Williams:

Right. To use a different example, there was a concealed carry class where the instructor went through all of the things that you need to know in order to get your concealed carry permit and everything else. It was only like a two hour class, but at the end of the class, everybody was asking this guy, what type of weapon should I buy? What type of clothes should I buy? What type of backpack should I put things in? You know? How do I arrange all of this? I swear, the guy should have been on commission for a dozen different companies because of all he knew. It was just a class, you know? But he was positioned as somebody that knows his stuff, and he’d spent two hours earning the trust of all these people, and going through some useful information for them. All of a sudden, he is in a different category because he’s an authority on this topic.

John Williams:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Paula Williams:

Right? This is also why we recommend that all of our clients submit… When aviation week or NBA has their event call for speakers, always, always, always, always, at least submit a request for proposal, or request for speakers, or request for papers, or whatever it is that they’re requesting. Be the guy that is the expert on that topic, because that positions you differently than someone who’s in sales.

John Williams:

Yep.

Paula Williams:

Okay. Of course, you have to follow through on that and be clean in your delivery of education so that it’s not too salesy, so that you get to continue getting invited to these things and being seen as an authority and you’re not ruining your credibility by being too salesy.

John Williams:

Exactly.

Paula Williams:

Okay. All right. So, we have taken a little bit of a pivot in our company toward workshops. Of course, we still do the custom consulting. We still have some of the do it yourself products and services. You know, where if you want a tip sheet or whatever, and you want to do it on your own. Or if you want to listen to this podcast and do things on your own, great. Anything that improves your business helps us, and helps the industry in general.

So that’s all wonderful, but in the middle, there is a space for what we call done with you or educational workshops and other things. That is what we’re focusing most of our energy on, or at least what we’re pivoting toward in 2021. Making that pivot toward education, because sales and marketing requires education in this industry.

All right. So once again, the reasons that we’re doing this and the reasons that you are probably doing this as well, or at least hopefully you’re considering it now. People feel better about investing things they know a lot about. People don’t trust salespeople, but they do trust teachers. People love to talk about things that they know a lot about.

So, the workshop that we have right now going on is Strategy, Planning and Budget Workshop. We’re trying to do a whole lot more teaching than selling in that. So we actually charge for the course, because we’re doing a whole lot more working with you on those three things, your strategy, your planning, and your budget. So, that will be offered at least through December and January. It’s $579. That is out there.

We also have our next class for Aviation Sales Basics. We’ll be starting on January 11th or thereabouts, depending on how schedules work out with the folks that are in it. We do have a special where we’re going to offer the strategy planning and budget workshop for $79. So that’s $500 off when you enroll in our aviation sales basics class.

So, this episode is being brought to you by our end of year deal, which is basically that bundle. Hopefully that will be a good fit for your organization. You may have two different people in your organization doing your strategy, planning, and budget versus the people who are actually doing the selling. That is perfectly okay. So as long as it’s within the same organization, the bundle will work for you. Right?

John Williams:

Absolutely.

Paula Williams:

Okay. In some places, it’s the same guy doing everything.

John Williams:

Different hat, right?

Paula Williams:

If that’s the case, then you can do both, and we’ll help save a lot of time in getting all that done.

John Williams:

Yes.

Paula Williams:

All right. So, go sell more stuff.

John Williams:

Yeah. The industry and America needs the business.

Paula Williams:

Absolutely. See you next week.

John Williams:

Ciao!

 

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