CFIs: Commodity or Trusted Partner?
“I’ve learned more about people through my association with aviation than I ever did about airplanes.”
— Paul Poberezny, Founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)
When I meet with prospective clients to discuss the pathway to earn a private pilot certificate, I am immediately asked: How much will it cost? How long will it take? How many hours do I need?
This is precisely where many would lose control of the conversation. Attention is drawn to dollars, metrics, inputs, and requirements. The school and its instructors have become another commodity to be price shopped.
While these are important questions that do need to be answered, the average flight training representative is likely not yet skilled in the art of customer service or relationship-building and would be inclined to respond directly to the prospective client’s questions as though they are sharing a recipe for making the world’s most amazing chocolate cake.
In conversation with prospective clients, many flight training providers point back to their website or provide the information in a transactional manner. As pilots and instructors, we have memorized answers for these questions, but the response sounds routine, dull, and uninspiring. “It will take you about 60 to 70 hours, which is the national average, about $14,000 to $18,000, and will take a year if you commit to training one to two times per week,” etc. The conversation ends. All the ingredients are on the table. But a deeper dimension is missing.
When building your aviation website, you’ve likely looked around to see how your peers handle this line of questioning. On some flight training sites, you may find a vaguely familiar, often confusing, or misleading tangle of rules with some direct copy and paste regulations, hours, and requirements, leaving the prospective client to decipher the meaning.
Learning to fly is, of course, not an inexpensive endeavor. It takes a serious commitment of both time and money. What that time and money buys you, however, is ultimately priceless. And almost never spoken about.
The Silent Question
Prospective clients want to connect with someone from your organization on a human level — to explore their growing passion and see if your school is the best place for them to personally invest. They want to know that you will care about their well-being and make an equal investment in their success. That is why a prospective client is really calling or visiting. Not merely to talk about hours, requirements, and cost — presumably, they already did their research.
When we speak with prospective clients, it is imperative we look at aviation with fresh eyes. Flight schools and instructors are often perceived as gatekeepers. Instead, we should portray ourselves as welcoming ambassadors to general aviation. While it is easy to be caught in the wake turbulence of jargon, acronyms, and regulatory frameworks, we ought to remember what it is like to observe aviation from the outside: with pure excitement, wonder, and awe.
Instead of having the rote, well-worn conversation, we should get to know the client by asking a lot of good and genuine questions. Instead of listing facts and regulations, construct a narrative of adventure, one that leads the client to discover that becoming an aviator is a joyfully challenging path to self-enrichment, and ultimately why your school is where they should invest their best effort and hard-earned dollars. This is how we can ensure a seamless transition from a prospective client on the fence to a lifetime aviator.
Learning to fly is the pursuit of mastery of an art and science. A transformation and elevation of the self. It teaches patience, persistence, and self-reliance. The important balance between independence and teamwork. We endeavor to make good — and constantly better — decisions through continued learning, practice, and experience. We study the daring aviation and aerospace pioneers who risked their lives, and the polymathic science they discovered that makes it possible for our dreams to literally take flight.
Flying allows us to rise above the trivialities of daily life and immerse ourselves in a vibrant community that provides meaningful and lasting gifts to our development as human beings.
When we first became aviators, we began to see the world from an entirely new perspective. And now, we have the opportunity to encourage others to join us in this journey.
Become a Trusted Partner
Next time a prospective client calls or visits, be sure to pause before reflexively answering how much money and time it will take to earn a pilot certificate.
Flight training is about people. People seeking to transform themselves, gain new abilities, and explore the world in novel ways. We must learn who our clients are, what motivates them to pioneer the skies, and how we can help them achieve their goals.
Take the time and opportunity to have a genuine conversation. Ask questions. Build a trusted connection based upon the value you can provide as a partner in their journey. Explore with them the benefits one can derive from the knowledge, self-enlightenment, and freedom that flight unlocks within us. Share in the joy and excitement that aviation can bring into their lives.
What clients are really seeking is to develop a genuine and unique relationship with a trusted partner on their journey into the skies. If you integrate this into the culture of aviation education, your offering will stand out as unique and not just another commodity to be price-shopped. We all have airplanes, instructors, and a facility after all.
By developing genuine relationships with clients, your school’s reputation will grow organically as you attract, by leaps and bounds, loyal and excited aviators-in-training who value a high-quality experience of discovery, adventure, and self-transformation that will last a lifetime.
George Charles Allen, CFII, MSc, FRAeS, is an experienced aviator, consultant, and educator. He currently sits on the board of directors for the National Association of Flight Instructors and is Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.
This piece was originally published in the National Association of Flight Instructors November / December 2023 issue of Mentor Magazine.
