How to Sell Jet Charter into Corporate Travel

Ask any CFO of a business what a 200K Executive should contribute to the Company… it's going be more that 200K.

That's called a 'Productivity factor'... and everyone from the bottom of the org chart to the top has one. And the more you make, the higher your Productivity factor is. Because if they are only covering their ‘Salary’… they won’t be around for long.

Last year 84% of U.S. business trips were regional and 80% of those were by car 200 - 400 miles driven one-way. I don't have to tell you that spending 7-14 hours 'On the Road' just for 1 business meeting is a poor use of an executive's time.
Especially if they are salaried in the 6-figures....

And everyone hates the idea of today’s airline travel with all the delays, cancellations, connections and overall hassles. It's on everyone's web site and charter sales reps continually talk about it.

So we can agree that everyone has heard the traditional 'Marketing Pitch' of Jet Charter and Air Taxi being more Flexible, more Convenient, more Controllable and more Productive.

But just talking about it does not help the CFO’s of the corporate world ‘justify’ it. Because when they look at the traditional Jet Charter trip proposal, they look at the ‘Line item’ at the bottom line of a Jet Charter trip proposal; the Cost of Jet Charter.

And your traditional Jet Charter proposal ‘Line item’ portrayed as is will always amount to more ‘Dollar Cost’ than the alternative corporate travel via Car and Airline. So Jet Charter trip proposal closing ratios are low and the traditional alternative corporate travel choices via Car and Airline are high.

But what if you had a QUANTITATIVE tool to promote your Jet Charter service around a total ROI business equation; Flexibility, Convenience, Productivity and TIME = True COST. A tool that you could proliferate out to selected Jet Charter clients and potential Jet Charter prospects.

An instrument that would show the CFO’s of the world the difference between perceived ‘Dollar cost’ and ‘Realized Savings’ when an executive’s ‘Productivity factor’ is included in the business equation.

Here’s an example using the model of regional car travel versus Jet Charter travel. Let’s plug in a few numbers into a Regional Car Travel versus Jet Charter Simulator.

Number of Travelers: 2
Average Salary: $150,000
Unnecessary Overnight expenses: $1,200 (2 Overnight’s)
Business destinations: 2
Mileage per travel leg: 200 / 200 / 200 (Round-Robin)

When we hit Calculate in this scenario it’s apparent that the traditional ‘price tag cost’ of a King Air 100 Jet Charter travel is much higher than car travel ($2419 versus $384 cost per traveler). But when we continue down the results rows into the Time and Productivity factors the opposite happens.

Because when three executives averaging $150,000 in salaries can recover over 18 cumulative hours of time, the ‘Time Machine’ Savings with Employee Productivity value is $18,753.

And that’s not even counting the hours being spent away from home due to Regional car travel time allotments and logistics. That $18,753 of ‘Time Machine’ Savings is a direct factor between hours recovered and a pre-determined employee Productivity factor set by the Jet Charter prospect business themselves.

Because if you ask any CFO of a business what a 150K Executive should contribute to the Company… it's going be more that 150K.

And the more aircraft you add to the Jet Charter Simulator, the more choices the CFO’s (and whoever they internally delegate the tool to) will have. The beauty of this is the only aircraft they are comparing it to (Regional Car Travel vs. Jet Charter Travel or Airline vs. Jet Charter Travel) are your aircraft… not your competitors.

Instead of the traditional way of selling 'Jet Charter' as a luxury 'Price tag'… think about the paradigm shift of supplying businesses at the C-level with a QUANTITATIVE tool to promote your Jet Charter service around a Cost/Productivity ROI equation.
So before traditional choices are made to have executives travel by Car or by Airline, they can make the decision to 'Jump on board' your fleet when the business equation and ROI factors tilt in your favor.

Bottom line, you can show executives with fiscal responsibility how to 'Think about TIME Differently'. And Justify it.

Jeff Hardesty is President of JDH Group, Inc. and a national sales result coach. He helps Jet Charter Companies sell more Jet Charter in Less time. www.sellmorejetcharter.com

To receive a complimentary DEMO of the Jet Charter Simulator with your own Jet Charter aircraft specifications contact Jeff @ 740-881-1691 or email jeff@convertmoresales.com with Jet Charter DEMO in the subject line.