New Challenges Ahead For General Aviation

Is the GA market at last saturated? Are there really many more prospects to explore, or have we reached a stage where the ratio of light aircraft to customers has become unworkable?

Some distributors and dealers in this nation are taking positive steps to rationalise their sales forces, trimming off the fat and finding on occasions that their specialists could be significantly more specialised. . .

It is a sad fact that some dealers have still to progress beyond the stage of the man-in-the-street concept of a car salesman; they find that their salesmen haven’t kept pace with the sophistication of their wares.

Let’s get the record straight; we aren’t making a sweeping generalisation. Most GA sales representatives we know are true experts in their field, from way back. Their technical and general knowledge are excellent indeed, and AUSTRALIAN AVIATION continually calls on their opinion and assistance to help maintain our own knowledge of the industry and its many complex facets.

But there are still undertones of, ‘kick the tyres; try the wingwaggling bit for oilcanning noises; never mind the colour, feel the texture . . . ‘ in some dealerships.

And as each employer finds this weak link in his organisation, there’s regrettably another body to add to the scrap heap of people looking for another job.

One aspect that is weeding out the men from the boys in this increasingly scientific profession, is the emergence of sophisticated and undeniably big-aircraft corporate and charter machines – and the current swing away from your light singles to twin turboprop and twin-jet types, as far as market exploration is concerned.

Coupled with this trend comes the worry that the type of sales representative needed these days is a person who can confidently and expertly discuss and promote the merits of his wares in a Board Room, among men of peculiar and particular excellence.

This is where, alas, some GA sales force components fall down . . .

Not only does the person selling his aircraft have to be conversant with aircraft, technology and aerodynamics, but he must also have a good working knowledge of the world’s economics, the intermeshing of business within and beyond Australia’s shores, politics (domestic and international), and the workings of stocks, shares, take-overs, and all the other aspects of those components making up the commercial machinery of this country and its place in a global economy.

One of the crystal balls needed by AUSTRALIAN AVIATION’S concept of a successful GA salesman is that of seeking out the businesses least hard-hit by the current recession Going through one’s contact book each month isn’t enough these days. There has to be an adventurous exploration, a sort of Star Trek ‘ going where no man has gone before’ outlook. It’s a bold and calculated risk, with an average success rate of about one per cent or even less.

And to back up the frontline troops’ efforts, there has to be a sustained publicity campaign to keep the product before the market’s eyes.

Some dealers are clamming up on their advertising campaigns. The reason? Put as bluntly as possible, bad long-term budgeting.

In any successful and determined five-year plan, there has to be a place for advertising and PR. Too many GA sales firms have concentrated on making money and putting the proceeds in the wrong slot.

We aren’t writing of the fly-by-night dealer who makes as much as possible during a good period, then takes himself off and invests his earnings in either himself or some other get-rich quick scheme.

We’re talking about the honest dealer, the man who is dedicated to making a career and a success of his chosen profession.

The man who knows that setting up a shop at some airport, with lots of lovely aircraft sitting in the sunshine eating their heads off, isn’t enough.

He knows that unless he gets out there, through the mass of specialist media and tells his world that he’s there, nobody will know.

We’ve seen so many people do just this – start a business and not advertise in a sustained manner – and then finish up selling insurance or standing in a used-car yard waiting for customers.

A budget MUST be written into a GA business, on a long-term basis, to save unintentional commercial starvation.

While on this subject, we’ve never got to the bottom line of exercises featuring demonstration flights, nationwide ‘ show the product’ sorties, and similar ventures.

This, as far as we’re concerned, is one of the intangibles of Public Relations operations; you can’t put a bottom-line return figure on things like this.

But they’re necessary, a vital part of any commercial enterprise. And of course, there’s a limit in the name of commonsense to things like this . . .

Oh, how many times have we seen at Air Shows, commercial get-togethers and other occasions, the seemingly aimless waste of hours, fuel and manpower in taking all sorts of unlikely prospects for a burn round the countryside?

On enquiry, it appeared that the passengers were the sons/ daughters of people who had friends whose friends could be interested in buying a Brand X lightie.

All this scattergun approach has now been eliminated from most firms’ operations; this in turn points to the suggestion we made at the beginning of this article, that the barnstorming days of GA sales are well and truly over, and a hard, specialised and scientific approach is now the order of the day.

From what we’ve suggested so far, the structure of a successful dealership looks to be a force lean in salesmen who are true and proven experts; a budget geared to significant exposure (depending on faith in the product and financial underpinning from either a North American or European home base); and a very definite sense of the innovative in searching out potential clients.

Whether one would succeed in compartmenting an organisation into profit centre concepts, allocating specific budgets and targets and giving each sector its head; or keeping a mastermind overseeing all operations and providing the central drive and a hand on the purse strings, is not up to us to suggest.

And how often reviews should be made to detect flaws, advantages or wrong aims in sales emphasis, is left to the reader. Such reviews should be made as frequently as possible, we would suggest, to keep abreast of money exchange values, market variations, interest rates, quotas imposed by parent suppliers, local cost of living and CPI figures.

Other nations’ GA distributors and dealers are not only going for the throat in cutting out detailed waste but are combining this with determined drives in specific directions – that same difference between using grape shot and a carefully-aimed bullet, to hit a bulls-eye.

Manufacturers are also playing their part.

Some are developing new aircraft variants offering vastly improved cost-effectiveness.

Others have already developed massive retraining programs for their representatives, instilling in them the techniques of swaying those ‘swinging’ clients and persuading existing clients to update their machines.

After-sales service has taken a severe beating in the search for true customer service. It is now required to prove such service, rather than dismiss it as a fait accompli accompanied by a wave of the hand Accountants are continually seeking legal ways of getting customers a better deal in terms of exchange deals, dealer bonuses, and interest rates.

Some manufacturers are now urging their international outlets to explore such specialised fields as military applications for their products, search and rescue operations, quasi-government usage and other non-commercial applications.

One manufacturer which shall be nameless has actually suggested to some distributors that the distributor upends his operation, and suggests to existing multi-engine operator clients that they switch to cheaper models, to keep in step with recessive times.

This last suggestion is listed under the heading of innovation. Meanwhile, what about the source of supply?

We’re pointing mainly at the US, where late signs of a recovery have been evinced in the national economy – although some commentators have been over-optimistic in recognising a hiccup as a definite upward lurch.

At the time of writing, the situation was far from rosy, and there are convulsive plans afoot to gear a production upturn to anticipated worldwide recovery.

At the beginning of 1982, the Big Three had laid off more than 8000 workers – about a quarter of their combined total employment in 1978.

Cessna closed two of its plants for a six-week period during March-April in 1982. They planned to do it again later in the year.

So there you have it; it’s a complex exercise, starting right from where the metal is first cut, to the airport somewhere in Australia where bright new aircraft wait for their first owners.