Why is Aviation Sales and Marketing So Hard?Why is aviation sales and marketing so hard?  What am I doing wrong?

So why does it take dozens of calls, postcards, newsletters, social media “engagements,” magazine ads, and search engine optimization and inbound sales funnels to make it work?

When we do free consultations for people, this is a really frequent question.  They assume that it’s easy for everyone else to make sales in the aviation industry.  People here are rolling in money, right?

Right.

Well, a few of them are, and those few are VERY well defended and difficult to reach.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6HQvxPpNCI[/embedyt]

And to be fair, it IS a highly regulated industry, full of people who tend to be risk averse and don’t just purchase things on a whim.

But the good news is, it’s JUST as hard for your competitors. And once you have a customer, people do tend to be loyal.  (Barriers to entry can be your friend, as well as your enemy, right?)

So in this podcast, John and I talk about why sales are so difficult to come by in the aviation industry and some of the things you can do to make it easier on yourself!

 

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Listen here:

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Transcript – Why is Aviation Sales and Marketing So Hard?

 

Paula Williams: Welcome to Aviation Hangar Flying, episode number 90. Why is marketing and sales so hard?

John Williams: Who says it’s hard?

Paula Williams: Everybody we talk to. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: It is, it’s not the easiest thing in the world, and it has actually gotten harder in recent years, I think.

John Williams: Yeah, more difficult.

Paula Williams: Exactly, so I’m Paula Williams.

John Williams: I’m John Williams.

Paula Williams: And we are ABCI. And ABCI’s mission is-

John Williams: To help all you ladies and gentlemen out there in aviation in order to sell more products and stuff services.

Paula Williams: Absolutely, so use the tag #AvGeekMarketing if you would like to comment or contribute or complain or any other thing you’d like to do about this episode or any other.
And we will do our best to reply to every tweet or mention or comment, right?

John Williams: Mm-hm.

Paula Williams: Okay, cool, so the big ideas here, the reason [LAUGH] that sales and marketing is so hard, there are actually two of them, well, three of them. One is that there has been a history of Charlatans running around doing sales and marketing.

John Williams: And that’s throughout the freaking world.

Paula Williams: Absolutely, the second thing is that right now, in particular, worst than ever I’ve seen it, we have a culture of suspicion.

John Williams: I don’t know, it’s the worst I’ve seen.

Paula Williams: Well, you’ve been around a little longer than I have [LAUGH], but

John Williams: Yeah. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: It is the worst that I have ever seen.

John Williams: Okay, fine, well.

Paula Williams: As far as the culture of suspicion. And then, the third thing is that not everyone is an expert in your field, but they want to act like they are. Which makes sales and marketing harder than it should be, right?

John Williams: Difficult anyway.

Paula Williams: Yeah, okay, and then, we’ll also talk about some of the things that you can do to make it easier. Because we don’t want to just spend the whole episode complaining. But to start with, we’ll just whine. [LAUGH]

John Williams: Speaking for yourself, of course.

Paula Williams: Absolutely, no, I mean, this seriously, when we talk with clients, this is one of the things that comes up fairly frequently.

Even among people who already know this, they sometimes just need to vent because it really is hard. Aviation advertising, sales and marketing is not easy, and I tell them, if this was easy, everybody would be doing it. And everybody would be selling millions and millions of their product or service and nobody would be having any problems doing this.

So with rare exceptions, we do have to work pretty hard at building credibility and there are a couple of reasons for that. One is this history, the suspicion. And John, when you and I first started talking about sales and marketing, and it was something that I did and something that you didn’t do.
And when you found out I was into sales and marketing, you were a little suspicious of me. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Is that true?

John Williams: Well, at least what you were doing.

Paula Williams: Mm-hm.

John Williams: I had a long discussion with my marketing prof in business school. She was of the opinion that nothing, absolutely nothing in history has been sold without marketing first.

Paula Williams: Mm-hm, and you said, BS, right? [LAUGH]

John Williams: That’s right, that’s [LAUGH] right.

Paula Williams: That’s not what I was going to say.

John Williams: Well, the thing is, it maybe to give her a little bit, it may be unintentional marketing, I suppose. But I remember the one of the first things I wanted, I didn’t even know what it was, but I saw this bicycle with the motor on it.

And it looked like it was put together pretty well. So there was no name on it or anything. I said, I want one.

Paula Williams: Was it in a store or-

John Williams: No, it’s just riding around in a small town I lived in.

Paula Williams: Okay, cool.

John Williams: I didn’t end up getting one.
I found out many, I found out probably 50 years later, it was a Harley Davidson.

Paula Williams: Yeah.

John Williams: Okay, but I didn’t know that then. They were just two wheels and a motor, which is what I wanted. And so, I ended up getting an old, shoot, I don’t know the model.
An Cushman.

Paula Williams: Fun.

John Williams: Went with the single speed thing that would do about 40 miles an hour if you’re lucky, but anyway. But so I only brought that example up to her and she said, well, it was marketing, I said no, no, no. I just wanted two wheels, I saw that, and I got something else.
So I didn’t, it was, so anyway.

Paula Williams: But since then-

John Williams: You would argue the other way just like she did, but I’ve still depending on everything.

Paula Williams: Exactly, I mean, consider product placement, product pricing, all of that as marketing, the four Ps.

John Williams: Yeah, but none of that had anything to do with the fact that I saw a bike with a motor on it.

Paula Williams: Right.

John Williams: There was no name, nobody trying to sell me anything.

Paula Williams: Okay, placement, it was in your sitting-

John Williams: They didn’t place it, some dude was driving around.

Paula Williams: Okay, and it may have been accidental, but that was in your way. So if it was put where you would see it.

John Williams: It was not placed where I would see it. Someone was driving it around.

Paula Williams: Fine. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Okay, but the point is there’s a lot of people that are running around, trying to sell things using either over inflated or downright false claims, right?

John Williams: Absolutely.

Paula Williams: And that just makes it a thousand times harder for the rest of us because we already have one strike against us. In fact, a lot of times, the people that we talk to, they call us and say, you know what? I have dealt with marketing firms in the past and I am not happy [LAUGH] with my experience.

John Williams: And we’ve made darn sure that whatever is said that we do is in fact factual.

Paula Williams: Exactly, but we already have one strike against us in a lot of cases because we are a marketing firm. Just the fact that that is our profession puts us in the less than completely respected category in people’s minds until they get to know us.

John Williams: Right, but the thing is we built up a history, and I think they’ll talk to any of our previous clients or current clients,

Paula Williams: Mm-hm.

John Williams: And they know.

Paula Williams: Yeah, and we can talk about some of the ways that you can make that work for you as well.

But just the fact that you’re a salesperson, sometimes, that puts the suspicion against you to start with and-

John Williams: Yeah, I mean, there was a time when I sold cars and [LAUGH] I could tell you, of course, they had a different approach to sales. But everybody that came on the lot, you had to approach and call.

Meet and greet was the first step, and they say, it goes on in the process. But everybody that came in, even if they wanted to buy a car, they’re, no, no, no.

Paula Williams: Yeah. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: First thing they say is no!

John Williams: No! [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: First word out of their mouth is no, they default to, spring loaded to the no position.
And that’s the case because of this culture that’s [INAUDIBLE] As a matter of fact, but the CI wasn’t the typical [LAUGH] car salesman because I remember that a lady came on a lot in a relatively new truck.

John Williams: And she was very emotional and said she needed to replace her truck and I said, okay.

And I looked at her and said, I looked at the truck and said, well, what’s wrong with that one? And she told me and I said, this isn’t going to sound like a sales guy. But you know what? You can go to your favorite mechanic. And for probably $185 to $285, you can have them fix that and use that truck.

She said, really? And I said, yeah. [LAUGH] She gave me a hug and was crying and left the lot. But I just, I can’t I can’t do this, the sales selling to somebody I know doesn’t need it.

Paula Williams: Exactly. So some of the sales courses that you’ve been in, or other things,-

John Williams: Yeah.

Paula Williams: They would’ve fired you if they knew about that.

John Williams: Well, and long ago, I went to an insurance, I won’t use the name, sales course and, it was like two weeks I think, and they said, when you walk out the door, pick up a rock, throw it on the ground and whichever way it tumbles, go that way and sell a policy to every person you meet, and I did, and their process and procedure works.

Still works. You could still do that today. But they said, because it’s not your problem, it’s our problem to collect, yours to sell.

Paula Williams: That is evil.

John Williams: So they would sign up, and I had papers with me, and I’m serious, before I got off the car, I probably made 20 sales.

I didn’t last long there because I just realized what was going on. These people couldn’t afford it and they were going to be high pressured, so I just- And you couldn’t sleep at night. I went in a different direction.

Paula Williams: Yeah.

John Williams: But,-

Paula Williams: But.

John Williams: And that’s the reason people don’t like sales people.

Paula Williams: Exactly. Understood, and so if you get that out of the way and say, okay, I understand, I’m starting with a strike against me because of the title Sales and/or Marketing. That’s okay. Alright, so things have gotten worse, I think, in the last six months.

John Williams: I don’t know, because of the way I was taught, and this was in the 70s.

Paula Williams: Yeah?

John Williams: Late 70s when I did that. So, there’s some things you haven’t an experience yet probably but I have. So, I can tell you that when I did that, I mean these people completely, you’re right. Sure I’ll sign.

Paula Williams: Yeah, but I think people have gotten more suspicious since-

John Williams: It still works.

Paula Williams: Okay.

John Williams: I could get a refresher in that course, and I could do the same thing all over again.

Paula Williams: Totally, okay. Well, I totally agree with that, but I do think that there is something that the folks that are selling nowadays are fighting another headwind, and that is that people have become more suspicious of anything that they hear, because of the fake news and whichever angle you’re coming from politically, there has been [LAUGH] BS on both sides of the fence.

John Williams: Well it’s not politics all by itself.

Paula Williams: No, it’s-

John Williams: I did a project for a large financial organization, was interviewed, and they didn’t say anything close to what my answers were to their questions, and this was just, business. It was not even politics, and boy, was I upset.

I tell you what, I went back to those guys and ripped them a new one. They said, hey, you know, that’s what we do. [LAUGH]

John Williams: And that’s not what we do, we at ABCI.

Paula Williams: No, it’s-

John Williams: I wouldn’t be here if we were doing that.

Paula Williams: Exactly, but the point is that people have a lot of suspicion about everything, not just politics. It spilled over into environmental things, business things, economic things, any topic you want to pick, there are people who will say the sky is green and other people who will, or people who will say the sky is blue and everybody else is going to disagree simply because we have this culture of suspicion and argumentativeness.

John Williams: I just read an article, I don’t recall where, I think it was the Wall Street Journal within the last week or so, that is absolutely no different from the 1850s. It’s no different, and the guy, the historian that wrote the article went down and said this, this, this and this back then, and compared it to now, and I said, well that’s interesting.

[LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Yep, well we are at an interesting point in history, and it is something that plays into what happens to you when you when you’re out there selling, so.

John Williams: And if any of you guys were around that were there when Nixon got impeached, in that whole thing, I lived through that to.
So we could talk about lots of stuff, but let’s not go there. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Yeah, exactly. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Okay, fine. So the point being, that you just really need to understand and acknowledge the fact that you can’t lock horns with people nowadays without falling into a cultural thing that’s going on.
There’s a quote that I love, we actually just found this, and I think I put it on my Facebook feed for awhile, and it’s, argue like you’re right, but listen like you’re wrong.

John Williams: Yep.

Paula Williams: And if everybody would do that, then this whole problem would be solved, but not everybody’s going to do that tomorrow, so-

John Williams: No, they’ll do A but not B.

Paula Williams: [LAUGH] Right, that’s true. Okay, and then the third thing, the third reason that sales and marketing is so hard, is because not everybody is an expert, and not everybody knows as much as you think they do about your product or service, right?

John Williams: Or as they think they do.

Paula Williams: Or as they think they do. So you sell a specialized product, your prospect probably knows very little about it, it has very little to do with what he does every day. The only thing that he knows is that he needs it, right?

John Williams: Yeah, and some of those prospects nowadays will actually do research, not just on your website, but in other equivalent products or services, and talk to people they’ll have one, or have seen one, or have used one,-

Paula Williams: Right.

John Williams: And so they may have some pretty pertinent questions to ask.

Paula Williams: Which is good, and if they looked at-

John Williams: But if they don’t,-

Paula Williams: Yeah, if they looked at your website, and your competitors website, and YouTube, and asked their friends and things, then they may have some ideas, but they may have some wrong ideas as well.

John Williams: Yeah.

Paula Williams: So, and the other thing is that your prospect will never admit what he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t want to give you the upper hand, because of the first two things we talked about. He thinks you’re a charlatan, and you’re a bad guy until you get to know him better.

So he doesn’t want to give you the upper hand in the conversation, right?

John Williams: Yep.

Paula Williams: Perfectly natural, right?

John Williams: So then the response is what do you do? [LAUGH]

John Williams: And you have a slide for that.

Paula Williams: I do. Yeah, so what do you do? I’ll tell you want you don’t do.
This first slide is about what do you not do.

John Williams: Well, actually the whole thing’s don’t

Paula Williams: Yeah, number one, [LAUGH] don’t be dishonest.

John Williams: Exactly.

Paula Williams: The first dishonest thing you say is, you’re over, game over, done, washed up. [LAUGH] Go find another prospect, start over, not going to happen, and the first thing out of the mouth of a lot of people that try to sell me something on the phone is, I’m not trying to sell you something.

John Williams: Then why am I talking to you?

Paula Williams: Exactly, and that’s dishonesty. That just cuts you right out of the whole process, and even if I did have an interest in what they had to say, they’ve got another strike against them because they’ve been personally dishonest to me, and they’re a sales guy, so they have the second strike against them.

John Williams: I’ve probably used this before on a previous podcast, but don’t say these things sell themselves.

Paula Williams: Heaven forbid.

John Williams: That happened, my daughter and I, she asked me to go with her to buy a brand car, and we were in this dealership, and she asked them very pertinent questions, don’t worry about that, these cars sell themselves.

I didn’t say it, but I wanted to know, okay, really, where’s the kiosk? Where do I put my credit card, and what the hell are you doing here?

Paula Williams: Right, exactly, so don’t exaggerate. Don’t be dishonest. Both of which that is, these cars sell themselves, BS. Don’t turn up the pressure, especially before you’ve built some credibility.

Don’t call more than once a week unless they ask you to. Is a pretty good rule of thumb. You do want to not give up on them and you don’t ever want to stop calling. But you never want to call more than once a week. Ideally, they’re going to tell you when they want a call back, and that’s what you do.

Don’t be insulting. Don’t say, only stupid people use [LAUGH] our competitors product. Don’t be insulting of your competitors or your prospects or anybody else.

John Williams: In fact, I saw an ad once that says, it’s okay if you buy our competitor’s product. They know what their product is worth.

Paula Williams: Right. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: That’s crazy. Aviation is a small world. So you never know if somebody’s wife or cousin or kid works for the competition. And the last one is don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.

John Williams: No.

Paula Williams: Right? Never never never never, Winston Churchill.

John Williams: Most sales people give up one to five calls short of a sale.

Paula Williams: Absolutely. So what do you do given all of that? You build your credibility.

John Williams: Mm-hm.

Paula Williams: So how do you build your credibility?

John Williams: With great vigor.

Paula Williams: Yeah, exactly. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: There’s a lot of things you can do build your credibility. And the easiest probably is to set up your LinkedIn profile make sure you got a picture on there.
You don’t want to look like a terrorist with a blank profile picture. [LAUGH] You also want to make sure that all of the relevant details are there and you’re as transparent as you can possibly be about your work history and everything else so that people can find out where else have you worked.

What else have you done? What have you done that couldn’t possibly build your credibility or make people feel differently about you. YouTube is another one, a lot of people will do a sales presentation or even just do opinion pieces or product demonstrations or other things on YouTube. That help build their credibility because if people can see you, what, 86% of communication is nonverbal?

And so you’re a lot more credible if people can see what you’re doing as opposed to just listening to your reading what you’ve written. Blogs are great because it’s a regular form of contact. If you’ve got something out there that you are consistent about, you’re obviously investing in your product or service.

You have a reputation to uphold, especially if there’s a lot of people following it. There’s a lot of things that you’ve got on the line that makes people feel better about you. Books people have learned books are credible, a lot more credible than what they see online. From the time you’re a little kid you’re taught to respect books.

Get seen in the media. A pilot partner, we just did this in another Podcast. But most of our clients, when we do press releases for them they get mentioned by aviation press and also by the mainstream press. So you get all of those acronyms behind your name or all of those logos that you can use on your website that associates your credibility with them.
And so, people may not believe CNN or Fox news. [LAUGH] But when you have all of the media on your website, that makes your product or service a lot more credible than it would be if you’ve never been heard of before, right?

John Williams: Mm-hm.

Paula Williams: Podcasts like this one.
I’ve had a lot of people tell me when I talk to them on the phone I listened to you talk about this topic so I know how you feel about this. Or I know you guys do this or that because you mentioned it in a Podcast. So Podcasts are a great way to build credibility.
Being the marketing company that does the Podcast.

John Williams: And they get distributed far and wide, we actually had someone from over the water give us the call because they heard our Podcast.

Paula Williams: [LAUGH] Yeah that was actually from France and I’m like okay that was cool. We don’t translate it.

[LAUGH] We do this in one language but that’s all right. It’s great to have that kind of visibility and also to have that kind of regular contact with people. It’s pretty, I don’t know what you’d call it. Almost intimate to have a regular conversation with people and they feel like they know us.

When we don’t know them. So, it’s a little weird. [LAUGH]

Paula Williams: To have a conversation with somebody who feels like they know us because they’ve been listening to our podcast for a while. You can be members of organizations that build your credibility like NBAA your EAA or others that are respected by your group of prospects.
So, all of those things helped build your credibility and get you out from under the shadow of the sales and marketing reputation, right?

John Williams: Mm-hm.

Paula Williams: Okay, Charlotte and Snakeoil thing going on. Another thing that you can do is longer campaigns. This is a process that we used when we were talking about business to business campaigns.

But it is just as long often depending on the size of the transaction in a business to consumer transaction. Where you have to have multiple, multiple, multiple points of contact and touches and connecting on social media, and sending emails, and sending direct mail packages, and seeing them at events multiple, multiple times.
But every single time, there’s a theory that Stephen Covey uses in one of his books. I think it’ is the, The 8th Habit. He talks about the emotional bank account. Every interaction that you have with a person is either a withdrawal or a deposit.

John Williams: Yes.

Paula Williams: So, if you have a multitude of deposits into this emotional bank account with somebody and they have more, and more, and more reasons to trust you, then it becomes easier for them to do a big transaction.

Because they’ve seen you multiple times and you’ve always behaved honorably. Can I tell the story about how we met?

John Williams: [LAUGH] Would it do if I said no?

Paula Williams: [LAUGH] Well John and I were working for competing consulting firms and he asked if I wanted to go out for coffee.
And I said no because I work for a competing consulting firm.

John Williams: [LAUGH] But she was on our team. And I was trying to get her to meet with the team every morning for coffee, and she just refused to do it.

Paula Williams: Right, exactly. So I was kind of suspicious of John for not good reasons other than the fact that he was working for a competing consulting firm.
And it was my experience with people that worked for competing consulting firms that they would throw you under the bus at the first given opportunity. So that they could discredit your firm and bring more of their own people in. And make more money, for their own contract. So that’s kind of the environment we were in.

And John have multiple opportunities to throw me under the bus and didn’t. So every single time we work together on a project and every single time we interacted. He told the truth and he behaved honorably and it was really cool. And we actually got to know each other and ended up working together and ended up years later, years, years later, married.

[LAUGH]

Paula Williams: Because of the same phenomenon, of building credibility over time and there’s just no substitute or no shortcut for that, right?

John Williams: No.

Paula Williams: Unfortunately, [LAUGH] for salespeople, but the nice thing is that also makes it much harder for a competitor to undercut you once you have a relationship with them in the aviation industry.

Because they get to know you and like you and trust you over a long period of time. Right? Okay, so another thing that you can do to build credibility and to shorten the sales cycle and you know, to get past this whole thing that it is so hard.

You want to do a variety of sales interactions. You know, lots and lots and lots and lots of sales calls. And we talked about this last week as well when we were talking about business to business marketing. But whether you’re selling to businesses or individuals, if you are prepared to be in this relationship for the long haul.
And to do multiple, multiple, multiple sales calls and touches. A lot of times you won’t have to because your sales cycle will be shorter. But, you know, you want to really like these people, because it’s going to be a long time in the process. Other things you can do, send a regular newsletter.

Every interaction, once again, builds that emotional bank account. We like to do quarterly direct mail packages and see people as often as we can at events. And do networking breakfasts and $100 hamburgers and fly ins and other places where we actually get to see people in person. So that always helps.

All right, another thing you want to do is use a sales call check list so that you are comfortable and you’re not nervous on the sales call. You got a checklist, you do it every time. You get really good on it. You end every call with one of three possible outcomes, which are.

John Williams: Yes.

Paula Williams: Yes.

John Williams: No.

Paula Williams: No.

John Williams: Not yet.

Paula Williams: Or not yet. And if it’s a not yet then you have an outline for the next call. They either tell you, call me again next quarter, next month, next year, whatever the situation is. Or I need more information about the pricing or I need more information about the integration with some other process or something.

John Williams: You know what’s interesting, because we’ve been in this business so long, every time I go somewhere, to any business for any reason, I look at their approach and I think, these guys need our help.

Paula Williams: [LAUGH] But we only do aviation.

John Williams: That’s right.

Paula Williams: [LAUGH] So you can’t help the tire guys and you can’t help-

John Williams: Exactly, and they wouldn’t believe you anyway, so.

Paula Williams: Exactly, that’s true. Okay, so yeah, do you use a sales call checklist? Do you also answer the questions your customer should be asking? So you can build a checklist like this. They may not trust you enough to ask you these questions or they may not be educated enough to say, how long have you been in business?

Do you do anything else besides aviation? What other types of services do you provide? All of the questions that you think they should be asking. And if you can provide that to them in a low key sort of a way, like a downloadable checklist or something on your website.

Where you’re providing the information that they would ask if they were comfortable enough or knowledgeable enough, then you can get past that charlatan hat. And [LAUGH] get a little information over the wall to them.

John Williams: If that’s the trouble, just take the hat off and throw it in the corner.

Paula Williams: Take the hat off, exactly. I’m not marketing, that’s the problem though, then you’re being dishonest. Because of course, I’m selling something.

John Williams: I didn’t say that, I said take the hat off. You said something about a charlatan hat, so don’t wear a hat.

Paula Williams: Don’t wear a hat, okay, cool.

[LAUGH] I actually like the sales hat. I don’t mind making calls and saying, darn right, I’d love to have you as a customer. So if you want to-

John Williams: Who are you and what’d you do with my wife? [LAUGH] I married her 15 years ago.

Paula Williams: I hated sales calls, that’s absolutely right.
But there is something about being honest that’s actually pretty refreshing.

John Williams: And repetition and doing it all the time.

Paula Williams: That’s true, and also you do something hard, and you get good at it. And then you want to do it all the time. It’s like short field landings, I couldn’t stand them to start with, and then it was all I ever wanted to do was short field landings because I got really good at them.

Cool, okay. Another thing you can do is provide testimonials, case studies and success stories. Because those really hope they’ll do credibility because it’s what other people say about you, or other people say about their experience working with your product or service, right?

John Williams: Mm-hm.

21 Ideas for Newsworthy Aviation Press ReleasesPaula Williams: It’s a great way to build credibility, right.

So, if you are not comfortable doing this yourself, we would be happy to help. We have a press release tip sheet that you can download that has lots of different ways that you can become newsworthy. And some of those things are how to do a case study or how to do a customer success story.

Things like that that will give you more opportunities to talk with people. Give them more material that they can find that helps build your credibility, and so on. And if you are listening to this podcast during August of 2017, we are offering a bonus press release if you sign up for our content marketing subscription.

So basically what that means is that we plan, write, edit, publish and publicize one article per month, and you approve every stage. And we do have a three month minimum on that, because we like to get to know our content marketing customers really well, and get to know their business really well.

John Williams: And for those of you listening, what she meant to say was July, not August.

Paula Williams: July 2017, did I say August?

John Williams: Yes, you did.

Paula Williams: Okay, I said July. July 2017 then, that is our special this month. And it actually is our best selling product right now.
So a lot of people are really finding this helpful to be able to have us interview their happy customers and write a case study. Saying, this my experience with this company, and they may not feel comfortable talking to you, or you may not feel comfortable talking to them.

But having a third party do those interviews and write those case studies is sometimes really helpful. And we get good stuff.

Content MarketingJohn Williams: Yes we do.

Paula Williams: Great stories out there about aviation companies and they’re a lot of fun to do. So, go sell more stuff.

John Williams: America still needs the business.

Paula Williams: Yes it does.

John Williams: And actually it was, America needs the business, but I said still.

Paula Williams: Yep, America needs your business more than ever, right?

John Williams: Exactly.

Paula Williams: Yeah, okay. So, subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play and do leave us a review.
We love those five-star reviews, that really does help more people find our podcast and stop doing random acts of marketing. Or, horrible wastes of money and other kinds of things that are bad for them and bad for our industry and contributing to that whole charlatan BS, right?

John Williams: [LAUGH] Exactly.

Paula Williams: All right, have a great afternoon, and thanks for joining us.

John Williams: Ciao.

John Williams: Happy?

Paula Williams: Yep.

 

 

 

 

John Williams: You bet.

Paula Williams: Okay, cool, so if you want to get more material and to kind of fill out your business to business sales cycle. You need more things to talk about, more things to send people, more stuff to put in your newsletters, more things to send emails about and so on.

One of the best things you can do is download our 21 Ideas for Newsworthy Press Releases that will do several things. One, it will give you something to talk about, because any of those things that are newsworthy are also you can just talk about them. But you can take a step further and take a press release and get notice by-

John Williams: The world.

Paula Williams: The world. Including the aviation press and the mainstream press and that’s even better, right?

John Williams: Yes.

Paula Williams: Every company has great stories. It’s just a question of finding the right angle to make them newsworthy.

We will provide a bonus press release if you do our content marketing subscription. And what that content marketing subscription is, is basically we plan, write, edit, publish and publicize one article per month. And you approve every step of the process, right? It’s our best selling product right now I think, is that right?

John Williams: I believe it is.

Paula Williams: Yeah, [LAUGH] and for a good reason because you really want to have somebody who knows aviation writing your materials. And you also want somebody who has a really good relationship with a lot of the aviation media, building those press releases and getting those hopefully placed.

We can’t guarantee placement in any particular publication. But we have a pretty good record of getting those noticed by the people who will find them the most interesting and newsworthy, right?

John Williams: Yes.

Paula Williams: Okay, all right, so go sell more stuff.

John Williams: America needs the business. It’s our favorite buddy Zig Ziglar’s quote.

Paula Williams: Absolutely, and do subscribe to our podcast on Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, wherever fine podcasts are sold or given away or downloaded from. And please do also leave us a review. If you leave us a good review then more people will find us. And less people will be committing random acts of marketing, or wasting their money on marketing that doesn’t work.

And what’s good for the industry is actually good for all of us, right?

John Williams: Absolutely.

Paula Williams: Okay, so you have a great afternoon, and we’ll see you next week.

John Williams: Ciao.

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