FLIGHT is an aircraft finance program we introduce to all our clients as a means of connecting them with the lucrative world of aviation. Formerly protected by an NDA to ensure the continued success of the program, FLIGHT is just one of our many programs designed to introduce clients to different markets and specialties. However, since FLIGHT was first introduced it's partially lost its effectiveness only because we've completely saturated the market... but it still returns excellent results.
Like many of our programs, FLIGHT isn't designed to have you finance aircraft, necessarily, but rather its purpose is to introduce you to the affluent aircraft owners and the potential business that might be introduced by forging a relationship with those in the aviation industry (it's just one of few programs based on the same principles).
Belief is Your Specialist Aviation Team
The high-performing primary website we provide our brokers has a small (and optional) section on aircraft finance, and it introduces your 'team' as specialists; your complimentary equipment finance website includes a slightly more comprehensive section. The team we refer to, of course, is us (we are part of your business as your marketing department). We have multiple staff qualified on Boeing and Airbus jets, we've flown over 80 aircraft types, and we’re qualified on both fixed wing and helicopter types. Further to our extensive practical industry experience, we’ve worked in the media and social space for Qantas and Virgin in Australia, and we've supported over 15 airlines around the world. We’ve also bought and sold our own aircraft, instructed, performed aerobatic displays, and operating skywriting aircraft. So, yes, you do have aviation experts on your team and we’re available at any time to assist you with this type of inquiry.
Audio Discussion
Like many of our audio discussions, this one goes off the rails a number of times but we still manage to discuss the value in the program. We talk generally about why Belief's support during the FLIGHT program is important, and how you might inject us into your initial consultations to improve upon the program's success.
Contacting Aircraft Owners
The FLIGHT program simply involves sending a snail-mail letter to aircraft owners in your immediate geographic vicinity. The purpose of the letter is to introduce your local business, aircraft finance, home loan products, and how consolidating aircraft finance into property - or possibly into a Self-Managed Super Fund - potentially introduces benefits or savings. We'll send an old-school letter – preferably hand-written - to the aircraft owner addressed to them as 'Captain John Smith' (the ‘captain’ salutation and personalised approach will get their attention). The envelope itself has an aircraft emboss or logo and carries an aircraft stamp if available. It will be opened.
holds thousands of records of pilots, aircraft owners, and those connected to the industry. Extracting the necessary data is a one-click operation. We've returned well over a billion dollars in volume via a single campaign to a brokerage in the USA based on the same program - this was due to the vast numbers of pilots, and the availability of data.Whatever conversation might take place as a result of your initial contact, the introduction is now made and it's highly likely you'll be considered for the arsenal of investment properties this group owns, regardless of whether they own an aircraft or not.
A small two-seat trainer (say, a Cessna 152 or Piper Tomahawk) might only be a $25’000 machine, but the underlying premise (once again) is that if anybody has the money to spend on any private aircraft, or they invest time into aviation as part of a recreational pursuit, they’re likely doing so with excess funds (the same presumption applies with marine finance). Our experience with aviation tends to suggest rather conclusively that the industry attracts a particularly affluent crowd.
Does FLIGHT work?
Collectively, the program hasn't returned less than 420-million per year in borrowing since 2016 (although it has dropped off consistently in the last 12 months as the market has become far more familiar with this marketing approach). This program alone returns more than most of the 'Facebook marketing' crowd... and it's just one of the ancillary programs we have in place... and it's far from our most profitable program.
Despite the misguided messages fed to the finance industry (in that Facebook Marketing is the only type of marketing), and despite the fact that Belief provides the most powerful Facebook Marketing experience in the industry, our programs are more effective because we don't ignore any opportunity, and we provide the next-generation technology necessary to build and support a digital framework that'll return real digital growth to your business.
Aircraft Finance
New factory-fresh 4-seat personal aircraft types range in price from $150’000 to $500’000, and smaller twin-engine aircraft and smaller private jets might cost anywhere from $150’000 to millions. The cost associated with aircraft varies enormously... even for the same types (the value assigned to an aircraft is predicated upon airframe life, engine and propeller time remaining before overhaul, accident history, avionics, and so on - it is a specialised field).
Helicopters in Australia are a huge market with Robinson R22 and R44 types dominating the market. The idea with rotary machines is that we're chasing an introduction to agricultural and mustering businesses that operate smaller R22 aircraft because of the connection with their multi-million dollar agricultural properties (and heavy equipment). Of course, if anybody actually owns a personal helicopter it's a clear indicator that they also hold numerous properties.
We understand that the FLIGHT concept is a little off-centre... but if no source of lead generation should ever be ignored, this includes even the smallest recesses of the equipment market.
The financing of aircraft isn't necessarily easy... and it's why you need us. The process can be outsourced to a specialist lender but this limits our ability to introduce our residentia and investment specialty into the mix (we want the person we're dealing with to know us, like us, and make babies with us).
Sourcing Aircraft Owners
Yabber has an integrated tool that queries suitable owners within a defined geographical area near your business, and it's this pool of aircraft owners we’ll initially target. The geographic relevance of this program is important - we've found that broker participating in this program is far more likely to write residential and investment properties on the basis of actually knowing and meeting the client.
The week before this article was written one of our brokers reported back to us that he'd picked up 72-million in refinancing on the basis of an introduction made by this program (with a single client introducing over 40-million). It just works.
Equipment Finance Website
Most brokers come to us without an extensive equipment finance background, and it’s for this reason that we introduce the equipment website, and more recently, an aircraft finance single-page (landing) website.
The problem with introducing equipment opportunities early on (as is the case with many Satellite websites) is that brokers will often becomes distracted or overwhelmed by something that isn’t part of our scheduled marketing plan. Don’t let equipment finance cause you to lose focus on the big picture and our immediate goals. It's for this reason we drip-feed the website into Yabber after about eight weeks.
Conclusion
Without assigning too much credit back to the Belief team, this program has historically worked because we've injected our expertise into the program; the attributes of Expertise and Authoritativeness are established with the initial discussion, meaning the brokers mitigates the risk of looking like a twat - your first impression counts. It's for this reason we ensure we provide this support and our expertise to any Yabber subscriber that chooses to invest the necessary effort.
We’ve seen brokers pick up countless millions in finance on the back-end of the program, and coupled with EDGE post-settlement systems we've seen them grow massive networks (remember, the natural progression of any equipment relationship extends to residential, commercial and other finance - the equipment part of it is often a kind of relationship-style of trojan horse).
The FLIGHT program is one that is intrinsically connected to the broader Satellite program, and it's also worth reading our related article on positioning to understand the necessary attributes required to make any industry-specific program a success.
Remember, Belief's digital product is priced lower than virtually all competing programs (if not all of them), and we guarantee that we deliver far more value and more volume to your business. You should read our 'Explainer' article to gain a better appreciation of our digital and Facebook systems.
