5 Unbelievably Simple Things To Grow Your Flight School
Sometimes we let our Flight School just drift along when we need to be proactive about growth. Let me share 5 simple things we could all do for a mid year kick start to get us started to actively grow our training organisation:
- Look at our buildings with fresh eyes. For years I just walked over that coffee stain on the carpet near the front door. It used to annoy me, but I’ve gotten used to it now. I kind of almost like it! But it really looks bad. Sometimes we don’t see what is right in front of us. We are focused too far out in front, or we have just got accustomed to our surroundings. Have another look at your buildings – from a distance and from up close. Does the grass need mowing? The weeds need pulling? The paintwork need redoing? The sign need replacing? The chairs need scraping? The notice board need updating? If you “don’t care” about your facilities, your clients (students) might stop wanting to come! Look with fresh eyes and begin to put a clean up plan in place.
- Focus on your Clients – your students. If your friends came over to your house and you ignored them and just expected them to sort themselves out, they will probably stop visiting! Same with your clients at your Flight School. Do they feel valued and respected when they arrive? Are they encouraged and engaged? Is there opportunity for them to feel relaxed and comfortable. We must keep our focus on our clients, our students. We must remind ourselves that we are here to create excellent pilots who will be safe, competent and confident in their aviation activities. We are not here to “make money”…that will come only when we focus on our students.
- Standardise, Standardise, Standardise. Is that clear? Music to my ears “Yes, Mary (the other flight instructor) told me that same thing”. Fingernails on blackboard feeling – “Well, John (another flight instructor) told me something different. He wanted…”. Excellent pilots are developed through excellent teaching which comes from excellent training courses. STANDARDISE. Winter is a great time for this because we are often doing less flying. Get the team together. Go through your teaching notes and the Part 61 MOS Performance Criteria and check whether everyone is on the same page. How do WE “prepare navigation charts”. How do WE “analyse problems”. Do we all teach the same technique and to the same standard?
- Offer free coaching. Why not take advantage of poor weather and drag any students floating around into a briefing room and give them some free coaching/training. Set up a night (or afternoon) to present a “Striving for Excellence” seminar workshop (for free). Present an “advanced” topic to inspire your students. Review a crash to “discover” together with the students what went wrong and why so that they can learn and not make the same mistake. For learning about checklists and crew coordination, for example, review Continental Airlines Flight 1943 a DC9/MD80 which landed with its wheels up – unbelievable! Inspire your students to greater competencies.
- Survey your students. Everyone likes to be asked their opinion. Create an online survey (or a paper based one) and ask, ask, ask. Ask – What are your aviation goals and how can we help? Ask – What are the 2 things you love about flying? Ask – What topics would you like to learn more about? But before you ask, have a purpose in mind for your survey and have an idea about how you could then respond and provide assistance, guidance or help. Engage your clients and bring them into the learning process.
If we put our focus on our clients – our students – and keep that focus on helping them to become excellent pilots, skillful, with great judgement, knowledge and safe attitudes, our Flight Schools will grow and we will get that blue sky feeling. You know that feeling – life is great, profits are up, clients are satisfied and we have done a great thing today. One more pilot became an excellent pilot.
Give me a call or drop me a line if you want to talk about other ways to make a fresh start over Winter.