He was talking to a prospective customer. The context was along the lines of "I like my private guys to study a lot so we don't have to waste a lot of time doing ground school".
You're right, that's not a very good way to talk to a prospective customer, but not entirely because it downplays ground school (although that part isn't good either).
I wouldn't talk like that because:
1) Using terms like, "my private guys," is too informal and puts the customer in too much of a subordinate role. It's like calling a customer a student. It just isn't good. Most adults don't want to be considered somebody else's student. It makes them feel like they're in sixth grade again. I use terms like, "...other customers I've worked with..." because it keeps them sounding equal, if not superior to me. It's a subliminal ego thing.
2) Saying anything about "wasting time" is bad because it unnecessarily brings up a negative idea. You don't want prospective customers thinking anything less than ideal will happen during their training. You want them to feel like they're dealing with professionals who wouldn't even consider doing something that is a "waste." Waste isn't an option, it's not on the table, it doesn't exist at your school.
Saying something like, "Of course it's better to study in advance in order to make the time we spend together more efficient," puts everything in positive terms while conveying the exact same idea.
So in context, not necessarily totally bad. However, I have yet to have a student with whom I felt like ground time was "wasted". In fact, as I gained more experience, I tended to do MORE ground instruction with my students.
I'm the same way.
Some other interesting things popped up during the conversation.
"most people finish the private in around 40-45 hours"
"we have a Cessna 310R with IO-520s we're working on getting for multi training"
Haha! Did the prospective customer look completely confused?
The problem with these things is that unless a person has been exposed to aviation, they have no idea about hours, engines, or model numbers. They'll smile and nod on the outside, but they're feeling confused/overwhelmed inside.
With regard to time frames for training, I don't say *anything* about flight hours. I ask if they have a goal they'd like to be done by. If they do, then I say, "Oh, yeah, great, that's no problem. If you took (X number) of flights per week, you can get finished by then for sure."
If they don't have a goal, I say training is very self-paced. The fastest we've had a customer finish training in was start to finish in six weeks, while others have spread their training out over a couple years. However you want to do it, we can make it happen.
When it comes to equipment, I tell them we fly Cessna 172s. They're single engine, four seat aircraft that are super popular, safe, easy to fly trainers. Talk to a dozen pilots and probably six or eight of them will tell you they learned to fly in a Cessna. That's all most people care about.
The overall theme of our presentation is finding out how a person wants aviation to fit in to their life, then explaining in simple terms how we can make it happen. Most people don't care about nitty gritty details, they only want to feel like they're in good hands.
Something I should add with this, and it might sound obvious, but it's worth mentioning: To make a convincing case to the customer, *you* have to be convinced that *you* are the best place for that customer to train. The customer truly is better off with you than your competition. Customers can tell the difference between somebody who's presenting with a shaky attitude of, "Well...ummmm....yeah, we're pretty good, you know, you'll probably like flying here," compared to, "Why on Earth would you want to fly at any other school??? This is where you need to be, end of story!" If you don't see the value of your own operation, how can you expect to pass on a positive vibe to the customer?
This part made me think of some of the posts jrh made a while ago (dunno if I can find 'em) about how and how not to sell flight training. Made me wish I'd paid closer attention.
Were either of these threads what you were thinking of?
http://forums.jetcareers.com/1251667-post14.html
http://forums.jetcareers.com/cfi-corner/93498-learn-fly-handout.html
I love talking about this stuff.
So really, nothing against my co-worker. But some of the snippets of conversation got me thinking about what I would say and how I would say it while talking to a prospective student.
That's exactly why we tell the instructors at my school to refer prospective customers to either myself or the owner. Even well-intentioned instructors have a knack for goofing things up by accident.
It takes a lot of practice and mentoring to get good at presenting flying to new people. My boss and I spend a lot of time bouncing ideas off each other for how to present these things as clearly and persuasively as possible. It would be nearly impossible to pass on our experience and expertise to a new instructor overnight.
We set up our operation sort of like how mechanics operate in a car dealership. Car dealerships hire mechanics to be just that, mechanics. Come to work and fix cars. Be experts at fixing cars. Other people handle the sales, accounting, etc. around the dealership.
In a flight school, we think it works best if the instructors just show up, teach, and get really good at the teaching. We don't expect them to be good at selling flight training, that's what my job is for.
