5 Tips for Controlling Expenses
Go Digital - Airside FBO is an advocate of digital tools. This includes software like X1FBO, digital dashboards, accounting integration, line service inspections, and preventive maintenance. It takes time to integrate, but there is tremendous power in the information received from these tools, and your business often becomes more efficient.
Personnel - The structure of your organization is important. What we often discover is that line service and customer service are understaffed, and the support team is overstaffed largely because of company inefficiencies. Often this takes an outside perspective to help drive improvements and convert to a digital organization.
Be sure to leverage metrics to drive these decisions and if reductions are necessary, consider redeploying team members to other business segments.
Marketing - Each location is different, but we find that many FBOs spend a lot of money on 3rd party websites for things like banner ads and Google search advertisements.
Our preference is simple - start with a very strong company website and consider enhancing your profile on websites such as AirNav. From here, be targeted and leverage data for outreach activities. Focus on prospects that align with your strategies and use a simple CRM program. Consider meeting your customers at industry events like Schedulers and Dispatchers and other regional forums. Social media can be powerful communication tools, but start with the basics and ease into other channels as time and funds allow.
Maintenance & Repairs - We encourage FBOs to keep a watchful eye on maintenance and repair expenses, which have distinct differences.
Maintenance should be categorized as common items that you plan to spend each year including lawn care, pest control, fuel filters, and tire changes. Repairs are unplanned items. Examples include a broken transmission and unexpected HVAC repairs. As you track these items, look for trends.
Lastly, ensure that you are performing routine preventive maintenance inspections on GSE equipment, fuel trucks, and your facilities. These routine inspections are proven to save FBOs thousands of dollars each year. There are several ready-to-go applications that we commonly deploy to ensure regular inspections occur.
Leverage Vendor Concessions - Your vendors are accustomed to providing concessions so be sure that you are capturing these fees. Hotels generally provide FBO’s 10-15% on room reservations. Rental car companies are flexible with arrangements, largely depending on activity levels. For example, some locations receive free crew cars. Others apply monthly discounts to vehicle leases. You may need to create an IATA number, but it is worth the effort!