I gotta say, I’m having a pretty good hair day today. That has lit-ruh-ly nothing to do with the blog, but it felt worth mentioning anyway.
You know what’s always confused me? That good things seem to come from rationality, but great things seem to come from irrationality. I’m sure I read that somewhere but can’t for the life of me remember where; either way, it rings true. And this is a quarter in review.
If you’ll recall, or even if you don’t, Q1 was a blockbuster. Came out the chute hot in 2024. Q2? Slightly less so. Weaker in QoQ sales on some programs, stronger on others; ultimately leaving us ahead of budget for the year. So, here’s what that looked like:
- ~6% growth in the jet card program.
- Flat in fractional.
- ~5% growth in leaseback.
So….. decent. Not great. But decent. Two good sales and marketing things came out of Q2, though.
- Bottom of the funnel is full. Like, full full. There’s enough activity at the finish line to manageably grow programs and meet goals; all without compromising on service delivery.
- Program structure and pricing review. It’s not as directly benchmarked to anything last quarter as program growth is, but I started a much deeper dive into our pricing and program structures. We’ve got a strong grasp on our position relative to the market and relative to our previous pricing and structures, but I’m putting it under a microscope over the next few months. What does this mean? I don’t know yet to be quite frank. Likely more flexibility in programs, more creativity, and create more value – both nominal and real.
Equally important and a bit of a 2(a), I realized that deposit-based programs serve a purpose that is different from the purpose of their true competition. Sure, I’m competing against other deposit-based jet card programs but that’s not what I’m referring to. Deposits, and any program that utilizes a similar functionality, by their nature, compete against interest or income-earning products and services – simply put, there’s opportunity cost. CDs, T-bills, Money Markets, literally anything that pays a rate.
The rate environment is stable until it isn’t. Rates are soon to be on the decline and could be for some time. So how do you, as our current or soon-to-be client, guarantee value capture? What can you do? How do we, as the service provider, also guarantee value creation?
We, in pursuit of shaking some of our bottom of the funnel through, and before we complete our review of our pricing and any changes resulting from it, are offering discounted hourly rates for a short window of time (July 1st through July 15th, 2024, to be exact). The 12-month T-bill is paying 5.10% as of this writing. My promotional pricing for July is a 5% discount from standard jet card program pricing on all hourly charges, plus a discount on overnights, and all fixed for 12 months. You get short-term duration at killer rates, and you get access to a bunch of planes in the process. It’s like a treasury but sexier. Hell, while this is the furthest thing from financial advice, I’m looking at anything with duration vvvveeeerrrryyyy favorably right now.
Long story short, our approach to pricing to date has felt exceedingly rational, and discounting what is already the best value jet card in the Midwest feels irrational. But maybe that’s exactly what we need, a little irrationality. Because I won’t do “decent” twice……
To learn more, take advantage of our July promo, or have a look at our current jet card rates, click Send Me Jet Card Rates below.
– Mark