Speaker 1: 0:00

that again. Hello and welcome. My name is Tom Lelio. I'm your ultimate jet guide, and on this channel we help buyers and aspiring brokers to sell private jets with no experience necessary.

Speaker 1: 0:13

Today, we're pulling back the curtain on failure. Failure is just one of those things that you have to come across in anything that you're doing. I love the quote where it asks about what's the difference between sinners and saints. And saints are just sinners that got up one more time. And the same thing is true. Successful people are just those people who refuse to give up and, most importantly, learn from their mistakes. Because you can refuse to give up but not learn from your mistakes and you're just gonna keep failing over and over again. And so if you're experiencing failure, if you're experiencing disappointment today we're going to talk about times where I faced failure and disappointment how do we discipline those disappointments so we can find ourselves becoming more and more successful, moving forward? So let's talk about it, let's get into it. What's going on? Joshua Hayden, nick, pastor, vincent it's awesome.

Speaker 1: 1:06

So step one we're going to talk about expectations, and these expectations come to yourself, self-expectations and others, and then clients. So let's talk about self expectations first. When we're talking about expectations of self. I think it's really important, especially as you're first starting out as a private jet broker, to have this idea that it's going to take a lot more than you think. It is. And and and. I.

Speaker 1: 1:40

When I first started jet life arrow, you know, I thought I'd be selling jets right away, and it just didn't work out that way. I thought I'd be selling. I had sold 20 jets every year for the past three years and I thought I'd be on track to do another 20 the following year because the industry was just booming and booming and booming. And reality is it took a lot more work. What I found out was when I would go out on my own and I was no longer with a brokerage.

Speaker 1: 2:04

Now I had to handle all the overhead. I had to pay for the JetNet subscriptions, I had to pay for the email, I had to pay for the marketing, the controller ads, the trade-a-plane ads, and it started to add up. So not only was I not making the volume of calls I needed to make, because I was distracted, but also I was paying out more money. There was more investment on my part. So even though I got a hundred percent of the commission check, I mean, I was basically back to 60, 40, where the company was getting 60% of the paycheck and I was only getting 40% because I had to build up the stream of revenue so that it would start to make sense. So, with regards to expectations, one of the ways that you can fend off disappointment and one of the ways that you can get your mind right is to just 10x. I love Grant Cardone's book, the 10x Rule, and I think we have it here somewhere.

Speaker 2: 2:57

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 2:59

So the 10x Rule is a fantastic book because it says the only difference between success and failure is the 10X Rule. And what it does, is it really just kind of helps set your mind clear that if you think you need to make 100 calls a day, you should be shooting for 1,000 calls a day. And just shoot for 1,000 and you'll blow way past 100 hundred and, and, and, the, the, the volume, or the, the, the, the effort that you put out. If you put out a 10 X effort, comes back to you much more. Um, it's get your mind right. That, like, why would I expect to have someone list their jet with me?

Speaker 1: 3:42

So let's take a step back. Let's talk about how to get a listing for a private jet. You have to. You're brand new into the industry. You've taken the course, you've learned about the market, you've become knowledgeable about the aircraft, the market, how things work, the process of selling a jet, and now you're going to call a random stranger who's a multi-multi-millionaire, super successful person. You're going to call them out of the blue. You're probably going to interrupt their day. Maybe they're in a meeting, maybe they're with their family, and you're going to talk to them. You're going to be like hello, my name's Tom. I know you don't know me, but will you trust me with your multi-million dollar asset to sell it for you? Great Thanks, that's what we're trying to do. And so people who come to me and want to learn how to be a jet broker, sometimes we make it look, I want it to be accessible for people because I was able to do it with no experience necessary.

Speaker 1: 4:38

But it's going to take a certain mindset, a 10x mindset, to actually be successful at this. So when I tell you guys, you got to make 50 to 100 calls a day, I mean it and I really would. I think you should make more than that. But people will come in and they'll make 10 calls a day, or five calls a day, or 20 calls a day, and then after 30 days they're like Tom, I don't have a listing. It's like okay, well, first of all, I told you between 50 and 100 calls a day. Second of all, if you have a 10x mindset, you're trying to make 100, 200 calls a day. Okay, but people come in without a 10x mindset and they come in with a 1x mindset and they want to do the bare minimum possible to get the biggest result.

Speaker 1: 5:20

But you got to pay the price. I was telling this to somebody yesterday on the phone. Listen, it's cool that you're already in aviation, you're a pilot and you're thinking about maybe starting a detailing business and maybe you'll also do jet brokering on the side. I'm like that's cool and some people can make that work. But listen, you got to pay the price. You got to make the phone calls, you got to get kicked in the face. You got to do the learning. You got to do the education. There's no shortcuts here. I can help you with trying to make it as simple and accessible as possible, but at the end of the day, you need to take responsibility for your own life. And it was great for me because I had a family I had to take care of, so I couldn't fail. And some of our successful brokers right now the reason why they're successful is because they quit their jobs and they have a family to support, and now they're rocking and rolling. Or they just had a real passion for aviation. They were teachable, they were coachable and they wanted to learn, and now they're selling jets.

Speaker 1: 6:15

So one of my failures, like I said, was expectation of myself. I can look back to the times where business was slow, a business wasn't doing well and I was just letting myself off the hook. Another place of failure let's bring this back here would be the expectations that others had on me, and what I mean by others is like mostly friends and family, you know, and I was letting their expectations of me give me an excuse so that I didn't have to work as hard. And you know, at the end of the day, I think we need to take personal responsibility for the outcome we want to see and don't let our friends and family. The people you surround yourself with is the level at which you're going to play. So if you're surrounding yourself with players that are making $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 a year and they're happy, well, guess what? You're going to be happy making 50, 60, $70,000 a year. But if you're surrounding yourself with people making a hundred thousand dollars, six figures, uh, or if they're making six figures per month, like that's the level you're going to play at. So be aware of who you're surrounding yourself with, and and and. That's the level that you're going to play at.

Speaker 1: 7:19

And then, lastly, expectations from clients. So where I failed my clients because of expectations. There are times where I haven't gone above and beyond. There are times where a client was expecting me to catch something in a document. Even though I'm not a lawyer, things don't get caught and that's a pain in the butt. I've already shared with you where I put a listing on there and the listing on the controller said you know, it included a life raft. And then we closed on the deal and nobody noticed that and the life raft wasn't included in any of the documents or anything like that. But then a week later I get a call from the new owner hey, where's the life raft? I mean that cost me a couple thousand dollars, you know to remedy that. So you know to to to to remedy that. So you know the lesson there is pay attention, um, you know, to the details, slow down and there's really no huge emergencies in private jet brokering, which is nice, whereas with charter, you know you can have a spur of the moment emergency because someone can't get somewhere there because their flight's grounded. But with private jets, for the most part in in the, in the selling, the acquisition of them, there's no real imminent emergency. So take your time, slow down and make sure you review everything that you're talking with. So expectations is one stage where I failed.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Another one and I've kind of alluded to this is agreements. Okay, so I'll show you where we failed on the listing agreement, I'll show you where we fell on the acquisition agreement and I'll show where we failed on the APA. So on the listing agreements, the purpose of a listing agreement is to make sure that you get paid. Okay, so we don't want to, we don't want to work for free. The listing agreement does a few things. Number one it gives you exclusivity, so that you are the exclusive broker and you are the only person that is authorized by the owner to represent the aircraft for a transaction. That's important. Number two it describes how long you're going to be representing this person for, so 120-day listing. And number three, it describes the commission and how it's outlaid.

Speaker 1: 9:40

And where I have failed with these listing agreements is number one sometimes not getting it, not getting a listing agreement, and then the seller goes ahead and sells it without me. Now I don't get paid. So again, don't be in a hurry. Talk to the seller, build a relationship with the seller If he's not willing to give you a listing agreement, an exclusive listing agreement. Number one maybe you're not explaining listing agreements correctly. And number two, you don't have enough rapport. This business is about relationship. It's about building rapport. So you don't really want to move forward with a transaction or a deal or a relationship until you have that relationship settled in. So I would keep that in mind if you're having trouble getting someone to sign an exclusive listing agreement.

Speaker 1: 10:24

And lastly, people have asked me Tom, they're not signing my listing agreement. Well, I would ask you the question why should they? Why should they? Why should they choose you over anybody else in the world? Well, I'll sell their jet for them. Well, so will anybody else. Well, I'll do my best job. Well, so will anybody else.

Speaker 1: 10:40

So take a step back and think about who are you? Who do you serve? What problems do you solve? Who are the people that you're solving the problems for and really dial in so you can speak directly to that audience. And then, when you're on the phone with someone, you can speak to them like, listen, I know you own a Citation 5. I've sold almost 100 legacy citations in my career. I know the legacy citations, I know the upgrade path. So I know people that want to buy your plane from a Citation 2 or an S2 or a 1SP. I know where people are going from the 5s. I know that they're comparing the 5s to. Maybe they're comparing them to Excels, maybe they're comparing them to Hawkers, phenom, 100-300s, learjets. So I know what the buyers are thinking about. I understand that your engines are almost come time for an overhaul. Well, there's options that we can do, whether it's a engine extension program or we do a hot section instead. I understand this stuff. So I'm speaking directly to a Citation 560 owner. I'm not speaking to just any owner that owns a jet. I'm very specific and I tell them listen.

Speaker 1: 11:51

The benefits of working with me is number one. I'm a full-time professional, not a pilot or a mechanic with a hobby. You call, I'll answer the phone and that's important. The benefit to you is you're working with someone that you know like and you can trust. Not only that, but my core values are really important to me Honesty, integrity and humility, just to name a few. I don't know very many brokers that even talk about values. Values are important to me. If you want a broker that has values and cares about those values, then I think you should work with me. And, last but not least, there's no charge. There's no fee to work for me, upfront, and I know a lot of brokers will say that, but then they nickel and dime you for photos, maintenance fees, cancellation fees, management fees, et cetera. This is really truly no risk to you. The benefit is there's no risk. You don't pay until we sell the aircraft. So you know, let's get started. And so I know my the people that I'm talking to and I speak to them directly and that helps us get the exclusive listing agreements actually sold. So the failure on my part is when I don't get those signed.

Speaker 1: 12:49

The other failure can be on the listing agreements. Sometimes you just put in there what happens if they sell the plane. But we also want to put in there what happens if they lease the plane or they take the plane and trade. And that's something to consider because if it's not spelled out, I mean I guess technically they don't have to pay you for a lease. So you want to make sure that that's going to be in there. Another thing that might be in there is when does the exclusive listing agreement start? Does it start when it's signed? But what if the person doesn't get you the specs and the photos and everything that you need to actually list it for sale? What if they don't get you the maintenance report and all that information for another 30 days. Did you just take 30 days out of 120 days? You got to put it in there. When does the clock start? That's important. So a couple of a couple of failures there that you know. Hopefully that's helpful to you.

Speaker 1: 13:34

Uh, all right, let's talk about the acquisition agreement. So the acquisition agreement is when you agree to um work for somebody on the buyer side and there's a couple things that you can kind of fail. Number one don't get it. I have, and just to be clear, like I you know probably for every three acquisitions that I do, one of them I have a full agreement with. It's not the best and I'm just sharing this with you in full transparency. Like I'm not the greatest at this, but I know there's a level of which I aspire to be at and that is always getting an acquisition agreement. Because, number one it helps you with exclusivity. You're the only person authorized to work on behalf of the buyer. That's good for the buyer. That means that they have someone always in the corner.

Speaker 1: 14:24

Now there's a confusion that I came across yesterday. I was talking to somebody about this and this doesn't mean that if another broker brings them a plane that they can't buy that plane. They absolutely can buy that plane, but now they have somebody that's working on their behalf. So if another broker brings him a plane, we can discuss a reduced commission because I didn't find the plane for you. But I'm still going to be your guy. You're not going to just take a random plane from a random broker and just trust him on it and then how is he going to balance between representing the seller and representing you? So the acquisition agreement make sure you understand exclusivity doesn't mean that they can't buy from anybody else. It just simply means that you're going to be with them through that process. And if you want to negotiate a reduced commission if you don't find the plane, that's totally up to you. But I think it's important to always get the acquisition agreement, because if somebody calls me and says, yeah, I got a buyer, okay, well, do you have an acquisition agreement signed? Well, no, okay, well, they lose status. They lose status in the eyes of the owners, they lose status in the eyes of other brokers that are trying to do the deal. So get that acquisition signed. And if they won't sign it, work harder to understand why and then fix the problem.

Speaker 1: 15:31

If you guys just don't have a good enough relationship, well, you got to build that relationship. It's like asking somebody out on a date the first time you meet them. You can't just ask them out to marry them. If you're on a date, you can't just ask them to marry them right away. You got to build that rapport. So, work to build that rapport. And you can build that rapport by floating them market reports by them. Hey, here's what's on the market now. Here are my thoughts on it, so they can see you in action. Maybe you float them a few off market options, but you take the tail number off, you take the identifying information off. You kind of do use generic like instead of saying it's got, you know 8,648 hours on it, you just say it's got, you know just under 10,000 hours on, it's a late 1990s model with this kind of avionics, paint and interiors, an eight and a nine, and you just kind of float them generic stuff before you give them the full maintenance report and all the information on it. You just ask them listen, are we in business together? If you buy this plane, are you going to pay me a commission? You got to have those conversations.

Speaker 1: 16:29

And then, last but not least, let's talk about the aircraft purchase agreement. This is where you know a lot of people are going to find failure and it's hard. You know we're not lawyers and I always tell my clients to have a lawyer take a look at this. But even if you have lawyers taking a look at things, you know things can get hairy and it doesn't necessarily stop somebody from suing somebody. So go through the APAs very carefully. That's one of the things we'd go over with the JetLife Arrow course how to become a broker and you can start the course for free. You can go to theultimatejetguycom sign up. You'll get a link to the Circle community and there's a free broker course right there. I think we quickly do an overview of the documents. But then if you want to take the actual course, we do go through in depth on how to put together an aircraft purchase agreement. So that is that All right.

Speaker 1: 17:20

Last but not least, let's talk about follow-up. The fortune is in the follow-up and the big, the big mistake here is just not doing it. I kind of alluded to it with expectations of self Um, but you've got to. Got to follow up uh with with your peoples. Now, follow-up does not mean pester. It does not mean annoyed, does not mean mean badger. Now, follow-up does not mean pester. It does not mean annoy. It does not mean badger. It means continually providing value to the people that are open.

Speaker 1: 18:05

The other important thing, too, is when you're making cold calls or when you're making connections with people. What we're looking for is problems, and if they don't have a problem, then our solutions won't help them. So we're not going to badger them with like hey, we can help you sell your jet. Hey, we can help you sell your jet. Hey, we can help you sell your jet, because they don't want to sell their jet, so why would you keep it? It's like getting an ad on YouTube or getting an ad at a commercial that has nothing to do with you. You just ignore it, you skip over it. But what about those targeted ads, the ads that actually speak to you? When you went to a website and then you went on Facebook and also you got an ad from that website, you don't mind it as much. You might not be ready to buy right now, but you're also like okay, cool, I saw this, I was interested in this, and now I'm getting ads for it.

Speaker 1: 18:43

So your follow-up has to be similar to that where you talk to somebody, you gain some common ground. You talk to somebody, you gain some common ground. Figure out some ways and be creative. Can you add? There's a couple different ways to add value. Can you add information? Okay, this could be like a market report. This could be news. This could be introductions. Network is especially good if you're working with first-time buyers, you know. This can be op costs for upgrades. Um, okay, information is one way to follow up, not my favorite, but it's definitely one way to do it.

Speaker 1: 19:47

I prefer entertainment, so I'll send videos, usually funny. You can send topical entertainment, like holidays, and if and if you're going to do holidays, like let's back up for a second, Can we like add some? Like everyone's going to send them, like a happy 4th of July, okay, and it's going to have an American flag on, it's going to be great. What can you do to go above and beyond? Like, go to YouTube for a second and find a 4th of July video, or find a 4th of July meme or something that actually means something to you, and when you send it out to them, send it via text message and be like hey, bill, happy 4th of July. My grandfather was in the army and I watched a lot of military videos with my dad. It really instilled in me a sense of patriotism. I'm really proud to be here in this country and and I just wanted to share this video with you Boom send, okay, share a little bit about yourself. Give them some entertainment based on the holiday and off you go.

Speaker 1: 20:55

So I think that's another way to follow up. Also, you can consider and I alluded to this the mediums that you're going to use to follow up. You can use email, phone call, text, social media. If you can find them on social media, that's a great way to connect with people. You can do in person. You can do a delivery If you want to do I like to do edible arrangements sometimes or deliver a pizza to somebody. Okay, all different ways to follow up.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So and again, these are the main ways like it just happened to one of our brokers he was calling through a market, he put a note on let's just say it was a CJ and you put a note on there to follow up in three weeks. Three weeks went by. He got busy with another market. He didn't follow up for five weeks and by the time he followed up he saw that it was listed with another broker. It happens you get somebody warmed up, excited, ready to list, you forget to follow up and then somebody else swoops in and they're like, yep, I'm ready to go. It's like, uh, but that's a failure that we can learn from, and so I hope this is helpful. If anybody has any questions, I'll stay on for another minute or two to answer any of your questions. In the meantime, I definitely encourage you guys to check out the Circle community that we do have. If you're an aspiring jet broker, you can check it out right here.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Thank you so much for watching. If you haven't already, dot jet life arrow dot com and check out our online community for aspiring brokers and current brokers. Here you'll find discussions, all thing aviation's based things that you're going to want to know as an aircraft broker. You can also check out our free training as well as more resources that are available to help you to become a better jet broker. That's circlejetlifearrowcom to begin your journey within the broker community absolutely free.

Speaker 1: 22:52

I'm really excited about that the Circle community, by the way because I think we're up to 180 members right now, so it's really cool to watch that grow. I encourage you to check it out. It's a great place to start If you're thinking about becoming a jet broker. I don't think there's anywhere else on the planet or in the internet that is like this where you can ask questions about becoming a jet broker. You can take video lessons on how to become a jet broker. It's all there for you. Because aviation changed my life, I want to help other people by changing their life. Quick question oh, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Speaker 1: 23:26

So, coming in from the Instagram, is it normal to give LOIs before getting exterior pics of the aircraft? That's an interesting question. Normally, if somebody is inquiring on an aircraft, you do have exterior photos of it. If somebody is asking for an offer, before they send you photos of the aircraft, it may just be that you're not talking to the actual owner. You're talking to someone in between, like a broker or somebody, and they want to make sure that you're legit and they're going to try and back-to-back the deal. So if you're going to offer a million dollars, they're going to send an offer to the owner at $800,000, see if he'll take $800,000 and then if he'll take 800K, and then he'll take the $200,000 spread from your offer to make his commission. And I'm not saying this in a nefarious way, I'm just saying this is a real thing. That could be the case. It is an off-market aircraft. So if it's an off-market aircraft, that's probably what's going on, is you're not talking to the owner. If you're talking to the owner directly and that's the problem with off-market aircraft it's always a guy who knows the guy, whatever, whatever. And you have to sift through all that, especially if it's not in the United States. So what I would say is if you're dealing with off-market stuff, you want to be talking to the owner. If you're not talking to the owner, talk to the broker and just be straight up with the guy Like dude, are you back-to-backing this? Just tell me so I can navigate this appropriately. Don't be shady about it.

Speaker 1: 24:54

There's got to be a way to get exterior photos, and so maybe work with a broker and see if you can pull up photos on JetNet. A good broker will kind of do that for free. Actually, if you want, I'm happy to. Okay for a global oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Well, hey, dude, why don't you send me a DM? Connie or La Connie, I'm sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your name Send me a DM in Instagram and let's talk about it some more.

Speaker 1: 25:18

But overall, there shouldn't be a problem getting exterior photos. They should not require a letter of intent before they send photos, unless it has to do with privacy reasons, in which case a non-disclosure would be fine. So you can send them a non-disclosure. You won't disclose to anybody what airplane this is and get the photos before the LOI. Because what if the photos show that's completely in pieces? Well, that changes the LOI. So I'm not going to pay you $10 million or whatever it is for an airplane that's in pieces. I need something so I can make an offer. I need to see something. So hope that was helpful for you guys. I appreciate you. I will see you guys next week live on the show. Catch you later.