I have completed a review of Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, which includes a discussion of how we could apply the book’s principles to our helicopter business. Comments/corrections would be appreciated.
9 thoughts on “Review of a business bestseller on marketing and persuasion”
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Did the changes you made have any significant effect? That would make the review much more interesting!
John: I will let you know. I made the first changes last night, so it is too soon to tell. Also, we are always much busier in the summer than the winter. But I will let you know!
Re: R44 vs R22, I think you should sell this as a safety issue, not create the perception of weakness. “We use the world’s safest training helicopter: the Robinson R44.” or in a FAQ “Q: Why do you use only R44s when others use R22s? A: We no longer use the cheaper R22s because they do not meet our safety standards.” Fear is a great way to justify upsell.
Finding rhymes with helicopter is almost as bad as “orange”. Making a rhyming jingle with “orange helicopter” would be impressive.
I have a copy of Influence: Psychology of Persuasion to lend you.
These are indeed reliable phenomena. The new iPad, for example:
“Store reservations seem to be split around 50% for the 32GB unit, 30% for the 64GB unit and about 20% for the 16GB, which is ‘what Apple was expecting.'”
sounds like you need to buy/lease/rent the world’s cheapest turbine helicopter and a single R22 so that you can present the R44 as a sensible compromise between a deluxe, gas-guzzling turbine, and a cheap but dangerous toy-like helicopter.
Why would you buy the turbine Robinson when you could buy a used
Hughes/MD500? Plus, it wouldn’t have the mast bumping issues endemic to
the Robinson…
Joe: Your question is way off topic, given that we don’t have any of the new jet-powered R66 helicopters (actually nobody does) and no plans to buy any. But I love to talk about helicopters, so I’ll answer it!
Let’s talk about the mast bumping issues first. The Robinson has the same rotor system design as the Bell Jet Ranger and therefore they share the same potential for mast bumping in extreme maneuvers. That did not keep the Jet Ranger from becoming the world’s bestselling helicopter in both civilian and military markets.
It is true that an airworthy MD500 can be bought for less than the price of a new R66 and even for less than the price of a new R22! But MD barely exists as a company, so an aircraft could be grounded for weeks waiting for a part. That might be fine for a hobbyist, but not for a flight school. Folks who operate MD helicopters usually have several, including a hulk that they rob for parts. The operating cost of older turbine ships is high enough that Robinson hasn’t had any trouble selling R44s. I don’t think that they’ll have much trouble selling the R66 either. Consider a foreign military that wants a primary trainer. They aren’t going to buy a mishmash of 30-year MD500s and Jet Rangers and then try to train 19-year-olds to be become experts at maintaining these ancient beasts.
In my view, globally suggesting that the R22 is a “terrible trainer aircraft and difficult to fly” would be inappropriate. First, I understand that you learned on the R22. Second, whenever I flew with Paul Cantrell or Mike Rhodes or Joris Naiman, I never felt that I was in an aircraft that was “terrible” or dangerous. Flying of course always has an element of risk. More accidents likely occur in the R22 because more people train in R22s and more low time CFIs serve as flight instructors in R22s. You place a low time CFI in an R44 with a student who kicks left pedal and lunges the cyclic forward when entering an auto, I am not sure the experience will be all that different than in an R22.
Steve: Paul Cantrell and Mike Rhodes, whom we are fortunate to have at East Coast Aero Club, are among the most experienced and best Robinson helicopter instructors in the world. What they can do with a student in an R22 is not typical. There are a lot of R22s that are wrecked every summer in the bottom of autorotations,especially at higher altitudes (talk to the Starr and AIG insurance check pilots, whose job it is to travel around to flight schools). Nearly all of those accidents would have been prevented in a helicopter with a larger power reserve (the instructors were trying to save the maneuver with power but could not arrest the descent rate with the feeble power that is left in an R22 with two heavy guys on board). The R44, if flown by two people, has a fantastic amount of reserve power.
Roger Brul, one of the best helicopter pilots in New England (he ran the EC-120 charter service out of Beverly) said that he would not teach in an R22 anymore because he didn’t think that he was good enough to keep a student from crashing. He was willing to teach in the R44.
But really, why aren’t we convinced by the man who knows the R22 the best? Frank Robinson has gone on record dozens of times as saying that he did not design the R22 as a trainer, that it is not a good or safe trainer, and that he wishes that flight schools would use the R44.
What special information do we know about the R22 that Frank Robinson doesn’t know?