Fundraising

I was in Memphis not long ago to facilitate some software training, and my flights back home were VERY delayed due to weather. I was supposed to depart Memphis at 3:50 in the afternoon, but didn’t actually depart until about 7:30 in the evening. It is draining to sit around in uncomfortable airport seats while waiting for your aircraft to arrive.

Luckily for me, my crew (two pilots and a flight attendant) were ALSO waiting for the plane to arrive, so I used the time to speak with them about flight schools and aviation in general. I was also quite fortunate that my crew from Memphis to Chicago was ALSO the crew flying me from Chicago home - as long as I didn’t let them out of my sight, there was no way for me to miss my connection! Mada, my flight attendant, also moved me from my cramped little seat to a leg-roomy exit row seat (an example of why you should network every chance you get)!

Once on the ground in Chicago, there were more than 60 people waiting to get on a 40-seat airplane (an Embraer Regional Jet, if you’re interested). The weather was still ugly, but we boarded the airplane and pushed back with several empty seats. A few of the other passengers grumbled about leaving people behind when there was obviously room on the airplane - so I tried to explain to those in earshot about how aircraft are not designed to carry both full passengers AND full fuel… every kind of aircraft has weight limitations - and passengers add weight. Fuel adds weight, too. And if the plane is too heavy, it won’t fly. So when you’re flying through (or into, or around) bad weather, it is necessary to carry more fuel (not only for safety but also to meet certain regulatory requirements) in case Air Traffic Control makes you hold or if you have to go to an alternate airport because of the conditions at the planned destination. To carry this fuel, the airline may have to leave some seats empty.

Now, it is possible (theoretically) to design an airplane that creates enough lift at a slow enough airspeed to fly with full fuel and full passengers - but it would most likely burn fuel at a faster rate and/or have to fly at a slower speed, meaning its range would be unacceptable for use as an airliner or the flight would take longer than acceptable to us as passengers. So the designers of the plane have to trade utility for efficiency and efficacy.

All of the above leads me to what is really striking about the similarities of tradeoffs between the design of an airplane and the design of a new business: in both airplane design and business design, you can’t be everything to everyone… you need to find a niche. Many, many business and entrepreneurial bloggers have already spoken about this from a business perspective, including sometimes not actually saying anything at all about how to find a niche or really even what one is, but about whether it is pronounced "neesh" or "nitch." Personally, I believe that it doesn't matter how you pronounce it, as long as you find one!

In business, because an entrepreneur wants his or her start-up to be low-cost and bring in enough money to make a profit, s/he cannot make everyone happy. Choices have to be made about what products to sell and at what price, and where to locate. An entrepreneur who designs a business so they can “fill all the seats and still put in full fuel” to try to please everyone will find themselves not pleasing anyone.

So in business, you must find a niche, then create a product around it - even though there are many stories of entrepreneurs creating a product, then creating a niche for it after the fact (this is lovingly known as “an answer in search of a problem”). This is by far the exception rather than the rule. The airplane, actually, is a good example of this; Orville and Wilbur Wright designed the first airplane - The Wright Flyer - for the sheer challenge, not because there was demand for flying machines. They then set out to build demand for the product.

An airplane’s design allows its pilots to understand what they can make it safely do. In a similar manner, every successful business is designed with a focus, allowing its “pilots” (owners, CEO, etc.) to sacrifice less important things (according to the business’s design) to meet the goals that the business has set for itself. A business’s mission, vision, and values state its purpose - as well as what it is willing to “trade” to achieve its goals.

Before you start your business, know what you want it to do (find your niche), and then know what you're willing to "tradeoff" to make it a success!

Andrew Hartley is a professional trainer working in the transportation industry. Andrew has a Bachelors Degree in Aviation Management and an MBA in Entrepreneurship. He has had more than seven years of training experience in both aviation and shipping, both in operations training and in leadership and development training. He is 29 years old.

Visit his blog, The Aviation of Business, at www.aviationofbusiness.com, and learn to make your business soar!

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com - The Aviation of Business - Tradeoffs in Business and in Aviation