High Fliers

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AMIGO'S BEST FRIEND

Since its creation 15 years ago, Amigo Sales Inc., manufacturers of compact motorized wheelchairs, has grown by 50% a year, topping $12 million last year. The corporate headquarters in Bridgeport, Mich., has been joined by a branch in Albuquerque, N.Mex., with another branch planned for tbe Southeast next year. The 1,100-mile commute each time an executive wanted to visit the plant was the initial reason president Allan R. Thieme decided to buy a company plane.

Rather than learning to fly and choosing a plane himself, Thieme decided to hire a professional pilot first and let him select the aircraft. The plan was to give pilot Michael Martin a year or more to do the job; at the same time, Martin was to learn about the company, working in the manufacturing and service departments. The right machine, a Cessna 421C cabinclass twin, came along within a month, but Martin continues to work as a pilot-plus, spending nonflying time in production and customer sales and service.

The airplane is Amigo's link with its nationwide network of sales representatives, "our most important people," as administrative manager Maria De Santis calls them. "The main reason for having the airplane is the convenience of flying where and when we choose," she says. "It's really important tbat we have access to our reps, and tbey're not necessarily in big cities."

The airplane has made the sales staff's job easier as well. Amigo makes extensive use of videotape for instruction, sales motivation, record-keeping, and general communication -- but the cameras and recorders aren't portable enough to carry aboard commercial airliners or substantial enough to consign to the freight hold. "The company plane means that now we can take them with us," De Santis says. "We can show our salespeople what goes on in the factory, and plant personnel can see what's happening in the field."

The plane also serves as a company symbol. "It gives our sales reps a great deal of confidence in the company," says De Santis. "It tells them that we're growing fast enough and are stable enough to be able to afford a company aircraft. It's a good tool, too. Every once in awhile, one of them is able to use the plane, and that's a real motivator." Amigo posts the flight schedule in the company cafeteria, and anybody with a demonstrable need -- a Michigander considering a move to the Albuquerque facility, for example -- can climb aboard.

SUPERIOR ATTITUDE

In 1965, Charles C. Myers had a last-minute appointment in a small town in Iowa: too far to drive from his Omaha office, too remote for airline service. Myers chartered a single-engine plane and made the date. En route, the pilot employed the general-aviation equivalent of the used-car salesman's "Go on -- take 'er for a spin": He gave Myers the controls. By the time they landed, Myers was hooked. Within a year, he had his own single engine, within two years, a light twin.

Today, Myers owns three Cessnas -- a Conquest propjet, a 340 twin, and a P210 single -- and credits them with helping him expand Superior Industries of Nebraska Inc., a builder of cold-storage facilities, to $26 million in sales in 1982. "When I started flying, our sales doubled," he marvels. "I could be in more places, make more calls, and inspect more jobs after I sold them. Since then, we've also had to do almost no warranty work on the jobs we've built, because after we get the contract, we're back there inspecting the work under way, and the airplane is what gets the team there to look at it."

A recent week saw Myers flying to Alabama on a Monday afternoon for a business appointment; to Missouri the next day for a dinner meeting, with a side trip to pick up and then return a customer team from Arkansas; then back to Omaha late that night. Wednesday, he was Texas-bound with a cabin load of Superior Industries staffers. Two landed in Dallas, another in Houston, and Myers continued on to Corpus Christi, where he spent Thursday bidding for a major contract. Friday, it was back to Nebraska, after picking up his people in Houston and Dallas.

"When I got home, the Corpus Christi customer had called saying we had the job. How do you justify an airplane?" asks Myers. "There are times when you pay for the whole thing with just one contract. There's no way we could have made that Texas trip and done that work commercially."

Superior's progression from a self-piloted single-engine plane to a sophisticated corporate aviation department followed the usual steps. Although Myers still enjoys flying he realized that spending in-flight hours with clients or staff in the cabin would be a better use of his time. So he added a pilot, a flier who assumed total responsibility for the care and maintenance of the company plane. As one plane became three, he built an aviation department, including an administrator to make sure that the equipment was used as economically as possible.

"We'd be making repeat trips and back-and-forths when we should have been flying one big round robin, but now we have a person in charge of transportation, lodging, and coordination of it all, and that's very important," says Myers. Myers's hobby has become a well-oiled sales tool, with two phones on the Conquest, "one in the cockpit and one in the cabin for when I'm a passenger. Sometimes, I'll go check a job, and after we leave and level off at 30,000 feet, I'll call the owner of the facility and give him a report. I could wait till I got back to the office, but there's something about a plane. For instance, I seldom have to rent a car or take a cab, because our customers can't resist picking me up at the airport. I've gotten a lot of business that way -- signed a lot of contracts right on the ramp."

CORRECTION-DATE: January, 1984

CORRECTION:

The figure that appeared in the sidebar to "High Fliers" (Selling & Marketing, November 1983) stated $27,000,000 as the purchase price of a small jet, the figure should have been $2,700,000. In addition, the purchase price of a small twin plane is $500,000, and its annual operating costs are $240,000.

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