0:00

In my opinion, it's all mental

0:02

attitude and thinking, you know, that you're

0:04

gonna hear no a thousand times shit is gonna

0:06

go wrong. You know, I mean, those are

0:08

the true trials. So

0:11

I, I dunno if I'm giving you one answer, but it's really

0:13

grit. It's just not giving up and

0:16

convincing yourself that it's gonna work and just

0:18

imagine it in the future and then finding

0:20

a way to make it work.

0:23

Welcome to FASCINATING ENTREPRENEURS.

0:26

How do people end up becoming an entrepreneur?

0:29

How do they scale and grow their businesses? How

0:31

do they plan for profit? Are

0:33

they in it for life? Are they building to

0:35

exit these and a

0:37

myriad of other topics? Will be discussed

0:40

to pull back the veil on the wizardry

0:42

of successful and FASCINATING

0:45

ENTREPRENEURS. My

0:50

book, RELENTLESS is now available

0:52

everywhere books can be bought online, including

0:55

Amazon and BarnesAndNoble.com, try

0:57

your local indie bookstore too. And

1:00

if they don't have it, they can order it.

1:02

Just ask them. The reviews are streaming

1:04

in and I'm so thankful for the positive

1:06

feedback as well as hearing from people

1:09

that my memoir has impacted them

1:11

positively. It is not

1:14

enough to be resilient. You have

1:16

to be relentless. You can go

1:18

to TheRelentlessBook.com

1:20

for more information. Thank you so

1:22

much. Cory

1:26

Bengtzen is the founder of Skys Share,

1:28

a private jet company that saves their clients

1:31

time and gets them back to their families

1:33

faster. We talk about how his team

1:35

is structured, their strategy for growth,

1:38

and just who is flying private in

1:40

this current economy. Now, let's

1:42

get right into it.

1:46

So we are a private jet company. Our

1:48

headquarters are here in Utah. We've got a

1:50

couple different facets within the company, but

1:52

we do private charter. So if someone wanted to

1:55

just charter an airplane for the weekend with their

1:57

friends and go to Vegas, or a business

1:59

meeting, what have you, they can call us

2:01

and we can help 'em with either our aircraft

2:04

or we have a lot of colleagues that

2:06

we work with and we can use other people's aircraft

2:08

as well. And then we also have a

2:10

fractional program, so that's like a timeshare

2:13

where you buy a portion of one aircraft

2:15

and then you have access to the entire fleet.

2:18

And then we also do full aircraft

2:20

sales management and charter. So we're

2:22

a boutique private jet company

2:24

that really works with the clients and figures

2:27

out which avenue is the very best way for them

2:29

to fly, and then we kind of help them

2:31

achieve their goals.

2:32

I was able to hear a little bit about

2:35

your story at the Genius

2:37

Network Mastermind. Can

2:39

you tell me a bit about what private

2:42

jet flying means to you

2:44

and why it is meaningful to you?

2:47

Yeah, first, like it's

2:49

my biggest passion. I absolutely just love

2:51

airplanes. I wanted to be a pilot

2:53

since I was in high school and then

2:55

actually got in the car industry and

2:58

I stumbled into that and it was just gonna be a one or

3:00

two year deal and ended up being in the industry

3:02

for about 15 years, owning a couple

3:05

car dealerships, but always wanted

3:07

to get back into flying. I think

3:09

there's. This beautiful freedom

3:11

when it comes to being able to get an airplane,

3:13

especially I'm a pilot, so I love

3:15

flying the airplanes and pilot in the airplane

3:18

and just when those wheels leave the ground,

3:20

it's like all of your problems and everything else

3:22

also leaves the ground. And so

3:24

what flying private for me ultimately

3:27

means is it's ultimate freedom and

3:30

we're able to help many of our clients

3:32

and it's helped me personally achieve their

3:34

goals. Whether it's spending more quality

3:36

time with our family, creating these

3:38

epic amazing experiences, because

3:41

I promise you, nobody does not

3:43

like walking up the doors of a private jet.

3:45

I mean, avoiding all the TSA, all the

3:47

lines. You drive up to the jet, you walk

3:49

up and you take off. It's just an incredible

3:52

experience and a lot of our clients,

3:54

they use business tools too. My

3:57

most favorite part of my job is when I'm

3:59

working with a client and I pilot 'em and they're

4:01

sitting in the right seat and I get to talk to these

4:03

different CEOs and learn about

4:05

their story and how these awesome

4:08

sexy time machines we call

4:10

airplanes can help them grow their business

4:12

as well as give 'em a better quality life, spend

4:14

more time with their family. So, I don't know, I

4:16

guess I'm pretty lucky cause I've, I've been

4:19

so passionate about, Airplanes

4:22

in general, that now I can combine my

4:25

profession and my career with something

4:27

that I absolutely love.

4:28

And what is the target demographic?

4:30

Who are your clients? Are they mega billionaires?

4:34

Are they mega millionaires? Are

4:36

they startups who

4:38

could consider private jet flying?

4:40

Yeah, great question. Flying private

4:43

is crazy expensive. Like it's

4:45

never going to pencil out if you just

4:47

compare it to flying First class

4:50

and on Delta or what have you,

4:52

until you take in consideration

4:55

what your time is worth. And for

4:57

the C-level executives on medium to

4:59

large size companies, you know, probably most

5:01

of our companies are, that we do business

5:04

with are doing. 50 million in revenue

5:06

or more. I would say that's

5:08

our client. Our perfect demographic is one

5:11

of two people. One, it's the business

5:13

owner, sea level suite that

5:15

has multiple remote locations

5:18

and they wanna be able to go visit those. And

5:20

so what would take them a week to do

5:22

via the airlines? We can do

5:24

in a day or two days, we can visit three, four

5:27

days, correction, three or four cities

5:29

in a day and have them home. For dinner with

5:31

their family. And then the other, that's

5:33

probably 60% of our flying is for

5:35

business people. The other 40%

5:37

is for the people that have worked really hard that can afford

5:40

to not fly via the

5:42

airlines and use it to go to their lake house or

5:44

to golfing up to Bandon Dunes

5:46

or take it to Hawaii. More of the vacation

5:49

lifestyle type of flying.

5:51

Yeah.

5:52

You are a pilot and you sometimes

5:54

fly these people, but that is not your

5:57

core. Role at the company

5:59

is it?

6:00

It's not the core role. I, I founded the

6:02

company 14 years ago. It's actually 14 years

6:04

ago this month. So we're celebrating that

6:07

and it's taken a long time and a lot of hard work

6:09

and a lot of sweat to get to where we're at right

6:11

now. And so I

6:13

handle most of the sales. I run the sales

6:15

team and work intimately with all

6:17

of the clients coming in on the fractional or looking

6:19

to buy and sell an aircraft. And

6:22

then I recently brought in a, a business partner,

6:24

Tommy. A couple years ago

6:26

has been just a godsend, one of the smartest humans

6:28

I've ever met. And so he runs

6:30

the whole finance side and HR

6:33

and operations. So between the two of us,

6:36

we're doing pretty good. So,

6:37

That's so great you found an operational

6:40

integrator to your visionary,

6:43

whimsical, CEO brain.

6:45

Right?

6:46

And you're using the exact language. We talk

6:48

every day. So we're an EOS company

6:51

and so he is the most amazing

6:53

integrator and I'm all visionary. I'm all looking

6:55

forward and trying to figure it out and then helping

6:58

the sales team when I can and so I guess-

6:59

When did you find that when your company really

7:02

ignited and took off in a different

7:04

direction as far as trajectory.

7:07

A hundred percent. And it would've been three

7:09

years ago. So luckily Tommy,

7:11

my partner, I've known since seventh grade,

7:14

we grew up together as friends and

7:16

he went and did corporate America again,

7:18

one of the smartest humans I've ever met and, and Seaville

7:20

executive and some very big corporations.

7:23

And then was doing consulting, but

7:25

I had grown this company. And that

7:27

would've been eight years I had it, but

7:29

we just hit this new streak of where we

7:31

were getting really busy. I came up with

7:33

the idea of the fractional program

7:36

and buying our charter certificate, and so we

7:38

were on this amazing growth,

7:41

but it was like I was drowning. It

7:43

was above my skillset in a lot of areas.

7:46

I'm like a salesman and a visionary, and not

7:48

really good at the cleanup and the follow through and

7:50

all that stuff. So I called Tommy

7:52

and I said, Tommy, just, I need to go to lunch

7:54

with you. I just need to pick your brain

7:56

for a little bit. And I took my financials

7:59

and for about a year he consulted

8:01

for free just to help me. And I was like,

8:03

I just feel like I'm drowning.

8:05

Thank God for those seventh grade friendships.

8:07

Oh my God. Seriously. And

8:10

I was hoping that during this time

8:12

that he could see that we were just on this. Awesome.

8:15

Like we had incredible momentum and

8:17

he did. And I said, okay, are we gonna do this? Like,

8:19

let's partner up on this company and let's really

8:21

take it to the next level. And with the

8:23

combination of bringing Tommy in, the

8:25

combination of before Tommy,

8:28

we didn't even have an org chart, but if there was

8:30

an org chart, it would've been me and 17

8:32

people reporting to me, which. Obviously

8:34

not scalable at all with

8:36

his help and then getting really structured.

8:39

I'm a fan of the EOS system and we run

8:41

our business very tight it within their recommendations

8:44

and it's just been incredible and,

8:46

and then we're lucky, like Covid during

8:49

the time it hit was the scariest thing it's ever

8:51

happened. Like we had all these airplanes and all these

8:53

pilots and everything was just grounded

8:55

and I didn't know if we were gonna make it through

8:57

it for a little bit, but then, coming

9:00

out of that, and we had this, we

9:02

had this saying within the company, we're not just gonna

9:04

survive, we're gonna thrive through Covid. And

9:06

we just, it was a mantra. We just kept saying, the

9:08

goal is not to let go any of our managers

9:11

and any of our pilots, and we didn't. And

9:13

then coming outta Covid, it's like all these

9:15

people now that had the means

9:17

to fly private. But didn't justify

9:20

it before. They didn't want to go get in a tube with 400

9:22

other people, so they were looking at ways

9:24

to fly private and so it's just been this awesome

9:27

ride since.

9:28

How quickly after the pandemic set

9:31

in and it was clear that it wasn't

9:33

going to be just two weeks.

9:35

Right.

9:35

Did that fuel

9:37

the rest of like that inertia?

9:40

It was probably a good six months, and

9:42

then soon as people felt safe to get outta

9:44

their house and start moving again, then

9:47

it was like, okay, I would rather

9:49

charter that airplane and just have it, me and

9:51

my family, and nobody else be

9:53

able to avoid all the lines and TSA

9:55

and all and whatnot. So, yeah, to answer

9:57

your question, about six months and then it's

10:00

just. It's been crazy. Now, it's interesting.

10:02

We go into, this year we're definitely feeling

10:05

a little bit of slowing. There's been a

10:07

couple of our big competitors that just actually

10:09

shut their doors in in the last few weeks.

10:11

Do I hear an acquisition about to

10:13

happen?

10:14

Not yet. We're gonna do it the right way.

10:18

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10:47

How do you market to this demo? They're

10:49

easy to find, right? If they've got

10:52

a business at that level, you can find

10:54

them. You get their information. So

10:57

I won't ask you how you source them, but

10:59

how do you get their attention? Yeah,

11:02

great question because they're easy to know who

11:04

they are, but they're incredibly difficult to actually

11:06

connect with. You know, they've got many gatekeepers

11:09

to get up to it. We track our advertising

11:12

and 60% of our

11:14

new business is all through referral

11:16

or repeat clients. And so what

11:18

our secret sauce is, one of our core values is

11:20

deliver the wow. And although we're not perfect,

11:23

we still stumble and make mistakes and whatnot.

11:25

We really try and put our best foot forward

11:27

and and deliver this incredible experience

11:29

because that's what I believe. What. Our business

11:32

is more of an experienced business and we're just using

11:34

these sexy airplanes to deliver

11:36

that experience. So we've

11:38

been really fortunate that, again,

11:41

more than half our business has come from referrals.

11:43

We do do the normal other advertisement.

11:46

We're on social media. We do a lot of networking,

11:48

so the different networking clubs like. Um,

11:50

genius Network and I'm in a couple other

11:53

Y P O and stuff like that, but that's more personal

11:55

development, I would say. YPO O is. And

11:57

then we do some sponsorships, like on

11:59

high-end golf tournaments. We've done, we've been

12:02

at Pebble Beach a bunch, and we'll put up a

12:04

hole in one where they hit

12:06

the hole in one, they get a trip in the Gulf Stream

12:08

or something like that.

12:09

And how many times has that happened?

12:10

No one's got the hole in one on, which

12:13

I hope they do. I insure it, so I'm like, yeah,

12:15

hit it. Let's go.

12:16

Yeah. Okay, so the planes

12:19

private jet. For me,

12:22

if I'm thinking about like where do I see them?

12:24

I see them online with people like posing in

12:26

them with their cigars and outside and they're

12:28

all glammed up. Is that an

12:30

expectation people should have or is that

12:32

like really special, like rigging

12:34

up your touring rv? Totally

12:37

different situation.

12:39

Yeah, these are very normal people, at

12:41

least most of our.

12:42

They are no trying to do a photoshoot there?

12:45

No, most of our clients actually don't

12:47

wanna be seen on the airplane. Some

12:49

of our younger clients, they're a little bit more, you

12:51

know, the selfie and posted on

12:53

their Instagram and whatnot. But 90%

12:56

of our clients, this is for

12:58

privacy and to grow their business

13:00

and just create experience for the people they love. So

13:02

it's, yeah, very discreet. A lot

13:04

of times. Drive right up the airplane and get

13:06

on.

13:06

Yeah. Are you marketing to, or do

13:08

you get request from,

13:11

like I was just talking about a headline

13:13

artist that we brought in for an event yesterday.

13:15

A lot of the headline talent that

13:18

we book flies private when they

13:20

can or when they've negotiated.

13:22

Do they know about your company?

13:25

Yeah. We work with a lot of skier agents

13:27

and so we actually have. Four.

13:29

I can't say which ones, but four big bands

13:31

that you would definitely hear of that we fly

13:34

around all the time. There is some of

13:36

those celebrities that we, but again, really

13:38

it's the business tool. They're flying

13:41

to their concerts. Right. They, as soon as the concert's

13:43

done, they're quietly going to the FBO

13:45

and getting in the airplane and heading home. On

13:48

our charter side, we'll do some celebrities

13:50

just once in a while. But again, our core

13:53

business, it's really the

13:56

entrepreneur or the business owner or the C-level

13:58

executive that's using it as a tool and then using

14:01

it to create experiences with

14:03

their family.

14:03

Right. Let's talk about your team.

14:05

So earlier you had talked about

14:08

yourself as a visionary, 17

14:10

people. That's really common actually,

14:13

until you start building an executive

14:15

team or the levels of management. What

14:17

does it look like today? What is your management team

14:20

comprised of?

14:21

So we have six people, including myself,

14:23

that sit on the leadership team and

14:26

then underneath them there's a layer

14:28

of directors. And so we're just about

14:30

a hundred employees right now, which is

14:32

crazy because four years ago

14:35

we were at 20, you know, 20.

14:36

Yeah. That's crazy growth. And, and so

14:39

on that C-suite, is it CEO,

14:41

COO, CFO, CMO?

14:43

Can you walk me through that?

14:45

Right now we have myself as

14:47

the CEO. Tommy's the president,

14:50

and then we have the other four that are vice

14:52

presidents. I believe that there's

14:54

a lot of companies that'll give the C-level

14:56

titles just a little premature, you know,

14:58

and so we're close to that.

15:00

I think the next step. I don't know if I wanna

15:03

attach a revenue amount to it, but the next

15:05

step would be that that would be, chief

15:07

marketing. And then we

15:10

have, so right now we currently have a Vice President of

15:12

Maintenance, Vice President of Brand and Marketing,

15:14

Vice President of Business Development, and then Vice President

15:17

of Flight Operations.

15:18

Good. See, we always learn something

15:20

on these. What do you

15:22

attribute to your success if

15:25

you just were like to close your eyes and think

15:27

back for the last, over

15:29

a decade that you've had this, you're a small

15:31

business, you've made it through.

15:34

There was some crazy statistic

15:37

that, you know, small businesses, they have a

15:39

hard time staying alive after even

15:41

just a year or two. So

15:43

if you can imagine what that

15:45

could be for you, The, just

15:47

the success of staying open, but now you're scaling

15:50

and growing.

15:51

I would say number one is like, I'm always

15:53

trying to learn. I didn't do have

15:55

any formal college education. I went right

15:57

out high school to selling cars

16:00

and then into this. But

16:02

I've probably listened to 90

16:04

books a year. Like I'm always,

16:06

instead of listening to the radio

16:08

every day in my car, if I'm working out, it's

16:10

an audio book. And if I really like it, I'll listen

16:13

to a second one, and then

16:15

it's just grit. Never given up. I mean,

16:17

it's all, in my opinion,

16:19

it's all mental attitude

16:21

and thinking, you know, that you're gonna

16:23

hear no a thousand times shit is gonna go

16:25

wrong. There's been times that

16:28

I didn't know how I was gonna make payroll. You

16:30

know? I mean, those are the true trials

16:33

that starting a company, especially,

16:36

we didn't have any VC or PE money.

16:38

We've bootstrapped this company from the beginning,

16:40

and so we had to get very creative. So

16:43

I don't know if I'm giving you one answer, but it's really

16:45

grit. It's just not giving up and

16:47

convincing yourself that it's gonna work and just

16:50

imagine it in the future, and then finding

16:52

a way to make it work.

16:54

So today, as of today, we're midway

16:56

through the year a little bit more. What

16:58

has been your strategy for growth? We

17:01

could say this calendar year, this fiscal year, however

17:03

you wanna answer it.

17:04

This year for us, we are gonna

17:06

grow probably about another 25% over

17:08

the last year, but I really call this year for

17:11

us is our foundation year. This is

17:13

the year to create

17:15

those processes and SOPs

17:17

and put the right people on the right seat

17:20

so that. We are ready

17:22

for some amazing growth. Like I

17:24

have some very big dreams

17:26

of getting into the heavy jet space in our fractional

17:28

program, doing some acquisitions,

17:31

but we wanna make sure that the

17:33

boat's ready to go to sea. So right

17:35

now, that is the year we're, we're obviously still

17:37

folks on sales and still moving the business forward,

17:40

but it's our foundation year because,

17:42

big things are happening, but we're

17:44

gonna do it right. We're gonna do it slow.

17:46

That's so great. You can't really do it wrong

17:48

in your space. Like that wouldn't

17:50

go very well. Yeah. I mean that's

17:53

just safety. But also, you know, if

17:55

60% of

17:57

your sales is really referral based,

17:59

you need to make sure that you're offering

18:02

something that is just untouchable.

18:04

Yeah. Yeah.

18:05

And those systems and processes do change

18:07

from 17 people to a hundred people

18:10

to a bigger fleet. Right.

18:12

You're so right. What got us here is

18:14

not what's gonna get us to the next level,

18:17

and that is our processes. It could be the,

18:19

the certain people. And so it's looking

18:21

at that and, and figuring out. I also

18:24

believe hire people that are smarter

18:26

than you. Like Tommy is so much smarter than I

18:28

am in those areas. Michael, our VP

18:31

of brand and marketing, like he is brilliant

18:33

in those areas and releasing

18:35

like my ego to let them run.

18:37

Yeah.

18:38

Is one of the hardest things sometimes,

18:41

but as like bringing Tommy in

18:43

as a partner, for example, I promised myself

18:45

I'd never have a business partner again. My last

18:48

partnership in my car dealership ended up

18:50

horrible. My two best friends that I never speak

18:52

to, you know, it just was like, no,

18:54

that was worse than my regular divorce. But

18:57

this now

18:57

the starter divorce

18:59

Yeah, right. Hopefully

19:01

not another one. But now it's

19:03

like, okay, I know that I

19:05

need to. Allow the people

19:08

to, in their zone of genius, run

19:11

with it and then support them and do everything

19:13

I can to remove the obstacles outta

19:15

their way.

19:16

Yeah. So I see your business as branded

19:18

Sky Share, and sometimes I see CB

19:21

Skys Share, which I'm going to assume

19:23

are your initials. Tell me about that.

19:26

So the company started as CB Aviation

19:29

14 years ago. Seven years

19:31

ago, we rebranded to CB

19:33

Sky Share when we

19:35

started the fractional division and the

19:37

charter division. And then just

19:39

this year my ego finally got small

19:42

enough that we took, this is an old shirt. We

19:44

took my nipples off the company and now

19:46

it's just Sky Share. Yeah, so that's the next

19:49

evolution of the company.

19:51

I really like the name, especially

19:54

because you're doing fractional, like sharing the

19:56

sky. And also I

19:58

hope that when we are sharing the sky, that we're

20:00

not sharing it with too many planes

20:02

that we actually can see with our own eyes. Okay.

20:04

That's my own aside.

20:07

Right.

20:07

Yeah. So what is today

20:10

your biggest challenge that when we get off

20:12

this call, you're gonna go right back to

20:15

solving, solving for planning.

20:17

Yeah. Great question. So

20:20

last year was one of the busiest

20:23

years in private aviation. Like

20:25

everything, aircraft prices went

20:27

up 20%. You couldn't, it

20:29

was like trying to buy a house, everything. You couldn't buy

20:31

it. I mean, people were just making these stupid offers.

20:33

Well, this market changes very quickly.

20:36

And so we went from one of the hottest markets

20:38

to now it much slower. And

20:40

so we're working harder

20:42

for, and we still want increase. To

20:45

answer your question is like my mind is always

20:48

back in sales and what's the next

20:50

step? So I've got a sales

20:52

meeting after this to meet with my team, and

20:54

then I've got a proposal for a client

20:56

later on this evening.

20:58

For more information, go to the show

21:00

notes. We are listening to this podcast.

21:08

Want to know more about me, go

21:10

to my website, NatashaMiller.com.

21:14

Thank you so much for listening. I

21:17

hope you loved the show. If you did,

21:19

please subscribe. Also, if

21:21

you haven't done so yet, please leave

21:23

a review where you're listening to this

21:25

podcast now. I'm Natasha

21:28

Miller. And you've been listening to FASCINATING

21:30

ENTREPRENEURS.