Leadership Q&A: Lee Benson, CEO of Able Aerospace Services

Lee Benson is CEO of Able Aerospace Services, a leading MRO provider of FAA approved replacement parts, repairs, overhauls and exchanges. He started his career as the first employee in a small company offering specialty electroplating services to repair aircraft components. In 1993, after the company lost virtually all of its business overnight, Lee purchased the entity and immediately deployed a vision to rebuild. He went on to found Able Engineering and Component Services in 1995 and Able Aerospace in 1999. In 2016, Able was acquired by Textron Aviation, Inc., a Textron, Inc. company, a global general aviation authority that includes 21 company-owned facilities dedicated to complete aircraft life-cycle support.

In January 2016, Lee spoke with BDN’s Kyle Davis to discuss a variety of issues that impact aerospace industry marketers.

BDN: The aircraft MRO market is crowded and highly competitive.  How has Able been able to stand out, succeed and grow?

Lee: By having a relentless focus on being the best value alternative for our customers.  Harmonizing all macro organizational functional groups around this goal is where the real magic happens.

BDN: Our Flight Manual readers are marketing professionals involved in aviation, aerospace and defense. With that in mind, how important has marketing been to your business success, and what is your strategic and tactical approach to marketing your products and services?

Lee: At Able we look at business generation holistically. Marketing’s job is to support all of the functional groups within Business Generation to better make profitable sales in a way that is always a win-win for our customers and Able. In our company, Marketing owns TAM (total addressable market), sales tool kits, brand, common approach to value proposition communication, email campaigns, websites, etc. Doing marketing right is extremely important!

BDN: Able has recently been purchased by Textron. In your estimation, did the strength of the Able brand play a role in Textron’s interest in the acquisition? Can you elaborate on that for our readers?

Lee: Part of Able’s vision is to be recognized as the industry leader for the services we provide. To do that we have to perform when it comes to customer experience (quality, delivery, communication, etc.) and total value delivered to each customer.  We believe Able has fully earned this reputation based on the work we do and our brand has to match it. We have worked very hard on our brand guide over the years to this end. Our brand has to reflect the amazing experience customers have when working with us. I’m sure this helped with how Textron viewed Able prior to the acquisition.

BDN: What advice can you offer to people who are marketing and selling their products and services to businesses like Able? What is the secret to reaching and connecting with you in a meaningful and effective way?

Lee: It’s pretty simple — how are your products/services going to make Able measurably better? At Able we take the time to learn what’s important to each of our customers in how they run their businesses and measure success. Our job is to improve the overall results of our customers. Too may companies selling their products/services present only functionality/features/quality/price and leave it up to the buyer to connect the dots regarding how it will help their organization’s results measurably improve. Connect the dots for them!

BDN: What have been some of your most important lessons learned about marketing in your role as President and CEO of Able?

Lee: We have evolved over the years from just sending out email campaigns or brochures and hoping for the best, to making sure Marketing is doing only the most important work that drives measurable improvements in profitable sales. We stopped doing things a long time ago just because that’s what the competition is doing.  If we can’t measure a positive result from doing it we stop doing it (or don’t do it in the first place).  Marketing should intensely study what the front line business generation team members (outside sales, customer service, inside sales, etc.) are doing and come up with tools and processes that make them wildly more successful.