S04E165 Private Aviation as a Strategic Business Tool with Dave Coleman

Private aviation is often dismissed as a luxury, but Dave Coleman, president of Coleman Jet Solutions and a pilot with 35 years of experience, explains why many law firms view it as a strategic tool. We discuss how private flying can save time, improve productivity, and provide confidentiality while traveling.

Dave also breaks down which firms benefit most, covering use cases like trial travel, expanding into new markets, and reaching cities with limited airline access. He explains how different aircraft fit different missions and why choosing the right plane matters financially.

We also explore practical decisions like chartering versus ownership, what a proper feasibility study should include, and the common mistakes first-time buyers make. Dave shares why unbiased technical, financial, and regulatory guidance is essential before committing to aircraft access.

If you’re curious whether private jet charter or private aircraft ownership fits your firm, listen, share this with a partner, and leave a review so more law firm owners can find it.

Reach Dave here:
https://www.colemanjets.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-coleman-05730217/ 
https://twitter.com/ColemanJetSales 
https://www.facebook.com/Coleman-Jet-Solutions-100400065793228 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:52

The Leadership and the Law Podcast is starting to equip you with the knowledge and tools you need to build a successful and fulfilling legal practice.

Welcome And Dave’s Aviation Path

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Welcome to another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. I'm your host, Marilyn Jenkins. Please join me in welcoming my guest, Dave Coleman, to the show today. Dave is the president of Coleman Jet Solutions and a professional pilot with 35 years in the aviation industry. With over 7,500 flight hours, experience spanning aircraft maintenance, commercial flying, and private jet acquisitions, Dave brings a rare full-spectrum perspective to aviation. He still flies today and donates his time in aircraft to lifeline pilots, helping patients in need of travel for medical care. I'm excited to have you here, Dave. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Thank you. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Absolutely. So tell us a little bit about your journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

I grew up in the business. My father wanted to be a professional pilot and just slipped into the aircraft, aircraft trading business by accident, essentially, and made a career in it. And I grew up in this environment from the very, very beginning in this entrepreneurial aviation world, spanning from commercial airlines all the way to what I do today with private jets. I basically had a very interesting start to the crew to my career. My father had kidney failure, and he could no longer travel. He couldn't fly planes anymore. So as a really very young pup, he would send me to Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia and Dubai and South America to basically beat his eyes and ears. And through that process, I kind of got it was like a trial by fire, so to speak, of this industry. And I've been doing it ever since.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Wow. Interesting. I love that. I'm fascinated about the whole thing. From your experience, what are the biggest misconceptions law firm leaders have about private aviation?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

So the biggest misconception that we have

Private Flying As A Time Tool

SPEAKER_01 3:09

today is that it's that it's a lundary, right? That it's exclusive and only for the very few. That's the biggest misconception. There's also a misconception about the cost. And I can explain that a little bit further, but when we help clients, small firms, mostly small and mid-sized firms, think about getting into their first airplane, we do what we call a feasibility study. So actually look at the needs of the client and try to match that up with what actually works from a budget perspective. In terms of the what this is really all about is time. Airplanes are time machines, and they allow you to essentially expand your footprint, offset your existing costs for travel, and then essentially have a flying boardroom or a flying office in the sky where, from a lawyer's perspective, that's billable time. These are flying conference rooms. You and your fellow partners and other attorneys in the firm can use that time productively, and it's private, right? The ultimate private conference room, so to speak. You can't do that on the airlines. You can't have a meeting about confidential information while the passengers around you are snooping and looking at your computer screen and seeing what you type. So, from that perspective, it's an extremely good productivity tool.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

I love that. I love the idea of being a tool, a business tool instead of uh an expense. Because, like first class or business class, it's just an expense. You can't get any work done on the plane.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

And also, we have with the advent with the advent of super high speed satellite-based internet, you can actually do conference calls, video conferencing in the air nowadays, which is something that wasn't possible just years ago.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So, what type of law law firms tend to benefit most from private aircraft access like geography, practice area, or growth stage?

Which Law Firms Benefit Most

SPEAKER_01 5:26

So the law firms that really I see a lot of plaintiffs type trial attorneys that use private aviation. Any of the firms that are trying to grow their footprint outside of their region, essentially, if you're a small law firm or a mid-sized law firm and you want to grow into become a national law firm, this allows you to do it without having to really expand your footprint. I have a client in Roanoke, Virginia. Now, Roanoke is a really very difficult place to get to, and he has a small firm there. He has clients in California, San Francisco, California, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, and along the eastern seaboard. They fly there, they've assessed the citation, which is a light jet, and they fly the airplane about 500 hours a year. And that is all billable, and that's what makes it unique.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

I love that. You my thought was just thinking from one side of the state to the other, but that makes it so much attainable to be able to cross country.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, exactly. And the thing about it is that what we do when we help firms, whether they're law firms or other types of clients, we're really looking to see what's feasible. Right. And what makes the most sense for each firm depending on their practice, what type of practice, what their client profile is. And we try to fit that because it's not just about the plane, it's about the mission. And it's what what are you planning to where are you going? Because different types of airplanes fit different types of needs, and different types of airplanes fit different types of clients. We have some folks that we we work with, they use a light turboprop. And and that's an airplane that allows them to travel around the Great Lakes or along the eastern seaboard in the northeast extremely effectively. And the turboprop is a great airplane because you can get into the little tiny airports that are out in the middle of nowhere that are only a couple minutes drive to your client. Whereas, for example, if you want to get to Springfield, Minnesota, which you probably don't even know where it is on the map, right? You would fly into Minneapolis and drive about an hour and a half, or you could fly right into the airport in Springfield, Minnesota, and be within three minutes of your client. So these are the types of time savings that you're dealing with. Again, it's something that we analyze, we help folks analyze to make sure it's the right decision. And a lot of times it's not. A lot of use after we have a brief conversation and we start talking about budgeting, it becomes something that's not possible.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

Now, when you think about budgeting, are you talking about buying an office, the staff that would be in that office, all of those things that would cost to put a new office in a new location?

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah, we are. Essentially, it depends on how open my clients are with their plans, right? A lot of clients are a little bit more, they're not going to tell me everything that they're thinking, right? Right. So I have to get an intimation. But that would be, I'd say, look, are you planning to open an office or do you want to just extend, or maybe make it a smaller office and then use your staff that's here in your at your headquarters location, bring them in to supplement when there's a large project that you're working on or a large trial or a large case that you're working on, depending on what type of attorney you are. We have tax account, we have tax advice, we have tax lawyers that use aircrafts. So there's all sorts of different methods or all sorts of different options depending on what it is that you're trying to do and how you're trying to grow. And some of them already are a larger law firm, and but they just want to mat, they want to expand their control over their firm a little bit more. And going to the other office is allowing them to DC.

unknown 9:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

I'm going to tell you one thing about my business. I had a small airplane that I used for my business. It's my strategic advantage. So much of what we see today is conference calls and video conferencing. I can tell you that the face-to-face interaction is a strategic and competitive advantage for me and my firm. If I'm if it's between someone who's willing to come sit down and discuss something with you in person versus someone who's doing it from a thousand miles away, I can tell you that I'm more likely to not only burn, but retain that business in a long over the long term because of that ability to do that.

SPEAKER_02 10:24

All right. Client acquisition, that's a good one as well. And that's and you often talk about access being more important than cost. And is that basically what you mean

Charter Versus Ownership And Control

SPEAKER_02 10:34

by that? Is it you can just be more accessible?

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Yeah, it essentially is access. Now, what I want to talk a little bit about access here because I think that there's some misconceptions about access. The other option to ownership, of course, is chartering an airplane. And so I put charter over here on this side of the spectrum, and then ownership over on this side of the spectrum. And as you go from charter towards ownership, and there's different steps, there's a fractional option and shared ownership option, etc. As you transition from charter all the way to ownership, you're increasing control.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Right. And as you increase control over the asset, you're increasing access. Charter is a wonderful opportunity, a wonderful way to get into utilizing this tool. The challenge with charter is that you're on if the charter operator controls the asset, you're on their schedule. The bail availability of the aircraft is limited to when it's available. With ownership, it's available to you 100% of the time. And so if you're in the business or if your firm sometimes needs to deploy people on an immediate basis, charter may not be the right option for you. So ownership is control, it's access. Yes, it's the most expensive, but if you're able to utilize the aircraft, those costs actually come down per hour to where it becomes far less expensive than charter, depending on the utilization of the airplane.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And two, with the charter, you've got you're assuming the airplane is going to be where you need it to be and you don't have to wait for a repositioning. Where if you own it, then you can also move your entire team quickly, where you can't necessarily do that if you're flying commercial.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

That's exactly correct. The other thing that I've talked to a couple attorneys about is, and these are trial attorneys, so different, different than say more corporate attorneys. A lot of times they just don't know when the judge is gonna dismiss or call it a day. Right? You may show up in a trial and it lasts 15 minutes and then you're done, but you've just scheduled yourself as if you're gonna be there all day.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Right? And so now without the airplane, especially if you're coming out of California, there's a limited number of flights towards that end of the day because of the time zone that are going eastbound. So a lot of times you'll force gay overnight and wait until a morning flight. Whereas if you had you on an airplane, you're immediately 15 minutes to the airport off in backhaul. Right. And and what that means for productivity, what that means for employee retention, just knowing that the airplane has, you have access to an airplane in certain circumstances will be a deciding factor whether or not you want to stay with a particular firm. Uh I'm gonna go work for them and make more money, but I'm gonna be oh no, I don't want to use the word slumming it, but I'm gonna be stuck flying around on the airlines all the time. Whereas with this firm, I may not be making as much money, but I know I can get home every night.

SPEAKER_02 14:07

Yeah, efficiency as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Well, just being able to get back home to your family. Yeah. So there's a lot of things associated with being able to come and go on your own scheme.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

I agree. That makes sense. And talking about the biggest operational or strategic advantages for partners and leadership teams, that's that's if they need to move quickly between markets, that's certainly a competitive advantage, like you were saying. Wouldn't you agree?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Absolutely. It's a if you're looking at if you're looking at two different firms, the challenge I have is I'm not, I'm not, I know aviation law, right? That's my knowledge base, but it's in general, whether it's a law firm or any other type of business, these are strategic advantages when it comes to key employees. Right. I guess it and even when it comes to nurturing clients, again, like we discussed before, it's face-to-face as a strategic advantage.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

I agree. Now you mentioned as far as ownership and your feasibility study and structuring ownership correctly so it doesn't become a commercial operation. What should firms understand about how private aircraft ownership is typically structured?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

So there's essentially two or

Ownership Structure And Tax Realities

SPEAKER_01 15:30

first of all, in aviation, there's also there's all different permutations of how you structure ownership. Generally speaking, the first place to start is to look at it from a tax perspective. Because these are this is capital equipment. It's rolling, it can be considered either capital equipment, in which case there are significant tax benefits from a depreciation perspective, or it can be considered rolling stock. And in that case, there's this you get the benefits of depreciation, but now the problem with rolling stock is it's a charter airplane. You're placing it with a charter certificate. So there's two ways of doing this: either A, the company owns the airplane and hires its own pilot and it controls the asset 100%, or B, it places the airplane with a charter or management company, and the management company takes care of all of the small details. Each one of those has particular advantages. The challenge with management companies for first-time owners is that most first-time owners go into small jets or turboprints because it's this it's a step up the ladder, right? You start small, you get a feel for how it feels to own an airplane, and then you, if your business starts to expand and you need a larger, more capable aircraft, you move up. The problem is with a small airplane and a management company, some of those management company costs are significantly more than if you just set up your own flight department. Okay. So a lot of time when a client comes to me and says, and I review their mission and their profile and their budget, I'll say, okay, we should look at a Cessna citation, for example, or a B tracked King Air or a Pilates as your first airplane. Those airplanes, you'll need one pilot and contractors to really operate that type of small equipment. You don't need an at big apparatus. But as you move up, you may have to switch into a management company, and your pilot will come with, right? Because now you need some more apparatus because it's a little bit more of an aircraft to manage. And the budget for that becomes quite a bit larger, and you can accommodate that based on the size of the air. If that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah. I love that you help with the planning when the idea first comes up and to make sure, because I know firms are going to wonder how do I offset the cost through billable travel expenses or the strategic use of the aircraft.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

So when you're looking at it from a financial perspective, the first thing that I'm doing is I'm going to say, okay, what does your existing travel budget look like?

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

All right. And what your what is your growth strategy over the next five years? And then we can pretty much calculate out what their existing travel budget would look like and how much it would increase if they stayed with what they're doing now, which is hotels, airfare, rental car, all of those costs. Right. And then if you take an airplane, you're going to offset a lot of that because the hotels go away because you're not staying overnight anymore. All the airfare is going away because now you're flying private. And so all of a lot of those, a lot of rail car, a lot of lunches, lots of dinners, a lot of that stuff goes away because you're in and out.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Yeah, and the incidental overnight's because you get away.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

But now you have the cost of the airplane. So that gets added on, but now you've got billable hours, right? And there are so certain legal pathways to bill out the use of the airplane as well. Um, depending on how you set up your ownership structure. There are ways to to actually get some reimbursement for the aircraft itself. So at the end of the day, this is a lot of these costs are simply offset.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Okay. So it sounds like there's a lot of different variables that you can help to plan out to say that it it may be a better idea to own your own flight. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

It may be. I'm gonna be I'm gonna be honest. Most of the time when people call me and we have this discussion, I will come to the conclusion that it may not be the right thing. And I'm and I just don't want to go down the path with someone and then at the 11th hour, they after I've invested a lot of time, they go, Oh, maybe I won't do this. But I in a few minutes I can figure out whether or not it's gonna work. Right.

unknown 21:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

So it's really important. If you're gonna do this, you really want to talk to the right people. The challenge is in my industry is there's a lot of people that just want to get a deal done. And so no matter what, they're gonna try to talk you into to buying an airplane, and they'll give you all sorts of stories about how you can make money or it won't cost you anything. And it's gonna cost you money.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

If you're it's gonna cost you money. But the productivity, the time, the employee satisfaction, the strategic opportunities, all these things are gonna be at your are gonna make it worthwhile if you have a plan to grow your business.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

Yeah, yeah, no, that totally makes sense. So you spent decades in in aviation across maintenance, flying, acquisitions, ownership. What mistakes do buyers make when entering private aviation for the first time?

SPEAKER_01 22:40

The biggest mistake is

Common First-Time Buyer Mistakes

SPEAKER_01 22:46

getting the wrong type of people involved in the process. There's a lot of money that's flowing through these projects. Okay, and what I see oftentimes is many people you have to understand where people's interests are, right? A charter operator is interested in making sure that you buy the airplane. They want to operate.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

They may have, and you'll hear this, you'll hear this a lot from a charter operator. We have a wonderful airplane in our fleet, and Joe is looking to sell it. So you should buy it and keep it with us. What they're concerned with is the airplane coming off their aircraft operating certificate. Because once an airplane comes off the aircraft operating certificate, the FAA tends to not be so kind to them about putting it back on. So what they're trying to do is keep that plane on their certificate. So they're looking for a buyer. If they have a client that wants to sell, they're desperate to hold on to that airplane. And that airplane may not wind up being the right choice for you. And but they're going to try to convince you to buy that plane that's on their certificate because of the challenges they have with the FAA, essentially. So if you're letting the charter operator be the one who's going to be guiding you through this process, just be careful because their interests are this. Now, it may wind up being a great airplane, right? But how do you really know? And so the real question is it would be like me going to court without an attorney, right? And representing myself.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Any attorney and tell you that's the craziest thing in the world, dupe. Why try to do that with aviation?

SPEAKER_02 24:45

So especially such an investment. You want to I love the way that you do the analysis, the feasibility study, and then have that conversation. Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

That's right. The other thing is that a lot of mistakes is they a lot of folks buy too much airplane. They either at the country club or they're at some gathering and someone's designed a Gulf Stream. And then so now they want to look at a Gulf Stream. You're flying between Chicago and Detroit. So wrong airplane. A Gulf Stream is designed to go to Europe, right? And it costs thousands and thousands of dollars per hour. It's the wrong airplane for the wrong mission. And then the other mistakes that they make is just not structuring the uh the ownership correctly. That's that I see quite a bit. Although that doesn't necessarily impact it, just it's got a negative economic impact. And the last thing is buying the wrong airplane is a big mistake because obviously it might be just disgusted that's a big challenge. But it really does come down to people. It always comes down, well, who are you surrounding yourself with? What what are their what are their bona fides? Because remember, my business and this business, my particular business, there's no barrier to entry, there's no licensing. I can declare myself uh uh an aircraft program Monday and and start buying and selling planes on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

So you have to make sure that you're dealing with the right type of people. I always say the number one, and this is for this isn't life, was you trust them.

SPEAKER_02 26:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

If you don't send don't run.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Makes sense. For the law firm leader that may be listening today and curious about private aviation, what would be the first conversation or the first step that they should take to evaluate whether it actually makes sense for their business.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

First of all, a lot of people, again, they they're

First Steps To Evaluate Fit

SPEAKER_01 26:50

they'll shy away from it because of the stigma attached to the laundry and the exclusivity of the bowlership. Forget about that. Just think about it as a tool.

unknown 27:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

Think about it as a time machine. Once you get over that, then we can start first, we start considering why. Why do you want to own an airplane? And norm and you gotta think about are you growing your business? These are all those questions.

SPEAKER_02 27:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

But I would say once you've made that determination that you want to explore it, you need to call someone like me. There's others in this business. I'm I just so happen to be in a unique position in terms of my technical, regulatory, and financial knowledge of the aviation, which most brokers be in this thing, they're just deal makers. I'm not necessarily I'm not a deal maker, I'm an educator, and I find the right type of solutions. So find someone like me and have that conversation. If it goes somewhere, then explore it, look at the numbers, and then take a flight. If you can, try it out, charter an airplane, take a trip in one of your friends or colleagues' airplanes, see what it's like. And if it's something you think you want to explore further, I can guide them through a process.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Interesting. Yeah, and I love the idea of it being billable hours, you're working while you're at your team is there. Excellent. This has been a really great conversation. I've learned a lot about private airlines or private ownership. I know my listeners might want to reach out to you, connect with you, ask them questions, maybe one of those feasibility studies. Where would be the best place for them to reach you?

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Obviously, they could go to my website, which is coldmanjets.com, or they can give us a call. Our number is 847-748-8333. And we're here in Chicago. We're the only full

Contacting Coleman Jet Solutions

SPEAKER_01 28:55

service firm of our kind in Chicago. And we would love to we'd love to at least just have a conversation. And if it makes sense, we continue. If it doesn't, that's fine too.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

I love that. I'll make sure that all of that is in the show notes for people. And Dave, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate your time being here today.

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 29:16

That's a wrap on today's episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Before you go, I want to make sure that you know about something that could be a real game changer for your firm. If you've been doing the work, showing up, serving clients, but your marketing still isn't producing the caseload you know you deserve. That's exactly the problem Law Marketing Zone

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SPEAKER_02 29:32

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SPEAKER_00 29:56

Thanks for joining us on another episode of the Leadership in Law Podcast. Remember, you're not alone on this journey. There's a whole community of law firm owners out there facing similar challenges and striving for the same test. Head over to our website at lawmarketingstone.com. From there, connect with other listeners to access valuable resources and stay up to date on the latest episode. Don't forget to click on it and leave us to review on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, keep leaving with Victoria and keep growing your further.