Get FinancingGuardian Jet Builds Global Sales With Executive Controller Magazine
Years before brothers Michael and Don Dwyer would help grow Guardian Jet into one of the world’s largest aircraft brokerage, fleet planning, and consulting firms, they owned a graphite machining company. Although the graphite business taught Don many invaluable lessons, he eventually left to pursue an aviation career, where his passion resided.
“One day, we decided to go into the airplane business, and we started selling airplanes,” says Don, a former vice president of global sales for Hawker Beechcraft and now a National Business Aviation Association (NBAA ) Advisory Council member. “I was a pretty good sales guy, and it was something I was passionate about and willing to work really hard at. I promise you, when I started selling airplanes, it changed my life.”
Record-Breaking Success
Michael Dwyer founded Guardian Jet in 2002. Don came on board in 2010 as a managing partner. In 2023, the Guilford, Connecticut-based company completed well over 100 transactions and achieved record-breaking sales surpassing $2 billion. Guardian Jet, which says nearly 40% of its clients are Fortune 100 companies, offers aircraft sales, acquisitions, appraisals, asset management, valuation, and other services.
Don believes Guardian Jet’s success is because it “earns the right to transact aircraft sales and purchases for the smartest people in the world by providing great information.” A portion of its sales success relates to advertising its new and pre-owned jets and helicopters in Sandhills Global’s Executive Controller publication, which is published every four weeks and distributed to subscribers, aircraft owners, and fixed base operators (FBOs).
Executive Controller Advertising
Guardian Jet runs multiple editorial ads in the high-gloss Executive Controller magazine, making it one of Controller’s largest advertisers. Each issue showcases investment-worthy aircraft, such as the 2020 Dassault Falcon 2000LXS that Guardian Jet recently featured in an editorial ad. These premium full-page ads enable sellers to showcase their aircraft for sale, lease, or fractional ownership with large photos, detailed descriptions, and key specs.
Running a consistent display ad also allows Guardian Jet to list its entire for-sale inventory on Controller.com , which thousands of users worldwide visit every day. The company usually has upward of 50 aircraft listings on the site.
Leads Become Sales Opportunities
Although Guardian Jet advertises elsewhere, Don says Executive Controller is very important to the company. In the last 18 months, Guardian Jet has received more than 2,000 discrete leads from its Executive Controller advertising, plus scores more from online searches that led users to Controller.com.
“There’s no business that buys and sells a transacted product that has enough leads. No one has too many leads,” says Don. “Anything that can generate a couple thousand leads is important in my book, and it’s exciting to us with all the projects we have going on.”
Don has had many first-time meetings with potential customers who are well-versed in a specific market segment because of ads they encountered in Sandhills’ aviation publications. “That’s impressive,” he says. “When we get calls from a principal, who is really the one actually buying the airplanes, a lot of times it’s because of our Executive Controller advertising.”
Process & Transparency
Both Dwyer brothers have amassed thousands of flight hours. Their initial interest was sparked by a neighbor who was a former F104 fighter pilot and a Pan Am captain. The neighbor’s son is now Guardian Jet’s vice president of technical services, and his grandson works in aircraft sales.
Besides hiring the best people possible, Guardian Jet takes pride in providing extremely comprehensive market intelligence advice customized to clients’ needs. The company has an “absolute devotion to process and transparency,” Don says.
The “process” component uses world-class proprietary products such as technical and legal libraries, market surveys, and technical comparison reports. The “transparency” piece involves Guardian Jet sharing its vast amount of pricing, residual value, operating cost, and other data with clients, including via The Vault, a 24/7 online portal where clients can quickly search for and manage aircraft and understand its value in real time.
The Importance Of Metrics
Don says good metrics are something Sandhills and Guardian Jet share. “We’re successful in pitching our transaction business because of the metrics and the data we use,” he says. “I think it’s probably the same with Sandhills.”
Guardian Jet also benefits from its relationship with Sandhills Sales Representative Gary Ware, who Don says is genuinely interested in what’s good for Guardian Jet and not just Sandhills and Controller. “We don’t feel pressured, and we feel like we understand the benefits. For us, it’s not a hard sell, either.”
A version of this article first appeared in Sandhills Magazine. You can find current and back issues in the Sandhills Magazine Archive .