I suck at golf. Okay. I’m not that bad with a 7 iron, but if we play a round, you’ll need to bring 10-15 balls for me. I have a hell of a slice. In 2011, the Economist printed an article about why you need to play golf to close deals. The Economist article talked about building trust by conversing between shots, identifying cheaters, and observing how others handle stressful situations. To build trust and get a deal moving forward through traditional methods often takes 18 holes of golf, a few trips to El Gaucho, a 50-year aged Bordeaux, and some delicious scotch. However, in one hot air balloon ride, you can create instant, and long lasting trust, in under two hours.
A mentor of mine once remarked that, if someone trusts you with their life, they will trust you with their money. He acquired companies, not by “wining and dining” the CEOs, but by building trust through flights in his hot air balloon. Now, I am not saying that you should start searching online to buy a hot air balloon…but I am not saying you shouldn’t.
>#### A mentor of mine once remarked that, if someone trusts you with their life, they will trust you with their money.
When you tell a prospect or customer that you have a hot air balloon and are willing to take them on a flight, you’ll be pretty difficult to forget. My favorite way to bring it up is to end our conversation by saying, “I hope we have nice weather this weekend, as it would be great to take my hot air balloon up. ” Typically they start asking questions about how I got into ballooning, and how I control where I’m going. James Bond said it best while flying in a hot air balloon with Q in the 1983 movie Octopussy:
Hot air ballooning is unique, as there are only 4,000 pilots in the world; your prospect likely has never met anyone who owns one. If you already have a private plane or a helicopter, congratulations! You’re already part of the special experience club. If you don’t have $200k+ to drop this weekend on a plane or helicopter, however, consider buying a used sport hot air balloon for under $15k. You can even take hot air balloon flying lessons with Bob from [Zing Aerosports](https://www.facebook.com/Zing.Aerosports/?target_post=725469087507739&ref=story_permalink), and get your license in 10 days. He trains pilots, and also repairs and sells hot air balloons.
It takes a huge amount of trust to put your life in someone else's hands, whereas hitting a few balls at the country club requires very little. Now, I like fancy country clubs as much as the next guy, but if you take someone flying in your hot air balloon, you’ll build strong and immediate trust. Because, just like when you go golfing, you’ll have time to chat, and they will still see how you react to, and handle, different situations. The only difference is that it will be a few thousand feet above the ground, and that they are putting their trust, and life, in your hands.
If your not ready to buy your own hot air balloon, and would rather start with a flight, you can [book your Seattle hot air balloon flight online right here.](http://seattleballooning.com)
