Buckle up for today’s Featured Merchant because we are going up, up and away! Today we check in Jeff Holmes, owner of Holmes Helicopters in Newberg, just a short flight outside of Portland, OR.
After primarily using his helicopter skills in the agricultural field for years, Jeff’s wife, Shanda, urged him to try out Groupon.
Click through to read Jeff’s full story.
Writes Jeff:
Being a helicopter owner is far from easy. People may dream about owning a helicopter and flying around town every weekend just for fun, but the truth is that owning a helicopter is a lot of hard, expensive work.
For years I had stayed mainly within the agriculture industry to earn a living. I work with local farmers to be on-call to dry cherry trees and other plants if needed.
My wife, Shanda, is a huge fan of Groupon and she had bought Groupons for different things in our area. One day she told me that I should run a Groupon deal for helicopter tours. I had rarely used the helicopter for tours, but it was something that I knew I could do well.
So after some nudging, I reached out to Groupon in early May of 2010 to inquire about running a deal. The process was extremely simple. After coming to an agreement on the terms of the experience, our first deal ran in late July of 2010.
Although my Groupon rep helped us prepare and told us to be ready for a very busy few months, we were still amazed at just how many people were interested in our deal. More than 300 people purchased the deal and on that first day my wife and I were taking calls all day long, scheduling tours and answering questions. It was very exciting!
In total, we’ve run three deals, two in Portland and one in Salem. We don’t make much money on the actual deals, but we’ve found that Groupon customers have been excellent tippers, which has really helped offset the discount.
Working with Groupon has been a breeze and the money we received has helped us with repairs during some difficult times. From setting up the deals, to answering my questions about redemption, or anything else, Groupon has been there whenever I have needed them.
While giving tours to hundreds of people is a lot harder than drying cherry trees, it’s also a lot more fun. We look forward to working with Groupon for a long time to come.
Question for Jeff? Leave it below and we’ll make sure he gets it.
Tags: Featured Merchant
