How I started selling private jets

I started when I was 23 years old, working for a jet broker in Washington DC. In those days, it was maybe six or seven jet brokers in the United States. I don't think there were any outside the United States at the time. It was really in the beginning of corporate jet world; easier to get in. But in those days, they had Tex machines; it was even before faxes.

I didn't start until 13 years ago. I left the airplane business; I was probably in my mid-30s, and I went into private equity. So, I was doing mergers and acquisitions for about 15 years. The world changed when I left the industry; 80% of the jets were in America, and 19% were in Europe, and it was 1% the rest of the world.

Twenty years later, the whole world changed. Russia, China, India, Nigeria, all these places were the places buying jets. Wow, how do we get that business? It's really crazy because you can't go to see a client there, and it's even more impossible trying to get them on the telephone.

When I built the showroom, it was a completely crazy idea. Now, it's easy to get into the industry, but what do you do once you're in the industry? You need that network.