The FedEx envelope was waiting on the mahogany counter, tucked beneath a stack of fuel tickets and a stray crumpled receipt for a catering order of lobster rolls. ( is actually made from 100% recycled paperboard, which feels ironically sustainable for a document meant to blow up a family business).
Susan Teague didn’t even see it at first, preoccupied as she was with a pilot who was complaining about the price of Jet-A in a way that suggested he believed she personally refined the oil in her backyard. When she finally pulled the tab and the heavy 120gsm bond paper slid out, her eyes went straight to the bold text in the middle of the second page.
There it was: a range of value that looked like a typographical error, a figure so high it felt like a prank. She folded it into her purse, her hands shaking slightly, and for the rest of the day, the airport felt different. The hangars looked a little older, the ramp a little more cracked, and the fuel farm looked like a giant piggy bank waiting to be shattered.
$14,240,000
A localized shock that forces the brain to reorganize its entire reality.
The Ghost in the Room
The problem with a number like that is it doesn’t just sit in your head; it anchors itself in your nervous system. (The average human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information in short-term memory, but a multi-million-dollar offer has a way of clearing the cache).
For the next , Susan would measure every conversation, every flight school enrollment, and every hangar lease renewal against that figure. It became the ghost in the room. This phenomenon is known as anchoring, a cognitive bias where an individual relies too heavily on an initial piece of information-the “anchor”-when making subsequent judgments. It is the mental glue that makes the first number you hear the only one that feels real.
I know the feeling of a sharp, singular focus because I recently stubbed my toe on a mid-century modern coffee table that I previously loved. (The human foot contains 26 bones, and hitting the distal phalanx of the fifth digit is a specific kind of agony). For twenty minutes, the entire universe was reduced to the size of my left foot.
I couldn’t think about the global economy or what to have for lunch; I could only think about the throbbing. Receiving an unsolicited offer for an FBO is the financial version of a stubbed toe. It is a sharp, localized shock that forces your brain to reorganize its entire reality around a single point of impact. 14,240,000.
The Asymmetry of Information
Consolidators-large national networks that buy up smaller operations to create a unified brand-understand this better than anyone. (A direct mail response rate of 2.1% is considered exceptionally high for B2B outreach, yet for FBO owners, the rate is often much higher because the stakes are so personal).
They send these letters across hundreds of airports, casting a wide net with a lure made of bold ink and high multiples. They are playing a game of data and practice. They have bought thirty FBOs ; you are selling your first and only one.
This creates a massive structural asymmetry, or a situation where one person in the room knows all the rules and the other is just trying to remember where they parked. Susan started searching “is an unsolicited offer for my FBO fair” at 2:30 in the morning. (Blue light from a screen suppresses melatonin production by about 50%, which explains why 2am research feels like a descent into madness).
She found forum posts from and generic business articles that didn’t understand the nuance of a leasehold. In the FBO world, your value is tied to the airport leasehold, which is the legal agreement that says you can stay on the airport grounds as long as you keep the grass mowed and the fuel flowing. If you have left on your lease, you’re a tenant; if you have , you’re an owner.
Every later bid Susan received was measured by its distance from that first FedEx letter, despite the fact that the stranger who wrote the letter had never set foot on her ramp.
People only remember the sketch
The industry’s first numbers tend to come from the side with the most data. (The flash point of Jet A-1 fuel is , making it remarkably stable compared to gasoline). Because these consolidators see the books of hundreds of operations, they know exactly what a “fair” price looks like for them-not necessarily for you.
“People only remember the sketch, not the face.”
– Omar H., Court Sketch Artist
Omar H., a court sketch artist who has spent decades watching people realize their lives are changing in real-time, once told me something that stuck. (The graphite in a standard pencil is actually a mix of carbon and clay, varying in hardness from 9H to 9B). He meant that once a representation of reality is put on paper, it replaces the messy, complicated truth.
The unsolicited offer is the sketch. It’s a simplified, flattened version of what your business is worth, but because it’s in bold ink on a nice letterhead, it becomes the truth. You stop seeing the EBITDA-the money left over after the work is done but before the government and the banks take their cut-and start seeing the anchor.
Relationship vs. Throughput
I spent a week once obsessing over the architecture of FBO terminals built in the late . (The orange-and-brown color schemes of that era were intended to hide the stains from heavy cigarette smoke). They were built to feel like living rooms, with wood paneling and plush chairs, because the business was about relationships and handshakes.
Now, the business is about fuel throughput-the total volume of liquid fossils shoved into wings every -and lease extensions. When Susan looked at her terminal after the letter arrived, she didn’t see the of handshakes; she saw a spreadsheet that was either meeting or failing the expectations of a person in an office in another time zone.
The danger of the anchor is that it prevents you from doing your own homework. (The average human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colors, yet we tend to see things in black and white when money is involved). You stop asking what your FBO is actually worth based on its unique economics and start asking why the other guy isn’t offering what the first guy did.
You need a baseline that isn’t dictated by the person trying to buy from you. This is why a diligence-ready valuation is the only way to cut the anchor line. You need to know your own numbers before a stranger tells you what they are.
If you don’t have an analysis of your own, you are essentially flying IFR-Instrument Flight Rules-without any instruments. (IFR requires a pilot to fly using only the stickpit’s gadgets because they can’t see the horizon). You are trusting the “instruments” provided by the person who wants you to crash into their price.
This is where Griffin Towers enters the narrative, providing the actual data to counter the psychological weight of an unsolicited bid. Without that counterweight, you are just a person with a stubbed toe, unable to see the rest of the room because one small part of your life is screaming for attention.
Susan eventually had a meeting with a different buyer, a regional operator who knew her airport well. (The sound of a jet engine can reach , which is enough to cause immediate hearing damage). During the meeting, the buyer pointed out that her fuel farm was nearing the end of its useful life and that the airport sponsor was planning a major runway realignment that would disrupt her traffic for .
The Result of a Process
These were real, material facts that the FedEx letter hadn’t mentioned. The initial anchor of $14,240,000 started to look less like a promise and more like a trap. It didn’t account for the $1,442,800 in capital expenditures she was going to need in the next .
The true value of a business isn’t a number in a vacuum; it’s the result of a process. (The term ‘process’ comes from the Latin ‘processus’, meaning a going forward). It involves looking at the hangar occupancy rates, the margin on every gallon of 100LL, and the likelihood of the city council approving a lease extension.
It is messy, it is detailed, and it is rarely as high as the initial bait. But it is real. When you have a valuation that can hold up under the intense heat of buyer diligence, you regain the power in the negotiation. You are no longer reacting to an anchor; you are setting your own coordinates.
When the anchor drops, the fuel tickets stop looking like revenue and start looking like a distance from a number you didn’t invent.
I stopped looking at those letters as opportunities and started seeing them as what they are: marketing materials. (The paper used for junk mail accounts for about 100 million trees per year). They are designed to trigger a specific emotional response-fear of missing out, greed, or a sudden desire for a quiet retirement.
Susan Teague eventually sold her FBO, but not to the network in the FedEx envelope. She sold it for a number that was lower than the initial anchor but higher than what she would have settled for if she hadn’t done the work to understand her own worth.
She realized that the most expensive thing you can own is a number you can’t justify. .