How A Fishing Trip Changed My Business
I know this may sound strange but I went fishing yesterday and as a result, my business changed!
I didn’t realize it at first but there was a profound shift in my thinking after that but I didn’t realize it until this morning.
Okay, yesterday I had the urge to go down to the lake and throw a line in the water just to relax. I went to Academy and picked up some bait, threw my rods in the truck, said bye to the fam and took off.
There’s a cove on the east side of the lake that you can fish from shore or on the water if you had a small boat or a kayak or something. I had fished here before and never caught anything of size so I wasn’t expecting much, but that wasn’t the point; I just wanted to relax a bit.
After being out for a couple of hours, I caught a few sunfish, including this “MONSTER” crappie:
This was the biggest fish of the day, (by the way, for scale, I wear a size 14 shoe so no quite a monster fish) . . .
Afterward, I went home and did a few hours of work and called it quits for the day.
Later on that evening, I had a revelation. . . I had been treating my affiliate business just like I did that fishing trip!
Let me explain.
I knew that I was heading to an area where there wasn’t any big fish. I caught a few so I had some fun but I could barely feed my family if I was dependent on that catch. There are bigger fish out there, but I would need a boat and some more time to get to them so I didn’t bring the right equipment.
I was playing small and got small results.
Now here’s is what I tend to do with my affiliate marketing.
I look for markets where I know there isn’t a lot of traffic but there is tangible demand, typically for a specific product or product type (heading to an area where there is a bunch of small fish that are hungry).
Putting up sites for those small product is fun but I would trade them all for a couple of big money maker sites. (catching those small fish is cool but really would have liked a 10lb bass or something).
I don’t go after big fish in my affiliate marketing so I have dozens of small fish product sites. Again, that’s cool; I have fun and all but they leave me wanting the big fish even more.
I haven’t been utilizing my talents to go after bigger game markets. I know how to build site and drive traffic but have been spreading my efforts over all of these small fish sites. The picture of the fish I put up was WAY bigger than all the other fish I caught combined and that’s how I now feel about my affiliate business. One big market site will likely make me more money than all the small product focused sites combined!
So that’s my new direction, focusing on bigger fish, even if I have to use the smaller fish for bait testing the market small then going all in to land the whale!
So what do you think?
Have you ever thought that you have been spinning your wheels, stepping over dollars to pick up pennies?
What do you do in your business? Leave a comment below!
Comments
Fred,
I think you should have called me to take you fishing. Fish die at my command.
So, I think the real lesson is, if you fail to invite your fish slaying friend fishing, your affiliate marketing is going to suck…
Yep that sounds about right.
ttys,
Bryant
LOL!
That explains it! Alright, I’ll give you a call next time!
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