The Right People with the Right Stuff

I’m not a diehard fisherman by any stretch, but I have done enough fishing to know that it’s not enough to simply cast a net and hope for the best. You’ve got to know where to fish.

Many people think that’s the way to use advertising. Cast a big enough net and you’ll catch enough fish. But it’s not really the best use of your money. And that’s what the fishing industry realized after years of casting a wide net. When they really only wanted to catch a specific type of fish, they also dragged in all sorts of undesirable fish along the way. They called them bycatch.

Today, with technology and better techniques, the industry has begun to catch only the profitable fish, which has created a better environment for the entire industry. They call it sustainable management.

What we do at 3Seed isn’t all that different from sustainable management. Ten years ago it was enough to tell the audience your name and location and what you did – essentially casting a wide net. Today, however, we face an entirely different marketplace. Your customer has all the information they could ever want by stringing together a series of words in that Google search box. Believe me, they will find all of the information they want.

What matters today is who you are and what you stand for. Tell your customers that and you’ll begin to build your relationship with them. A friendship. You’ll need to tell them something special and make them care about you.

This is not to say that you should eschew competitive pricing and a great product. Those are even more essential in today’s economic environment than ever. All I’m saying is that your competitor has access to the same products and prices that you do. The question is why would a consumer choose to by or do business with you instead of the other guy?

I know I choose to do business with people I like. What about you?