Fish Where the Fish Are

Years ago when I started my radio career, I was the entire NTR (non-traditional revenue) department for our five-station cluster. I was also brand-new to sales, if we don’t count my years being the top cookie seller in my Brownie troop, from age 7-9.

My boss (the indomitable Lisa Fields) brilliantly suggested, and regularly reminded me, to just “fish where the fish are.” In other words, know your target audience and go meet them where they hang out.?

For the past month and a half, my husband has been fully invested in hunting turkey (they’re in-season here in Alabama). Every single weekend, he’s gotten up at 4am, put on his camouflage gear, and headed into the woods to sit in his blind, watching and waiting for his shot. While he had plenty of “conversations” with turkeys in the vicinity, none would ever come within range.?

Meanwhile, on the property and not in the woods, sits an old chicken coop turned shed, in whose yard we saw ample evidence of a turkey residing there. On closer investigation, it was confirmed that a Tom (a mature male turkey) had, indeed, claimed that open yard as his territory and fought any winged creature that dared “trespass” on it. (Thoughts and prayers to the large crow my husband witnessed being run off by said turkey.)

We began to wonder, what if my intrepid hunter applied Lisa’s years-old wisdom to “fish where the fish are,” and hunt where the turkey was, instead of relocating his blind to various parts of the pines where he could sometimes pick up on some chatter??

Sunday morning dawned early and my husband was well-situated in that chicken coop, having beat both the sun and the territorial turkey to his spot. At 7:00am I got the phone call that the job was done, we had our Tom.?

While I’m no longer selling NTR for a living, I still apply this principle of fishing to my recruitment. In our respective lines of work, we each have different “fish” we’re targeting. Ultimately, you’ve got to know your target, with very specific detail, so you can easily answer the following questions:

1. What do they look like

2. Where do they hang out

and then get yourself to that location. When we fish where the fish are, those calls home to share our wins are so much sweeter.?

I appreciate you and the time you took out of your day to read this! You can find more articles like this from me on my blog armindalindsay.com, and while you’re there take a look at my Write With Me club, and my coaching programs. I publish different (less professional, more personal) articles on Substack and Medium, while updating my stories over on Instagram. I look forward to connecting with you.