The River Doesn’t Chase the Fish

I’m writing this from the Kenai River in Alaska.

If you've ever spent time around serious fishermen, you realize pretty quickly that the best ones aren't frantically moving every five minutes.

They study the water.

They understand the current. They know the season. They pay attention to depth, temperature, timing and where the fish are actually moving.

Then they position themselves accordingly.

Watching that made me think about how many business owners operate completely differently.

We're constantly chasing.

Chasing leads.

Chasing clients.

Chasing employees.

Chasing the next platform.

Chasing competitors.

Chasing opportunities that looked a lot better before we caught them.

Eventually, you can build an entire company around chasing things.

But the Kenai reminded me of something:

The river doesn't chase the fish. It creates the environment they move through.

There's a business lesson in that.

Most Businesses Have an Acquisition Strategy. Few Have a Positioning Strategy.

Ask most business owners how they're going to grow and you'll hear:

More advertising.

More salespeople.

More calls.

More emails.

More content.

More leads.

Those are acquisition tactics.

They're important.

But here's a question I think is considerably more interesting:

What would make the right customers naturally move toward your business?

That's positioning.

And positioning can be more powerful than persuasion.

Think about the businesses you willingly pay more for.

They probably don't spend the entire interaction convincing you they're the cheapest.

They've created a reason to be chosen.

Maybe it's expertise.

Convenience.

Speed.

Trust.

Experience.

Scarcity.

Reputation.

Specialization.

Results.

Whatever it is, you understand why they are different.

If your salesperson needs 45 minutes to explain why your company is different, your positioning probably isn't strong enough.

Stop Asking How to Get More Leads

I've run marketing for long enough to know this is one of the most common requests:

“We need more leads.”

Sometimes that's absolutely true.

But sometimes a company doesn't have a lead problem.

It has a conversion problem.

Or an offer problem.

Or a follow-up problem.

Or a reputation problem.

Or a pricing problem.

Or a sales problem.

Pouring more leads into a broken system doesn't solve the problem.

It just makes the problem more expensive.

So before spending another dollar on advertising, I would ask:

What happened to the last 100 leads?

Not generally.

Literally.

Pull them up.

How many were contacted?

How quickly?

How many responded?

How many appointments were scheduled?

How many showed?

How many received proposals?

How many bought?

Why did the others not buy?

You might discover that your next $10,000 doesn't belong in advertising.

It belongs in fixing what happens after the advertisement works.

That's an important distinction coming from someone who owns a marketing firm.

Find the Bottleneck Before Adding More Water

Standing near a river makes this incredibly easy to visualize.

Water follows a path.

So does revenue.

Imagine your business like this:

Attention → Lead → Contact → Appointment → Sale → Delivery → Repeat Customer → Referral

Now put your conversion rate underneath each step.

You don't need sophisticated software to start.

If 1,000 people become 100 leads, that's one number.

If 100 leads become 40 conversations, that's another.

If 40 conversations become 15 appointments, that's another.

If 15 appointments become 5 customers, there's another.

Now you can finally ask the right question:

Where is the biggest leak?

That's where your attention belongs.

Not necessarily at the top.

Business owners love adding more water.

Smart operators fix the narrowest part of the river.

The Most Valuable Improvement Might Be in the Middle

Here's where the math becomes interesting.

Imagine your company generates 100 leads every month and closes 10 customers.

You could spend considerably more money trying to generate 150 leads.

Or you could figure out why you're only closing 10.

What happens if better follow-up, stronger sales training, faster response times or a better offer moves you from 10 customers to 15 from the same 100 leads?

You grew without increasing lead volume.

That's why I think every business owner should periodically impose a rule:

Before increasing traffic, improve throughput.

In other words:

Before buying more attention, become better at converting the attention you already have.

That principle alone can completely change how you allocate money.

Create a “No-Chase” Test

Here's another framework I've been thinking about on the Kenai.

Take your five best customers.

Not necessarily the five largest.

The five you would happily clone.

Then answer:

Where did they come from?

Why did they choose us?

Why did they stay?

What problem were they actually trying to solve?

What do they value that our average customer doesn't?

What characteristics did they share before becoming customers?

Now compare those answers with your current marketing.

This can be uncomfortable.

You may discover that you're spending most of your marketing budget attracting people who look nothing like your best customers.

That's backwards.

Your best customers are already giving you the blueprint.

Study them.

Build a Business That Can Say No

This might be the hardest part.

Great positioning requires exclusion.

You cannot be the perfect company for everybody.

Sometimes the most profitable sentence in business is:

“We're probably not the right fit.”

I've learned this over the years.

Not every dollar is good revenue.

Some customers consume an extraordinary amount of time.

Some projects pull your company outside its expertise.

Some deals look impressive but have terrible economics.

Some opportunities distract you from the thing your company does exceptionally well.

Revenue tells you what you earned.

It doesn't tell you what that revenue cost your organization to earn.

Start measuring that.

A $20,000 client who requires $18,000 worth of organizational energy isn't necessarily better than a $10,000 client who requires $3,000.

Revenue can feed the ego.

Margin feeds the company.

Your Calendar Is a Business Statement

Here's one more exercise.

Open your calendar from last month.

Don't change anything.

Look at where your time actually went.

Then ask:

If somebody knew nothing about my goals and only saw my calendar, what would they assume I'm trying to build?

That's a powerful question.

Business owners say they want growth but spend almost no time on sales.

They say they want a better team but spend no time developing leaders.

They say strategy matters but spend every day solving operational emergencies.

They say family matters but give their family whatever time is left.

Your priorities aren't what you say they are.

Your calendar is the receipt.

I've had to learn that myself.

Know When to Move—and When to Stay Put

The other thing fishing teaches you is patience.

Not passive patience.

Informed patience.

There is a difference.

Sometimes you need to move.

Sometimes the conditions have changed and staying in the same place is stubbornness disguised as discipline.

But sometimes you're positioned correctly and simply haven't given the strategy enough time.

Business owners frequently struggle with this.

A campaign runs for two weeks.

Change it.

A salesperson has one bad month.

Replace them.

A new service doesn't immediately explode.

Abandon it.

Then we wonder why nothing compounds.

Before changing direction, ask:

Is the strategy wrong, or am I uncomfortable waiting for the strategy to work?

Those are very different problems.

Good leadership requires knowing the difference.

Become the Place the Opportunity Flows Toward

That's what I'm taking away from the Kenai River.

There's a level of business where you spend most of your time hunting for opportunities.

That's normal.

Most of us start there.

But eventually, you should be building toward something different.

A reputation that generates introductions.

A brand people remember.

A customer experience people talk about.

A sales system that doesn't depend entirely on you.

Marketing that consistently creates demand.

Relationships that compound.

Expertise that makes people seek your opinion.

A company that knows exactly who it serves—and isn't afraid to say who it doesn't.

At that point, something begins to change.

You're still working.

You're still marketing.

You're still selling.

But you're no longer desperately chasing everything that moves.

You've positioned yourself in the current.

And that's a completely different way to build a business.

So this week, don't immediately ask:

“How do I get more?”

Ask:

“Where is the bottleneck?”

“What are my best customers already teaching me?”

“What should we stop chasing?”

“What would make the right opportunities naturally move toward us?”

Fix those answers first.

Then turn up the marketing.

Because sometimes the fastest way to grow isn't finding more water.

It's becoming much better at understanding the river you're already standing in.

Writing from the Kenai River, Alaska.

— Corey Flores
Founder, Flores Marketing Firm