For those who fish, having a few key items in your tacklebox is crucial to make the trip more enjoyable, as the opportunity to catch the fish you set out for will be maximized. Conversely, without the right items it can lead to a day from hell, just sitting and baking in the sun without a single bite.

These key tacklebox items for fishing all start with the question:

“Do we know what type of fish we are trying to catch today?”

This process in the chartered fishing industry is extremely specialized and for good reason. Fish species vary by location, what type of bait interests them, and specific habitats where they exist.

This leads to fishing charters specializing for different types of fish at different times of the year. The most successful charters will be highly specialized for one fish and have a deep and thorough understanding of them that includes, what it likes to eat, where it resides during certain times of the year, how it moves differently when climates shift, etc.

This same thought process and attention to detail should be included when looking at gathering new customers.

The best strategy to attract new customers is to segment them into different buckets. Here are what the steps of a client segmentation exercise should look like:

1. Select Segmentation Criteria
2. Research Customer Data
3. Prioritize & Focus
4. Create Sales Plays
5. Inspect What You Expect

Select Segmentation Criteria: While you most likely have a template for what this looks like, it is always a good idea to inspect what you expect out of this process. Ensure that your segmentation categories match the most efficient way of segmenting customers. Examples include by industry, by spend, by geography, etc.

Research Customer Data: Gather data through interviews, surveys and internal data (usage, customer success team interactions, prior relationship, etc).

Prioritize & Focus: Once the data has been analyzed it is now time to pick where we are going to focus our attention and resources. Some factors that should be considered to help in determining prioritization are segment size, ability to grow, penetration, etc.

How you prioritize your resources and focus your attention is the single most critical piece to success. When you find a customer segment with growth potential and specific messaging is resonating, pour gas on the fire and give it more resources.

Create Sales Plays: We covered it a bit in the prior section but establishing set sales plays that can be measured against specific segments is crucial to success. A/B test different messaging for segments and when you find one that works, double down.

The attention at this point should be less on “finding negative to stop it” and more on “find what’s working and let’s do more of it.”

This subtle shift in thinking has been and will continue to be a key component for success.

Inspect What You Expect: If you’ve been following along with us at Prescriptive Profits, you know that the underlying principle of everything that we do is to inspect what you expect. Once each step is set up, it is time to inspect each thoroughly to ensure that it is correct.

If a charter boat takes a group out for Mahi Mahi and only catches Grouper, or nothing at all, the captain is going to mentally run through their entire process on the trip back into shore and into the night. They’ll start to pick apart the preparation, then the location, type of bait they used, time of day, seasonality, etc.

If your results aren’t catching the right fish, or the most profitable fish, let’s take a look in your tacklebox and inspect the process. In other words….

Let’s get to work.