Shall I Fish, Farm, or Hunt?
Sometime earlier this year, I had one client who shared with me these analogies for marketing / looking for new prospects. Being relatively new to this, that was the first time I’ve heard of the terms.
Basically, there are three different types of ways people market themselves to their prospective clients.
The first one is Hunter. As the name suggests, someone who practices this type of marketing style hunts for their prospective clients. This is also the one that is most widely practiced by everyone who is looking for potential prospects.
Hunting, just as it sounds, is going out tracking your clients and trying to jump on any opportunity you can find to try and convert them into sales or repeat returns.
An example of this, is when you go to malls or busy intersections, and there are people standing there trying to hand you out a brochure, or when you’re sitting at your table waiting for food, someone comes by and gives you their business cards and try to start a conversation with you.
How did you feel when someone did that you? Did you turn them down, or tried to run away? That’s the normal reaction of someone who is being hunted down. This doesn’t mean that this is not an effective strategy. It is similar to wild beasts, a hunter needs to hone their hunting skills, to reduce the possibility of rejection (rejection will always be there). A good hunter will work on their elevator pitch, their approach, their marketing materials, etc in order to increase their chances of securing the interest of the prospect.
Next is the farmer. Farming is very tedious and takes a lot of time before you can get the results that you want. You have to choose your plot of land, the type of seeds that you’d like to plant, maintain, and nurture the plants, before being able to reap your harvest.
However, this doesn’t guarantee that you will get the crops that you were waiting for. Your plants can be eaten by wild animals, stolen, infected by bugs/diseases, etc. Same thing in marketing. You can put in all your efforts to build up your ‘farm’ ie your network, your following, etc, but a hunter might just come in and take the prospect that you were hoping to get when your farm matured.
In order to farm effectively, a farmer needs to be selective in where they plant their seeds. Nowadays, choosing a medium that works well based on the client base that you’re targeting. For example, if you are looking to harvest potential clients in the corporate world, spend more time on Linkedin to build your brand instead of Instagram or TikTok. Choosing the seeds that you plant is also very important for a farmer. What type of plants will you grow, in order to attract the right prospects?
A farmer basically will look to build their brand by sharing their knowledge, client testimonials, etc in order to build up a base of followers. Not all of these followers will become your clients, but having more followers, will potentially lead you to more potential leads, and in the end more potential clients. As stated earlier, a farmer needs to spend a lot of time cultivating your brand, in order to attract the right prospects.
Yes, it takes effort and a lot of time, but once done properly, a farm can be sustainable in the long run, and you as the farmer can reap the rewards from your efforts.
Last but not least, is Fishing. For those that love fishing, you know that before you go fishing, you need to do a lot of preparation. You need to understand the bait that you will be using, the tools that you will bring, and the location that you will be going in order to catch the fish that you want.
Fishing can be a waiting game or a luck-based game depending on your techniques, skills, and luck. There is always a possibility that you will not get any fish (not the right now, the right bait, or the right tool), or you might get fishes that you were not interested to catch in the first place.
One example of this is conducting a talk. Depending on the location, target audience, the topic being shared, etc, you will potentially get different results. However, one thing about fishing that you should be aware of, that doesn’t matter how good the location is, if you over ‘fished’, then there would be no more new fishes that you can fish, capiche?
Another example of fishing would be coming up with interesting marketing materials, etc that would get people to come to your page, sign up for your classes, etc. This is casting your net wide, in order to catch any fishes that might go through your fishing area.
So, which one is the best? To me, it’s dependent on your personality. If you’re the type that is outgoing and has thick skin, a hunter is probably more suited for you as you will be facing rejections on a regular basis. If you’re more the type that doesn’t like to be rejected, then you should look into fishing or farming with arming being the most reactive type of marketing, hence less potential for upfront rejection as you have decided up front what type of prospects you would be looking out for.
Personally, I am a farmer. To be honest, it takes a lot of effort/time, but the rewards are tremendous once you are able to harvest the fruits of your labor.
So, are you a farmer, fisherman or a hunter?
P/S: I’m not a marketing expert. This is a personal sharing based on my personal experience and reading on relevant articles.