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me a lot in communicating with the guide staff. My guides are all professionals and like me they love what they do. Guide Meetings: We hash it all out and share information about what’s going on on the water. I feel that a guide is most satisfied when he feels that the outfitter he is working for is doing everything in their power to put people in his boat.” Anderson’s staff seems to agree. Greg Mueller, a guide who has guided on the North Platte for 11 years has had to make a few changes himself based on the increased volume of trips. “The biggest change I’ve had to make over the last few years is to go to a smaller, lighter boat due to the everyday strains of rowing,” said Mueller. “I spend around 150 days on the river yearly and I am as excited every time I hit the river as if it were the first time. You never know when that client is going to get that one big fish, any day it can be a six-pound fish of a lifetime.” In addition to expanding the seasonality of the business, Anderson also changed the types of trips he offered and his approach to marketing and sales.
AnglingTrade.com / June 2012
“We did make a lot of changes - not to the trips themselves - but to how we packaged and sold them,” said Anderson. “We started selling the spring special, we also started selling trips like “Three Tailwaters in Three Days”, “Get Lost in Wyoming” or our Golf and fishing package the ‘Drift and Drive’. New trips but with the same guide that they have come to trust and love to fish with.” You also need to assess your current business, identify the current challenges that are inhibiting growth and address them effectively. Recognizing and confronting your shortcomings honestly and transparently is important. 44
“Probably the biggest problem I had in the beginning was that I tried to do it all myself. I was challenged trying to manage my time between guiding and running the business. It is very hard to run a successful guide business if you are behind the oars every day. Managing time spent on and off the water was hard at first but I am getting better. I have trimmed down to about 100 days a year guiding and I spread those out over our nine-month season. It did not take long at all before I recognized what my strengths and weaknesses were. It became painfully clear that I needed help with the scheduling and the office side of the business. I got some office help and things ran a lot smoother.” Communication with customers - both existing and prospective - is a key ingredient to success. How are you communicating with your existing base of customers today in a way that ensures that they will come back? How are you communicating with new potential customers? “We definitely changed the way we communicate with customers,” continued Anderson. “However we did not change the way we book trips. We always have a phone conversation with the clients before we book the trip. We don’t do any online booking and it allows us to get a better idea of what they are looking for on their guide trip and also an Idea of the clients expectations coming in. However, everything else is online: Full service fly shop, enewsletter, website, and facebook pages for both the Fly Shop (just hit 6000 fans) and Guide Service. Facebook has become a great way to stay contact with our clients. All of my guides take a lot of pictures and when a client likes our page it allows the client to get the photos from their trip as well as see how the fishing is the rest of the year. It allows us to stay in contact with all
our clients year round through big fish pictures and fishing reports.” Also, don’t forget the basics of simple blocking and tackling. Can you clearly differentiate yourself from your competition? “The biggest thing that sets us apart from our competition is our years of experience. Wyoming Fly Fishing Guide Service and Platte River Fly Shop started running guide trips on the Grey reef sections of the North Platte in 1987, a full ten years before any other outfitters and guide services,” said Anderson. “We were the first outfitters to start targeting the big trout that these waters have become famous for. Our guides have been rowing this river longer than any other guide service. Today we are the largest and most experienced guide service on the Grey Reef, Miracle Mile and Fremont Canyon sections of the North Platte River.” Lastly, it is important to move decisively, but this doesn’t mean that one move with reckless abandon. Most importantly, be wary of making changes that are irreversible. When planning to expand your business be cognizant of planning, communication and focus. Just because things have been tough in the past, doesn’t mean they necessarily have to be tough in the future. “2012 is looking to be another great season,” said Anderson. “This year we plan to stick to our business plan and continue to put great trips out the door but also add some new trips and build on the clients we gained in 2011. We will also continue with the marketing, enewsletters and social media campaigns and add a few new sport shows. I predict that business will again increase and I’m hoping to hit the 1000 trip mark. It is the end of February and we have already been working hard for three weeks.” at