Putting Out Our Nets for a Haul (in business)

How deep sea fishing and business are related.

As I was waking up yesterday, I had a thought or a revelation.

Sometimes when I am studying concepts and listening to many insightful speakers, teachers and coaches, my brain works on this while I am sleeping and I have a new thought or insight. One of the concepts I have been thinking about is the Blue Ocean Marketing theory.¹ I describe this concept a bit in the clip below.

Then, I woke up yesterday thinking about the theory and that deep sea fishing show, Deadliest Catch,² where many captains and their crews go out in the Bering sea and battle freezing weather, dangerous conditions to bring in a haul of crab for their livelihood. They relate, just keep reading.

Here’s a snippet of the danger where a man was almost pulled overboard.

Anyway, in this next longer clip from another episode, you can see them putting down pots to catch crabs. They were warned away due to dangerous conditions. I have seen a number of episodes of this show and noticed that the captain often has to weigh the data, and choose an area and drop their tagged pots. They try to use logic but it seems like it is mostly a gamble.

I don’t know tons about deep sea crab fishing so please excuse my ignorance but I have seen a number of episodes and it appears to be a crap shoot, really.

Back to the video, at one point at around 4:00, they bring in a huge amount of crab and they are ecstatic and evidently this was amazing and rare. It’s nice to see their joy. They were a small fishing boat and evidently brought in a huge haul!

Then while I was watching Gary Keesee³ from today, he talked about Luke 5 where a similar scenario was happening where Peter and his team had been fishing all night and were washing their nets but had caught nothing. Then Jesus said “put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.” And then they ended up catching a ton of fish! According to Gary, this was an old school business between Peter, James and John and their boats. I really love that the Bible actually talks about business!

They pulled in soo much fish that their boats began to sink! Woa. I pray that all of our businesses have this type of problem.

How do I tie this all together? Well, here goes.

In thinking of the Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2015) in business, we need to determine where is an untapped market or a market where there is room to add our service and gain customers or clients.

But how do we find this untapped market? Is it a crap shoot, random, luck of the draw? Or is it based on data? Or is it a mixture of all of the above? Maybe.

There are many ways to research including the Chamber of Commerce⁴ and the Small Business Association.⁵ On SBA’s site they have several websites listed that provide data about trends in business.

Another strategy for collecting data is something I am learning from

Scott Perry

⁶ and the Guardian Academy⁷ about engaging the field. Here is a clip about collecting data this way.

Here you see me engaging the field by leading a workshop and collecting data while teaching people to collect data.

But how do we know where to advertise our wares (services, courses, workshops, other)? We try to make educated guesses by looking at the data provided by the above resources and maybe sending out surveys, talking to people, analyzing that way and then we try more strategies by further engaging the field and collecting data.

If you are ready to engage the field today and start collecting data, drop me a line. I check my email often at drwilley@attainablevision.net

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I provide these services: Community Calls for Paid Subscribers, Individualized Coaching for General Business, Business Analysis, Private Practice Coaching.

And we offer Two Courses and a Workbook now:

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Also, please check out

Elizabeth Walker

⁸ and her services. She has been on my show a few times and we met earlier this year and discussed some Summer Updates.

She is hosting an event called The Power of Laughter. Check out the clip.

1. Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2015). Blue ocean strategy: how to create uncontested market space and make the competition irrelevant. Harvard Business Review Press.

2. Warner Bros. (2024). Deadliest Catch. https://go.discovery.com/show/deadliest-catch-discovery

3. Gary Keesee Ministries (9/16/2024). Kingdom Partnership. https://www.garykeesee.com/

4. US Chamber of Commerce. (2024). Small Business Data Center. https://www.uschamber.com/small-business/small-business-data-center

5. US Small Business Administration. (2024). Market research and competitive analysis. https://www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/market-research-competitive-analysis

6. Perry, S. (2024). Creative on Purpose. https://ascottperry.substack.com?r=3mu2zb

7. The Guardian Academy and Joseph Robertson (March 8th, 2024). The Arena: Engage the Field. https://knowledge.guardianacademy.io/p/engage-the-field?r=3mu2zb&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

8. https://www.walkerconsultingworks.com/