North Bay, ONTARIO

In 1615, Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec City and New France, travelled up the Ottawa River, on a westward journey by canoe, on a route that lead to Lake Huron and back east via what is now known as the St Lawrence Seaway.

This same route ended up being used by the famous coureurs des bois of the North West Company, making their way every spring in the large Montreal canoes to meet up mid-summer with other traders coming from what was known then as the North West Territories, to exchange goods like axes, blankets, tobacco, beads etc for the much sought-after beaver pelts – that went into fashionable hats of the day in the UK.

Both groups would have passed in front of an indistinguishable rocky spit of land upon which now sits the house of my parents.

And while the voyageur mostly survived on food prepared in advance and carried in the canoe, most travelers of those days, would have spent time hunting and fishing to supplement those meagre rations.

This entire area, part of one of the largest boreal forests on the planet, has few areas where farming is economical, let alone feasible. Hunting and fishing were the main sources of sustenance for First Nations peoples and generations of settlers who followed.

Hunting and Farming, however, are the two main methods that all small business owners have to use, to feed their businesses and thus their families.

Think about it.

Depending how established your business is – you have to make a decision on where best to spend your time. A young business – you need clients or customers now.

Unless you have a large bank account – IF you don’t go out and prospect – ergo “hunt”, you will end up hungry.

But as you grow and develop – this constant, daily, weekly, tactical activity of prospecting, is not only exhausting, but self-defeating. You need to seed your reputation, your authority, your credibility. This is the kind of activity that is more strategic but does not necessarily reveal results immediately.

This is the “farming” of social media, video, websites, book authorship, newsletters, speaking engagements, drip follow-up campaigns etc.

Takes a lot of work, time and patience. It is in the important, but not urgent category. Easily postponed.

What I see predominately is business owners doing a bad job at both.

They get sold into the lure of “easy” leads with SEO, content marketing, mainstream media – all the “we’ll do it for you” methods championed by every agency out there.

Their hope is that these methods will mean they neither need to hunt nor farm. Someone will do it for them.

Doesn’t work – burns up cash fast.

What you need, if you own a business, is clear strategy and self-discipline to ensure you are doing the right amount of hunting and farming so you both survive today and proper tomorrow.

How might you do that you ask?

Join me and my co-host, Sonia Dumas this Wednesday during our live show, Street Smarts MBA for Small Business and find out. During this month’s episode we will unveil the curtain on how we help our clients hunt and farm – in equal measure.  

To your health and success!

Hugh

The “Profit Accelarator”
StreetSmartMBA.org

P.S. Join Sonia and I this Wednesday at 11:00 AM MT for our live webcast on the Sales Expert Channel. This week we’re going to reveal our secret weapon on how we find any business upwards of $100,000 or more, in under 60 minutes, without spending a dime on sales or marketing!  You won’t want to miss it.