Do you own a hunting or fishing guide business and have to worry about filling spots for the next season?

Keep reading.

Do you want to make more money next season?

Keep reading.

Do you want to be able to book hunts without having to answer a million questions or even talk to new customers before they send their deposit?

You definitely want to keep reading because we’re going to show you the five things that are causing your guide business to bleed money.

First let’s talk about the money you’re already leaving on the table.

In our experience everyone loves making money, and everyone hates losing money.

So as a hunting or fishing guide, you have to start understanding that every open spot you have during peak season is actually “expired” product.

After all, you can’t sell last Tuesday’s hunt today.

So let’s do some basic napkin math:

If you have a 6 month hunting season and sell each hunt for $1000 per person, that means

• 1 Open Spot/Month = $6k LOST per year
• 1 Open Spot/Week = $24K LOST per year

Figuring out how much money you’re leaving on the table will help you to see how bad the bleed really is.

And this next issue, is what makes the revenue bleeding worse for a lot of hunting outfitters.

In the woods, being invisible is a skill.

In business, it’s a death sentence.

Your customers shouldn’t have to “scout and track” to find you.

Here’s a 10-Second Field Test: Open Google and type: “[Animal] hunting guides in [Your State].”

So if you’re a deer hunting guide in Iowa, search: “Deer Hunting Guides in Iowa”.

Are you on the first page?

Or are your competitors?

If people can’t find you instantly, they are booking with the guy they did find.

But, showing up is only the first battle to landing a new customer.

After all, if they get to your website and it looks like an afterthought…you guessed it, the bleeding continues.

As a hunting or fishing guide who has been in the business for years, you are the expert in the field.

Customers buy from you because they trust you, your guide abilities, and they know you have the right answers.

This is something you take pride in, as you should.

Whether it’s hunting, fishing, or websites, expertise doesn’t happen overnight.

The problem is that expertise doesn’t translate to the internet when you have a website that isn’t updated, isn’t maintained, was built over a weekend, and hasn’t been touched in years.

It gives clients the impression you’re not really serious about your business, and not really serious about being a guide.

That’s not necessarily fair, but it’s true.

Now, let’s say you’ve made it this far, and in your mind your website isn’t bleeding money bad.

You’re showing up on the first page of Google, and your website looks as legit as your skillset.

Then you might already be experiencing this bleed and thinking that’s just how it goes.

Imagine this: You are out in the field and preparing for the upcoming season.

This can be anything from laying a decoy spread, prepping blinds, putting out feed, or maintaining your 4-wheeler.

Now imagine your hands are full with preparations you are doing and “RING RING” Your phone rings.

It could be a spam call. It could be a $10,000 group booking. You think bad phone service, full hands, sent to voicemail.

By the time you call back, they’ve already called the next guide on the list.

You absolutely can and should call back, but you may have already lost a customer. Your website should be able to answer all of a potential customer’s burning questions in one place.

This will save your business time, money, and headache from repeating the same 20 questions every single week for a year.

The last form of bleeding might be one of the most important to get stopped as soon as possible.

As a hunting or fishing guide you know that the best kind of customer is a returning one. 

Outdoor sportsmen in their late 20s and 30s are entering their prime spending years, and they do 100% of their research on their smartphones.

Even older generations have mostly shifted to smart phones too due to technology struggles around regularly updating a traditional computer.

The days of a single common computer for the whole household are long gone!

If your site isn’t mobile-friendly or easy to navigate, you aren’t just losing a booking; you’re losing a lifelong customer who could have returned for the next 20 years.

Make sure you website is easy to navigate and read on a cellphone.

The cellphone version of your website is just as important or even more important than the laptop or desktop version of your website.

Are You Ready to Stop the Bleeding?

If you’ve gotten to the end of this and thought, “how the hell am I going to take care of all these web problems while running my season?”

Here’s the bad news: You’re not.

Here’s the good news: We could.

If you use the button below to schedule a quick 15-minute introductory call with our hunting outfitter web marketing specialist Ryan.

This is a no pressure, no obligation chat so that you can get on our radar and we can evaluate if we can really help you and your business.

Even if we don’t end up working together, we’re committed to making the call worth your time to help you learn even more about how you can improve your website and make more money now and in your future seasons.