Posted by: Troy White
November 21, 2008
Issue #551

Frank talk about Selling Lobsters
By The Boatload

Fellow Business-Builders,

You are going to love this success story!

I know I do … I’ve probably shared it with a thousand people by now.

Why?

Because it is packed with useful tips on how a relatively average, commodity-type business turned things around and now charges > 12,000% more than his competition.

The next best thing about this: Brendan Ready did this without buying 400 e-books, $1,500 home study programs, or attending thirty different $2,500 per person workshops. 

Here is a guy who is well on track for a $1.5 million dollar a year business in his first year.  I can see it tripling in size every year, if they can handle it.

Now, I am one for training through books, home study programs, and seminars. I invest $20,000+ per year in this … not to mention what I pay my coach and mastermind groups (more than my education investment).  I would highly recommend you invest in your education too. 

Even with Brendan’s success, he had never even heard of some of the strategies I shared with him.  One of which is an easy extra million a year for him if he wants. 

But, Brendan and his brother are very bright young guys, and they found the path to wealth on their own. Most never will.  They used their business as their case study and assignment material all through business school.  Each week, their assignment made them a fortune. By the time they had graduated, they already had a very successful business

This is an exciting interview – I’ve included the transcript below for you to read.

Here is a 25-year-old guy that is raking in the money and leaving a wake behind him of clueless people. 

It doesn’t surprise me, but almost everyone around him, or even remotely associated with him, told him this was a bad idea.  

Too much money. 

No one will pay that.

Too much work.

That’s silly, no one wants to watch those videos. 

And blah, blah, blah - - the whining goes on by those without a clue. 

The fact is, Brendan should have a higher-end program at the $5,000 = $15,000 range and even multiple other levels. 

Make the $2,995 program the Gold membership, have a Gold + and then a Platinum (or Bronze, Silver, Gold).  As they ascend up through the levels, they get more goodies, more assortments of seafood, more recognition with others (some form of notice on the site of who their members are). 

The number of people accepting the higher-end ones will be smaller than Gold, but one person at Platinum pays three times what the Gold does.

Things I am recommending to Brendan to take his business even higher, to the next level.

• Push the gift card membership idea.
• Keep building on that high-end travel package idea.
• Sell their knowledge to others in the food business - $10,000+ per year group coaching programs (100 people is an extra million).
• Make the $2,995 program the entry level one and have two levels of ascension they can move to with more delivered food goods and bonuses.
• Have one program for a lower price point that has much less deliverables … but ultimately will lead them into the high-end year-long program.
• When they are ready, start a very expensive coaching program for other people in the food industry who want to model their success.
• Start writing a lot.  Turn that writing into articles, books, and ultimately a home study program.
• Get on the speaking tour at restaurant-related conferences, marketing conferences, and marketing to the high net worth seminars as well.

Please make sure you read the interview below to learn more about Catch A Piece of Maine’s marketing …

Troy White Interview with
Brendan Ready
Ready Seafoods/Catch a Piece of Maine

Troy: Welcome everyone. This is Troy White of Creative Marketing Tips and we have a fabulous new interview for you here today with Brendan Ready.

We’re going to be covering something that I briefly mentioned in last month’s newsletter, which I am absolutely fascinated about what Brendan is doing.

How are you today, Brendan?

Brendan: I’m doing very well, Troy, thank you.

Troy: Great. I did briefly talk about what you’re doing in my last month’s edition, but maybe you can tell people about your business and what it is that you do.

Brendan: What we’re trying to do is to help some Maine guys out here. We’re based out of Portland, Maine. We’re trying to bring our customers closer to the actual lobstering experience in the state of Maine, other than just buying a product.

We’re trying to create a partnership, we’re calling it, where consumers across the country can actually be involved with our industry in a very hands-on interactive approach.

What we’re doing is selling the rights to an individual Maine lobster trap, where customers or corporations can own a Maine lobster trap and receive all the lobsters that trap catches for an entire year.

It’s a very interactive program where you’re trying to connect the harvester directly to the customer.

Troy: Tell us a little bit about how you got started and a little bit of your family history here.

Brendan: That’s an important part of Catch a Piece of Maine, because that’s really what signifies who we are. Both my brother and I grew up right on the water and became commercial lobstermen … going out every single day on the water and we loved it.

We wanted to continue to love lobstering, but our parents, thank God, told us to go away to college and get an education.

We applied all our knowledge and education directly to the Maine lobster industry.

We put together a business which is called Ready Seafoods. We continued to travel down to the docks to sell our lobsters (like all the rest of them) Ultimately we came upon an idea that ended up being a major breakthrough for us. 

Rather than selling the lobsters off the dock, like everyone else … we decided to pack up the truck with live lobsters and do the 1.5 hour drive to Martha’s Vineyard area. 

This very affluent area did not have lobstermen there selling their goods … and they were willing to pay a substantial premium to buy from us. (We were the only ones willing to do the drive up there.)

This ended up being a huge breakthrough and money-maker for us.  The whole time we were selling our brand and our story about finding our product and living our passion.

Over the next couple years, almost four years now since we graduated college, we started selling into the European and the Asian markets, selling our lobsters worldwide.

What Ready Seafoods was, was a base. It was a platform where we created this good flow of cash coming in, so now we could take our real creative ideas and make more exciting bundles … offers … and money.

We found there were customers out there, just like those customers at Martha’s Vineyard, who were willing to pay a premium for the best possible product available.

What we found most valuable in our industry was the experience of us going out on the water every day at 4:00 in the morning, going out with the boat as the sun rises, with the seagulls, being independent with a passion.

That great quality of life, that strong brand feeling of being a part of Maine and the waterfront – we found there were customers out there who wanted to be a part of it, almost like belonging to that strong working waterfront industry, that strong sense of tradition, that strong sense of heritage that we have.

What we did is we found a way to create an interactive program where we could actually involve the high-end customer to partner, as we said, in our industry and basically be a virtual lobsterman for an entire year. That’s what Catch A Piece of Maine is for these customers.

It’s a unique experience where you can have a direct relationship with your harvester. You can follow him throughout the entire year. You have your own lobster trap where you can actually physically view it online and see how many lobsters it catches every day.

The rewarding aspect is to be able to have that product that is basically from your investment as a customer, just direct any time you want, anywhere you want, as a gourmet dinner package for yourself, your clients, or your family to enjoy.

Each shipment of lobster that comes from your lobster trap comes with Maine steamer clams, Maine mussels, and four servings of gourmet Maine-made desserts made from local purveyors here in the state of Maine.

It comes with a DVD of your lobsterman showing your catch, a map of where your lobsters were caught, who your harvester is, the story of the man behind the catch, and also any other personalized gifts that you want to be sent inside of your package.

So as I always say, Troy, we’re not selling a product here. What we’re selling is an experience for those customers who want more than what’s offered in the marketplace right now, and that’s why we developed A Piece of Maine for those customers.

Troy: I love your story, I really do. For an industry I never would have guessed, you’re onto some very advanced marketing systems that you’ve got here and I just absolutely love it.

I have some questions. When you first started selling into Martha’s Vineyard, was there anyone else who had ever even tried or was doing this?

Brendan: Just like any market, you’ll find with lobsters there’s always been traditional lobster businesses out there. Just like on Martha’s Vineyard, there’s been lobster businesses who send lobsters out there every day to the island.

But for that type of customer you’re looking for, they want the best, and to be able to provide the best you need to have a strong brand and even better a strong story that goes along with it for a sale.

What’s nice about us here, both my brother and I, is it’s not some major huge company. What we’re selling is real. We’re selling our faces, both my brother and I. We were actually the lobstermen catching their product. I was actually the lobsterman driving the pick-up truck down to their island.

It was no longer just a lobster.

What they were buying was a piece of my catch, and I think that personal aspect – and it’s not for everybody, Troy. It’s for the niche market who’s willing to pay the premium for the best, and that’s the customer that we were looking for.

There are plenty of customers out there for other lobster companies who are going for the routine customer who’s going to choose between the $9.99 and the $8.99 lobster. That’s not our customer.

Troy: On this point here, what did you find happened when you started to position yourself as the premium supplier in this field? Did you find that other people were accepting? Not the end buyers, but I’m talking about other lobstermen, maybe family and friends.

Brendan: In terms of accepting, sometimes when a company or an entrepreneur or somebody like us has an idea, usually it’s an idea that we’re very passionate about and everybody else is very hesitant to change, especially in a very traditional industry like the lobster industry that’s been basically the same year in and year out.

When two young guys come in with a completely new idea to market the product, our competition and the people around us were very hesitant to believe in what we’re doing.

We always hear people say, “You’re never going to sell it for that much money. Nobody cares that much about lobsters. It’s just a lobster.”

Every time we heard somebody tell us, “Hey, it’s just a lobster,” that makes us want to work that much harder to show those guys. If it’s just a lobster, I go out at 4:30 in the morning, I catch this myself, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just a lobster on a dinner plate, and I think there are customers out there who want to know that.

Troy: Right, yes, very much.

Part of last month’s edition I actually had a whole bunch of different success stories about high-end food, a $25,000 sundae and a $2,000 omelet. This is a very quickly-growing field that you’ve tapped into here, which is a demographic that money is far from the concern.

What they’re looking for – and you just nailed it on the head – is a very unique experience. I’m fascinated about how you’re selling that experience too.

Are they called lobstermen?

Brendan: Yes.

Troy: Ok, so how do they like being – I mean, you’ve really positioned them as mini-celebrities now.

Brendan: That’s probably the most important part, at least for us, Troy, in terms of our values and what we care about.

When I was first talking here on the interview I told you I was a lobsterman starting at age 7 and I always wanted to be a part of this. I went away to school and I feel it’s kind of my obligation here. I got a chance to go get an education and use my knowledge in an industry that I’m very passionate about.

I want to be here for the next 25-30 years in this industry, and unfortunately I was still working the waterfront along the eastern shore here has been dwindling. If you look up to Maine, each one of the last working waterfronts available, much of it relies on the Maine lobster industry.

We’ve got many wharves here and fishermen who’ve been doing this for hundreds of years, and unfortunately over probably the past seven years or so the price of fuel and the price of lobster bait has gone up so much, the external economic impact on the fishermen has really cut into their bottom line.

So guys who are used to going out – for instance, lobstermen are catching the same amounts of lobsters every year. They’re getting paid price per pound, which they get paid to the boat, and that has been pretty much stagnant the past six years. However, bait and fuel costs have quadrupled over the past five years.

So what we’ve seen is bottom line the fisherman is not making as much money. So what we’re trying to do in the industry here is how do we create as much value as possible within an industry? We have to do something completely revolutionary.

To create more value, people aren’t just going to pay more money for a product because you tell them to pay more money for it. You have to add the value in there.

What we do with these fishermen is every fisherman who’s involved with A Piece of Maine gets six brand new lobster traps per year, which is $75 per piece, and then also a $0.40 premium to every pound of lobster caught in these lobster traps.

An average lobsterman catches 30,000 pounds a year. That’s an extra $12,000 plus six brand new traps for doing this program. So what we’re trying to create is – as I said, the most valuable part of the industry is what I call the experience. We’re trying to reward these Maine lobstermen for being a part of this.

Eight different guys bring out camcorders - they bring out digital cameras every time they go hauling. They’re taking pictures. They’re packing traps for us and they’re becoming part of this partnership, this elite group.

We’re financially rewarding them for it and it’s giving them a much greater feeling of – just like the individual partners who buy the traps – this is a belonging, a group. It’s a neat little community that we’re all involved in, whether you’re the actual harvester or you’re the actual consumer.

I think that’s what makes this program so strong is that community feeling that’s involved.

Troy: Right, yeah. How have the customers that you have in your program now – and we’ll get maybe more into details there in a bit – but how have they responded with how you’ve positioned this and the stories they’re getting and the DVDs?

Brendan: A good word to say is exciting. Troy, October 1 we launched our website. November 1 is basically when we made it public, to let people know what we were doing, so basically we’ve had November, December, January – a little over three months that this business has been active.

Our goal was to sell 400 partnerships. In the first three months we’ve sold almost half of our partnerships in a 3-month period.

The only positioning that we’ve used so far is we used general PR strategy when we were listed in USA Today and other papers through an AP article that was put out.

Other than that, I have not put any – other than my brochures – I have yet to do any direct mailing, I have yet to pay for any promotional activity. I’m in the process of putting it all together, but it’s such a viral and strong story that people want to get involved.

If I can get this placed in the right areas, there’s unlimited potential with the business, and that’s the point we are right now. We’re in the position of putting together our 2008 strategic plan in terms of where we’re really going to try to hammer out the rest of our partner base and how to expand the business.

In terms of our partners so far, a lot of people bought into this thinking it was a great idea, it was fun, I’m going to have my own lobster trap, how much am I going to get out of this?

Our strength here at Catch a Piece of Maine is fulfillment with the customers. What we offer – we will guarantee that we double their satisfaction.

In terms of what we’re trying to create – think of it as your own personal lobster concierge service here in Portland, Maine, where the lobster, seafood, anything else to do with Maine here, we’ll provide that to our customers.

Continued next week…

Be yourself this holiday season in your pomotions … have some fun … be unusual … and give them some good reasons to buy from you.

Find a few ways to make these lessons work for your business …

To your success,

Troy White
Editor, Small Business Mastery
Supplement to THE TOTAL PACKAGE

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A Final Note:

If you have specific subjects you would like addressed, or have any comments on what you have seen here, please submit a comment below and I will see how I can help.

"A man to carry on a successful business
must have imagination.
He must see things as in a vision,
a dream of the whole thing.”

– Charles Schwab

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8 Comments »

1. Comment by Helder — November 21, 2008 @ 2:43 pm

   This sounds like a good idea. I wonder if this Video idea would work for our family operated slaughter house. We specialize in dressing out rabbits. Maybe show a video of the actual chosen rabbit in the its pen, then as it’s being moved into the slaughter building. I’m not sure I would show the actual killing part because that’s kind of shocking to some (or maybe it would be ok, its reality right?). Or we could skip that and go to the after part, skinning and cutting up and packaging and edit out the other stuff. You know, "from our field, to your table" would be the slogan/concept. We could show the actual rabbit the customer bought eating grass pellets in the beginning, ending up with the same rabbit all dressed out in the styrene box use for shipping. Anyway, this seems to fit right in with what you are saying. Thanks for the idea. Maybe we will try this first on youtube and see if people find it interesting to watch.

2. Comment by Steve — November 21, 2008 @ 4:41 pm

   Eww. That’s disgusting- showing the rabbits eating and then being skinned. Normal people will not pay a dime for that opportunity. Maybe you should show the killing part or just skin em alive. That way all the weird-os will sign up for the thrill of the kill. Gross.

3. Comment by Marcelino Latorre — November 21, 2008 @ 7:24 pm

   THIS WAS AWESOME, NICE JOB ON THE POST TROY!!

4. Comment by Katie Langston — November 22, 2008 @ 3:47 pm

   While I can’t say I’m yearning for my own personal lobster catch, I think the principles–especially about selling to the elite–were very well taken.  Great work!

5. Comment by Alan — November 24, 2008 @ 7:30 am

   Slaughter house on video, hah… Sounds like a torture.  That would make the 10 o’clock news, so maybe the publicity would be worth it, or just invite people to come and whack their own rabbit with a brick and give points for doing the best job.

   The "lobster theory" and all its detais are excellent. It’s an example of thinking outside the ol’ box and for those willing & determined enough to try it, put their name on the line and not listen to the fearful who criticize or say jems such as "that’ll never work" (a great motivating statement from the dark ages) they deserve all the success their innovation creates.

   This may work with growing crops too.  Rent parts of the field. what about restaurants.  Imagine the concept of renting out a table against it’s yield, or a barbers/ hair dressers chair to hair dressers: They get the chair and pay a % of the business they do.

   (hey, I wonder if you could use the concept with the "oldest profession" too)…..

6. Comment by Dean Kennedy — November 25, 2008 @ 4:45 am

   Thanks for sharing this success story Troy! Can’t wait for your next instalment!

   What a brilliant concept to completely differentiate themselves via the experience they provide — that has nothing to do with price and everything to do with premium value. It makes for a great story and positioning … and a 12,000% price premium — wow!

7. Comment by kip — November 25, 2008 @ 11:57 am

   We do hunting expeditions and video the kill and the custom skinning so why not. Good marketing idea. Anybody that’s spent 5 minutes looking at a menu to decide what wine goes with their rabbit knows that the little cut up bunny on their plate was happily hopping around until someone slit it’s throat. Everyone should see a slaughter at some point so they appreciate reality. If that bothers you go to China and see how they skin live puppies right next to your restaurant table. At least here we whack them or something first to take away a little of the pain.

8. Pingback by Copy Tip 16: Must-Have Resource | DeanKennedy.com — December 24, 2008 @ 9:39 pm

   [...] gold dust. If you can’t find at least 5 good ideas to use in your own business (here’s part 1, part 2 and part 3), then you’d better check if you have a [...]