Entry 124-5

Mike Wurm - How to be a Pro Fisherman

Will You Recommend Me to Strike King?

Editor's Note: Do you know who has struck out more times than any other baseball player in history—Babe Ruth. Did you know that Gone With The Wind was turned down by 32 publishers? Did you know that most great athletes, at some time during their career, usually have a streak of bad luck that either puts them out of the game or that they come back from it with a vengeance and reach even greater heights than they’ve achieved before the disaster? We all like the story of the “come-back kid” who overcomes adversity, picks himself up, and dusts himself off not only go back into battle but to charge. But how does the tournament fisherman who has done so well for many years recharge his batteries and come back from a devastating season to compete again against the best of the best? This is what Mike Wurm will teach us this week.

Question: Mike, I’m sure that you meet a lot of tournament fishermen who want you to recommend them to Strike King and your other sponsors for sponsorship. Every competitive fisherman wants to have major fishing-tackle sponsors. What are you looking for in the type person you’ll recommend to Strike King to be the next Strike King pro?

Wurm: I’m looking for a clean-cut individual that the first time I see him, he is dressed sharp. He needs to have a clean-cut manner about him and who can convince me that he wants to sell Strike King lures. I want this person to be able to speak comfortably to a group; have the kind of personality that draws people to them; to demonstrate that he will give up his time for anyone and everyone who approaches him to help them in any way he or she can to learn to fish better. I want this person to be easy to get along with, easy to work with and be eager to help the company. Most people who are serious about becoming a pro, will spend the time to learn what a sponsor wants and needs and how to work for a sponsor. If he is timid about standing up before a group and speaking, he will take public speaking courses and he will invest money in his education to be a pro just as he invests money in his fishing to be a fisherman. People who are willing to learn and willing to invest in their own education, can and will be in this industry for a long time. People who think they know it all and believe they don’t need to learn anything new, are not going to make it.

This is one of the reasons that when young people ask me, “What do I need to do to become a professional fisherman?” I always say, “Get a college education.” The biggest thing that a college education demonstrates to the sponsor is that you have the ability to stay with what you start—that for four years you stayed the course. You set out with a program, and you stayed with that program for four years until you completed the task that you had started. Sponsors know that if you can stay in school for four years, make the grades and graduate, you have the kind of stickability that is required to stay with professional fishing until you become successful and promote a company to help it become successful. The sponsors I know and work with are not looking for those “fly-by-night” people who are in our industry for a year or two and then gone. They are looking for fishermen who have proven they can stay the course, complete their jobs, and even during the hard times keep on working.

Question: How did you learn the craft of a professional fisherman?

Wurm: Craft is the best word to use to describe being a professional fisherman. Becoming a good fisherman and winning tournaments are your apprenticeship. That is what is required to get into the craft. But just winning a tournament doesn’t make you a master of the craft. Becoming a professional fisherman is a continuing-education process. I don’t know any pro fisherman who believes he has learned it all. Once a pro fisherman believes he has learned all there is to know about being a bass fisherman, or more importantly, about being a professional bass fisherman, then he or she is on the way out. As a professional fisherman, you not only have to be willing to learn more tomorrow than you did today, you have to aggressively gain new knowledge, new techniques and better ways of becoming more of a pro.

If there ever was a secret to getting and keeping sponsors, it’s this: “Ask not what a sponsor can do for you, but constantly ask what can you do for the sponsor.” Don’t tell them why they should sponsor you. Tell them about all the things you want to do for them, and then go do them. The competition for sponsorship now is higher than it’s ever been. More and more men and women are wanting to be professional fishermen and be sponsored by fishing tackle companies. Although tournament fishermen are learning more and better tactics for catching bass, very few of them are developing more and better strategies for catching sponsors and for working with sponsors. If you want to get a sponsor, learn new and better ways of selling their products than that sponsor has ever seen or heard of before.

Question: If I met you at a show or a seminar and said, “Mike, I want you to help me get a sponsor.” What would you tell me to do?

Wurm: I would say to follow these steps:

  1. Get a well-written, professionally laid-out, brief resume, no more than two pages, just as you will if you’re applying to Donald Trump to work for his company. State your success as a bass fisherman, as an employee and if you have a college education, be sure to put that on the resume, also.
  2. Be sure you put down any experience you have had as a promoter or salesman for any kind of product. Even if you were a salesman at a used-car lot, the company needs to know that.
  3. Dress nice. Get a fresh haircut, and use good language when you go for an interview or when you turn in your resume. Approach a sponsor or a representative for that sponsor’s company the same way you’ll approach any businessman who works for a large company where you want a job.
  4. Realize that your first impression is the most-important thing that company is going to consider in talking with you. So, you have to be on time and you have to be good that first time.
  5. Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare for that first interview.
  6. When you present yourself to a company, talk mostly about what you can do for the company because they already know what they can do for you. Give them a plan of what you plan to do for that company to increase sales of their products.
  7. Do not, do not, do not go into your first meeting with a sponsor and say, “Out of the last 12 tournaments my bass club had I won 8 of them.” That is not what the company wants to hear. When you make a statement like that, you are telling the company you are more concerned and prouder of your ability to catch fish than you are interested in selling their products.
  8. Demonstrate a positive attitude about how you can help that company sell more products.

I hope I’ve helped you this week to see the inside of what is required to be a professional fisherman, and I hope I’ve helped you realize that simply winning a few big tournaments does not give you a guaranteed sponsorship in any company. If you want to be a professional fisherman, the best advice I can give you is to become a professional student of what is required to be a professional fisherman.




 

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