Entry 139-2

Randy Dearman on Sponsors

A Pro's Job at an Outdoor Show

Editor's Note: In 1983 Randy Dearman of Onalaska, Texas, started fishing the BASS circuit and also became a Strike King Pro. According to Dearman, "Strike King was my first sponsor, and I plan to stay with Strike King as long as I'm a professional fisherman. Strike King has always had great products, and over the years the company has allowed me to help develop products for them. They consistently come up with new products, and I feel fortunate to be able to work with a company like Strike King."

Question: Randy, most weekend and bass club fishermen believe all you have to do to be a tournament pro is compete in tournaments and catch bass. And all the companies in the fishing industry will come running to you, offering you money to wear their patches, shirts and hats. Is that the way it really is?

Dearman: Not at all. Catching bass in a tournament and winning tournaments will provide an introduction for you to major sponsors. But then the bulk of your work for the sponsor comes from your ability to speak before a crowd and teach the public to fish with their lures. When I go to a show, I teach people the patterns, the techniques and the lures I use to catch bass. After the seminar is over, the good pro will stay in the booth and talk to as many people as possible, answering their questions and solving fishing problems for them.

One of the biggest responsibilities of a bass-fishing pro is not only to find and catch bass, but also to teach others to find and catch bass. If a fisherman is having a particular problem on a certain lake locating and catching bass, a tournament pro's job at that seminar is to try and teach that one man how to find and catch bass on his lake using the products produced by the company that sponsors the pro.

Although at a seminar, we may speak to hundreds or even thousands of fishermen, the greatest impact we can have on the sport of fishing is when we teach one fisherman a new technique after we speak. That one-on-one relationship you develop with each fisherman at a seminar is what enables you to teach the sport of bass fishing and enable other fishermen to use the products you use to solve fishing problems. When we're on the water bass fishing, we're competitors. When we come off the water to do seminars and work with the public, we're fishing-problem solvers.

Question: Randy, you're not a trained speaker. You never took any courses in public speaking, and you didn't go to college to become a speaker. Yet you do seminars all over the country. How did you learn how to stand before a group and promote products and teach fishing?

Dearman: First and foremost, I just try to be Randy Dearman. I tell the truth about how I fish and the products I use. Most people don't want to hear a sales pitch. They want you to talk to them as though you're their best friend. They want you to tell them how you fish, what you catch those fish on, how you work a lure, and what lures you use for fishing different situations. They're not coming to the seminar to hear you tell what a great fisherman you are. They're coming to the seminar to try and learn to be better fishermen.

Because tournament fishermen and guides put in more hours on the water finding and catching bass, they should know more about finding and catching bass, the methods and the colors and types of lures that the bass want to bite than other fishermen do. Therefore, by sharing their knowledge with the general public, they can help the public find and take more bass. I try and keep my seminars very simple, yet very informative. I want to provide information on catching bass that will help the man or woman who only goes once or twice a year and help that would-be tournament pro who fishes every weekend.

Question: Randy, one of the biggest fears of most would-be bass-fishing pros is standing up in front of a large group of people and having to speak. I know that you're basically a very quiet, shy kind of guy. When you first started doing seminars for Strike King, did you have stage fright, and if so how did you overcome it?

Dearman: I remember one of the first seminars I ever did when there was a really large crowd of people. I was really scared. However, back in the 1980s when I first started doing seminars, there weren't really large crowds of people who came to hear any of us speak. And I decided to just go on stage and teach as best I could. After the second or third seminar, I felt much more comfortable and overcame my stage fright. As the sport of bass fishing grew, the crowds of people coming to bass-fishing seminars also grew. Now I can stand before thousands and not be nervous or upset.

I think the way a bass fisherman learns to be a seminar speaker is just by doing a few seminars, facing that fear and overcoming it. This is one aspect of becoming a tournament pro that many young bass fishermen don't know or understand. If a young person came to me today and said, "Randy, I'm a pretty good bass fisherman. I've won a lot of local tournaments, and I want to go out on the pro circuit and compete. What can I do to attract sponsors?" I'd tell that young fisherman to continue developing his bass fishing skills, but I also learn to teach bass fishing to large groups of fishing. Start off by doing bass-fishing seminars at local sporting goods stores. Go to those stores, and tell the dealer that you'll give seminars on bass fishing, free of charge. Learn how to talk fishing, and teach fishing as well as how to catch fish, because to attract sponsors you've got to be a teacher as well as a contestant.

Question: Randy, how many seminars a year are you doing now?

Dearman: I'm not doing as many as I used to. I'm only doing about 18 seminars now. In the past, I've done double that many. So seminar speaking at sports shows really takes up almost as many days as tournament fishing. Therefore, if you're going to be a sponsored pro fisherman, you really need to put in almost as much time learning to be a bass-fishing teacher as you do figuring out how to catch bass and win tournaments.

Randy Dearman on Sponsors

A Pro's Job at an Outdoor Show

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