To no surprise, summer has once again blown by in a whirlwind of busy professional and personal schedules. Although these past few months have not exactly been conventional, the season was still packed to the brim with great memories made with family and friends. One thing that remained consistent was the opportunity to enjoy the great outdoors with little limitation on some of our favorite activities.
As we make the transition from August into September, there is a sudden shift in mentality as soon as one realizes just how much has to get done before the quickly approaching hunting seasons hit. Here in Maryland, the first real test is always the early Teal and Resident Canadian Goose season. While these hunts are rarely ones to write home about, every year we seem to find ourselves covered in sweat and mud, absolutely thrilled to bag even a few birds. When not diving back into the waterfowl habit, you can usually count on a handful of good dove shoots where most of the missed shots are quickly blamed on “this new choke tube” or everyone still being “a little rusty.”
This early season break-in period is a great warm up for what’s to come, knowing as soon as the first split comes, there won’t be much downtime to make any major changes to the setup once the regular season kicks off. The same is true for all of us who call the outdoor industry our “desk” (very loose quotes) job. In hunting, taking lessons learned (often the hard way) from past seasons, this late summer/early fall period is spent dialing in the gear and tactics required to make each hunt a success. The same is true for our industry on the business side of things. This time of year means buckling down, being more efficient and constantly pushing the envelope to take a brand to the next level.
A large portion of my daily responsibilities at Murray Road Agency lie within the social media world, working closely with some of our brands including TrueTimber, Adams Arms and Survivor Filter. The fact that I’m back in the marsh, woods, field, or on the range, means the rest of our audience is too. This brief period as everyone begins to really prep for the season is one of the most vital times for brands to deliver those key messages and sell the products we all work so hard to promote.
Hunting Maryland’s Eastern Shore means a wide variety of public and private land opportunities. With all those options, the hunting setup might be required to shift from a field blind, to a boat, to an offshore blind, to a canoe, to something you can carry on your back deep into a public marsh over the course of only a few days. While this is not exactly convenient, it’s the best way to stay on the birds and have the highest chances of shooting limits. The same applies in business as we adapt to constantly shifting markets and trends. The ability to adapt often means the difference between success and a missed shot.
These early season hunts are the perfect time to break in the new call, try a new brand of beef jerky or figure out just how much gear you can fit in one pickup. Some things are trashed the first go-round and others might get thrown into the day to day handbook for many seasons to come. The parallels between these personal hunting endeavors and how we apply tactics in marketing and public relations are undeniable. The fact is, if you want to be successful you, it’s going to take a lot of trial and error to figure out what actually works. If I have learned anything about hunting, it’s that you will never know everything and there is always something to improve. Like most things in life (and work), the only way to get better is to get out and do it—and judging by all the rain we’ve had this hurricane season, get very muddy in the process.