A River Runs Through It: B2B Marketing Lessons from Fly Fishing with Simpro CMO Rachel Truair

A fly fisherman goes to part of the river where the trout are feeding, uses a fly that mimics the insect hatching at that time, and times their cast to land just-so.

A marketer goes where their target audience is, posts content in-sync with what’s trending, and times their campaign to land just-so. 

It’s that same idea of tuning into the media landscape and knowing your audience that will land you the big fish. 

There are so many marketing lessons we can take from fly fishing. And in this episode, we’re tying the two together through an analysis of A River Runs Through It.

With the help of our special guest, CMO Simpro Rachel Truair, we’re talking about how rhythm and timing are everything, going where you’re most likely to find success, and much more.

About our guest, Rachel Truair

Rachel Truair is a seasoned marketing leader with over 15 years of experience in driving revenue and growth for high-growth startups and Fortune 100 enterprises. She combines foundational best practices from her corporate background with agile and innovative approaches from her scale up experience, leading and mentoring teams through successful exits in IPOs and acquisitions. Her teams have won the Forrester Return on Integration Award, the Oracle "Markie" Award, and nominated for the 6Sense Breakthrough Award.

Currently, as the CMO of Simpro, a $120M+ ARR private equity-backed field service management software company headquartered in Brisbane, Australia, Rachel is responsible for aligning marketing strategy to business outcomes and creating predictable, scalable sources of revenue. She leverages her expertise in go to market strategy, account based marketing and leading global marketing teams to source pipeline driving ninety percent of Simpro's annual revenue.

As an equestrian and fly fisherwoman, Rachel is passionate about conservation and the outdoors, serving on the non-profit board of the Fabien Cousteau Ocean Learning Center. She is a mom of two and holds a BA from St. Edward's University and an MBA from The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business.

What B2B Companies Can Learn From A River Runs Through It:

• Rhythm and timing are everything. Marketing, like fishing, takes practice, skill and finesse. Rachel says when it comes to flyfishing, “ It's not about strength. It's not about muscling it into something. It's about understanding the rhythm and the timing. A lot of times you want to just try to get to the end and be really perfect at something and put all of your strength into it and throw it as far as you can. But the reality is that actually makes it worse. It makes it harder. And if you can start to learn the rhythm, the feel, the timing of it, you can really start to see improvement.” 
• Go where you’re most likely to have success. In other words, go where your target audience is. Whether that’s social media, email, podcasts, or wherever. You’re literally fishing for customers. Rachel says, ” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”
• It’s all about storytelling. We all know about big fish stories. With fishing, just like marketing, it’s all about having a story to tell. Ian says, “It is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?’ You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. ’” What’s your story?  

Quotes

*”Cost per lead these days really doesn't mean anything. I could spend a dollar on 3,000 spam leads and that doesn't mean that I'm going to get any new sales or great deals out of it. What is hard is to measure the value of what you're spending money on that creates valuable, sustainable growth. And customers who love the product and have success with the product. That's really not just about spending certain money up front to attract those customers, but also following those customers in their journey and understanding. How are you going to make them successful?”

*” You really need to focus on the areas where you have the highest probability for success and be testing and iterating within those areas. But you also have to believe that the fish are there, right? You have to know that this is the right area where they would be.  And you can't waste time on the areas where you don't have belief.”

*”Marketing [like fishing] is about the story, it is about the thing that you can go tell other people and when you get to come back. Whether it's from an event or your podcast series, and you get to go back and everyone says, ‘What'd you get?’ You have to have conviction. You go to the place, you try your best. And if you don't get all the leads or opportunities or whatever it is, that you get that story that you can go back and say, ‘Hey, this is why this was worth it. ’”

Time Stamps

[0:55] Meet Rachel Truair, CMO at Simpro

[4:20] The Story Behind A River Runs Through It

[9:36] Fly Fishing Techniques and Marketing Parallels

[15:17] The Deeper Meaning of Fly Fishing

[22:22] Personal Fly Fishing Experiences and Marketing Insights

[25:51] Focusing on High Probability Areas

[26:39] Defining Success in Marketing

[28:06] Fly Fishing Team Building Experience[

[38:39] Fishing Stories and Marketing Lessons

[44:52] Final Thoughts and Takeaways

Links

Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn

Learn more about Simpro

About Remarkable!

Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. 

In today’s episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Senior Producer). Remarkable was produced this week by Meredith Gooderham, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. 

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