2012 Changes at The Trout Lie (aka Happy New Year)

This upcoming spring marks my third year in business and (first and foremost) I wanted to take this opportunity to give sincere THANKS for the continued support, wish folks a Happy New Year, send out wishes for a prosperous 2012 and relay some necessary changes coming down the pike.

When I started the Trout Lie it was a goofy little side project. I wrapped a few concepts together with some chicken wire and duct tape and threw them up against the wall – fortunately a few ideas caught a snag and something stuck.

After a few sleepless weeks with an HTML for Dummies book, a helping hand from a trusty kegerator, and some quality Southeast Asian tech support, the Trout Lie became a reality on St. Patrick’s Day, 2009.

Since that time, the company’s grown, outgrown, been redesigned, scrapped, and has ultimately been pushed to the limits of my day-to-day business ability and (very limited) creative expertise.

By the Numbers

The first year? It was easy. I had very little operating capital, no historical data to reference, a few customers left over from the Riverkeeper days, and a burgeoning membership base. Fortunately, I had the ability to offset the ‘scary and unknown’ part of starting a business by maintaining a secure cubicle monkey gig along with a steady paycheck to support the project.

Year two? No complaints. It was pretty decent. Aside from overwhelming growth things were on track. The economy appeared to be on the mend and I had the cash reserves to put back into a website redesign. Likewise, member retention and an increasing volume of fly orders demanded that I ditch my cubicle job to take on the Trout Lie project full time. 2010 outpaced 2009 by 65% and the engine was firing on all cylinders.

Year three? Yep, you guessed it. More growth, more customers, more memberships and more demand. As great as all that sounds, the unfortunate side effect to being perpetually busy is having significantly less time for other priorities (wife, exercise and mental health, vacation, dog walking, photography…you get the idea).

Quite frankly, I’ve done some introspection and in-depth reflection on the previous years numbers and I’ve got a lot to be satisfied about. Sure we’re into the dead time of year and things have slowed to a molasses paced trickle, but year over year the numbers have been far above and beyond expectation – memberships and fly orders have been on a steady incline from day one.

The Problem

So what’s the problem? Simply stated, the current Trout Lie business model doesn’t work. It took a lot of time to come to that conclusion, digest it, admit it to myself and accept it, but it’s an absolute matter of fact. It worked really well in 2009, was sufficient in 2010, and practically burned me out in 2011.

Here’s what I’m up against:

• Increasing vendor fees (yep hackle costs have jumped about 200%)
• Increasing merchant fees (yep those are up as well -- about 36% since 2009)
• Decreasing availability of quality production tying materials
• A crap economy on a steady yo-yo diet of doom and gloom
• Increasing limitations on time and opportunity to create web content

With increasing limitations and costs AND demand to produce premium quality flies, something’s got to give. The question is, what needs to be adjusted?

Should I sacrifice quality and focus on cutting corners, cheap alternatives and recycled content? That’s not even an option. Should I bump up membership fees? I don’t even have the time to manage the current level of content. How could I ask people to pay more for less – especially when everyone is getting squeezed in this crap economy? So what’s the bottom line?

Well, that’s it. The “bottom line” is really what it all comes down to in the end. I have to find a way to increase my margin so I can maintain a functioning business model that’s beneficial to customers as well as myself and allows me to be competitive in the market (capitalism)…or I could just go pitch a tent in a park, make myself a cardboard sign and bitch about not getting my fair share in life.

Angry bullhorn chanting with esoteric-artsy-hipster people sounds like a good time, but I think I’m going to try and figure out how to overcome my inability to process an increasing amount of work, absorb increasing merchant and vendor fees, and operate more efficiently to create consistent, quality content.

The Solution

I recently read a great book on managing business, life, and everything in between. Those of you who have read it will recognize the ‘Hedgehog Concept’ below. Basically, the premise of the book suggested that being successful is a matter of three things:

• Being engaged in what are you deeply passionate about.
• Doing what you are genetically encoded for — i.e., what activities do you feel you’re just “made to do”?
• Determining what makes economic sense — i.e., what can you make a buck at?  

Another key concept of the book maintains that when a person knows something’s not right, and understands that change is necessary, it’s important to make the change. Immediately.

Anyhow, without getting too far off topic, the solution to the problem exists in the fact that there are things I do well and things I don’t do well. My objective moving forward will be to focus on the priorities that are important to area anglers, relevant to my customer base, and those which allow me to keep more dough in the bank so I can weather this crap economy and put out consistently relevant information and resources.

Changes need to be made and the ball is in motion. I’ve met with my website code guru and designer and we’ve managed to hash out the details to come. Here’s what you can expect in early 2012…

Membership Changes
 
Originally, the Trout Lie Membership was a simple design meant for newer anglers looking for more – more information, more tools, more resources, better reports, discounts…you get the idea.

I set it up to be intentionally useful for regional folks and added the 30% discount to allow up-and-comers to take advantage of a great opportunity in getting the best quality, practical patterns at a lower cost. That part has worked well (to a point).

Unfortunately there’s a loophole in the model. And when a loophole exists, (some) people tend to expose it and take advantage of it. A majority of folks abide by the ‘honor rule’ – i.e., not sharing your password and/or discount – but some don’t.

I’m not talking about a guy allowing his wife or children to use the membership. I don’t even care if a guy shares the discount with a brother or a best friend (from time to time). I understand that and am completely fine with it.

However, the Trout Lie Membership wasn’t meant for one upper income executive to purchase a monthly membership on a Tuesday for $6.95, buy a mass of flies in bulk at a 30% discount for eight of his best buddies on a Wednesday, and submit a membership cancelation request on a Thursday. Unfortunately, this type of thing is happening more and more often.

That said, the monthly and quarterly membership options are going away. They’re expensive to manage from a merchant and tracking perspective and easy to exploit.

The yearly membership will be reduced from $79.95 per year to $49.95 per year. As a benefit of yearly membership, subscribers will receive an instant $10.00 credit at the time of original purchase and on the anniversary date each year thereafter.

Along with a reduction in fees for the membership, there will be a reduction in the product discount. It will be cut from 30% to 15%.

Why is the discount being cut? There are a couple of reasons. Foremost, my costs to tie, purchase, and sell flies have risen significantly over the past two years. Secondly, we’ll be opening up the content portion of the website. Membership fees will no longer be associated with information or content.

So what is the benefit to Trout Lie Membership? What will you be getting for the annual fee? Quite simply, you’re getting Boise’s best quality fly patterns at a great 15% discount – patterns that are consistently tied, tried and true, relevant to the area and specifically tailored to the Owyhee, the South Fork of the Boise, Silver Creek, and Idaho’s abundant backcountry streams and creeks.

If you fish often, purchase about a dozen flies per month on average, and insist on relevant and consistently superior quality local patterns, then an annual membership will make sense to you.

Likewise, annual members will receive additional sale and discount notifications by email and will be invited to attend ‘meet & greet’ events and live seasonal classes through the year at no cost.

Content Changes

As of early March 2012, the content on the Trout Lie website will be open. The World Wide Web is so saturated with information, it has become difficult to sift the wheat from the chaff. This isn’t something I care to compete with any further. I can’t call out the garbage sites without looking like a complete ass. Besides, it’s just my opinion and I’d be pretty arrogant to assume anyone shares it with me.

As such, we’ll produce content through the year, post it on the site and leave it open and accessible. From there, the people viewing it can decide if it’s anything worth a look or a share.

The tying tutorials, articles, fishing reports, and blog rants will be posted for convenient review – open and free. The one exception will be online classes. These will be posted online in a new format and will be instantly downloadable for a fee.

The Trout Lie is a small company, and it just doesn’t make sense to put a ton of work into great resources that only a limited number of people have access to viewing. The content changes will roll out with the new website.

Website Makeover

Yep, we’re scrapping and hashing that part as well. This spring we’ll be updating the look, design and functionality of the Trout Lie website to accommodate the aforementioned changes.

We’ve had a consistent theme over the past three years, but it’s time to switch it up a bit. The new site will remain information orientated, report focused, intuitive and easy to navigate.

The look and feel of the online store will be updated, along with report pages and resource content. We’ll be incorporating more social media into the mix, which will allow people to be more interactive on the site and with each other.

I’ve worked out the details with my developer and designer and from the mock-up work and time I’ve spent in the development process, I’m anticipating some very positive changes.

What Existing Members Can Expect

The membership model is being retooled, the content opened up, and the website redesigned. For all practical purposes, the Trout Lie is rebooting. Unfortunately, there’s really no easy way to jump from one rock to the other without getting (at least) a little bit wet.

Some folks will be happy with the changes, others won’t, but in the end my motivations and responsibilities are based running a lean, viable business model. To that end, changes are necessary.

Early this year, I will be auditing existing memberships on the website. All fee-based subscriptions will be set to a ‘DO NOT RENEW’ status and will expire at the end of term. I will set these to expire manually and will follow up with each member by email with an appropriate personal message.

Why am I doing this? We will be changing merchant account providers and there is no ‘sure fire’ safe method to transport billing data from one provider to the other. In my experience, if something can go wrong, it will. I am not willing to compromise any of my customers billing information. Thus, the responsible action is to cancel all existing memberships and invite customers to rejoin under the new model.

Do you have an existing yearly membership? As with monthly and quarterly memberships, yearly memberships will expire prior to the new website roll in March. However, my intent isn’t to leave yearly members high and dry.

There are two options. I can prorate the remaining months and issue a credit for the amount OR offer a free year subscription from the date the new website rolls out. That choice will be offered in the expiration notification email that I will be sending out personally to existing members.

Odds & Ends

I’m not sure what 2012 will bring for the Trout Lie. I’ve given these changes a lot of thought, have been honest with myself and have researched and examined other working business models. This is my best attempt to adjust to demand, the economy, and accept necessary change.

I have absolute goals for this year and I will know without a doubt how to move forward (beyond 2012) based upon the positive or negative response in which the new business model is received.

I’m optimistic, encouraged by the challenge of doing what is necessary, and am anticipating a positive shift in my creative and business endeavors. I have learned a lot of valuable lessons over these three years and will move forward to make 2012 a successful year.

Thanks again for all the support…and if you read this entire thing, let me send you a photocopy of my Ambien prescription.

All the best in the new year!

~Greg Montemurro, Owner