Fishing in the right pond!

Hi, I’m Rabbi Dave Felsenthal and welcome to my world the world of the Rabbi who got rich on Sunday. In This podcast I explain about “Fishing in the Right Pond”.

My goal is to share my hard earned knowledge and to help people who are like I was 22 years ago when my life came to a crossroads between living my dreams and giving up on my dreams to face reality. Sure, I’ve made some spectacular mistakes, but I’ve also had unbelievable successes along the way.

I am living what I like to call with sincere thanks to the Almighty, my dream life. So you’ve come to the right place if you want to dream life. Want to do what you love, but balance that with material wealth as well. Want to learn to leverage your time, sometimes live more with less without sacrificing quality of life.

Today we’re going to discuss fishing in the right pond.

Kevin can’t remember a time when he hadn’t been struggling to make his monthly sales quota. Day after day he goes through all of his lists, makes all his cold calls. Still, he always comes up short. Now, with the quarterly bonuses up for grabs in just a few days, Kevin finds himself in second place. Sorry, finds himself in second to last place in the office in terms of sales.

Only the new kid, who just started two months ago with no experience, is doing worse than he is, which, considering Kevin’s nearly three years in the business of private insurance sales, is not much of A comfort.

One day, with four days to go before the quarter end, Kevin’s phone rings. It’s his old mentor, Dan. Kevin tells Dan of his recent struggles, and after he finishes, Dan is silent for a moment before replying.

Which product are you trying to sell?

The people on your lists?

Ask Dan, Honestly, all of them, replies Kevin. We’ve got something to offer everyone, OK?

And where are you getting your lists from?

What demographics are they from?

Kevin explains, He’s just scooping the numbers out of the company mainframe without bothering to filter them. In his mind, having more numbers is better, Dan chuckles.

That’s your first mistake, Dan tells his old protege. You’ve got to work smarter, not harder. You need to narrow down your search and then sell only the policies that matter to that smaller group. Hearing those words, Kevin feels like the weight is lifted. Suddenly, even with only days to go, he can see his way forward to success.

You need to use the right bait for the right fish, and you need to fish in the right pond. Trying to sell everyone is a waste of your time and energy, as we see from Kevin’s example. If you’re going to find people who need health and Wellness products but you’re looking for them at a bar or cigar lounge in Vegas, you’re probably not going to get very good results.

If you’re in the gym, however, or you’re in the health food store, you’ll find who you’re looking for. If you’re looking for people who are going to be successful in a home business, fish among people who’ve already shown interest in such a thing. Don’t start from scratch with people who have no interest, because you’ll have to change their mindsets and interests, and that takes a lot of time.

Not everyone’s going to want what you offer, so why wear yourself out trying to reach them?

Instead, focus on a smaller niche of prospects and give them what they want. In short, you need to define a target market. This is a simpler process than you might think.

All you have to do is find out the following Where do they live?

What are they interested in?

What attracts them?

What causes them pain?

That is, what’s a problem that you can solve for them. Once you can answer these three questions, you then market only to the people in the right way, presenting your service or products as the solution to their problem. You’ll not only be fishing in the right pond, but you’ll be using the right bait. Now look to your past successes. What you’re doing is you’re building a straw person that is a model or avatar of the ideal person you’re trying to find, and then learn all you can about what they care about.

One of the best ways to do that is by looking at who you’ve already had the best success in helping.

Whose problems have you already solved?

Who have been your best, most reliable customers in the past?

Break down their qualities so you can find more people like them. If you’ve never helped anyone or just getting started, find someone who you want to be like and find out who they help succeed.

What’s their makeup?

What qualities do they have?

You can emulate them and use them as a model. You want to seek out successfully discontent people. Look for people who are successfully discontent in what area, whatever area you’re trying to reach. If they’re successfully discontent and losing weight or lowering their blood pressure or making money, then you’ve got a person to look for that’s also the fishing pond.

It’s much easier to help someone who doesn’t have negative, self fulfilling prophecies. For instance, some people feel they’ll never make money, so they won’t. Someone who’s made it and lost it knows they’ll get it back quicker than most people.

There’s the famous story of the guy who was going to commit suicide because he lost all his money and someone was trying to stop him. Well, I can make a million again much quicker than you can, the person said to him. And you can too. The difference is, I know that that helped. The person realized that he had belief in himself.

He made it and lost it. He knows he can do it again Someone who’s done it before is someone to fish for. There’s an example from the National Football League, the NFL, that comes to mind.

If you’re going to make an expansion team in a new city, you could recruit college players and develop them, but it’ll take a long time to build that team into a winner.

On the other hand, if you could take existing NFL players who are already great at their sport, have done all the right things, and simply aren’t appreciated by their current teams, you can build a winning franchise much faster. 

As counterintuitive as it may seem, the narrower your focus, the more successful you’ll be. 

Do you know what your pond looks like? 

If you enjoyed  “Fishing in the Right Pond” podcast, please share it with a friend and make sure to join me each Sunday as I share how the rabbi got rich on Sunday. In the meantime, feel free to check out my website For more information and to schedule a free consultation. 

The Rabbi Who Got Rich On Sunday.