In my sales-training seminars I never tell a story unless it makes a particular point. I use the following true and almost tragic story to open every sales seminar, because I feel it has very close parallels business today.

Monterey, CA, is a beautiful city about seventy-five miles south of San Francisco. Many years ago there lived in Monterey a large colony of Portuguese fishermen who took their boats to sea every day and netted tons and tons of sardines. The fishermen supplied what was called “Cannery Row” in Monterey.

Also living in Monterey was a large colony of pelicans. If you don’t know what a pelican is, it is the large bird with a long beak which has a bucket under it. A pelican fishes soaring above the surface of the water until he sees a fish. He immediately dives and catches the fish, storing it in the pliable bucket.”

The strange thing was, the Monterey pelicans didn’t fish. They didn’t have to. Every day they would sit around on the docks and piers, waiting for the sardine boats to come in. The pelicans were fed from the cleanings of the sardines. As a result, there was a complete generation of pelicans in Monterey that didn’t know how to fish.

In 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, a tragedy hit. Having sighted several submarines off the west coast, and fearing a possible invasion, the Coast Guard began to heavily patrol the Pacific coast. This totally curtailed the fishing industry and the Monterey pelicans began to die.

Naturally, this was of great concern to the Monterey Chamber of Commerce, and they called an emergency meeting to see what could be done about the situation. A member of the Chamber asked, “How in the world can you teach a pelican how to fish?” Another member suggested, “Why don’t we get another pelican to teach them?”

Immediately the Monterey Chamber contacted the Chamber of Commerce in St. Petersburg, FL, where there was also a large flock of white pelicans. The St. Petersburg Chamber reacted at once, captured 150 pelicans and few them out to Monterey. When these Florida pelicans were turned loose in Monterey Bay, they did what came naturally–they began to fish.

Fortunately, the Monterey pelicans who still had enough strength picked up the message, and they began to fish. As a result, the Monterey flock was salvaged and today they are thriving well.

Here is the parallel I see between this story and business today. When things are going well–the money is flowing, interest rates are down, companies are expanding and building up their inventories, and customers are lining up at our doors–we begin to sit around on our docks and piers, waiting for the business to come rolling in. But when business gets tough, interest rates are high, companies are cutting back on inventory build-up and reducing expenditures on capital expansion, money gets tight, competition gets tougher and we find a lot of salespeople who have “forgotten how to fish.” Their selling skills have deteriorated and they seem to be flogging the water with an empty hook, snagging a few, but not bringing in the catches they should. Their selling skills, just like fishing skills, need to be regenerated and sharpened. Nothing in the world will cause selling skills to deteriorate like good times when we’re in a seller’s market. But the tragedy comes when times get tough and the skills are gone.

I see this skill deterioration all the time in seminars I conduct for various companies. Salespeople who had been high-volume producers during good years had deteriorated to the point they were struggling to make a living after times changed.

To me, there is another very close parallel between selling and fishing. I am thoroughly convinced that if we went about earning our living in selling in as disciplined, as well-planned and as well-organized a manner as we go fishing, we’d catch a lot more sales. I submit that about half of the companies in this country could sell twice the merchandise with only half the people if they would only go at it in a rigidly disciplined manner. Let’s take a look at how we go fishing.

The first thing we do is set our objective. What is it we’re going after? Is it trout, salmon, catfish, steelhead, bass? That decision (the objective) will determine everything we do from here on, i.e., where we go, what we take, our plan of attack, etc.

Once we get out to the body of water where we are going to fish, we don’t just start flogging the water with an empty hook, hoping to snag something, or hoping something comes along hungry enough to grab it.

No! The next thing we do is our prospecting. Where in this body of water are my chances the best to catch whatever it is I am after? Will it be along the rocky banks? In the main stream? Out on the sandy points? Among the old dead trees still standing in the water? Where are my prospects the best?

When we finally get to the decided area, we apply every known technique to bring in a full stringer. We apply the right bait, the right lures, the right action. And if you fish for 30 minutes and don’t catch anything, you don’t pack up and go home. You go early and you stay late. These are the fishermen who consistently bring home the limit. And bear in mind, fishing won’t put a single dollar in your pocket.

Why then don’t we go about earning our living in selling with the same level of discipline? Why aren’t salespeople as well-organized, as well disciplined in the thing that earns their paychecks as they are in their recreational activities? When they become as well-disciplined in selling, they will find that their work is their recreation. They will look forward to Monday morning so they can get back to it. It’s all a matter of attitude.

Jim Evered, president of HRD Services, has trained (and learned from) over 30,000 sales and management personnel throughout the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia. He is a past president of the National Society of Sales Training Executives and author of the bestseller A Motivational Approach to Selling (AMACOM).