Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 52
This week’s radio show was an adventure story about the summers in the 1960’s when I worked as a teenage fishing guide in NW Ontario; as I shared the story I highlighted some creatively entrepreneurial lessons I learned there.
The most important was seeing how Barney Lamm, owner and operator of Barney’s Ball Lake Lodge — his wilderness fishing camp on the English River accessed by float planes only — who was also the owner of the largest float plane operation in all of Canada ,Ontario Central Airlines, created tremendous advantages for both of these businesses.
The main dock at Ball Lake Lodge, image via carlnordgren.wordpress.com)
Having created advantages for his business, he could fly supplies into camp on planes incoming guests were paying for their transport, as just one example. Moreover — he shared the advantages he created with others, everyday.
For instance it’s understood easily by guests at other fly-in fishing camps that when they buy something from the fishing lodge store they will pay more for it than they would back home. After all, the fishing lodge owner had to pay a float plane operator to fly supplies in, so the mark-up is justified.
Because Barney’s supply transport costs were covered by his guests he not only didn’t raise the prices in his camp store as other camp owners did in theirs—that would an example of taking advantage—but rather when guests bought a replacement fishing rod from Barney’s store they would find a mail order fishing supply catalog on the counter and the price of the rod from the store, if they checked, was less that the catalog price.
The same was true for woolen shirts and Hudson Bay blankets and most of his inventory.
By giving away some of the advantage he had created for himself he established even greater loyalty with his guests, creating more advantage for his businesses.
I love this story from fishing camp days, too.
There was a long dock, thirty yards long, that jutted out into the bay, water on all sides except where it was attached to shore. It was where float planes arrived and fishing boats tied up to load and unload guests.
Down the middle of this dock there was a bright red carpet nailed in place, from one end to the other. Barney was clear with us all why he had done it. He wanted guests’ first steps from the float plane to be walking the red carpet to communicate immediately the level of service they should expect.
He told all the folks who worked there that our first impressions of guests walking the red carpet everyday reminds us the level of service we were expected to deliver, everyday.
It worked.
His fishing camp was considered one of the top ten in Canada — and, as I mentioned, his float plane airline was the largest in Canada.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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