Welcome to Sportsman's Addiction!

Sportsman's Addiction Consulting Service

If you own or are considering buying an outfitter or travel lodge, who would you turn to for advice? Fishing and hunting companies are quite different from B2B type companies or even other Travel/Eco companies. Too often these newbie outfitters will try and get advice from their normal B2B CPA’s and lawyers. Unfortunately, your new adventure is so unique most of your professionals you counted on don’t have the who’s who inside or the proper advertising techniques in the industry to push you in front of the crowd. The huntsman and fisherman industry is really a delicate niche, the demographics, logistics and hospitality; it is the life support of your company. The amount of professional decisions and work behind the scenes is essential for success. Sportsman’s Addiction has proven time and time again they have the intricacies involved in a successful operation. Sportsman’s Addiction’s unique consulting practice has the footing of skills, knowledge and experience directly related to fishing, hunting, traveling and the outfitting industry.

Owner of Sportsman’s Addiction, MJ Attong, unknowingly, found her passion at a very young age arranging trips for friends and family. It was clearly a passion of hers to find the best trip that folks talked about forever. Being a perfectionist benefited her in more ways than she could have imagined. Being an Air Traffic Controller in the USAF she was trained to cover every angle, detail and document it. So, you could say she was trained in the very “traditional” methods of accountability and loyalty. As she went through school for accounting, marketing and sales she started developing the inner office skills she would later need. Working in the convention hosting and travel industry, she realized there was a huge need for the hunting and fishing industries to get involved. This started a new view and a way of work with several outfitters. Landing her a huge break in the industry with a very notarized company, Artmarina, she used her skills of marketing and advertising to create a new venue on ascertaining new clients and promotions. She successfully built not one but four different areas in a short amount of time. One owner would lead to another and before she knew it, MJ went from a friend/family consultant to an employee for another, to a 1099 small business to a successful company willing to bring in new lodge/outfitter entrepreneurs to the industry.

Sportsman’s Addiction from the beginning saw that there was a severe shortage of industry qualified experts in outfitting consulting services for capturing the outside world. From this, MJ’s outside the box thinking has surpassed all levels. What’s more she is respected in the industry, has loyalty and rave reviews from media as well as traveling clients and has a multitude of experience behind her. Her teachings to the group and members of Sportsman’s Addiction offer the following in consulting:

Demographics and logistics
Business, Strategic and Succession Planning
Marketing & Sales Including E-Commerce
Business Expansions
Business Start-Ups
Customer Service & Operations
Advertising and Trading
Administration and Personnel
Outfitting

Sportsman’s Addiction is backed and supported by a unique group of expert subcontractors for those highly specialized areas of expertise that require a specific skill set. The mark of any good consultant is to quickly but thoroughly diagnose the issues a company is facing and then assist the company in creating a long-term solution that can and will be implemented. Creating lengthy reports or having endless meetings has no place in the world of outfitting and outdoor recreation.

The vast majority of Sportsman’s Addiction’s consulting work is small to medium projects for filming and media crews. Sometimes, owners of outdoor lodges just need an experienced "mentor" to confer with. We particularly enjoy playing this role as we believe it truly adds value. All lodge owners, if they could afford the time and expense of having a board of directors, would to add insight and counsel for management they would. But the nature of the outfitting industry and often overwhelming seasonal structure of the industry simply prohibit it. Having that confidant/consultant to tap into on an as needed basis adds not only value when needed, but controls cost.

Whenever you hire a consultant, you are taking a risk that they will cost you money and not achieve the desired outcome. This is a real risk factor as too many consulting firms over promise and under deliver. The fact is, not all outfits and outdoor recreation companies are good candidates for hiring consulting services on a full time basis. We are not here to just take your money, we need tosucceed, if we put you on the top, we are on top. We are very specific in whom we bring aboard and we have to maintain our qualifications in bringing you aboard. Sportsman’s Addiction believes in guiding principles that drives our client selection process, create the nature and approach of our services, and dictate our commitment to delivery of a finished definable product. Here’s a few of them:

If we can’t define the project equally and agree on delivery, then don’t take on the assignment.
We must and will know the client's definition of project success and will be truthful with ourselves if we can deliver.
We will not deliver services as of unknown proportions.
If we can’t agree on a budget and a value for our services then it is best not to proceed.
WE need to make sure you understand we are not here be a yes sir or no sir, we are here to direct the flow of progress because of experience Good consultants listen deeply and ask clarifying questions. We also advise positively and negatively.
We are paid to be truth tellers and therefore must be open and candid at all times no matter how bad the news is. If a client doesn’t want to hear this from us, then we are not in the right relationship.
For the vast majority of outfitters, owners and personnel would rather be coached on creating a solution then handed a packaged deliverable at a high cost. At either end we stand here for both sides and can complete the tasks.
Providing advice is only meaningful if the suggestions are truly actionable and realistic given financial and time constraints of the owners and key personnel of the company.
Generating glossy and voluminous reports rarely results in value added for the client, and only eats up precious budget resources for the project. Remember we are not B2B companies.
We will train your new personnel with the skills needed to serve hospitality and service to your clients, and will not expect you to pay for it.
Planning and good business management is a process not an event. We must view everything we do as work-in-progress. Continuous improvement implies the process is just that – continuous.
We provide consulting services because we truly enjoy the intellectual interaction to keep our skills honed, not because we have to, nor do we have a burning need to build a huge lodge and take on every project. The end result is we will be selective about the types of projects we take and the nature of clients we deal with to keep this fun and in the forefront.

Why Sportsman’s Addiction consulting? As the years pass, so does the cycles of lodges. All owners start off small, grow as a result of high dollar advertising, and then die off because they cannot continue to sustain the volume of projects in order to cover their overhead. Top talent comes and goes, and the complexion of the firm is constantly changing. The bottom line is most successful engagements weren’t because of a high dollar spending or high cost overhead, but rather a consultant or small team of them directing them in a straight path. For us, we enter consulting relationships as a newborn and love to watch them grow. This is commitment and determination, which is what we believe it, takes to grow.

The bottom line is, You, the owner of this new adventure love the outdoors of fishing and hunting. Whether it is a life long dream or figured it would be a money saver in the end if you just own it or a tax shelter, you know that “TIES and SUITS” are not permitted. You as well as your clients want to relax, have fun and have no problems, so leave the problems to us and just worry about what to or not to pack!