Swoopo Stats & Swoopo Skills

In my last post, I explained why Swoopo data isn’t as useful as some gurus would lead you to believe. At least not giant Excel spreadsheets with rows and rows of unprocessed data. And I said there were two reasons for that:

1. Knowing when isn’t knowing how
2. Auction data that isn’t real time isn’t real useful

Today I’m going to explain the first of these two reason using a little parable.

The New Fishing Hole

Your neighbor knocks on the door at the crack of dawn one spring and tells you he found a great fishing hole on your local lake. It’s in a little cove on the east side, well shaded and has plenty of cracks and crevices that fish just love (at least the big fish you’re after).

Your neighbor has spent years on the lake finding the absolute best place to fish and thinks he’s found it this time. He also knows from years of practice that the best time to fish is 5am to 7am…right as the sun is coming up. That’s why he’s standing in your doorway so early on a weekend morning.

You haven’t fished in years. Your pole is rusty, your lures are rusty and worst of all…your technique is rusty. You haven’t practiced fishing other than playing Bass Hunter at the pub. But your neighbor’s done the hard work and found the fishing hole for you, so you’re confident you’ll land one and make the trip worthwhile.

Excited, you head out the door with your neighbor and you drive to the lake, hop in his fishing boat and troll out to the cove. You both cast your lines into the water and wait.

Soon, your neighbor and you both have a bite on your line. You get excited and jerk your pole immediately. Unfortunately, the fish hasn’t fully taken the bait yet…and it swims away. You curse to the sky and begin preparing your line for another cast.

Your neighbor, on the other hand, has done this thousands of times. He waits patiently after the bite and 30 seconds later, he’s confident the fish is on the line. He jerks the pole just hard enough to ensare the fish and begins reeling slowly and steadily. In  5 minutes flat, he’s holding a beauty of a big-mouthed bass triumphantly over his head as you snap a picture for the local paper.

The Moral?

Knowing the best time and place isn’t enough…you need to have skills. The Swoopo Manual was written with an emphasis on the actual techniques used by Swoopo pros to win big. Only after you’ve read and understood these techniques does the data do any good.