The Duck Commander Family (18 page)

Brad called the house one day and left a message with Korie for me to call him. Korie didn’t give me the message.

Korie:
Oops, I obviously didn’t realize the importance of this call. With four babies to feed and everything else we were juggling at the time, I’m sure this wasn’t the only thing I forgot. Thankfully, Romans 8:28 assures us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Even in those times that we drop the ball.

Fortunately, Brad called back a week later and this time Korie gave me the message. Realtree was interested in sponsoring
us. I was excited. I called Brad and we talked for like three hours. I was like a sponge soaking up all of the knowledge I could. I knew we were going to have to make some big moves to take our company to the next level and this was just the kind of change that I was ready to make.

I headed down to Phil’s to talk it over. Phil was open to the idea but was worried about what our fans would think. Realtree was tied in with Benelli Shotguns, so a move to Realtree was going to also mean a move to Benelli. Phil had grown up shooting Browning shotguns and Browning had been good to us. Browning had produced a line of limited-edition Duck Commander gear and used Phil’s image for their marketing campaign at one point, but that relationship had started to decline. All of the people that we had relationships with at Browning had recently lost their jobs or moved on for one reason or another, and we found ourselves without the connection that might have compelled us to stay. We knew that Benelli made an excellent gun, and Phil was intrigued and eager to try it out. After much discussion, it was decided that the time was right and it was the correct move to make. Jase was not so sure but in the end agreed to go along. So, we made the big switch to Realtree and Benelli Shotguns in 2005. It was right in the middle of hunting season, and I was making my first big move in the hunting industry. The decision served as a statement that Willie Robertson was here and Duck Commander was gonna do things differently.

It wasn’t long before several other big sponsors came along. Federal Premium Ammunition was next. Federal became a
huge partner for us, eventually putting Phil’s face on their boxes of Black Cloud shells. That deal was made over a drink one night in Las Vegas. Federal had a new technology called flight stopper and was about to launch some new pellets that had never been used in shells at the time. They mixed the new pellets with standard pellets in a shell, which produced a tighter pattern that increased a gun’s range. I knew putting us with this new technology would be a great fit. I told Kyle Tengwall, Federal’s director of marketing at the time (he is now the vice president of marketing), “You should put Phil’s picture on the box.” I didn’t know at the time that the only other man who has had his face on a box of shotgun shells was John Wayne. I was just throwing it out there, and fortunately Kyle agreed. He and I have become good friends over the years doing a lot of good business together. This was just the beginning. We picked up several other sponsors as well. Soon, our business was growing, not just in sales, but also with a great deal more sponsorship dollars than we had ever had before.

It was an exciting time. Phil was pretty pumped. “You’re the man! That’s what I’m talking about!” he said, telling everyone at Duck Commander, “Will was right about making the switch.” Even though Phil started Duck Commander and is considered a legend by duck hunters everywhere, he was really never comfortable in the role of CEO. Phil was always
kind of an enigma in the hunting industry. When he went to SHOT Show and the other big hunting conventions, he kind of kept to himself, and let’s face it, he doesn’t exactly look like the kind of guy people are comfortable just walking up to and striking up a conversation with. For Phil, the hunting shows were an opportunity to walk in, sell the products, and leave. All of the other hunting companies knew Duck Commander had a cult following from the hunting DVDs, but they wondered if Phil was a little too dangerous to touch. He was kind of rogue and did things that everyone else was afraid to try. In fact, none of us were stereotypical duck hunters; we’re not the white-collar guys who dress up in camo on the weekends and go hunting.

Korie:
Duck Commander was well-known in the hunting industry and had a strong group of loyal fans, but no man is an island, and neither is any good company. Phil wasn’t the kind of guy to network at the industry shows and events. But Willie has enough of Kay’s social gene in him to get the job done. He enjoys meeting new people. Willie feels like there is something he can learn from everyone he meets, and you never really know when a new relationship will be an important one in business or a good friend down the road. When Willie started meeting with these other companies, they realized the
Duckmen were not as scary as they had once believed. One of the executives said Willie “looked like them, but thinks like us.” Willie had the beard and camo like Phil and Jase, but he had a mind that could connect the dots with the business end of things. Willie always told the executives he met with, “You know what? We are what we are, but we have a really good reputation. We’re a family-owned operation, and we’ve always done things the right way. We don’t make excuses for who we are.” And lots of companies got it and were excited to jump on board.

By the time I came back to work at Duck Commander, Al had gone to seminary and become a preacher and Jase had become a really big part of the operation, making the duck calls and appearing on the DVDs with Phil. We know that if something ever happens to Phil, Jase will be right there to continue his legacy. Jase is second in command in the duck blind and, like Phil, knows how to make a duck call sound just like a duck. Jase and Phil love to hunt and they love being in the blind more than anywhere else. It’s almost like Phil’s personality is split right down the middle between Jase and me. Jase got Phil’s passion for duck hunting and I got his entrepreneurial spirit. So even though Jase and I don’t agree all the time, when it comes to Duck Commander, we make the perfect team. Each of us brings his own unique set of skills to the table without stepping on the other’s toes in the process. We each do what we were born to do and what we truly love. I don’t think it gets any better than that.

Even though things were starting to pick up for Duck Commander, the company was still a mess financially. In the early days of Duck Commander, Phil made the duck calls and DVDs, and Kay ran the business. It got to be too much for only Phil and Kay to handle, so Jase, and eventually his wife, Missy, began taking on more and more, but he never enjoyed the business side of the company. Jase somewhat reluctantly began making sales calls to Walmart and some other big customers, but even he’ll tell you he never really had a passion for it. Kay was overwhelmed with the bookkeeping, accounting, and payroll. She was doing the best she could, but it was really just too big a job for her. She was feeling stretched physically and mentally and was even having stomach ulcers because she was so stressed out. Even though sales were picking up, Duck Commander was still only a seasonal business. We did really well during hunting season, but after hunting season ended, it was a struggle to keep our doors open. Kay was out of her league when the business started actually growing. It is hard to keep up with inventory, payroll, employees, and everything else. She was about ready to cash it in.

To help make ends meet during the summer, Kay gave some of our local customers huge discounts. If a retailer called and ordered products for the next hunting season, Kay would offer them a big discount if they paid for their products in advance. That’s how badly Duck Commander needed cash flow during the summer. In the end, we would end up losing money on those products, but it was the only way Kay could keep the business going during the slow times.

Finally, after working at the company for several months, I went to Kay and Phil and told them I wanted to take over the business operations of Duck Commander. Kay was more than happy to turn them over to me because she was completely overwhelmed. But I told them I had to have complete authority to do what I needed to do. Korie and I talked about it for a long time and decided to buy half of Duck Commander from my parents. We took out a second mortgage on our house to buy half of the company. Duck Commander really needed a cash investment at the time, and Kay and Phil had stretched their borrowing power to its limit. I told them, “If I’m going to do it, then I’m going to do it.”

Korie:
When Willie and I bought half of Duck Commander, we knew we were taking a leap of faith. There were definitely some obstacles we were going to have to overcome, but we believed in what Phil and Kay started and wanted more than anything to see it reach its full potential. Phil and Kay were super supportive. In a lot of companies, when control is passed from one generation to the next, the older generation has a hard time letting go and is somewhat resistant to any kind of change. Phil and Kay weren’t that way at all. In fact, they were completely the opposite. They gave Willie all the respect and room he needed to learn and grow. Willie gave them just
as much respect in return, asking Phil and Kay for advice and suggestions when needed. The transition ended up being seamless.

After I took over the business operations of Duck Commander, one of the first big decisions I made was to get us more involved in retail stores like Gander Mountain, Cabela’s, Academy Sports and Outdoors, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Bass Pro Shops, as well as the huge independent stores like Mack’s Prairie Wings and Simmons Sporting Goods. We had been doing business with them for a while by that time, but I knew it needed to be more of our focus. Those stores were in the hunting business three hundred and sixty-five days a year. For several years, Walmart was about 80 percent of our business. It was great having our products in Walmart, but it was always a tricky situation. Walmart stocked hunting products during hunting season and then replaced them with something else when hunting season was over. You’d go meet one of Walmart’s buyers and expect to get eight dollars for a duck call. But then the buyer would tell you he wasn’t paying more than four dollars. Now, nobody wanted to come home and tell everyone that he’d lost the Walmart account, especially when it was such a huge percentage of our business. It was always a big day around the Robertson house when Walmart wired its money to our account to pay for its products. But by the time you shipped the products the way Walmart wanted them shipped, you really weren’t making much money. Those
big checks that came in always seemed to get spent before we knew it, because there wasn’t much profit in them, which created a big cycle of debt for several years.