Happy, Happy, Happy (18 page)

I had one big selling tool—besides my loveable personality and redneck charm, that is. I made a recording of live mallard ducks calling and then added the sound of me blowing on a Duck Commander as a comparison. I tried to sell the idea that I was closer to sounding like a duck than anyone in the world.

My approach was successful. After we sold $8,000 worth of Duck Commanders the first year, we sold $13,500 the second year. The next year, we sold $22,000. I told Kay, “We are now rolling.” The next year we sold about $35,000. We didn’t hit six figures until about ten years after we started, but the business grew bigger every year.

Out of that first year’s sales, I made about a dollar on each duck call. We were selling them to the stores for $4.27 wholesale. I figured they cost me about $3.20 total, after paying Mr. Earhart to build them, travel, paperwork, and all. We did a lot better when we began to build them ourselves.

About the third year after I started, I decided I was going about the selling all wrong. I felt I needed to go to Stuttgart, Arkansas, the duck capital of the world. I had been driving around trying to interest these little old sporting goods stores. I needed to raise my sights and become a little more ambitious. So I took my
tape and cassette player, climbed in the old Ford, and headed for Stuttgart, 185 miles away. I pulled up in front of the only sporting goods store in town, a little bitty place. I got out with my tape recorder, the live ducks comparison, and some duck calls strung around my neck.

I needed to raise my sights and become a little more ambitious.

I walked into the store and there were two guys sitting at a table. I was about to learn they were world-champion duck callers, who just happened to be sitting in the store. The fellow behind the counter asked me if he could help me.

“Is this the duck capital of the world?” I asked him.

“You’re here,” he said with a proud smile on his face.

“Well, I figure this is where I need to start,” I told him. “Now, here’s the deal. I have a duck call here—hanging around my neck. It’s closer to a duck than any duck call that has ever been made. Do y’all want to hear it?”

They all looked at each other and kind of grinned.

“Let me guess,” the guy behind the counter said. “You’re out of Louisiana?”

“That’s where I’m from,” I said.

“Blow that thing,” the guy told me.

I blew one of the calls around my neck, concentrating on the plain, simple sound of the mallard hen with no frills. I understood
I was blowing for an audience conditioned by duck-calling contests, which often featured forty-note high calls that not only taxed a caller’s lung power but also made the rafters ring. The “lonesome hen” call blown by contestants would make you weep. They could make a duck call talk. But I was making the outlandish claim that they didn’t sound like a duck.

They listened. Then they chuckled, kind of laughed. They were still chuckling when the guy behind the counter picked up my duck call, blew on it, and said, “I see your problem with this duck call right off the bat.”

“What’s the problem?” I asked him.

“Air leaks a little bit around here,” he told me. “You’ve got an air leak.”

“That’s the way it’s designed,” I responded. “Air leaks and all, it’s still closer to a duck than anybody’s.”

I turned to the men at the table and asked if they duck-hunted.

“Yeah, we do a little duck-hunting,” one of them told me.

“These guys are world-champion duck callers,” explained the man behind the counter, with the proper amount of respect in his voice.

“Well, good night!” I exclaimed. “Boys, let’s have us a contest right here. Get your duck calls and get up here. We’ll tape your duck calls beside that of these live ducks. I’ve already got mine on
it. We’ll listen to the ducks, then all the calls. Then we’ll just vote on it. Whoever is closest to a duck wins!”

The guy behind the counter looked and me and said, “You see that door there? Hit it!”

He ran me out of there! But as I was driving out of town, frustrated and still fuming over my reception in a little nondescript sporting goods store, I saw a beer joint with about fifteen cars parked around it. On an impulse, I wheeled my car into the parking lot, squealing to a stop.

I walked in the door and hollered, “Hey!”

The customers were all sitting around drinking beer. They turned and looked at me.

“Is there a duck caller in the house?” I asked loudly.

They all looked at me like they were deaf.

“Is there anybody in here who can blow a duck call?” I asked again.

Several of the customers pointed to a man sitting and quietly having a beer. He looked around at me.

“Come out here, I want to show you a duck call that I built,” I told him. “I want you to tell me how I can sell these things up here. They just ran me out of the sporting goods store down there.”

“They did?” the man asked with bewilderment in his voice. “Yeah, let me listen to it.”

He went outside with me. I blew my call for him.

“Son, let me tell you something,” the man told me. “I’ve been blowing duck calls for a long time. My hunting call is a Yentzen—until now. How much you want for one of them things?”

“Ten dollars,” I told him.

“I want one right now,” he said.

“No, I’m going to give it to you,” I told him.

The man invited me to his house. I introduced myself to him and followed him back through town.

“Robertson, let me tell you something,” he told me later. “These guys up here are making big money selling these world-championship duck calls. They don’t want any ten-dollar duck calls up here in their way. To them, they’re so far above you. What they are going to tell you is that unless you win the world championship blowing like they did, you’re never going to sell any duck calls.”

“But their calls don’t sound like ducks,” I told him.

“I know they don’t,” he replied. “But they have a deal going here, a clique, and they’re making big money.”

“So what do you think I should do?” I asked him.

“Aw, you’ll sell duck calls,” he replied. “You’ll end up selling way more than they will. I’ve heard a lot of duck calls. But I’ve never heard one that sounded closer to a duck than that. That thing is a duck! These guides up here, the ones that hunt, they’ll
buy them. So will all serious duck hunters. You’re just going to have to stay the course.”

You know what? I don’t remember the man’s name; I only recall that he was a rice farmer. But his advice and encouragement carried me a long way over the next few years. About ten years later, when I developed a mallard drake call, a few of them were ordered by that little sporting goods store in Stuttgart. I guess they finally realized my call sounded like a duck.

The guy behind the counter in that store wasn’t the only one who had doubts about the Duck Commanders. It probably took me twenty-five years to convince the duck-calling world that there is a difference between meat calling and contest calling.

The Duck Commander has come a long way. But it hasn’t been easy.

It probably took me twenty-five years to convince the duck-calling world that there is a difference between meat calling and contest calling.

Somehow, we stayed the course and it turned out. There is a God, and He blessed us because we did what was right—we loved Him, we loved our neighbor, and we hunted ducks. He is real and what He said He would do is what happened. He said, you love Me and do what’s right, and I’ll bless you—so much so that your barns will be full, packed full, tapped down, and running over. I only know that either our success came from Him or
I was one of the luckiest souls that ever came along with a little idea. All I can say is it’s one or the other, but I’m leaning toward the Almighty doing exactly what He said He would do.

The Almighty blessed us, and Duck Commander did work, just like He said it would. Yes, it took a long, long time for us to get to where we are today. But even before our success, and long before
Duck Dynasty
came along, everybody was happy, happy, happy. In other words, it wasn’t like my love for the Almighty was contingent upon whether the blessings came or not. My prayer was always: “Lord, if You bless me, I’ll thank You; but if You don’t, I’ll be thankful for what I have. I have plenty. I’m in good shape.” Even before our success came along, we had air-conditioning, color TV, hot water, and a bathtub. We had everything we needed. When I was a boy, we didn’t even have bathtubs or commodes, but I was still as happy and content as I am today. As long as I was doing what God said was right and living my life for Him, I knew everything would work out in the end—one way or another.

Rule No. 10 for Living Happy, Happy, Happy

If You’re Going to Do Something, Do It Right (Instead of Doing It Again)

W
hen I was a bit of a wild child during the 1960s, one of my favorite musicians was Jimi Hendrix. A masterful showman, Hendrix was a brilliant experimentalist and one of the most influential musicians in history. Hendrix had an incredible ability to manipulate a six-string guitar and distort it to make sounds no one would have believed possible. You know what was most amazing about Hendrix? That sucker never learned to read music! He learned to play guitar by ear but did more with it than anyone before him or anyone since.