The Duck Commander Family

by Robertson, Willie

  When Korie and I moved back to West Monroe, Louisiana, and I finished college at Northeast Louisiana University, I had no intention of going to work for Duck Commander. I liked to duck-hunt but wasn’t into it as much as Phil, Jase, or Uncle Si, and I wanted to go out and make a name for myself doing something on my own. I enjoyed working at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca and really liked being around kids, and I was also working at White’s Ferry Road Church as a youth minister. I loved the freedom working at the camp gave me to create and grow. And watching kids’ lives change for the better was pretty satisfying. But before too long, Korie and I had a house full of our own kids. After our oldest son, John Luke, was born in October 1995, our oldest daughter, Sadie, came along in June 1997. Then we adopted little Will in December 2001, and Bella, our baby girl, was born in September 2002.

  Working at Camp Ch-Yo-Ca was a lot of fun, but it was a nonprofit, so there wasn’t much room for financial growth. And with four kids to feed, I realized I probably needed to find another job where I could eventually bring home a little more bacon. I never really thought about making a lot of money—didn’t really care, to be honest. I guess I always thought we should do it in reverse. Rather than go out and try to kill myself on a career while I was young and my kids were little, I wanted to be home with them more during that critical time. Then later, when they got older, I’d go out and try to do a little better for us. Korie and I didn’t have a ton of money, but we were happy, and we never let the balance of our bank account dictate our happiness. I learned a lot running Camp Ch-Yo-Ca and felt like I made a sizable contribution, but I came to a point in my life when I knew it was time to make a change. Duck Commander was starting to get bigger, so I went to Phil and asked him about working there.

  RATHER THAN GO OUT AND TRY TO KILL MYSELF ON A CAREER WHILE I WAS YOUNG AND MY KIDS WERE LITTLE, I WANTED TO BE HOME WITH THEM MORE DURING THAT CRITICAL TIME.

  “Oh yeah, come on board,” Phil told me.

  “What am I going to do?” I asked him.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Phil said.

  He never even asked how much I made or needed to make. You gotta love Phil.

  I ended up cleaning the yard at Phil and Kay’s house for about six months. I was just trying to learn as much as I could about the business, and Phil and Kay would give me little projects like constructing outbuildings and things like that. I poured concrete pathways between the buildings and tried to improve the work environment in the little ways I could. Kay was stoked to have someone do her “pet” projects that she had been wanting since we were kids. And the fact that she had one of her sons doing it was even better. But I had a college degree, so I wanted to put it to use and be more involved in the business side of Duck Commander. At the time, we were making hunting DVDs, selling about ten thousand of them a year. More and more people were catching on to Duck Commander, and I thought we should start trying to take advantage of the exposure and popularity.

  “Dad, I need to talk to people,” I told Phil. “I need to talk to our customers. I need to know what they’re thinking, what they’re buying, why they’re buying this, and why they’re buying that.” We didn’t have much money, so there was no marketing budget to speak of, which meant I needed to do it cheaply. We only talked to our customers when we went to shows around the country.

  About that time, websites were getting more and more commonplace. I remember watching TV and every advertisement seemed to include a website address, where customers could go to learn more about the company and its products. I went to Phil and told him we needed a website, even though I really didn’t know how to get to one. By that time, Duck Commander was using the Internet for some of its business dealings, but down at Phil and Kay’s house, where the business was being run, the Internet access was spotty at best. It was, and still is, only accessible through satellite, and if it rained hard, you could forget it.

  “If a man wants a duck call, he can pick up the phone and call me,” Phil told me.

  Korie: Phil told Willie he needed to go talk to my dad, Johnny, because he owned the website URL for Duck Commander, DuckCommander.com. Daddy had a background in publishing and realized pretty early that the Internet was eventually going to become the way in which companies sold their products to consumers. So he asked Phil if he ever intended to build a website, and Phil, of course, told him no. Over the years, Dad had helped Phil and Kay with the legal aspects of Duck Commander, like helping them file for patents and trademarks and borrowing money from the bank. Because Duck Commander was so seasonal—the company did really well during hunting season but sold very little during the summer—Phil and Kay sometimes borrowed money from my dad to get them through the slow times. Daddy always believed in Phil’s company and his products and felt they had a good thing going.

  So Dad worked out a deal with Phil and Kay. They agreed to let him launch DuckCommander.com and would give him products like duck calls and DVDs to sell on the site as payment for the money they owed. Daddy sold them until he’d made enough money for Phil and Kay to pay him back, and then he started buying the products directly from them to sell on the website. Dad rented mailing lists, printed catalogs, and mailed them all over the country. He even launched the first Duck Commander TV commercial in an area of California that was really big into duck hunting. The first commercial showed Phil, Jase, and Si shooting ducks in slow motion at pretty close range, and Dad received a bunch of angry e-mails from animal rights activists. It didn’t take them long to get over it, though. And he sold even more DVDs.

  When Willie decided he wanted to get more involved with Duck Commander, he went to Dad to ask him to sell Duck Commander’s website and mail-order business to us. We paid Daddy a down payment on it and then paid him a percentage of the sales until we paid him back what it was worth when we bought it. Willie and I ran the website out of our house. At the time, I’d been working as the children’s minister at our church, so I left that job and ran the website from home while raising our children. Every night, I would wake up to feed Will or Bella a bottle and sit at the computer answering e-mails and filling orders. Every customer received a personalized e-mail from Willie or me.

  I WOULD WAKE UP TO FEED WILL OR BELLA A BOTTLE AND SIT AT THE COMPUTER ANSWERING E-MAILS AND FILLING ORDERS.

  I was taking full advantage of being Phil Robertson’s son. People would always e-mail me back and ask, “Are you really his son?” Phil had started this club called Duckaholics Anonymous, and it was like a twelve-step program for serious duck hunters. It was a great idea, but Phil kind of let it fizzle out. We relaunched Duckaholics Anonymous and sold memberships to the club through the website. We’d send them newsletters, giveaways, and things to get them even more involved in Duck Commander. I would always answer the Duckaholics Anonymous members’ e-mails first, and we’d talk to them through the website. We tried to make the membership super exclusive. This was before Facebook, but we decided we really needed to be more interactive, so we’d publish a quote of the day or something fun like that, kind of like we do on Facebook now. This was also the time when Phil began doing a lot of speaking. He had spoken at a few church men’s events and the word was spreading. He got invited to speak all over the country. So we began posting those dates on our website so people could go hear him.

  Korie: We paid a company about $25,000 to completely overhaul the website. The new site included message boards, forums, and a complete online retail store. People would call the phone number on the site and thought they were calling a warehouse, but they were actually calling our house! We’d get phone calls at two o’clock in the morning from someone in California who wanted a duck call or T-shirt. We’d just wake up and take their orders. Daddy had put together an extensive mailing list of customers who had bought from him in the past, so Willie and I made up some postcards and sent them to about thirty thousand people around the country telling them to come visit our new site. Willie and I had some money that we’d saved, but we were going into quite a bit of debt to ma
ke all of this happen. It was a risk, but one we knew we had to take.

  I LET THE ACCIDENT INSPIRE ME AND REALIZED THE LORD LET ME LIVE FOR A PURPOSE.

  I got a phone call from the post office one day, telling me I needed to come and pick up several thousand postcards that had been returned because of bad addresses. I didn’t even know how that worked. I found out that you have to pay for the ones coming back to you, but it was the only way at the time to clean up your list and know which ones were good and which ones weren’t. I went to the post office to pick them up and there were boxes and boxes of them. I loaded up my old Chevy Suburban and headed back to the house. Wouldn’t you know it? I pulled out in front of a car and it T-boned me just as I left the post office. I had a sick cut on my head, and the postcards went flying everywhere. There were pictures of Phil with the web address DuckCommander.com all over Highway 34 in Ouachita Parish. Some of them were even stuck to my head! Fortunately, I wasn’t seriously hurt, and the other people in the car were fine. We did end up getting sued by four people—which was odd, because there were only three passengers in the car that hit me! I could have easily died that day. I let the accident inspire me and realized the Lord let me live for a purpose. It was a reminder of sorts—“Life is short, son; make it count.” The wreck was my fault, no doubt, but I survived, and not everyone walks out of a vehicle after getting hit by another car at seventy miles per hour.

  Korie: When the hunting DVDs came out every June, it was always a busy time. We would take preorders for the DVDs, and Willie and I would go to Office Depot and buy bubble envelopes and write every address by hand. While we were waiting for the DVDs to be finished, the envelopes would be scattered around our house, and we were trying to keep the kids out of them the entire time. Alan’s oldest daughter, Anna, had graduated from high school by this time and started working for us, helping package orders. She would get to our house in the morning and I would hand her a stack of orders I had printed out late the night before. I don’t know what I would have done without her. About this same time, Willie had started making a lot of trips with Phil to his speaking engagements. Willie would set up a booth wherever Phil was speaking, selling DVDs, hats, T-shirts, and other Duck Commander memorabilia. This further confirmed to Willie just how popular Duck Commander was becoming, and he began to realize that the company was capable of doing so much more.

  At the bigger hunting shows I attended with Phil, I started talking to other companies about sponsoring our hunting DVDs. We already had some corporate sponsors, like Browning and Mossy Oak, but they weren’t paying us a lot of money. Realtree, which produces the world’s most popular camouflage, decided it wanted to get more involved in the waterfowl industry. In one of their planning meetings, Michael Waddell (who worked for them at the time) suggested they do that by partnering with Duck Commander. Most of the folks in the meeting seemed to shrug it off and thought there was no way to get the Duck Commander guys. We had been with Mossy Oak for a long time, and they thought even trying to get us would be fruitless. But one of the guys there that day thought he would give it a shot and contact Duck Commander. He went to—what else!—the website to get the phone number to call us. That was Brad Schorr. Brad had just started working for Realtree and had been a fan of Duck Commander for a long time. To him, it seemed like a natural fit and was certainly worth a try. Brad was trying to make a name in the company and knew this could be just the thing to do that.

  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.

  THE DECISION SERVED AS A STATEMENT THAT WILLIE ROBERTSON WAS HERE AND DUCK COMMANDER WAS GONNA DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.

  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.

  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.

  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 net
work 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.