Episode 9: Joe Hamilton; Hard Work, Human Connection, And A Warranty That Built A Brand

What turns a humble birding shop into a global optics leader? A leap of faith, a relentless work ethic, and a belief that service beats slogans. Sitting down at Vortex HQ with CEO Joe Hamilton, we trace the arc from a dentist-turned-retailer to a family business that learned retail on the floor, listened to customers asking for binoculars, and built Eagle Optics before consolidating everything under a brand you now see everywhere: Vortex.

Joe shares the big unlock—finding the “bright spot” and doubling down. In their case, it wasn’t a spec sheet; it was the VIP Warranty and the human experience behind it. From fixing glass shot through by an accidental discharge to mailing a chew toy with repaired binoculars, Vortex turned service into stories that spread. We dig into why that works, how it scales, and what it costs when the goal isn’t quarterly optics but lifelong loyalty. The lesson is clear: put people at the center, and the metrics follow.

We also dive into culture: hiring for belief before resumes, protecting independent retailers as true partners, and investing in employees with an on-campus preschool that reduces stress and builds community. Joe breaks down “Be the Buffalo”—running into storms to get through them faster—and how that mindset guided risky moves like dealer-direct distribution and new product lines. If you’re building a brand, leading a team, or just curious how a warranty can become a movement, you’ll walk away with practical ideas and a renewed respect for care as a strategy.

Enjoy the conversation, then tell us: what company has shown up for you in a way you’ll never forget? If this story moved you, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Transcript

Welcome And Setup At Vortex HQ

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, thanks for joining us for this episode of Doug HasQuesti. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe. We're available if you want to watch us on uh YouTube or if you just want to listen to the podcast version on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And each episode goes live on Thursday morning. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Um, and we're happy to have you listening. Hey, welcome to this episode of Doug Has Questions. Today I'm in Barnveld, Wisconsin at Vortex Optics Headquarters with Joe Hamilton, CEO and president of Vortex. Um, thank you not only for joining the podcast, Joe, but also letting us use your amazing studio here. This is something for me to aspire to.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Absolutely. It's our pleasure. We love having you as a guest.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, no, it's great, great being here. It's always as a longtime seller of Vortex products, um, learning the story of the company over the years has been a been a privilege and feeling that love that you guys have for your customers and your dealers. Um so I kind of want to get into that with you, but also what I do with all of these, I want to start a little bit earlier. Yeah, let's do it. When you were younger, yeah, 1986. Yeah, mom and dad moved to Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Dad was a dentist.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, yeah. So so yeah, my dad was a dentist. So, so real quick, my dad was in Vietnam. He did three tours and he got out, he had the GI Bill. And so, kind of how he told me one time is he sort of threw a dart at a dart board of respectable careers and it landed on dentistry. So he goes to become a dentist, yet and then he ends up being a dentist for about 10 years, but he discovers that he hates being a dentist.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

I can understand right, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I know looking in people's mouths all day, and nobody wants to see that go to see the dentist. And he did a really, really concerted effort because I remember me and the brothers we'd visit him at his dental office of like trying to make it a fun, you know, pleasurable experience. But again, nobody wants to see the dentist. So he and my mom, uh, just like hobby-wise, especially my mom, that we they'd take us for hikes, um, and she got into backyard bird feeding, which got them going into a Wild Birds Unlimited store um in Indiana. And and through that, you know, my dad didn't know it at the time, but you know, turned out to be the kind of consummate entrepreneur. He was looking around saying, you know, I think I could do this. I think I could I could have a store like this and be way less stressful, which of course later he'd find out retail is not necessarily less stressful, but um, it'd be way less stressful. And, you know, and Margie, that's my mom, you know, uh, she's into this. And so, long story short, is they made connections with the franchise that only had about seven, eight stores at the time. They told him Wisconsin was the best destination. So they actually sent him, said you can either go to Milwaukee, Green Bay, or Madison. So he went to Milwaukee, he's like too big, he went to Green Bay, too small, and on the way back to Indiana, he went to Madison, he's like just right. So they always joked that they took us on a covered wagon in '86 um with my two other brothers, older brothers, and then Jimmy would come later. Um, and yeah, we moved to Madison and they and my dad started the Wild Birds Unlimited store. How old were you? I was six years old. And actually, so this is so this is pretty cool. So my dad was 38 at the time. See if my yeah, my math is right. 38 at the time, and he had three boys under the age of seven. And so he could have hit the kind of easy button and just stayed a dentist. I mean, he was it was a very good practice. He was like pretty much the only dentist in town in Kendallville, Indiana. Um, but yeah, he decided to take the leap of um, you know, uh starting the Wildbirds Limited a whole new career with, you know, uh, you know, a stay-at-home uh wife and three boys.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

That I don't think a lot of people realize the chance that he was taking on that. Yeah. That that is big to have that much faith in himself that he's gonna go make this work when you've got a family to support. It's one thing doing it by yourself. Yeah, yeah. But wife, three kids, right, totally new career, something he hasn't done before, right, in a new community, right? Doesn't have the the customer base. You know, if he did it in Indiana, you got friends that are gonna stop by, people you built up a relationship. But coming into a new environment, totally blank slate, started a new company.

Vietnam Lessons And The Leap Into Retail

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, could you at that age, even at six, could you kind of sense any nervousness or tension that so I'll tell you a little bit um about why he did it based off what he told me, and then I will tell you kind of what it felt like to be six years old and and when that went down. So um I asked him, uh I've asked him multiple times, and of course the answer is the same, but I remember the first time I asked him about like, hey, what like what gave you the confidence or allowed you to go from like idea, where this is just an idea in my head, which I think a lot of people have ideas in their head of like becoming an entrepreneur or starting a business to actually making that leap, and then especially being married with three young boys, and you know, it you know, and so when he since he was in Vietnam, when he got out, he would read a lot about Vietnam. And one of the things that he had read about multiple times was about the Vietnam boat people, is what they called them, and so people were fleeing the North Vietnamese, um, and they would get in boats and they would just go east, and um and a lot of them would make it to um, you know, America or Hawaii or wherever. And but the for those that got to America, they didn't speak the language, they didn't have any money. To your point about not knowing anybody, your neighbors, they didn't know anybody, and they would somehow, in some way, in some cases, they would start a business and make it. It may not be a Fortune 500 company, but they made it and their family made it. And so he actually kind of drew um some confidence from that and thought, well, geez, if these people can make it and they're in the hole, they they don't have any money, they don't know how to speak the language, they don't know anybody, and if they can make it, here I am. I'm you know, I'm a college graduate, you know, I I I I've you know, um, I I know the language, I have you know, all of these things go working in my favor. If they can make it, I can too. And so, but I will say, when he started the Wild Birds Unlimited, I mean, he and he's told me this. He said, Hey, Joe, I was never the smartest guy. I was never the you know, the the best at this, the best at this. But he said, There's one thing I could hang my hat on, is I could work. I could work really, really hard. And that's the thing that I saw and felt was he worked incredibly hard. I mean, a lot of times he would sleep at the office, he hand built all the displays because he couldn't afford displays for the Wild Birds Unlimited store. I mean, he was working, you know, all day, every day, because I think he knew, you know, hey, I made this big decision. I got these three boys, I have this wife, I need to make sure I can provide. And I think that's also was a catalyst. Um, he's a creative guy, anyways, but I think that was a catalyst for his creativity was really out of necessity. But you could feel it, he was always a hard worker.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

And listening to that, there's there's so many parallels between our our fathers. Yeah. My my dad grew up he uh in the Midwest. He his uh mom died when he was two and a half years old. Um, dad kind of turned alcohol, left him and his brothers pretty much alone. Um, and so at age eight, he got taken in by another family uh or a pair of brothers and their housekeeper and raised him. And so I I look back at it, like I told you before, he just passed away a month a little over a month ago. And looking back at, he did the same thing. He he started, he was a school teacher, left being a school teacher to start a sporting goods store. There's already one or two sporting goods stores in town. Everyone's like, what are you crazy? Right. Why are you doing this? But I I think those struggles early in life, same with your dad seeing the Vietnamese boat people, but I think also probably his experience in three tours in Vietnam, he survived that, right? Came back, gives him a sense of self-confidence and a lack of fear. Yeah. I lived through that. My dad lived through years of, you know, him and his brothers would be left at home if they shot birds in the yard. That was their dinner.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

And when he moved in with Matt and George, they would give him ammo, but he needed to bring a certain number of pheasants home or rabbits per shell. Yeah. And it wasn't a formal adoption, it wasn't formal foster care, it was just a family that took him in. Right. So I look back at the uncertainty that must have been there with him at that stage in his life. Yep. And that you have to produce, you have to work hard. Yeah. And he worked his butt off the whole the rest of his life. He was always working. Yeah. After, you know, in the evenings after dinner, we'd go down and we'd price lures that came in or whatever. We're down at the store working weekends, we're at the store working, and that work ethic. Right. And like you said, it you don't have to be the smartest. Right. But showing up and putting in the work. Right. That's something everybody can do. Right. You can just you just keep grinding and grinding and grinding.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

It's funny you use the word grinding because he always said, you know, I was a grinder in the sense that I I and he could. And uh, you know, when we tell the history and everything, and probably similar to you with your business, or somebody else that that's known about your business, is they focus a lot on these really big highs, these big moments, which is awesome, but but it's really the stuff in between the big moments. You know, it it's just like, you know, it's almost like the movie Groundhog Day is like you're really good at Groundhog Day and grinding out every day, day after day, you know, week after week, month after month, and year after year. And then that leads to these big, you know, kind of cool moments, but it really is the in-between, I think, that you know, somebody who's got that grinding mentality really produces something great.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yep. And I and when you were talking about your dad building the displays, yeah. My dad built most of his own displays at the store. And so many years later, we're remodeling, and he's got all the metal tracking on the wall for the shelving. Yep. He had hand screwed, they're like three inches long, like a number 12, big heavy with a flathead. And he had hand screwed all these, and I'm taking them out with a screw gun. And he's like, That's not fair, you're cheating. Yeah, yeah. You don't imagine the blisters I had. I was like, and I just started counting the number of screws, like, oh my god. Yeah. I can't, I couldn't even imagine sitting there with and putting all of those in by hand.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Yeah. It's a weird way to get inspired, but it is inspiring, actually. It is, you know, to think that these I'm gonna get inspired by looking at a bunch of screws, but it's of course it's not about the screws. No, it's about that work ethic and just, you know, kind of that uh, you know, just commitment to finding a way to getting it done and you know, that you can draw upon inspiration. But yeah, so you know, I don't know if you saved some of those screws, but maybe we're saved.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

I should have. I know.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Well, there's a lot that I wish I had saved for those reasons.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

But I I do have a bunch of things that he put together that I've uh I have today, but yeah, I should have saved some of the screws. Yeah, yeah. I I agree with you. Yep. So you grew up in the store then.

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I did. I grew up in the store, so it'd be jugging seed, like uh, you know, uh like almost milk cartons of seed, and then you know, 25-pound bags, 50-pound bags. So you'd sell them and you had the handwritten receipts, you know, and you'd write a receipt and you'd hand it, and then you'd go grab their because my dad was like, hey, the customer does not carry their seat out. You carry it out, you know, to their car. Um, that's part of the service. And so, you know, you'd have like, you know, my me and my two brothers, like Huey Dewey and Louie, you know, we'd be like, you're carrying the seat out for customers, and you know, then you'd have them to be, you know, dust things or selling a heated bird bath or, you know, all kinds of stuff. Um, you know, and so yeah, it was just a great it, it, it, you didn't realize it at the time, but it ended up being just a great training ground for dealing with customers, understanding retail. I think one of the things that really helped us in those days was um I was working in the store, but I gotta see what an owner's life was like who owned a retail store. And so then later, when we got into Vortex, I was able to empathize and understand much better what that guy, a lot of them are guys, but you know, whoever it was that owned the store, what they were going through. And so I think that it was good from a work ethic standpoint, but it ended up being, you end up kind of almost having a superpower in the sense that in our business, in the sense that you could really understand a retailer's perspective. And so, like, I'm so thankful for that. But yeah, growing up in the family business, and I don't know if you went through this, but it was like, I am not working in the family business when I get older. Like, I'm getting away. And that old saying comes to mind of if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. So that that was just it's very ironic that I ended up in the family business because you know, all I could all I could do was just wanting to get away from it when I was, you know, in the 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

100%.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

I graduated from high school, I was leaving Haynes as soon as I graduated from college. Yeah, not looking back, was not coming back, was not gonna run the store. Um, part of it is I saw how much work it was. I was like, there's gotta be an easier way to make a living than this. And part of it there is a lot easier. You weren't wrong on that and part of it is um my dad and I, although I I developed his work ethic, there's still, you know, that father-son dynamic that we we would clash on different things about how things should be done. And right, and uh so I I I didn't want to go through that. Yeah, and it was my senior year in high school when he broke his back. And that kind of that really changed in, I still wanted to get out, yeah. Right after he broke his back. Um, but he was he was building the American Ball Eagle Foundation. Okay, because that was kind of his in the late 70s, Haynes lost both their sawmills, and so the major source of employment, school population cratered, the economy was in very bad shape, and a group of businessmen got together trying to figure out what's our path forward. And one of the ideas is that Haynes at the time had the largest concentration of ball eagles in North America. And they went to my my dad's like, I'll take that on. And from then on, he was passionate about eagles. That was his thing. So he started the he worked with Winchester to make a commemorative rifle. Yeah, had three thousand this little store in Alaska, down to 2,500 people. Wow, buys 3,000 rifles from Winchester. Custom rifle for the commemorative 200 gold, 2,800 silver. Wow. And I'm thinking, my dad's buying 3,000 rifles, things are going well. Right. Yeah. He he he leveraged all sorts of things in order to make that work. But then the proceeds from those guns is what's the was the seed money for starting the American Ball Legal Foundation. Wow. And so he was lifting one of the walls at the foundation, and they didn't have quite enough guys. The wall came back on him, fire blocking caught the back of his head, bent him over, and that's crushed his spine and and been in he was in a wheelchair the rest of his life. Wow. And so that was when I was telling you that story yesterday. Yeah, you went back to your old from the from the store, brought out a little eagle here. So that was uh yeah, that was a good connection. Because I I looked at it, the more I learned about your guys' story, your dad's background, starting a new career, getting into it birds, right? My dad gets into eagles, right, and it consummated the rest of his life. It was all about eagles. Wow. Everything was about the American Ball Eagle Foundation. And so when in I'd after college, I'd worked in Minnesota for a while, I worked in Seattle for a while. Nothing was really seeming like it fit.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

And uh I remember my one of my dad's brothers was working at had moved up from Colorado.

SPEAKER_03 16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

And he was starting to have some health issues. My dad knew I wasn't happy. And he says, Hey, um, you want to come back and run the store? He says, We either need to get somebody else to run it um and help out more, or we're probably looking at selling it.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And he caught me at that point where I really wasn't happy where I was at. Okay. He's like, sure, I'll go back.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah. And did you think you'd go back for for good?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Or did you I thought I was gonna go back for good. Okay. Because I had in my mind, looking at it from the outside of just the people coming in, he was always adding on, doing different things. I thought, store's killing it.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Right, yeah. Tell me, join this rocket ship.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Let me join this rocket ship and just ride this on. I'll just coast through this. This is gonna be great. Got home, that was not the case. I found out really quick that you know, sales were declining. It really wasn't the um, there's a lot of old maintenance of the building that needed to be done that hadn't been done for a while. Sure. Because he was the one that did all of that when he's in a wheelchair. Yeah. And then you have to hire somebody, it's harder to get it done.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

And so for the first few years, um, I was back, I was just kind of spinning my wheels.

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Really wasn't going anywhere. Sure. And then in nine August of 98, my uh uncle that was working there passed away. And the day before uh that Saturday, him and I had this conversation, just really in depth about life, what plan his plans were, yeah, kind of what he saw in Haynes, what I saw in Haynes, and this, and the next it was the most connected I had ever felt with him. Wow. It was just this really, really close conversation. Next morning I get a call from my mom that he died of a heart attack that night.

unknown 17:49

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

And I was like, holy cow.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

And I was at the time I was in conversation with an uncle in Minnesota about opening uh office for his freight company in Seattle. I was about ready to bail. That happened. And so I called my uncle Miss and was like, hey, I I I can't do it. I gotta stick it out here.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And the next year we hired a guy, um, Vietnam vet. Okay. Had from Agent Orange, he had all sorts of health issues. Yeah. Some of it was Agent Orange, some of it was the self-medication he'd done over the years from his time in Vietnam. His body was failing in many different ways. He would call me in the morning and it sounded like he was gonna die within an hour. He's like, I don't know if I'm gonna make it in. Three hours later, he comes bounding through the door. Hey, Doug, I decided to make it. And just the amount of energy, and I started looking at that and I was like, if he's in that much pain, yeah, he's got that many health issues, and he's still working that hard. What are my excuses? Right. How come I'm not doing more? Right. It's like contagious. It was, yeah. It was contagious. And so at that point, I said, you know, I'm I'm just gonna dedicate everything to making the store successful. Yeah. And so I got appointed to the city council. So I started getting involved with government and I started working seven days a week at the store.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Well, I think so uh first off, shout out to the Vietnam vets and to all veterans. But I know the Vietnam veterans sometimes didn't get, especially back then, didn't you know, didn't get the uh um the respect and and credit that they should have. Um, but just shout out to them. But also, I think so you said seven days a week, and I think that's one big misconception that people don't understand is whether or not a retail store is open seven days a week. It is a 24-7, 365, it's a dog eat dog world. I mean, it is tough. It is tough. And if you can make it in retail, you can make it just about anything. And and and it takes that level of commitment.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

And it and it and it's every year it's the same. Right. It doesn't mat because we yeah, we got into groceries in 2002, and that kind of helped stabilized income throughout the year, but it's there's always something breaking. There's always something that needs to be advised. Staffing issues, there's how come this product hasn't shipped yet? You're trying to try and getting stuff to Alaska. It's tough. It's it's not the easiest. Not the easiest. Yeah. There's a lot of things in our um in our store that it's four to six weeks from when I order it to when I'm gonna get it at the store. So you gotta be your own supply chain person.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Gotta be your own supply chain person. And then and I I remember with my dad, and I think part of this was his just personality. I mean part of it was his personality, but I also think it's it's something that I've noticed with people who do well in retail, is they try a lot of experiments. You know, it might even just be a little corner in the store, and then but it might end up turning to be a big thing. And I know that you guys were the sporting goods, but now grocery. So I'd be very curious to uh uh understand a little bit how that came about.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

So in '94, when I moved home, every year we were borrowing in the spring to pay for inventory to get us through the summer. Sure. Got the note paid off, go into winter, winter's slow.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

And 2001 was the first year that at the end of the year, it's like, okay, bills are paid off. We had enough to get us through the winter. The next 2002 did not have to get a note from the bank. August of 2002, one of our two grocery stores announced that they were closing. And it was because the poll, the it was owned by a company out of KetchCan. The pulp mill in Ketchikan had closed. Their sales in Ketchikan dropped by millions of dollars. They couldn't support the store in Haynes anymore. Older building. And uh the butcher came and talked to me. He said, Doug, you need to open a meat market. Like, Clint, I have no we have no experience in meat. What are you talking about? He goes, No, you're perfectly suited. He said, He said, he says, I don't, I don't want to retire yet. I don't want to leave Haynes. I still want to work and Haynes needs competition. We need to start a meat market. I said, Clint, I don't I don't have any place to put it. I got sporting goods in the store. There's no place trying to figure out where to do the plumbing and everything. There's refrigeration. Right. There's no way. He was after me for a week or a month, excuse me, about this. And we were talking to the family. I was like, there's no way. And one day I was sitting in a part of the store and uh Al, guy that was working for me at the time, Al Jobbins, he used to do construction before he'd come up. I said, Al, the spot down here, cement floor, we can't do a drain, but what if we put all the sinks on this wall? Do you think we could put a pump on the other side to pump any of the sewage out and stuff like that? And he goes, Probably. So I called a plumber friend of mine, told him he crawled underneath, he goes, Yep, that's doable. And so we had a family meeting that night, and it was like, okay, this is I think we can do this and this. And they said, All right, let's do it. And so we got in touch with the food center. We bought a bunch of their used equipment. And so that was September, beginning of September, we made the decision. First of first part of December, we opened up. And we had the whole room was empty. Yeah. We had an eight-foot freezer case, we had a meat case, and a couple people behind it cutting meat. And that was that was it.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And bootstrapping it. Then we put a couple card tables out and put some bread and some chips out there. Bought some shelving a couple months later, started putting that and just kind of slowly kept growing. And then as that was, if we weren't gonna get any produce, that would nope, we're just gonna stick with meat, some dry goods. Pretty soon everybody's like, got any milk? Got any eggs? Got any lettuce? And we were just buying the cheapest equipment we could find because we didn't have any money. We didn't want to get a big long. We didn't, we had no idea where this was gonna go. You don't know where it's gonna go. But it was it was a 10, 12 year just yeah, crazy ride until things kind of we finally got to in 2017 we redid all the equipment and got modern refrigeration equipment.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

So you mean you didn't have any committees or sustainability studies or uh or analytics done? It was all flying. Really? That's not how it happened.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

It was all flying by the same pants.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Interesting. How the world could it have been successful? I sorry, I've I've got a little bit of like I love those stories because when I talk to entrepreneurs like you, or I think about our history, is so much of it is I had a friend, we we talked, like I had a gut feeling, I wanted to try something. We didn't have a lot of money, so we bootstrapped it and it starts small, and I and I kind of grow with it as it grows. And of course, then companies get big, and then somebody wants to try something new, and they're like, Oh, we've got to do all these, run all these analytics, and we've got to do all these things, and it's like you you realize that's not what built this, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Is that it was that gut feeling and hustle, hustle and hard work, and hustle and hard work. There's a ton of failures over that time, right? Not all experiments work out well, not all of them work well, not all of them work well. There's a ton of failures, and I look back, I was like, God dang, you're an idiot. Yeah, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? But but you just need a few. You just need a few, right? And then when you recognize those few and you start putting more resources into that, you're putting your lean into those, yeah. That that allows you to uh grow and and just keep going going going beyond that. But uh yeah, no, it was it was it was a it was a crazy time, and I I I hope I hope to never have to relive working that much again.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

I can appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Yeah, I I'm sure you can.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

I would never if somebody had to transport you back and be like, I don't think I could do it.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if I can do this. If I if I knew ahead of time, I was like, Yeah, we're not doing that. There's no way that it's not gonna be worth it.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

But ignorance explicit, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

And and and I think part of that it it builds so much resiliency in you. Totally, yeah. That going through that change and going through all that hard work and seeing something come out the other end, then you start thinking, and this could be the detriment. So I now I kind of have to put brakes on. It's like, well, and I I saw that with my dad because he I don't think he ever thought he could fail. Yeah. The number of things that I look back on and mom and dad would tell me the financial aspects of it. Right. You guys were out of your mind. Yeah, yeah. What were you thinking? Yeah. I mean, what one of the things he did was he um there were several people that he that were out of work from the sawmill. So he would buy a boat, commercial fishing boat. He'd mortgage a house or the store or whatever, right, buy the boat, they would buy the permit just so they'd have an another occupation so they could stay in town. There's like five or six people that he did that with. Wow. That he's buying these boats to help these people out commercial fishing. Wow. And I think part of that was going back because he had a family take him in.

SPEAKER_00 26:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

And so it's kind of a pay it forward thing.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

But I think part of it too is that and he had these grandiose plans that all these guys are gonna fish together, they're gonna start marketing to the Midwest. And right it his his mind went like a thousand miles an hour beyond that.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Because he's an entrepreneur. He's an entrepreneur, not got a vision.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

Yep, not not everybody shared the vision, so not not all of it worked, but a lot of those uh the the last one passed away a year ago that had a boat that he had helped sponsor on that. And he'd had that boat for 40 years.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Yeah, yeah, and fished every year. That is uh that's super cool. That's cool that he paid it forward and that and who knows the what how that impacted those those guys and then their lives with other people and it right, it just kind of ripples out. Yep. And that's that's that's really cool. But I love I love those stories of leaning into experiments, and you're right. It we've we did a lot in in our company, and if you knew how hard it was gonna be, you you wouldn't uh you wouldn't probably go through it again. But I'll tell you one thing the appreciation too of where you end up, what what got you there, and we were talking a little bit before the podcast here, that um it's not anybody's fault if they weren't there in those humble beginnings. But when somebody comes on board your company later, you you try to think about like how do I how do I help them understand? And of course, the real answer is you can't. You can't, but but you you do want to try to find ways for them to appreciate like you know, the phone wasn't always ringing. Customers weren't just streaming through the door like it took a monumental amount of work, you know, and and it's it's it's something you have to fight with a little bit because you can't you can't fault somebody for not being there, but it it is a it's actually an advantage when if you were if you were there there. Yeah, yeah, because of the resiliency that it built, and because you you're actually okay when you start something new that you don't have this five, ten year business plan of how it's all gonna shake out because you kind of know, well, you know, you know, everybody's got a plan to get punched in the face. You know, so yeah, I think, but those are those are beautiful stories and and just uh true testament to obviously your father.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

But that but that leads me to the question for you. Yeah, you got this birding business. Yeah, what led to getting into optics? Yeah, yeah, sure. So that I mean, running a retail store and manufacturing optics is that's a huge change.

From Bird Seed To Binoculars

Birth Of Eagle Optics And Mail Order

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah. So I'm glad you brought it up. So this is obviously different, but similar in the sense. So my dad started this Wild Birds Unlimited store, you know, just bending over backwards to make it successful. And so he did. He got a lot of customers coming in and buying bird feeders and bird seed and other kind of knickknacks and so forth. But they were coming in there and they would say, Dan, you're helping me out. I'm getting birds to my backyard. But, you know, when I'm looking in my backyard, I'm going on hikes, like, I want to see these birds better. So, like, where do I get binoculars? And so back then, as you know, there's no internet, so he's sending them to the camera stores, uh, you know, because that's typically where you get your binoculars back then. And then there was another store, American TV, and they're still around, but you know, you can get your TVs and you can get couches and you can get some binoculars. So he's sending them there, but you know, after a while, he's kind of like, you know, wait a minute. This is kind of a bright spot. I have all these people asking for something, you know, and as as we talked about as a retailer, I mean, it's a dog eat dog world. You're just trying to make payroll, you're just trying to keep the lights on. So he's like, I wonder if if I could sell binoculars. So he calls up all the brands back then, they laugh him off the phone. They're like, I've never heard of Wild Birds Unlimited. I mean, what are you guys selling? Parakeets and toucans. So he's like, but you know, my dad kind of, as you need to be as a retailer, you know, kind of a stiff upper upper lip, you know, a little, you know, piss and vinegar. So he's like, okay, you know, I all right, fair enough. So he goes to American TV, he buys like 12 binoculars, brings them back to a store, clears out a case, puts them in there, marks them a dollar over what he paid for. And as you know, at that point, he's not trying to make a lot of money. He's just trying to see, can I sell this in my store? Well, sure enough, several weeks go by, he sells all of them. Okay. So now he calls back those companies armed with those receipts and those sales. He tells them what he did. And of course, they're kind of they're kind of on the phone. They're like, Well, Dan, you know, like respect, but but also um, like, you know, technically you just violated every dealer agreement. But they're like, But it's impressive what you did. I'll send my rep out. So he sends the rep out and he ends up opening up an account. But what he realizes pretty quickly is if I'm not doing volume, I can't get a good enough price to make a decent margin. So um, back then the margins were slim, anyways. And certainly if you were just a small retail store, your margins were even slimmer. He could see the reps thumbing through different price lists and he wasn't getting the best one. So he has this idea, but he kind of likes optics. He's got a lot of momentum there, and so he he thinks, what if I started a mail order company? I started a mail order company, I'll go to all these birding festivals, which are a thing, they're all around the country, and I could be known as the birding place in the country, and then my volumes would go up, and then you know, I'd get better price. And of course, you got to sell a lot of suet cakes at like 99 cents compared to like a$300 binocular, right? You know, you know, margins on suet cakes are great, but but the dollars aren't necessarily great, right? As you know, we pay our rent or whatever, and and dollars. So, so he sure enough, he creates this mail order company, Eagle Optics, would which would eventually become an e-tailor, all right? And that is going really successful. It was inside the Wild Birds Unlimited store. Eventually, it got so big it was bigger than the Wild Birds Unlimited from a revenue standpoint, employee standpoint. So eventually moved that out, which would have been Vortex's old location. But then some other wild the Wild Birds Unlimited franchise is growing. Dan's kind of known, that's my dad, is known as the optics guy. So he gets franchises, other franchisees from the Wild Birds Unlimited calling him saying, Hey, can I get the binoculars from you? I can't open up an account with the main, but maybe I can get them through you. So he's just selling them at for his cost to these to these stores. And they're coming back to him saying, like, Dan, I can't make any money because they're used to keystoning stuff. And he's like, that's what my cost is, right? Not do it. You're not keystoning optics. But similar to those customers coming in and asking for optics, he's like, Well, now I got retailers asking for optics. So he said, I need to create my own line. I can sell it along with all those other brands, but I can wholesale that line back because my margins will be better. So he makes a lot of En-ROADs and he ends up they usually it started as a co-brand with like Eagle Optics and Celestron or Eagle Optics and somebody. But then eventually he creates his own Eagle Optics line. And sure enough, he does. He sells it in his retail store amongst all the other brands. He didn't um he didn't talk negatively about the other brands. I mean, if somebody wanted a Nikon or Sarovsky, a bush and all, he'd sell them that. But he also had his own Eagle Optics line, but then he could wholesale that Eagle Optics line back. And that's where he starts to realize oh wow, I'm taking all of the negatives that I have to experience with these other brands. You know, really poor customer service, terrible warranties. Um, they take three months to warranty. Um, they'll charge you 300 bucks, even though the binocular costs 250 bucks. Um, and I've got really good margins, and um, and I don't go through distribution, I only go dealer direct. So he does it for the Wild Birds Unlimited franchise and realizes, like, oh my gosh, that's what I really want to be doing, is I want to be having, but he realizes at that point he thinks, and and I think this was really wise of him at the time. He's like, Eagle Optics can only be a big house brand. He's like, I can get it big, but it'll always be known for just birding, and it'll be known as a house brand. I really need to have a brand that just stands on its own, and it could be sold to birders, hunters, sh you know, everywhere in between, right? And so in 2002, that's where he creates, he actually created six different brands. One of them was Vortex. That's when I got out of college. I thought I was gonna go to law school. I got cold feet at the last minute, and then he was like, Well, Joe, I'm getting ready to start this whole new thing. Why don't you come on board until you figure out what you really want to do? So when I came back, I was like, it's this is only gonna be for a couple years until I figure out what I really want. But I instantly caught the entrepreneurial bug. That part of the business was in full-on entrepreneur mode because we just started all these different brands. And I thought all of them were gonna hit. I mean, I mean, I thought every one of these brands was a home run. It was a home run. Yeah. I I mean that we were like gonna crush it. And but what we did do for the next three years is we really kind of found out what we were passionate about inside the building. Um, and and a lot of that was turned out to be hunting and shooting. We got more and more people in the business that were actually hunters and shooters. Um, myself and Seamus on the sales front, we were selling a lot, and a lot of it we were gravitating towards those hunting and shooting retailers. They loved us and and the economics were good. They ordered more than anybody. And um, but what they would say to us, because we had National Audubon Society's line of binoculars, we had masterpiece opera glass collection. So I sold opera glasses, we had sportoculars, so Bucky Badger binoculars are just over there. And we had uh, we obviously had Vortex, which looked like it belonged in REI, we had Radiant tripods. I mean, it was like you want an optic. We had it. So I think sometimes the shotgun approach gets a bad rap, but for us, what it did is we instantly found out what the market wanted. It's you know, it was like it was very obvious. So we quickly learned we don't like licensing because the licensor can tell you what to do. The costs are high. Um, our retailers were like, I don't care about the license, I like working with you guys. So just name it whatever you want to name it. And then we found out again, hunting and shooting was where our passion internally was. The economics, the dollars were there too. And then, um, and then it was like, well, which brand do we own? And and we like the name of it. Well, it's Vortex. And then at that point, it was like, okay, let's cherry pick all of our best products across all these like six, seven brands, rebrand it under the Vortex name and have it be this kind of hunting-shooting vibe because that's what we're most passionate about. And then in so in 2005 is when really this vortex look and feel um came on, but the warranty, the service, the margins to dealers, you know, just uh just everything that we was already in. We already had that baked in. And one thing I think you'll really probably appreciate this and like this since we were a retailer before becoming a brand, I think a lot of people would have thought that that would have been um a hindrance to us being successful. Like you've never been a brand before. But I gotta tell you, it turned out to be a superpower. We understood what retailers were going through and what they have to deal with. And and so we could, we when we worked with them, we worked with them in a way that it was always it couldn't just be the cut and consumer's success. The retailer also had to be successful, and they were our partner in being successful, and so it was it was really all of their success. So if our retailer said, Hey, I got this situation with a customer, it was like, cool, how do we help? Like, let's make it happen. Let's make you an all-star with your customer. And so I think just that mentality, grinding it out over a long period of time, that's how we get here. And then along the way, we became a lot of independent retailers, top binocular, and spotting scope brand. And then they'd tell us, hey, that's awesome. But my biggest category is rifle scopes, which is why we got into rifle scopes. Same thing happened with rangefinders. So again, I'd love to be able to sit here and tell you we had this 30-year vision and 30-year plan, and it happened exactly. But as you know, that's not what happened. What we leaned into were was these little bits of people that would that, you know, uh our customer base or retailer base, they would kind of present something to us and say, you know, this is something maybe really good to think about, kind of like the butcher. Yep. And then we'd sort of lean into it. And whenever we went into something, if it didn't work, it would sting, but it wouldn't have taken the business down. So that that's like a way that we knew you we had to be in the game to really find out. So it's like, okay, we're gonna get into rifle scopes. We've never done rifle scopes before. So when we went into it, we went into it like we spent some money, we spent some time, we spent some energy. If it had blown up in our face, it would have stung, but the business still would have gone on. Now, obviously, how it turned out, it turned out to be great. Rifle scopes are now our biggest category. But so is it's very similar to your butcher shop story. That's kind of how we over 38 years, that's how we get here.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

So when you started off with the binoculars, yeah. First, first out of the gate with Vortex. Yep. How many how many options were there? Of just uh of rands in 2005, no, with Vortex.

SPEAKER_00 39:35

When you decided to oh how many options everything into Vortex, yeah, what was your we probably had so we had been in binoculars for a while before the Eagle Optics, so I think we might have had three or four series of binoculars. Okay. And then in rifle scopes, when we did that, it was two series. Two series. And uh in spotting scopes, it was just one. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And so and when you're playing. These orders, and your dad, because you guys have had the the customer service, the warranty a hundred percent from the very start. Yep. Was there a worry about how much that was gonna cost the business that or what did you bake that into the margins at the beginning? That and were your estimates kind of correct on how much of that stuff you were gonna get back?

SPEAKER_00 40:23

I think so. What my dad did a lot with the retail store is he would put I don't know, I should ask him this. I don't know if you ever consciously thought this, but uh observationally and historically, what he would do is he would make a decision that um forced him into a really um difficult situation where he had to come through. So for instance, and you you might have done this, but like let's say in the 90s, you know, or early, early, even early 2000s, Sarovsky would have like a spotting scope, and um, they'd be discontinuing it to bring in the new one. Okay. Well, as retailers, what a lot of times they love is exclusivity. Okay, right. And I don't want to be in price wars with everybody else. So they'd say, Well, I've got 1200 of these spotting scopes. And he's like, Well, what would be really sweet if I'm the only one selling those spotting scopes?

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

But are you but the kick the kicker is, are you willing to buy 1200? Well, my dad would buy 1200.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Um, and that's where he puts himself in this kind of impossible position. Yeah, but now he is, you know, it's pedal to the metal. We got to sell these spotting scopes, right? So we kind of did a little bit of that on the vortex side. He didn't buy enough, just like that Sarovsky example, that would have stung if we didn't sell those, right? But the business wouldn't have gone under. We leaned into product in the early days of Vortex like that. So, I mean, you know, you you got the your diamondbacks and your vipers, and it's like, okay, we're gonna lean into we think we think it's gonna work this way as far as the SKUs and the and the numbers. So we're gonna lean into you know, 400 of these, 400 of these, 800 of these, a thousand of these, and eight hundred of these, right? But we don't know how it's gonna break down. We think we know because we've got some historical, but maybe more of that's on the birding side. And it was like, hey, you got to get after that. And I think what he did, and it was really smart, and and and some people may not like this, but I think it was really smart. And and so we try to um, it's kind of like the let the rope out analogy, is he kept a lot of the stress just for him. Okay. So the financial stress just for him. He really felt like people would his employees would perform their best if they didn't feel the weight of the world on their shoulders. Yeah. So the weight of the world was on his shoulders. So it took a couple of years before he would even transfer some of that weight onto his own son's shoulders and like say, okay, here's what's going on a little bit. Because he was always afraid that people would freak out and be like, oh my gosh. And then their performance would be, you know, wouldn't be as good when they interact with customers. And so I actually think that was really smart. Where I think sometimes people don't like it is they're like, Well, I want full transparency. And it's like, I don't think you do actually.

Creating Vortex And Choosing A Focus

SPEAKER_01 43:09

That that that's amazing that he took all that on himself and recognized that. Yeah. Because that I think for most, there's some people that are like, okay, that's gonna make them work harder. Like, we got to do this, right? We're gonna, but most people, you're right, they're gonna be more hesitant. Right. And they're like, Well, I can't screw up because Dan's gonna lose everything if I make the wrong choice here. Well, and so giving him that freedom, yes, it's huge.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

And so for him, so we've never had anybody work on commission. Um, and we've never had um, so what he really wanted, he was always playing the long game. So my dad was always about the long term, we call it the infinite game. So is is what he wanted is when you were a customer that came in, he's like, just serve them how they need to be served. So, but if all of a sudden you're on commission or all of a sudden you have this quota you got to hit at the end of the month, you're performing, performing, you're serving them in a completely different way now. Yeah, because you have that pressure going in the background. So he didn't want people to have that. He wanted them to be freed up to just serve them where they're at, right? Just serve them how they want to be served. And and and then and then long term it will take care of itself. And what he would say, because our family is very faith-based, what he would say, and this applies to the warranty too, which we're known for, is he said, if us do if us being a retailer or a brand, if that's who we are, and and we go out of business because of it, well, we weren't meant to be in business to begin with. Yeah, so that's what that's what he would he was saying. But he was he also thought, but I don't think that's what's gonna happen. I think the byproduct of of serving people that way is going to be that we're successful. I don't know how successful we're gonna be. We may not be number one, we might, but I think we'll be successful. But yeah, he kept the stress component very isolated to himself.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

And so as now as you start growing forward, the the warranty is a huge selling point. Yep. Is there ever a time you guys get frustrated that people just talk about the warranty and they don't talk about the quality of product?

SPEAKER_00 45:19

So it's been years, it's been years for me per I'll talk about me personally, yeah, and then I'll maybe say try to speak somewhat on behalf of the company. So early on in Vortex, um, so I was uh I was newly married and I was going to the Illinois Deering Turkey Expo in Champaign, Illinois. And we didn't have we had hardly any retailers back then. So a lot of times we would, if we didn't have any retailers at the show, we would set up and we'd sell out of the out of the booth until we had a retailer. So I went down there with my wife and we're and we're selling. Um, and I and I I have the sales background. My wife is just going to support me, but she's working, right? And she is absolutely kicking my butt sales-wise. Okay. And so I'm competitive and I don't I mean, she's cuter than I am, but I don't think that was the whole reason she was selling, right? You know, and I and and and and so I asked her, I said, you know, you know, you know, Susan, why are you, you know, like selling so much? And she was said, you know, Joe, here's the thing. You keep talking about specifications and features and benefits. And she goes, like, I just keep it easy. I just talk about the VIP warranty. And then she also said, like, that's pretty much all I know, either. You're like, I don't know all those specs and numbers you're talking about. And I say where I say, Yeah, honey, I know I love our warranty. I know it's a big deal, but I want people buying our stuff because it's really good. Like, it's actually not gonna break, it's really well made. And I want them to buy it for those reasons. So I didn't really get it. So then a couple weeks go by, and we were just kind of getting started with Sportsman's warehouse. Um, and um, so we would go and visit the headquarters, and then if we could, we'd always go to the stores. And I loved going to the stores because I like to talk to people behind the counter and that that sell the product and really understand. So we asked the buyer, okay, who's like what's the store to go to? Which one, you know, should who should we talk to? And he's like, This I forget which store, but it's John you got to talk to. It's this older guy, he sells more vortex than anyone, you know. Uh and uh so we go to the store and I talk to this John guy, and he's like a grizzly Adams meets Santa Claus mashup, old, just wise, sage guy. And I'm talking to him and I say, John, people tell me you're the best-selling, you know, optics guy in the whole company, and and you just love and sell vortex. And I say, you know, what's your secret? And he looks at me and I swear he's got like a twinkle in his eye, and he's like, I just tell him about that VIP warranty. And I'm like, what? And I'm like, and I went through the whole spiel I went through with my wife, you know, but I want them thinking, I want them knowing the product is good and it's gonna, and he says, like, hey, Joe, that's all great, but I just kind of keep it simple and I tell them about the VIP warranty. So long storyline, I won't go super into it, but I was reading a book, it's actually in that, it's a switch book right over there on the on the on the counter. And there is this article or I mean chapter in there about bright spots, okay? And the whole idea about bright spots um is that when you find a bright spot uh uh in in anything, what a lot of times people do is they take it for granted. They're like, okay, that's a bright spot, that's working well. Let's put that there and let's go put out the fire over here, right? And what their argument in the book was was no no no no no no. Okay, if this is on fire and the building's, you know, going to go up in flames, by all means put out that fire. But if you have a bright spot, you got to mine that sucker for gold. Like you double, triple, quadruple down on that bright spot. And they made a case, a strong case, that in most cases, your bright spot, you have not leaned into it enough. And for whatever reason, in that context, it clicked for me. And I thought, holy smokes, the VIP warranty is our bright spot. And then I can tell you in the cubicle I was in, I was looking around at our counter mats, at our POP stands, at the the the little uh risers that the binoculars sat on, everything. Our catalog, I was looking at it. There was nothing on the VIP warranty. Nothing. And I already knew the answer, but I went back in the in the warehouse, I grabbed our box, I was looking all around for the VIP warranty, nothing, which I already knew. And so we I greenlit in that moment, it was like VIP warranty on everything. And um, so it was already our best marketing tool, but we poured gasoline on it, and we've done that ever since. So for me, at from that moment on, you can't talk about the VIP warranty enough. But I do think every now and again, I think overall people know that here. I certainly preach that, but I do think every now and again people will kind of fall victim to what I did in that moment at that Champagne, Illinois was like, no, like I want them saying the edge-to-edge clarity is the best in the business. I want them to say the brightness is the best in the business. I want them saying all these things, and really that's the ego getting in the way. Yeah. And so sometimes it's just best to just shut up and lean into what your customer's leaning into. And if they're talking about the VIP warranty and they're all excited about it, by all means, just keep talking about that.

Early Product Lines And Calculated Risks

SPEAKER_01 50:24

Well, and so from a retailer's perspective, yes, please. 90% of my customers don't know any of the specifications. Right. Yes. They're just looking for something they they don't care about the specifications. They want something that's going to perform. And if there's something wrong with it, they know they can get it fixed. Right. It's a really basic, simple, they they have their price point. And okay, this one's$400, this one's a thousand. Yeah, I can't do a thousand dollars, but four hundred dollars. So what are the ver where what are my options in four hundred dollars? And they'll look through them and they can they can see the clarity, they can see, and then it kind of and yeah, you look at this one here. If anything goes wrong with it, yeah, if you run over it with your truck, if drop it off a building, they're gonna fix it.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Yeah, and fast. And fast. And no fine print. No fine print check it out.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Does it matter? And and it was so the first time that I uh I had to deal with the warranty, I think it was a crossfire scope. Okay. Uh it was uh Ray Stokes, he was uh head coach of basketball in Wrangle. I he coached when I was in high school, so he'd played against him, and then I'd coached against him when I was a JV coach. And he came into the store and he was looking, he's like, What's this vortex thing? And I told him, I said, and he so he bought him and he got back to Wrangle. And he called me. He says, Doug, this one scope isn't working. The one works great, the other one doesn't. I said, Here's the 800 number call them, they'll take care of you.

SPEAKER_03 51:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

He called me two weeks later, he says, I already got this back. They've already fixed it and got it back. I said, Yeah, they yeah, they told me it was gonna be good, but I was like, Wow, that's really good. Yeah, and then over the over time, it kept happening again and again. And there's a guy that um, you know, you've got in your customer service, Larry Whipperfirth, who I knew when he was a buyer through Worldwide Distributors, he was the one that introduced me to Vortex binoculars. He's like, Hey, you should really give these guys uh or optics, you you should give them a uh uh a try. And so now he's working for you in customer service. Yep, and a guy had called in from Haynes and said he's got an issue. Larry called me, he says, Hey, do you have one of these in stock? I said, Yep. He says, Okay, I'm gonna send the guy in because he was leaving the next day for hunt or something. Yeah. So the guy comes in, I flip out the scope for him. Larry sends me the uh uh shipping label, send it back. He's like, What do I owe you? I was like, Well, nothing. Vortex, and he was just like, Wait, what? Yeah, I was like, Yeah, no, it's covered. Yeah, and then two years ago when I came back here to do training with you guys, yeah, going through your showroom and throughout the building, you have all these displays of different things, like rangefinder got run over by a guy's lawnmower.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Yeah, or somebody like accidental uh discharge of a firearm and it and it went through the spotting scope.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Went through the spotting scope. Yeah, yeah. And you guys cover that.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Right. Yeah. And we turn them into stories. You turn them into stories.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but looking at that, that can't be inexpensive. No. And so, okay, so is that like your number one advertising campaign is just your warranty?

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Um not in a way, I wouldn't call it formal. It's just, it's so much the spirit of who we are. So yes, it is. Um, I always tell uh I just talked to our marketing director the other day, is like, no one's gonna outstory us. And so we want to lean into things that like make a moment and a story for an individual. And then when they tell us about their story, we want to magnify it. So, but yeah, it is. So here's what I think is the truth. And and and so I think product performance-wise, I think we make the best optics, okay? I uh but but but you can get another good optic from one of our competitors, yeah. Right? I don't think you should. I think you should choose Vortex, but they're within spitting distance of one another. And every now and again, you're gonna have a product that comes out that is maybe light years better than something else in the market, but very soon a couple of their competitors are gonna get something again within that kind of spitting distance. So we really believe that what sets us apart is our people and the interactions they have with other people, or even the people that do product are product people in um how they make a product. So, for instance, it might be an electronic product. How do they make the menu so it's the easiest one to use on the market for the customer? So we want to infuse that in everything that we do. So, yeah, so when it's the VIP warranty that probably gets the biggest amount of press, but it's really a VIP experience that we want to give. So whether you walk in our showroom, you call us up, you have that warranty issue, is like we have a sense of urgency to make that right for you. And we think, first of all, as we talked earlier before the podcast, you really want people to get to a point where that is they're only doing it for the reason because that's the right thing to do. And those people matter. But it just so happens that a byproduct of that is you get customers for life, you get people that are loyal to your brand, they're your biggest marketing person um in their community with their circle of people. And so, so yes, everything the VIP warranty is like the tip of the sphere, but everything is around is is us as people, we and serving other people. And a lot of people, I think, talk about service and they talk about it in a way that's subservient. And for us, service is a superpower.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Yeah. So I want to get back into that.

SPEAKER_00 55:43

Oh, should we get to the cost?

SPEAKER_01 55:44

I want to get to the well, if if you want, have you?

SPEAKER_00 55:47

I'll just say I don't we we track it just because you have to kind of track everything in a business. Yeah, but similar to my dad with the stress piece, there's only that you can count them on one hand, people that would know what our warranty costs. Um, because I don't want anybody to look at it from a perspective of we need to look to save money. We need to look save money because it costs a lot because we want the experience of it to be good. So when you talked about Larry and you talked about getting it back in in less than two weeks up to Alaska, the warranty, like I think we have a cool warranty name. I think we have great copy behind it, but that's not your warranty. Your warranty is what it actually feels like for a customer or a dealer on the other end. And so, so yeah, as we've grown, we've had to grow grow our binocular repair team and our rifle scope repair team and our customer care team. So it costs a lot of money, but relative to what we um have grown because of something like that, it's very small. But it is hard from a metric standpoint to prove that. Oh, here's all this growth that we've had. It's because of this warranty. And I don't want anybody to get in there and try to do it one way or the other. Yeah. And I'll tell you this one other thing, real quick, because this is really key. Is so my dad, when he sold those other brands at Eagle Optics, he would sell a product to somebody. And you know this. Sometimes you sell binocular and that might take you 45 minutes to an hour. The person wants to understand I have eyeglasses. That means I twist them back or do I have them down? You know, how do I do this? You know, all the things. Then they spend several hundred dollars with you. Well, what would happen with one of these other brands is something would happen and it would break. And then they'd come back into my dad and be like, you know, I've been trying to call this company. They won't return my phone call. Um, or they gave me a bill that was more expensive than the binocular that I bought from you. Well, my dad was embarrassed. He's like, That's my customer. I sold him that. He had a little bit more clout, so he would go to the brand and try to make it right. And about maybe 50% of the time he could, but 50% of the time he would just make it right on his own expense. And so he said, if we ever have a brand, we're gonna take care of it for him. Yeah, no questions asked, no expense for the customer, for the retailer. And then when we did that, that's where he got to the point and he said, Hey, uh, what I'll tell you a story. So he's at a show, um, one of the bigger shows in in the world, and and and I won't say who, uh, but uh the CEO at the time of the largest brand in sport optics, um, kind of cornered him in a in a in a in a hallway. Uh, and he had known my dad because Eagle Optics was a pretty large independent retailer. And he said, Hey, hey, Dan, you gotta get rid of that warranty. You're gonna be out of business in a year. And so if you know my dad, he's pretty stoic. He doesn't, you know, he just kind of smiled and walked away, um, even with more resolve that we were gonna do it. Yeah. But again, he had this thing that it was like, if that put us out of business, we weren't we're supposed to be in business anyways. So that's why I don't really it it's not relative to what we make as a business from a gross or a profit standpoint, it's very small. But I I don't I don't want many people to even know that number of what we ex because I don't want them to even start thinking that, oh, how do we save money by pulling things back?

SPEAKER_01 59:10

So I want to go into that customer care part a bit a little bit, but before that, what's with the warranty? Yeah, what is the craziest story story on a warranty that you're like, I can't believe they were doing that with the with that optic or is yeah, is there something out there that you're just like, wait a second here?

The VIP Warranty As A Bright Spot

SPEAKER_00 59:27

So I'll tell a couple stories and then I'll tell you one thing that just to highlight our repair team that I think is kind of cool. And it's a story that kind of repeats itself a lot. But we shared this actually on social media. So this this is a cool story, especially with Veterans Day, just right around the corner. So we had a guy, Chris Bagner, and he sent um he sent his Viper uh binoculars back in with a note on it. And on that note, he said, If you can't repair this pair, I I I I don't want you to replace them. I want you to send this one back. This one has a lot of meaning to me. Um, he said an IED went off in Afghanistan and um essentially blew up this pair of optics, and he didn't say blew up me, but essentially did. I mean, he was he it was in the ICU for you know months on end. And he said, So this pair that I use to spot IEDs and so so on and so forth, um, it's it has a lot of sentimental value.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

So our repair team got that, and they they're I mean, we're all about this creator experience thing over here, right? So they're like, we we can't just like send them a new one and send them this one back and be like, hey, here you go. Like that would have been great, but it's like we gotta elevate this. So they kind of they kind of you know ran it up the chain, or however you want to say that. And we were like, Oh, we gotta, we gotta make this a big thing, we gotta make a cool experience. So we actually reached out to him, was like, hey, what if we flew you out here? We gave you a big tour, the full Wisconsin experience. We've got, we've got, trust me, you'll have that pair back. We'll have a new pair, and we're just gonna make it a cool like several days. So he's like, Yeah, let's do it. So sure enough, we bring him in, give him the grand tour, we take them down to the old fashioned on the square, give them the full Wisconsin experience that you're getting uh now. And um, and it was his idea to do a video on the VIP warranty and his experience. And sure enough, we did that. Um, and you know, because we just wanted to just show him how important he was and and what that story meant for us and and understanding what it meant meant for him. So we we did a video, we did that several years ago, but I I did kind of a story on social media and reshared it and it just exploded. Um, because I think a lot of people could resonate with that and just understand like um that's a really cool story about Chris, you know, and also that's a cool story about how a company showed up in a very personal way around their customers. So I think that's a story that really sticks with me. But there's stories about, you know, again, somebody's firearm went off and shot through their spotting scope, and they still used it. It was no longer purged with Argon. Yeah, but and then they'd send a picture of the buck that they got, and then they'd be like, but now I'm sending it back because I need to get this repaired. So I mean, there was stuff in fires, there's stuff in floods. Um, but one of the things that happens more often than you think, and I don't know if you've ever experienced this with one of your customers, is every now and again, um, somebody's dog chews up their binoculars. And so we probably get 10 to 20 a year where a dog chews them up. Like you can still use them, but they're all chewed up, right? And most people are like, you're not gonna warranty this. Like, and they send a picture of their dog, and you know, it's like Fido mangle this. And I I totally get if you don't warranty this. Well, we do, and so we'll repair them or replace them. Most of the time, we repair them because those guys are magicians in our repair department and it looks brand new. But uh, we after a while, we got so many that those guys wanted um dog chew toys, and so they would send the new pair back or the repaired pair back, but with a dog chew toy and a note and be like, hey, next time give Fido this instead of that. So I just love the fact that we have people on all different nooks and crannies of this business that they're leaning into just kind of this very personalized, very unique experience for a customer that you really it's hard to find anywhere else.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

So, on top of that, two months ago, I had a guy in the store. Okay, didn't want any other, he said, I just want a vortex. Yep. And he was telling the story that his dog chewed up his binoculars. Okay, yeah, sent him back, right? They send him a dog toy back with the binoculars, say, Hey, maybe like you were saying, he said within a week, the dog destroyed the dog toy. Yeah, and he called up just kind of joking. He's like, Yeah, and they're like, they sent him two more. Yeah, he's like, I cannot believe this. He said they chewed up my binoculars and then they send me the new binoculars and the toy. Yeah, he says, I'm never buying another optics, right? He said, This is this is it. But it was kind of funny when you're when you're telling me the story about this, like, I just had a guy that exact same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:06

Yeah, it's crazy that you know, I mean, you know, I guess it's not when you have dogs, but yeah, that we get a fair amount of those. And and yet, but again, for those guys to lean in. And then Jake, um, I think just was the one recently who upgraded that dog chew toy. And so a dog chew toy actually looks like a binocular. Yes. Um, yeah, so uh yeah, they're always trying to find ways to do uh something that is really unique and memorable for a customer.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:30

Yeah, and and and so along with that, as you as you grow, you know, that's one thing when you've got a small family business, yeah, and everybody's all in on the customer and having that ethos that we're taking care of everybody. Yeah. You've got what, four, four hundred and fifty employees now? Right. To carry that over when you're in your hiring process, that's gotta be tough to make sure that you keep that same mindset with everybody that's coming in as you're growing.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:01

Yeah. So, I mean, this is something that we talk about. So we've got uh we've got a flywheel, which is our strategy, and there's different stops along the flywheel. And the idea is that you keep pushing on the flywheel and again eventually it creates this unstoppable momentum. And the first stop on the uh flywheel is what we call dialed in, and it's all about dialing in the team, okay? And that's really talking about dialing in around a shared belief and around alignment. So we call it the alignment effect. And um, and so before we even want to know, let's say you're a creative, you're in graphics, before we want to even see your portfolio, or before we want to even look at your resume. I'm not a big resume guy, but that's you know, before we want to understand your skill set, we need to understand do you see the world the way that we see it from a belief standpoint? And so one of those beliefs is you gotta love people. You gotta like people, you gotta like serving people. You don't necessarily need to be an extrovert or walk around with a Cheshire grin on your face. You don't that that that's not what I'm talking about. But you have to love people and serving people. And so if that's not something that you're into, like if you just want to be a hired gun and you're gonna do a really good job, but you're expected to make a lot of money and you could care about anything in between. Like, I I I don't hate you, but but but don't apply.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:18

This isn't the place.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

This is not the place for you, right? Like there it there is a there's places for you where that's and I I fully believe that companies should just own who they are. If that's all you care about is just the bottom line, own it. Tell your employees, tell and and they'll make the decision. But for us, making money or being profitable, that's on the list, but it's not the tops on the list or the full list. And and so we have we we are really looking for shared belief. And I think, you know, and of course we're not perfect, but I think we've done a pretty good job of that of ferreting out people that um that don't believe what we believe and keeping people that that do. But you're right, like it 435 people is harder than 35 people or 10 people. It is more difficult, but I think if you have the mentality of like we're we're we're hiring for alignment, we're hiring for shared belief. I think to the extent that you can we can keep that going or a company can keep that going, is where they can keep that culture strong.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:21

Because the one thing that's impressed me from the whole time dealing with Vortex, there's a lot of companies that claim they have great customer service that they don't. Yeah. And and and so to actually deliver it and and not only sustain it, but to increase the component of that customer service. It it's not like you guys are staying static. It seems like each year there's something else that, oh yeah, we're doing this. Oh yeah, we're doing this. Right. And uh you you just keep building on that momentum, not only within the company, but that customer service aspect and being in retail dealing with customers, I I'm like, how do they come up with this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

You just keep growing that. And we were talking before before we came on here. The one that really hit me was this fall when I got a picture in a vortex frame, wood vortex frame of me on my uh stag hunt in New Zealand. Yeah. And I'd sent that to Seamus and Larry because they'd helped me get a pair of binoculars. I'd emailed them the photo after after that, and you know, it was a year and a half ago. And then all of a sudden, this out of random just shows up. Yeah, and it was just a few weeks before my dad passed, and just because he was the one that wanted me go on that hunt. Yeah. He was what and he's like, Hey, do you want to take your mom? And so I took my mom on that hunt. And so just the emotions behind that, the way that that hit, yeah. I need I didn't, I'm guessing it was Larry. I forgot to ask him yesterday, but on Monday I'm gonna ask him, I was like, Hey, was that you that was behind that? Yeah, yeah. Just to just to let him know right the impact that had on me, right? Not only as a as a retail customer, because I I carry a lot of Vortex products myself, but also selling them to just see that personal touch of like I wasn't buying anything or anything like that. It's like, here's a picture. It's yeah, it's got our name on the frame. Right. But I hope you remember that great experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:20

Yeah. That was that was I appreciate you sharing that because that is so we we we we we both own businesses, and um there's nothing wrong with the business from the metric standpoint and sales, um, profitability being good. It's it's good to have a healthy business like that. But you know, at one point, all of us are gonna die. The mortality rate is hovering around 100%.

unknown 1:09:46

Okay.

Stories That Turn Customers Into Fans

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

And and I, you know, it is, it might sound cliche, but you know, our our our lives were gonna want at that point uh more than just, man, this was the most profitable optics company in the world, right? You know, like I like that's cool, that's on the list, but I don't want that at the top of the list. I want a bunch of moments that I played a small part, like that you just said, and that will I will have had a full life. I will have had a great life if I could have played a small part in this big moment for this person, if I could have leaned into that moment and just made it a little bit extra special. That's what I'm gonna take with me. That's how I'm gonna know I've lived a good life. And the interesting thing is, is I think we call it connection, creates momentum. So if I'm focused on connection, which is connection with another person, authentic human connection, the byproduct of that is you feel momentum. I mean, you could just feel it the way you were speaking, right? What how it made you feel. We've I feel momentum hearing that story, right? Like I'm walking out of here and I've I've it's like a shot on my arm of just that was awesome. And then it just so happens that it's good for the business, right? Is you have people that are like, why would I, you know, why would I go with another brand? So I think, I think to the extent that people can lean into authentic human connection, we just make the world a better place. And so that's where we try to hire people like that. So Larry, I think you're right. Larry probably did that, and because he just knew, like, oh, this is a this is a big deal for Doug. I think it's super cool. I know the backstory. You guys have known each other for years, right? And and sometimes you just like I have a feeling that this is just gonna hit really well for him right now. And he he could probably really use this right now. And he doesn't know that you're gonna tell the story on a podcast, and that doesn't matter. I mean, it's wonderful you did, but that's not the reason he did it. The reason he did it is because he actually cared about you and you felt that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:38

And and and that's what I get with so many interactions with people at Vortex.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Throughout the whoever, whoever it is I'm talking to, um that they're not just there for the customer support. Yeah, it's because I'll I'll call and I'll need I'll have a question for a customer or something at the store, like, hey, what about this? And they're not trying to get on the next call. Yeah, yeah. They're there, it's like, anything else you need? Right. Can we help with this? Is there any other questions? Do you want to talk? And it's it, and they're invested beyond just answering that first question.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Yeah, and we don't track like, well, it's somewhere in the metric sheet, but we don't look at it. Like, we don't track each each person who's on the phones and like how long are you on the phone? Oh, and Kenny, you know, you're on the phone, you know, 10 minutes longer on average than everybody else. Let's get that like no. The phone call is as long as the phone call needs to be, right? And so you just meet them where they're at. And so, you know, if some guy is on the phone and he wants to go on and on about his hunt, that that's what he needs then. And you just need to listen. And and and and but but also you hire somebody who you know likes to listen. You hire somebody who's like, Oh, you're talking about your stag hunt. I'd love to hear about your stag hunt. So you're actually off hiring somebody that that's authentic to them. You know, every once in a while, I remember we had this one guy, good guy, worked for us for a long time, he's retired now. But we had him on phones, and you know, he'd be on there and and and somebody'd be talking for a little bit, and he'd say, Yes, and what's your question? You know, and he said, I okay, and what's your question? So it's like, so fortunately he was really great um engineering, and so he we got to put him in repairs. So he wasn't on the phone with the customers, you know. So he had a great impact on the business, but you know, you know, cutting somebody off and saying, What's your question? That's transactional, right? That that's not what we're here for. So sometimes you're on a marathon phone call. Well, guess what? The customer just needed to be on a marathon phone call. And and and and they feel that, like they, hey, you know, even sometimes when they write in, they'll be like, you know, uh, you know, Kenny was listening to me drone on and on, and you know, probably was like, you know, I'm surprised he stayed awake. But it really meant a lot that he listened to me and he got excited about the things that I was excited about.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:54

And that while you're speaking about that, that hit on something that um when I was mayor and we had the slide, one of the things, because there's a lot of people that were extremely the way that they were talking and stuff was extremely angry. And one of the um mental health experts that was helping us through that, yeah, was mentioning, he's like, you don't know what stresses another person is under. And this is something I'd realized in myself. I used to have a really bad temper that'd fly off the handle things, and people's like, you know, this is really not helping anybody. And it and tracing it in my own mind, I realized it wasn't always what happened in that moment, but it was a lot of other things that built up to that moment.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:39

And so I think there's a lot of times that people just need to be heard when they have an issue with something, yeah, that they can call in screaming this doesn't work. But just having somebody listen to them because it's whatever other stressors, they've got a sick parent, they've got a sick kid, somebody uh somebody passed away recently in the family, kids struggling at school, they somebody just lost a job. That that connection, or the person that's on the lawn that wants to tell the hunting story for an hour, they're also reminiscing about a hunting story from when they were with their dad. Exactly, or somebody else, and they don't have that person to share it with. Yep. And so filling that role goes beyond just the optics. Totally. But you guys are telling in that way, it's not about optics. It's not about the optics, it is not about the optics at all. You are just being there uh as another human being for other human beings and allowing them just whatever emotions they need to express.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:43

And that that's a rare gift that a company can give to their customers.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:49

Yeah, and I think I'm so glad that you said that. You said so well. Yeah, so it sounds squishy, but people want to be seen, heard, and valued. They want to feel like they're important. And the reality is they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:02

Uh, you know, but it's hard for them to feel important a lot of times because with you look at social media and everything who's getting all the hits and likes or the thumbs up and the hard emojis, whatever, right? That it it can be really easy to feel less than you are in today's society.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:18

I agreed. And I think what a lot of times, what I would like to see businesses change, but it's gonna take some courage, is is to realize when you push metrics to the center, the most important part, right? Now the focus shifts away from human connection. So now all of a sudden it's like, well, you know, if I hire another person on the phones and then that's 30% more than their salary for benefits, and I've got to get a local seat for them, and I've got to get a computer and a phone and all that kind of stuff. So I need to make sure that people on the phones can really only go about 10 minutes. And after that, you know, you better wind it up, right? Because then otherwise I got to hire a new person. I can't afford a new person. So it's understandable those things to go through your head. Okay. So it's I'm not saying that you shouldn't ever think of those things. But that type of thinking pushes metrics to the forefront, and metrics are very cold and transactional. And the irony is by making metrics the center, what happens is the human connection part gets snuffed out and you get a very transactional experience. And what's the byproduct of a very transactional experience? It's not loyalty. It's not, it's not customer satisfaction. It it's it's it it's uh I may never shop with you again, or I'm certainly not loyal to shopping with you again. So the byproduct is actually those metrics get worse. The very thing you put in the center actually gets worse. Whereas if you shift and you can trust and have faith in it, you still gotta keep an eye on your metrics. But when you have faith and say, you know, I'm gonna build a company that's based off of human connection. And I sell optics and and we make the best optics in our opinion, but actually it's not about optics. Our business is about people, our employees, our customers. You put that at the center. Now all of a sudden the byproduct is the metrics get better. The metrics get better. So you see, it's it's it's a paradox. What's up is down, and what's down is up sometimes. And so, yes, I'd love to see other businesses sh do that shift, but I understand it's gonna take a lot of courage to do that. But I hope that we can be a catalyst for other businesses doing that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:26

Well, and interesting you brought that up because I was do you s do you feel there's any threat to Vortex in the optics world by other companies adopting some of your principles, or is that gonna be such a huge shift with the ships that they're steering that you guys have kind of cornered that and it's gonna be really hard for somebody else to make way in the So I hope they do.

Service As Strategy, Not Slogan

SPEAKER_00 1:18:49

I hope they do. And because you know why? It'll just force us to get better. And then who wins? Everybody wins. So I hope they do. Now, if you were to just twist my arm for an answer, I think most won't. I think most won't. Um I I think it's uh they're very difficult decisions to make. I think um if you if you haven't been going that way, if you didn't start that way, because you might go back a little bit before you go forward, right? Especially if you've been going all metrics forever, and then it's like, oh, we got to re-jigger. It this is a whole mind shift, uh not just a mindset shift, it's everything shifting. And so sometimes you have to go a little bit down before you go forward, and you got to be committed to it long term. So, for instance, let's say you have a great warranty, but not just in writing, you've hired people internally to do the repairs, you've hired people on the customer care phones and so on and so forth, right? You're not gonna get a return on that right away. You see that that like my dad wasn't watching, and I'm not watching, you know. If A, we have this warranty, then B, and I'm gonna need that to show up in six months. Or what's the quarter look like? What's the quarter look like? No, you he was committed to that. That's just how we're gonna. Be. So he was committed long term, and very few people are going to make that commitment long term. I hope they do because I think the world is a better place. And our so our vision is to be the catalyst that improves the world through service. So you better believe it. If you're a competitor, if you're not a competitor, if you're a restaurant, I don't care. I hope we can be inspired inspirational for people to whether they call it care and create a rare experience. I actually don't care. It's the spirit of it that I care about. So I hope everybody does it. And then our mission is care, create a rare experience. And so that's how we do that is we create these highly personalized, memorable experiences. And some of them aren't. Sometimes we get a phone call from somebody and he says, Hey, what's the close focus on the crossfire binocular? You know, it's five feet. Okay, thanks. Click. No, no, no, wait, let's connect. You know, you wouldn't do that. It'd be super creepy. Yeah. But but when you have the moments, like you have somebody who's a dealer of ours, who's been a dealer for a long time, you've got a good connection with, he sends you a stag, a picture about a stag hunt. You know about kind of what's going on with him and his family, and you say, Hey, I get I got I I got I'm gonna lean into this, and you maybe don't think about it this directly, literally, but you think, you know, like I see you, Doug. Yeah, like I see you in this email. I see, I see what you're going through. And and and maybe I didn't go through the exact same thing, but I've kind of been through stuff before. I just want you to know I see you, like I I hear you, man. And what's a way I can tangibly do that to show up? Be like, oh, he's got this cool picture. Let me print that out, let me put it in a frame, let's let's write him a letter and just send it to them. And now he just knows he's seen. And again, if that results in loyalty, if that results in him doing a post on social media, so be it. But if not, that's okay. I just showed up for Doug today. That was it, and that's all that mattered. So I hope more people do that. I don't want it to be a secret. I you I'm on social media and stuff, and I'm giving away the playbook. I'm giving away the playbook. I hope our competitors do it. And I don't mean that in a cocky way. I don't. I mean that in a way that I think the we want the world to be a better place. And I think the world is a better place when people are showing up that way, whether it's in business or just in life.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:10

And I so I I contrast Vortex to kind of like the Jack Welch school of management where it's metrics, metrics, metrics. We gotta get as tight as we can. It's cutthroat. And and and I think you look at a lot of the publicly traded companies out there, it's all short term, short term. Where's our stock price at? Where's our stock price at? Right. And a case example of that for me. Um I'm not a business expert or anything, but just looking at the outside is you look at Boeing. That used to be the gold standard. They merged with McDonnell Douglas, they start going, they changed the culture of the company. It went from an engineering company. Now it's more of the accountants seem to be running the company. Now they start having problems with planes, and you know they're having a lot of difficulties by veering away from that thing that made them great. Right. And so that's you know, as you're moving forward, yeah, to maintain that because you're you're not going to be here forever, like we were talking earlier. You know, death's kind of a hundred percent thing. And so going to that next step into leadership of Vortex, right, that third generation, if that's where it goes, how do you instill that same ethos for the decades to come?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:23

I mean, it really is that alignment effect, it's a shared belief. So I want I want everybody, but I want a critical mass of people that that um that that care is just infused in them. Um and and um it's just in their DNA, right? And because what happens is every time every now and again, if you make somebody who isn't a culture fit, who isn't aligned with what you're doing, well, guess what? To use a Jim Collins uh ism is like uh the the culture ejects them like a virus.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:53

Yeah, right?

Hiring For Belief And Culture

SPEAKER_00 1:23:53

The culture is like, oh no, no, no, that's not how we do things around here, right? Like, like, like metrics are important, but they don't run the show. They're not number one on the list, like they're on the list, but they're not number one. And you're and you you are well intentioned, so they're not necessarily bad people, but but your focus is on this thing, and that thing that you're focused on just so happens to be the byproduct. What we're focused on is this thing. So I think to the extent that you can create a groundswell inside your business of people that all have that bought-in thing, you protect yourself uh from somebody coming in and again, probably well-intentioned, but really hurting the culture. So for me, I have a lot of leaders around me, and they don't get to be a leader unless I feel like they have that. You know, they don't, they don't get they don't get to be a leader. And, you know, we we've got, you know, uh people in line. If, you know, God forbid I get hit by a bus that that would step in that this is not new, care is not new. Uh, you know, understanding what makes this place tick is not new to them. They understand that. And so, uh, so yeah, I but I'm I'm highly focused on keeping that culture going, uh, you know, the in the infinite game sense for forever. I think that's always, and here's another thing too that I would say for somebody who's just thinking about this. I think that is actually building your business off of principles versus tactics. So tactics are changing all the time. Tactics are very specific. In this situation with these sorts of variables, you navigate it this way. And I'm not saying that the tactics are bad, but what I'm saying is superior is principles. So a good example of a principle is treat other people the way you want to be treated. The lack of specificity is a is a feature, not a flaw. I can use that golden rule. I can use it anywhere at any time. And I and because it's a principle. And I think there's a principle of when you have other people's back, they tend to have yours. And that we could go through all kinds of principles. So our business really isn't made like we'll come up with really cool products and really cool technology, but that's not our business. Our business is principles. That's that's actually how you go from a Wild Birds Unlimited to being the largest sport optics brand in the world. Because you actually built yourself off principles. If we built it off of selling the most bird seed, then well, we would have just stayed at Wild Birds Unlimited. Now, that doesn't mean we don't love optics. We do. We love hunting, we love shooting. Um, you know, we love we we live with the Second Amendment, we love all of that, but it's really the most central thing about us is is building off of principles. And so I think if we can do that and then hire people who believe that, they will keep that going. Um, but yeah, if we get, if we take our eye off the ball, which can happen, you know, and we shift, um, then, you know, we could go um the way of other companies that are just, you know, all about the short term, all about the end of the quarter. Every decision is made about financial in the short term. And long term, you know, you're the whole culture, the whole spirit of the place just gets snuffed out. But I am very focused on that not happening.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:14

And that's as you keep bringing up, and I that's one of the things I want to talk about too. Yeah, care. Yeah. Yes. Create a rare experience. Yeah. So go. I think people that are listening probably have a pretty good idea of that right now from what you talk about. But more specifically, yeah. What brought that about? What are the what are the print core principles behind that create a rare experience?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:34

Yeah. So the care was an acronym that I I had heard, I think, in the mid-2000s. I still don't even know where I heard it from the first time. And, you know, and I remember Seamus and I would use that a lot, like creator experience. And it was this, it was an axiom that we would just use and and then we would share it with other people in the business. And everybody just kind of knew instantly, like, like creating your experience is like that that stag hunt photo that you sent, right? That's creator experience. Creator experience is when you send that um that dog chew toy to that customer, right? You're trying to lean into this very unique, memorable, personalized experience, very, very human experience. And so when we were going through and doing our vision mission stuff, it was cool because everybody was like, in the mission. So the vision is like the better world you want to create, right? And then the the the mission for us is how you get there. And everybody's like, it's care. It's like we all say it. And so I think the beauty of it is it it says it's very short, it's very easy to remember, but it means a lot. And I think that I think the unique thing is there is it's very personalized, it's very human, it's it's very unique, it's memorable, it it you know creates the first word. I believe every person is a creator. Um, and I think so it re it involves creativity, you know, to come up with something that's rare and unique. And I think um, so I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example, hopefully a very simplistic example for anybody that's listening. So let's take um Christmas cards, okay? And and I don't mean the personal ones, I mean the business ones. You know, a lot of times businesses will send Christmas cards and they'll get Christmas cards, okay? And I apologize to anybody that might get offended about this if they're doing Christmas cards the way that I say you shouldn't do them. But with that caveat, I'll lean in. Okay. So if you send a Christmas card to somebody and you're and you're thinking, well, we want to send out a Christmas card to 300 people this year, and that's a lot of cards. Okay, so let's do this. Let's come up with a cover, and then let's come up with some copy that we want to put on there, and then let's print it on every card and either and either send it out or I'll just sign my name to it and send it out. Well, why would you do that? Well, I'll tell you why you do that, because that's efficient. Yeah, right? It's efficient to print it on the card. Because after all, if I wrote on 300 cards, that's gonna take me, that's gonna be work. That's gonna take me time. And my answer to that is exactly. And when you don't put in the time and the work, somebody, you know, so usually if you get you get the printed Christmas card, you're kind of like, okay, thanks. You know, right? Yep. But what if instead you did 300, or maybe you just did 30, but you wrote something meaningful on every card in pen. And oh, by the way, when people jump in, they say, My handwriting stinks, people don't care about your handwriting stinks. They care that you put enough time and energy into writing that note and sending it off to them. So, what would be creator experience? Well, it wouldn't be the highly efficient way, and I would argue, what are you being efficient at? Sending a bunch of Christmas cards that nobody cares about? I'd rather be effective on sending something that's actually meaningful, like the stag photo in the frame with a handwritten note. Yeah. And and so that is a care. It's highly personalized. In today's day and age, it's very unique. It wasn't you maybe unique in 1950. It's very unique now, and it's very uh, and it's something that you essentially in this case, you had to create. You know, you had to write something out. So that's a very simplistic way. They can be big ways and they can be small ways. But the whole idea is that um, or I'll give you an example. Here's another example. Somebody calls up and says, Hey, I'm looking at this new Viper HD rifle scope, and I see that you added this new reticle. And it's it's great to see it on the website, but it's just against a white background. I'd love to see it against a natural background. And let's say Ryan Muckiner's on the phone, he's like, Can I put you on hold for a minute? I'm gonna, I'm gonna go make that happen right now. So he goes, grabs the scope from the showroom, goes outside, puts it up, takes his iPhone, snaps a photo, and then says, Hey, can I get your email, your cell phone number? I've got a picture of it right now. And he texts the guy right then and there. But but what would most people do in that situation? Most people would be like, Well, yeah, I mean, uh, you know, maybe once it gets out there, maybe there's gonna be some people in social media that'll do that. But right now, it's just that picture is on the website. Yeah, uh, okay, thanks. Now, is that person like super upset? Probably not, right? Probably not upset, but it's not a care experience. Well, he's super excited when he gets the picture, right? But yeah, but on the flip side, flip side is huge, is totally huge, right? Because it's rare, it's unique, it's memorable. And as the customer, whether you think of it consciously or unconsciously, you're like, I matter. They think I'm important enough. That guy thinks I'm important enough to get up from one of a hundred phone calls he might take today and go out there. And the reality is here's the cool thing though, too. If you're thinking about doing this in your business, in that example I just gave, that actually didn't take a lot of work. No. In today's day and age, it is a lot of work, but it really didn't take you a lot of work. Yeah, right. It's like I got up, I walked out, I know exactly where that piper rifle scope is. I grabbed it, I walked outside, I took a photo, I came back, I asked for your cell phone or your or your email, and I sent to you. Maybe five minutes. Maybe five minutes. Yeah. Right. So it really didn't take much. But this guy, and I've seen the letters. My dad called them love letters, so we still call them love letters. To your point earlier, everybody says they have good customer service. Nobody says, hey, here's the thing. We make the best products. Customer service, it's just okay. Yeah. Right. Everybody said, but the litmus test is what do your customers say? And I read, I get, I Rhonda, who leads our customer care, she compiles all of the notes from customers every week. There's usually between 30 and 50. And she emails those to me and to Seamus and a few other people Monday morning. And I look through every single one. So I know what people and and and and the reality is it doesn't take much. It doesn't take a lot of work for somebody to feel seen, heard, valued, and for them to say, I'm a customer for life. Somebody, somebody emails in, they're like, you know, I might be one of your best customers, and they'll send a photo. I just got a photo the other day of this guy. Is he saves all his product boxes? Uh-huh. So he's got the corner of his little man cave. He's got like 56. I think he counted 56 vortex product. And he's like, and I this is before I started saving the boxes. I have, you know, four of these and three of these, right? So this guy's over 60 some products of Vortex. Well, let's just do the math on that. This guy's tens of thousands of dollars into vortex, right? And then he sends me a photo of him and his family, his wife and his four boys, and they're all wearing Vortex stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:37

Yeah.

Independent Retailers And Long-Term Loyalty

SPEAKER_00 1:34:37

And and it's like a Vortex themed uh Christmas card. So I'm like, you know, I'm writing him this note back, and but I'm like, well, you know, like, so I'm like, hey, I need the shirt sizes of the boys and and your wife, you know. He said that. So I'm like, I don't know if I'm gonna send you stuff that you don't already don't own because it's it looks like you own everything. But you know, I sent him a care package, you know, I got hats, I got some ball caps, I got some winter hats, I got some hoodies and t-shirts, and again, hope some I got some sticker packs for some of the younger boys, and I'm sending that, but like I'm just stoked. Like, this customer of all the things he could have spent money on, he spent it on Vortex. Yeah, he saved the boxes, he took a photo, he took a Christmas card photo of his family. So, like, this we call it a bid for connection. He may not even know he's doing a bid for connection. Most people don't, but he's like trying to connect. Really, that's what's happening underneath the service. And I'm like, let's go. Like, let's do this. Like, I'm pumped that you think this highly of vortex that you took the time to send all that in and I'm gonna show up tangibly. That's care. That's what care is all about. So, so it's kind of um it doesn't have, I mean, our flywheel is a strategy. So that would really be like you know, you know, dial in the team, you know, focuses on the customer. Um, we've got uh I'm drawing a blank now, but uh, you know, we make customers for life. Um, we've got uh find other ways to to serve the customer, and then we've got um uh oh gosh, I'm drawing a blank. So we'll I will grab it. So we have a strategy, but really before you get to the strategy of care um with that flywheel concept, you really have to understand it at more of like a visceral speed, almost a spiritual perspective. And I think once you do that, it can be applicable, like the golden rule. Now I can apply care everywhere, you know, as opposed to like I have a checklist of care. Instead, you can kind of be like, okay, I'm going to this trade show, I'm gonna be meeting with all these dealers at worldwide that have been selling vortex forever. Like, how can I show up in that booth with those meetings I've scheduled in a way that really shows that I care about them? So that's really more care as opposed to kind of the GPS direction uh tactical way of doing it. Yeah. So hopefully that's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:59

Yeah, no, no, it fully explains it. Yeah. And and as you're going through that, I can customer stories, my own story. You can feel that through pretty much every interaction with people at Vortex, even as a on the dealer level. Yeah, when we do go to the shows, there they've always got Doug, we've got this program we're working on, we've got this program we're working on. It's it's very much how can we help you?

SPEAKER_00 1:37:25

Yeah, meet you where you're at.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:26

Meet you where you're at. And we're not a huge account for you guys.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:32

As as our store. Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:34

You're not?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:34

I know, I know, I know. I call them a lie to you so you can do this, but but when I'm dealing with Vortex, I feel like I'm a huge account. Yeah, and it there's a lot of there's a lot of companies that you deal with that you feel where your sales level.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:52

Yeah, like where how much are they selling? Yeah, okay, like all right, you got five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:55

Yeah, you know, yeah. You're you're you're here. Yeah. It's never felt that way from the very and I'm always whether it was when I first started dealing with Seamus or um uh now with Jake and that, yeah. And it it's it's like, okay, you're you're doing what for me? Right. Why why are you doing this? Uh and I I should expect it now, yeah, but it's still always a surprise to me. I'm like, I I don't deserve this. And it's a cool feeling to have as good as a small independent retailer that a lot of times gets overlooked, yeah, to have a company out there that's like, we got your back. How can we help you be successful?

SPEAKER_00 1:38:33

It's funny that you say that. So obviously we have that example of being a small independent retailer, right? Yeah. So that's partly why we kind of end up, you know, um, showing up that way with you. But I think the other thing too, and this is just something, you know, for people who who sell to retailers or uh, you know, um, is collectively small independent retailers collectively are big. They are massive. And the so the thing is, is that that was one of the things that my dad had had said. He said, Joe, we're not gonna go through distribution. We're only gonna go dealer direct. And he goes, It's gonna take longer that way. But he said, We want to have an in we want to have a relationship with, you know, and we didn't know at the time how many it was gonna be, you know, it could be, you know, 12, 1400 retailers across the whole country. And we're gonna treat them, you know, that care way. And and and in every region, in every state of the country. Well, boy, if you get if you get that, that's what we call Vortex Nation. Because you have now, and and and quite honestly, that's a lot of times why the big retailers wanna sell your stuff, is because these small independents have really been the ones that really, you know, magnified your brand. And so you gotta honor that. You gotta honor that not only for what they did, but you also gotta honor it for what they're still doing. And so for us, yeah, we may not be able to fly up to Haynes, Alaska four times a year. Okay, but you we're gonna you're gonna get that again, that VIP experience I was talking about. We want you to feel that. So again, the litmus test is what our customers say. So to hear that from you means a lot.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:13

And it and it as you were talking about that, there's been brands that we've carried right at the start. You know, there's that came out like, oh, this is a cool product. Yeah, and they get to a certain size. It's like, well, yeah, we're we're not dealing with you anymore. Wait a second. Yeah. We were here kind of from the beginning helping you with this. And like you were alluding to earlier, sometimes this metrics on how these different, well, it's they're not making us enough money, they're not making us money. And some of those, I still have some of them, it's you know, five, six, seven years that I haven't been able to carry their products. Right. And I still have customers. Do you have this product? Yeah, I was like, and I'll tell them the story, and they're like, Well, I'm not buying them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:53

Right. Whether they do or not. I mean, if they see it somewhere else, they'll probably still buy it. But it's I I think a lot of times those accountants get into the right next and it changes things. Well, and I think they look at an asilo.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:06

Yeah. If you look at, you know, you know, big box dealer here and you just that, and you've got that narrow view, then you can easily say, Well, yeah, we why would we do this with this? But if you pan back the lens and you look at two things. So I'll say this from somebody who's probably a little bit more metric-based. If you pan back the lens and you look at the whole country, and I think there's a metrics-based case to actually lean into the small independent retailers. Now, I'm gonna put that metrics to the side, because that's not really how I think, and I think more in the sense of like, hey, I've got I've got a job uh or I've not got a job, I'm building my life off of principles. And one of those principles is I want to treat people the way I want to be treated. And I want to take care of people and have their back when they've had mine. And so that's what we're gonna do. Now, if a if a retailer's not paying their bills and they're and they're yelling at your employees, that's different. We're not talking about that. But if that retailer is still selling your your product and and they were there, they were there first and they're doing a good job and we have a good relationship and they do$5,000 worth of uh business in a year and instead of five million, I I have no issue continuing on with that retailer. And and and when they call, meet them where they're at. Let's help them out, let's it help them win. And, you know, we've been there when we had a Wildbird's unlimited store, and and and you really appreciate people when they showed up and maybe metric-based wise, they didn't have to. And so we're gonna we're gonna pay that forward similar to the way that your dad did. Yeah, and I'm okay, I'm I'm totally fine with however that plays out.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:40

Yeah. I wish more companies were that way.

Care: Create A Rare Experience

SPEAKER_00 1:42:43

Yeah. And we're hoping that this, you know, so care is our mission. Yeah. And so with our vision being the catalyst that improves the world through service, we think one service that we can provide is we can be a catalyst for care, not just being our mission, but turning it into a movement. So we, you know, we started in 2002, Vortex was zero, right? And right around 2015, 2017, we became the largest sport optics brand in in the world. And we've still done that. And I don't say that to brag, but I do say that for just kind of like um proof that that how we do it, which is what I'm way more interested in, how we do it works. And I think we can hopefully be a catalyst for other companies, whether they want to be the biggest in the world or whether they want to be the biggest in their little town, we can be a catalyst for that. And also we can learn along the way. So, people who kind of have that similar ethos, share us your stories. We want to learn from you. How are how are you doing? You you want to call it care? Great. And if you don't, that's fine too. I'm more about the spirit of it. So we're hoping to be a catalyst, we're hoping to learn, and again, we're hoping to fulfill the vision of you know, being the catalyst that improves the world through service. So that's really where a lot of people outside the walls now are hearing about care. Is we really feel like the world needs it now more than ever. It's racing towards AI, it's racing towards automation, it's racing towards metrics and transactional experiences. And all of those things I just mentioned, they're not bad. They're just not the ultimate thing. They're things that should come out after you're focused on the people. And I would also argue they're gonna help you understand where do you put automation in? What sort of process do you put in? Because you can't do it to and remove the human connection element. But when you put those things in the center, the human connection element just gets snuffed out. So I think now's the time. I think we can be at one of the catalysts. You know, you guys can be a catalyst in your area, and hopefully other companies will see this and they will implement it. It'll be better for them on their bottom line. It'll be better for them for their life. And I think also it's gonna be much more impactful for their employees, and it's gonna have their employees all of a sudden show up to work, and now they're gonna be fully engaged employees and excited to contribute because they know it's it's more than just profit, it's more than just dollars, it's more than just metrics.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:13

Yeah. Great argument. And and it does dealing with vortex inspires me to do a better job at our store. We're we're nowhere near your level. Well, hopefully someday I can be. Yeah. That's well, yeah. That's a that's a goal. Yeah. It's to take these take these learning experiences when I am dealing with vortex, and and it is a thought process. How can I bring that back into our business and and make sure we're treating our customers the same way we'd be treating through Vortex?

SPEAKER_00 1:45:44

I love it. I love it. And when you have some good ideas, you send them down to Jake and Seamus, and we'll see if we can't implement them too. So we want to learn from each other.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:51

Great. I love that. Love it. Speaking of like there's so we've been talking, there's a couple things that I wanted to talk about at the beginning and kind of slip my mind. So if we can go back Absolutely. You're working at Vortex family business. Yeah. Dad? Yeah. What three brothers that are here?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:08

Yep. Three brothers, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:09

How I've I'm working with my mom, my older sister, my oldest nephew at the store. There's five family dynamics that go into that as well, as well as the business aspect of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:20

How do you is are there limits that you guys put on what you can discuss at the Thanksgiving table, or there's certain things that are off topic?

SPEAKER_00 1:46:27

Yeah, yeah. So, well, first of all, as you know, with family businesses, there's no drama. It's just easy to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:33

Oh, yeah, it's easy to go, and there's there's no potential for reality TV at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:38

Yeah. So I think we do a good job. I will say at the thing at Thanksgiving and Christmas, um, it is hard not to talk about work a lot. I think we've had certain Thanksgivings and Christmases, we've done a better job. Um, you know, a lot of times the the wives are in, you know, one area and the guys are in the other. And but uh we've been trying to do more of a concerted effort. I think as far as just like in the business, one of the things that um that really helped us. So, first of all, all the brothers are incredibly smart, uh, talented, hardworking. Nobody's got any terrible vices or, you know, uh, you know, things like that uh that could really derail the business. And also they we had very complementary skills. Uh some of them overlapped for sure, but also complementary skills and we had abilities to kind of forge different areas of the business that helped the overall business. And I would also say that my uh my family is very good at understanding that like um if we do something that's really going to cause a rift within the family, it's gonna, it's going to spill out into the business and that's gonna be bad for everyone. So I not that I think we would have ever gotten there had that not been in place, because we generally worked through disagreements pretty easily. Um, yeah, every now and again you can trigger a family member just because you're a family member. So that happened, but it never got um, I did a lot of family business studies. I remember um and I went down to like uh Kellogg's school business for a week and a half and with one of my brothers, and it was all family businesses and got to learn a lot. And so I talked to some family businesses, and you know, I'd be like, Oh, what's it like dealing with your brother? And they'd be like, Well, I don't deal with them. We hired Bob to be the go-between. I'm like, what? Like, you can't even like talk to each other. So, anyways, going down there was very eye-opening in the sense that, you know, I was like, gosh, whenever I felt there's been any tension, which wasn't much, it was dramatically lower than I think a lot of people experience. So I would say this in a family business, in everything, I would say this, everything has a trade-off. Everything has a trade-off. So, one of the things, if you're in a family business, in some cases, family members can trigger just because of their sheer existence, and vice versa. Thanksgiving dinners or or Christmas, sometimes they can feel like a business meeting and not just having a good time. And on the flip side, you know, we had when my dad was in and all four of us brothers were in. I mean, you had guys that were like in it to win it. You know, they were like they were smart, they were talented. You got way more than what you paid for. Not them from an employee standpoint, right? Like they had a, you know, and so from that, you had a lot of great, wonderful things. And so there's your trade-offs, you know. And I think, um, I think, you know, everything, even when you you recommend an optic to somebody, right? They say, um, you're thinking, well, how are you going to be using it? You know, well, I want something really small and compact. Okay. Well, you're going to sacrifice a little light gathering. You know, you're going to sacrifice, you know, uh, maybe just how steady it is because it's so small. Or on the flip side, you know, you've got more magnification, you got a bigger objective lens, but it's not as portable and it weighs more. So I think everything in life has its trade-offs. And I think in in family, um, the trade-offs in uh for us um were we had way more in the plus column. Way more in the plus column. Um, but I yeah, I also think to say that there was never any tension at different times, or you know, didn't we didn't lock horns occasionally, uh, you know, would be wouldn't would be disingenuous. I do remember one time though, and I was I'm really proud about this one. I remember there was a time where I was adamantly disagreeing with my dad on a decision that we should make. And and in hindsight, really appreciate him for for these moments. He would really let me argue. I would do it respectfully. I mean, in private, one-on-one, maybe with my brothers were there, there would be an audience. But um, and so I was very respectful in the way that I argued, but I was very passionate, and he allowed me to be that way. And but then in this particular instance, it we were this was before we had dropped all these brands and moved to just Vortex. Yeah, and he was deciding about doing a license, and I was adamant against it. We ended up doing it for a little bit, and then we and we decided not to do it. That's not important, but I remember um being in their kitchen right by the island, and I was, I mean, I almost jumped on the island being like, we can't do this. This is like, we don't need to do this, it's gonna be a waste of time and money and everything. And finally, I can't remember who said it. I think it was me. I think I was like, you know, he was just kind of listening. I'm like, hey, have you made a decision? And he was like, Yeah, I've made a decision. And I was like, Okay, cool. I'm gonna go home and like, you know, work out or scream in my room or punch a pillow. And but tomorrow I'm coming in and I'm bright-eyed, bushy-tailed. I'm selling that license brand. Yeah, like, like it was my idea. And so I was proud of that because uh, you know, one, I was proud of him because, you know, he started the business. At the time, there was no ownership other than him and my mom. He didn't have to listen to this 23-year-old kid at the time argue. He could have just been like, hey, shut up and get back to work, right? Yep. He didn't do that. You know, he gave me a voice at an age uh probably far earlier than I should have had. And um, and then uh, but then also that I was willing to, you know, die to my idea. And I did that next morning. I showed up, and I mean, I you you didn't hear me complain about that brand until we until we killed it. Um, you know, it was like no, like I'm full steam. So I was I was proud of that. So that's kind of a good, you know, like maybe example of how family businesses can operate sometimes. Um, you know, and then you got it, but you have to work through that. It's it's not, you know, it's you just not just hitting the easy button.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:40

No. Yeah, it took my sister and I a while to recognize my strengths, her strengths, and it's like, okay, you do that, I'll do this. Yeah. And it's we're gonna coexist much better.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:52

You can't do the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:53

Can't do the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:54

You really can't do that with anybody.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:55

No, but with family. Family, it's even yeah, you got worse. Got gotta do it separate. And right. And one of the cool things for us is with retail, when my sister had her four kids, she would bring them to work. So they were all raised in the store from infants, you know, all the way through and had a room in the back, a TV so they could, you know, nap time, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:18

And so they all grew up in the store. And then a year and a half ago, my oldest nephew had his first daughter, so my sister's got a granddaughter. And Tyler had come to us and he says, Listen, um, would it be possible for bringing my child? Because before we knew if it was a boy or girl, yeah, bring my baby to the store and raise them at the store the same way. And both of us are kind of like, You enjoyed that? He's like, Yeah, those are some really cool. He's like, He's like, Those are some really cool memories, and it would be great if I could bring my kid to work. And so we have Stella every day at the store.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:52

That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:53

And now his youngest brother in April had a boy, yeah, and so he comes in in the afternoons, right? And so it's kind of the joke around the stores like we need to up our staff because of the number of daycare providers we have for the for the kids. But it's a great opportunity for them because they're all of our staff loves them. Yeah, at least they show that they love them. They might be like, why do they keep bringing these kids to go to work? But they are and customers love seeing them at the front counter in the morning, you got Stelle up there, and she's waving to customers as they come in and they leave.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:23

Um, they're probably buying more if that's going on. I'm gonna buy something extra. It could be a little kiddle out there waving and saying goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 1:54:31

But it was really it was reassuring for us that we had provided a good atmosphere for them in the store when they were younger, that he wants both of them wanted their kids. Plus, they they don't pay for daycare, so I might have something to do with it as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:44

Well, that's part of it. But I think it's cool because we as we talked about, I grew up in the store and and you grew up in the store. And I think um if they decide to, of course, yeah, if they decide to then be in the business, what an advantage from so many levels. I mean, there already have been had had this immersive experience, which would really help them in whatever they decide to do. But then if they ever do come back in the business, that'd be pretty cool if you were an employee, I would think, to be like, Well, this person was literally brought up here.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:13

Brought up here.

Family Business Dynamics And Decision-Making

SPEAKER_00 1:55:14

You know, you're not just pulling somebody off the street, you know, that's now, you know, I'm working alongside this person was, you know, really grew up here. So again, assuming they decide to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:24

Uh, but you know the choice, the choice will be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:26

The choice will be theirs, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:27

But kind of on a on a related tangent, yeah. You guys built a preschool for your employees that's just right down the road. So that's so they don't have to do the daycare, they've got that opportunity right close by. Yeah. That for me, that's yeah, the care experience for your employees as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:46

Yeah, that's one where there's a big investment on that one. And so, yeah, so so we sit in Barneveld, which is between Mount Horeb and Dodgeville. Okay. So it's a little bit in no man's land as far as having a lot of things like preschools, okay. Um, Mount Horb and Dodgeville are a little bit bigger. So there's options there, or if you get further into Madison, there's a lot of options there. So and then if you were looking at our we were this is a good uh way of looking maybe at metrics, even though it wasn't a metrics-based decision. If you we were looking at our employees from a hiring perspective, they kept skewing younger in that 25 to 35-year-old range, which is a lot of times when people are getting married and having kids. So our population was having more kids. So initially, when we moved out here, my dad's idea was to build the building but at lease it to a preschool, which is what we started with. And then we were gonna graft that business into the business because I think they were having hard times from a financial perspective. The kids are a lot of a lot of the kids that were there were vortex kids. Yeah, and they were getting um good day good day care preschool. Um, but there were some things that kind of I think left some things to be desired on the from the parent perspective or maybe the employee perspective over there. So we decided ultimately not to graft them in, you know, I gave them the heads up, you know, uh at the end of that lease, six, seven, eight months away, um, that we were gonna be the preschool.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:16

So I went to Lindsay, uh, who had a VHR, and I mean it was a it was I did it better than this, I'd like to think, but the gist of it was like, hey, I need you to figure out how we can be a preschool. And uh so to her credit and all star facilities team. Also, there was a woman that was working at the preschool who applied for a job, and she's been, you know, Katie, she's been instrumental over there. Um, you know, they collectively got us to the finish line, and there's a ton of government regulations around Big Preschool, but we uh uh and then there was no we were able to pick right back up after the lease was over with this little Buffaloes Preschool, is what we call it. And so, um, and yeah, and then it was initially it was both community kids and vortex kids, but as our population grew, we would grandfather community kids in, but then we would only fill up with Vortex kids. And then we've done two small additions because we've had so many Vortex kids, and but then um, and then people pay for it, but it's about 25 to 50 percent of what they pay on the going market. So they have something right on campus where their kids are, they don't have to drive past to Dodge or you know what I mean? Like the drop-off. So the kids are right there, they get to drop them off, they get a dramatically reduced amount uh that they pay. And we don't make money off of it. That's not what we have them pay. We like to have them uh have a little bit of skin in the game. Um, but that is a benefit that we offer. And if and if people take advantage of that benefit, it is their favorite benefit, it's their favorite care. And I would argue um from uh a secondary perspective or indirect perspective, that everybody benefits. Because I mean, there's nothing more that we worry about as parents than our kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:09

So if we can feel confident that our that our kids are in a good spot, that they're taken care of, that we're close, you know, they're very close by, then I can show up better as an employee. I can show up better when I interact with customers, all because I have um I I feel confident that my kids are in a good spot. So yeah, so it was a little bit of, it's been a little bit of a journey. Um, the the number of kids has kind of slowed down, but it's still pretty robust. I want to say we're like 115 um in the fall and spring, and then summer, we have some summer school. So the age goes up a little bit, and I think we might get up to like 175 kids. There's a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:49

I never would have imagined the numbers are that big.

SPEAKER_00 1:59:52

Yeah, no, it's uh it's a big deal. It's a big undertaking. Um, yeah, it's not easy to do, but it Definitely is something that I I mean, I've had parents that have come up to me and said, Hey, we didn't think we were gonna be able to have a second kid because of the expense of it.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:00:12

Or maybe even a first kid. But because of this benefit, we had our child or we had another child. So I mean, to hear that, you know, I mean, it's huge. Yeah. I mean, it's like it makes you kind of get goosebumps, you know, hearing stuff like that. Uh, because that's I mean, that's it, you know, that's the the impact of that is generational, right? Yeah, it's like we might not have had a kid or hadn't had a second kid, have it not been for that preschool. So it it uh it's been really rewarding, not only for the people that um that have their kids there, but for rewarding for me and I think our our whole company. But as I like to remind people, we have to be really good to have a benefit like that. Yeah. Right? And and and of course, we didn't have that benefit until um, I want to say it's 2021, I believe, right around there is when you know uh we we had that. So we didn't we weren't able to afford, we wouldn't have been able to afford that in uh in 2004. So so there's some important things if you're a business looking at this. You can't just green light a preschool, it's gonna cost a lot of money. Yes, but you can you can kind of stair step your way and you don't know where it's gonna end up, but you know, it might become uh something like a preschool. But we have to be really good because that's a benefit, it does not make money. Um, and so I also remind people of that. Like when we try to do care experiences for our employees, because we do. In fact, for me as the CEO, my customers are the employees, yeah. For for and now the some people play double duty, like a shamus because he's got people under him, but you know, he you can be a customer for him, or you're a customer for Jake, but my customers are the employees, so I want to lean into care experiences for them. But all of this stuff requires us to be good and show up for customers, for dealers, for each other in a way where we create an abundance, an abundance of and you uh you can call it what you want. I'm gonna say an abundance of blessings, and and in that abundance, now we can take that and we can serve other people. See what I mean? Yeah, but we have to create that abundance, and you create that by showing up and and doing a really good job and grinding it out each and every day.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:27

Yep. The more you grind, the better the results get. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 2:02:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:31

So one last question.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:33

You're an avid hunter, you like being outdoors. Is there a bucket list dream, like tag species, new vortex product that would be the ultimate hunt? So this would be good to on your list. What what's on your list for the ultimate hunt that you haven't done yet?

SPEAKER_00 2:02:51

So this is well, I so this would be good because I have a gift for you, and it'll and and uh so I think it would be cool to do a buffalo. Yeah. The American buffalo, bison. Uh, I think that would be pretty cool. I think that animal's the cool, just a really cool animal, and I'll share a little bit about that here in a second. I think that would be a really cool experience. Um, but I but I'll just, you know, very candidly, I actually get more excited about other people's haunts.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:16

Yeah.

Building A Preschool And Employee Care

SPEAKER_00 2:03:16

So even like that is kind of a dream for me. But there's an employee of ours who's he's been with us a long time. He doesn't, I won't say his name uh publicly, uh, you know, but he and his dream is that by someone. So I have a contact, and and uh but as soon as I when I found that out, I was like, I just, you know, my thing, the way I'm wired for good or bad, uh, and I don't mean this in a way, like an altruistic way or anything. I just think it's kind of cooler if I can help a lot of people get their bucket list hunt. But for me, if you twisted my arm, I'd say that one. I don't think it's the hardest hunt necessarily, but I just think that's a cool animal. One of our core values is be the buffalo. And that's that story. I don't know if you've heard it, but the idea is that these, you know, the the Colorado is kind of split in half by the Rockies, and these storms build up on the west side and they spill over onto the plains. And in the plains of Colorado is pretty unique. You've got cows and you got buffalo. You can you're probably supposed to call them bison, I'm gonna call them buffalo. So those storms get on the plains, and the cows see the storm and they're like, I don't want anything to do with that. And then so they start walking away from the storm. If you think about it, they're staying in the storm longer because they're walking with it.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:31

Walking with it.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:32

Yep. And so the buffalo are unique in that they react very differently. They see a storm coming, they turn and face the storm and they charge. Yeah, they charge through the storm. So if you think about it, both are on and there's a discomfort there. They're both going through the storm, but one is going through the storm much quicker and getting getting to the other uh blue skies a lot quicker. And that's that's the buffalo. So for us, our we had kind of tweaked this core value of innovators, which um is a great word and thing, but for whatever reason, everybody kept taking it away as just being innovative with product, which we are, but it was kind of really what was more the core value was the spirit of entrepreneurship, of innovation, of going after new markets, um, or in in or in putting new technologies in that maybe people thought you've got no business doing that. I mean, people thought we had no business going from being a retailer to being a brand. You know, that's kind of a storm. Right. And then you got somebody who's the largest brand in the industry says, You got to get rid of that warranty, you'll be out of business in a year. That's a little bit of a storm. And so we kind of just felt like when I heard that story first, I shared it around. It kind of took on a life of its own, and they were like, hey, the spirit of what we're trying to do with this innovator's core value is really just be the buffalo. So anyway, I've got a gift for you over there. There's only there's only a few of these. That binocular is uh actually have two gifts for you, but that is that's a there, there's be the buffalo. Be the buffalo binoculars. So this is sold out on the market. Well, um, so I've got to be the buffalo. And then above there, you look right about eye level. You see that eagle? Yeah, that is yours.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:08

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:09

Right there. I know I give you a stuffed eagle, uh, but that I've had that in my office. There's a story that I'll share sometime with you about that. Uh, not right now, but uh so it's meaningful, and obviously with your with your father, I know uh that's really meaningful. So those are both for you. But yeah, so the dream, you know, uh, you know, the the buffalo, the American buffalo is you know one of my favorite animals. So that would be the one. What's yours? Maybe you did it already. Maybe it was the stag.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:38

I I'm kind of where you're at. Okay. It's for me when I was younger, it was always about I need to get an animal, I need to get an animal. And now it's about the experience. Yeah. It's who I'm with. Yep. Uh beginning of September. I I drew a um uh sheep tag this year. First time drawing one in this area. I'd been sheep hunting twice before, and my oldest nephew came with me.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:05

We didn't we didn't see anything anywhere close to legal.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:08

We had to come out early because of weather.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:10

But it was some of the best time that I had. Yeah, just hiking with him, sharing that experience, even the built the buildup to it. What are you getting for a pack? What are we getting at? Do we have do we have this? Do you have this? What are we doing for food? Just just that camaraderie of working with a a uh a family member. And even when I'm doing with friends, he'd never been sheep hunting before, he'd never done a flown-in trip. So the the super cub flight in just that so many aspects of that experience. Yep, didn't get anything, but that was one of my favorite hunts I've ever been on. That's what it's all about. Just because of that aspect of it. And so being able to bring other people with. Like when I went on my stag hunt, my mom was with. I never they had her doing her stuff during the day and I was going out hunting, but coming back to the lodge and not having just having other people there, but having your mom there and sharing in in that moment, that's what made that hunt. I got a great stag, yeah, but having my mom there made it 10 times better than it was before. Having Tyler with me on that sheep hunt was way better than with anybody else.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:14

And so, yeah, there's a lot of things that I'd like to go see, but it's it'll be who you're with. It'll be who I'm with what it's is what's gonna make the hunt rather than because I I've gone on hunts by myself and it's just it's not that big of a deal. Yeah. Um they've been good hunts, right? But it's it's now it's for me, it's bringing somebody with. Yeah, and sharing that ex the people you share the experience with is more important to me than actually getting an animal.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:40

That's that connection creates momentum, right? Correction creates momentum.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:44

It's a good moment. So well, I appreciate your time here.

SPEAKER_00 2:08:47

Yeah, thank you. This has been great.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:49

For for anybody that's watching this, I haven't released any of my podcast episodes yet. And so Joe's walking into this, he has no idea what we were going to be doing. I gave him a kind of a brief thing. We just met for the first time yesterday, yeah, was our first time meeting. And for you to have um allowing me to do this without any background or anything, and that trust in me means a lot to me. And I I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to sit down and have this conversation with you. It means a lot and look forward to working with you and Vortex in the future.

SPEAKER_00 2:09:24

Well, it means a lot to me, and uh, and I really I felt like we were old friends the instance we left. And as soon as I gave you that, I mean, I thought we were like we were blood brothers. So, but I think also it spoke very highly of you, even though we hadn't met, that you had clearly met a lot with Jake and Seamus, and the way they spoke about you and your business gave me a ton of confidence that this was something that we definitely had to show up and do. So, yeah, we are looking forward to uh many years together going forward, sharing some of our stories, experiences that hopefully continue to inspire you and vice versa. You sharing with us and inspiring us. So thank you again.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:00

Yep, thank you. Thanks for watching this episode of Doug Cat's Questions. Just a reminder if you've enjoyed the conversation today, please like, subscribe. We're available on YouTube if you want to watch us, if you just want to listen. Uh, it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And you have new uh episodes being launched every Thursday. So thanks again for watching or listening and following us. We appreciate your support.