Happy, Happy, Happy: My Life and Legacy as the Duck Commander

made because they were so crude looking. They weren’t nearly as well done as the newer ones—either wood or plastic. I just wanted to get them out of sight. Some of them looked pretty ragged, and I figured they would hurt future sales. Using a list Kay kept of our customers, we sent out a letter offering them a new Duck Commander if they would send their old one back to us.
    I was amazed. The offer was met with suspicion as to what we were up to. Hunters from all over were calling or writing to say they wouldn’t part with their calls for anything. They told us they were the “originals,” and they weren’t going to give them up. We were surprised how quickly we’d established brand loyalty among our customers.
    The early marketing of Duck Commander depended strictly on me, although I enlisted my brother Tommy to call on some stores in the East Texas area where he lived. I traveled in a four-state area, driving through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. I stopped in each town I passed through, calling on small sporting goods stores, hardware stores, five-and-dime stores—any business that looked like it might have an interest in selling duck calls. I did it from an old blue and white Ford Fairlane 500 that Kay inherited from Nannie. While Alan was driving it one time, a delivery truck sideswiped it, and the whole left side—fender,door, and back panel—was gone. Neither vehicle stopped, and I chose to ignore the accident. But the Ford still ran well and was carrying the first Duck Commanders to market.
    I had one big selling tool—besides my loveable personality and redneck charm, that is. I made a recording of live mallard ducks calling and then added the sound of me blowing on a Duck Commander as a comparison. I tried to sell the idea that I was closer to sounding like a duck than anyone in the world.
    My approach was successful. After we sold $8,000 worth of Duck Commanders the first year, we sold $13,500 the second year. The next year, we sold $22,000. I told Kay, “We are now rolling.” The next year we sold about $35,000. We didn’t hit six figures until about ten years after we started, but the business grew bigger every year.
    Out of that first year’s sales, I made about a dollar on each duck call. We were selling them to the stores for $4.27 wholesale. I figured they cost me about $3.20 total, after paying Mr. Earhart to build them, travel, paperwork, and all. We did a lot better when we began to build them ourselves.
    About the third year after I started, I decided I was going about the selling all wrong. I felt I needed to go to Stuttgart, Arkansas, the duck capital of the world. I had been driving around trying to interest these little old sporting goods stores. I needed to raise my sights and become a little more ambitious. So I took mytape and cassette player, climbed in the old Ford, and headed for Stuttgart, 185 miles away. I pulled up in front of the only sporting goods store in town, a little bitty place. I got out with my tape recorder, the live ducks comparison, and some duck calls strung around my neck.

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

    I walked into the store and there were two guys sitting at a table. I was about to learn they were world-champion duck callers, who just happened to be sitting in the store. The fellow behind the counter asked me if he could help me.
    “Is this the duck capital of the world?” I asked him.
    “You’re here,” he said with a proud smile on his face.
    “Well, I figure this is where I need to start,” I told him. “Now, here’s the deal. I have a duck call here—hanging around my neck. It’s closer to a duck than any duck call that has ever been made. Do y’all want to hear it?”
    They all looked at each other and kind of grinned.
    “Let me guess,” the guy behind the counter said. “You’re out of Louisiana?”
    “That’s where I’m from,” I said.
    “Blow that thing,” the guy told me.
    I blew one of the calls around my neck, concentrating on the plain, simple sound of the mallard hen with no frills. I understoodI was blowing for an audience conditioned by duck-calling contests, which often featured forty-note high calls that not only taxed a caller’s lung power but also made the rafters ring. The “lonesome hen” call blown by contestants would make you weep. They could make a duck call talk. But I was making the outlandish claim that they didn’t sound like a duck.
    They