By Bruce Hutchean
Hutch On Hunting: Here we go. Okay, so we're alive. This is HutchOnHunting with Bruce Hutcheon, I'm the founder of Hutch On Hunting and I've been in the podcast industry since 2015. You might say what the heck is Hutch on hunting doing with Mark Smith of CharkBait. You can see the CharkBait Logo up behind Mark's face. Here’s a little backstory Mark and I on how Mark and I met. It's got to be 30 years ago when you were teaching school when I was looking for a retail source for my fishing gear. I was buying jigs from you in a brown paper bag.
Charkbait: Yeah, that's true Bruce, we go back. Back when I was filled, I had my day job teaching school. And we did spend some time up there. That happened at a local restaurant. I did a lot of deliveries back in the day.
Hutch On Hunting: Yeah. And it was interesting, you built your own website that has become an iconic brand for stand-up fishing in Southern California. Your retail shop in Huntington Beach has grown significantly over the years as well as adding another shop in San Diego. I remember going to your little10 by 10 storage shed to by gear way back in the day.
Charkbait: I kind of did it backwards. You know, and I had the opportunity to go into business for myself earlier. But I really didn't have the courage to sever my ties with a manufacturer's job with some stability or so I thought, you know. And so, I didn't take advantage of the opportunity. I stayed with the factory job. And then after being in the consumer electronics industry for 13 or so years. Yeah, my interest was in fishing and tackle and that sort of thing. You know, and I was early on the computer curve.
So maybe I had an advantage in that respect. But I became a private voter. And once I became a private voter, it was harder to find the fish. I didn't have a Skipper putting me on the fish. So, I'm not dumb. I may be stupid at times, but not dumb. And I realized the power of the internet.
I said that CharkBait is a networking website. You know, kind of an information Clearinghouse. So, I would post the Fishing reports as I fished as much as I could, especially summertime, I was teaching. And I'd post the reports, other guys would post their reports that clued me on to where I needed to go fishing the next time. You know, and it was a sharing opportunity. I got written up in a couple of newspapers, the LA Times, I even beach independent, that generated more traffic. And with that, I thought, you know. I've got a certain amount of traffic, the internet was still young, it was an even playing field.
Unlike today when it is no longer an even playing field. And a little guy like me could start. Starting from scratch, in the early days in my mind, and to the consumer too. I was as big as Bass Pro Shops. On the internet because nobody had a presence. I was the first saltwater-oriented tackle store. And so, I turned an informational website into a small business. Now initially working out of my house, and that's when I met up with you. And I think I was still working out of my house. I didn't have the little warehouse yet. Yeah, and I do everything.
I do my teaching job. I go ship stuff at USPS, the Postal Service, I box up stuff. I turned my condo into a warehouse. And then I finally, and I always felt we had to inventory the gear. Yeah. And so, I did, I invested the money to do that. Cashed in IRAs, you know, rang up credit card debt, did all those wonderful things we do. And then there was a vacancy and a little storage space here in the shopping center. And so, I took that, and then I would open it up once every month. And then people would drive from Santa Barbara to San Diego, Bruce. And so opened up two times a month then three times a month, and they had retail space that had been vacant for about a decade. And so, I took that at an incredibly good rate, I think it was $1100 for that space.
Charkbait: Oh, and now as you know, the same space is about $7,000. You know things escalate. But that was the beginning. Well, I was one of the first three people without a blog, the website was a blog. But as far as the boards, you know, the chart board was one of the first along with Stan Exquisite, Marlin Nut, and Oh, boy! Joe, Mel, and who was it? Mel and Don, from all coasts, and CharkBait.
We were the three amigos. Yeah, who never met each other until later. Yeah, but we were the early ones on that. And so, we had good traction, starting up, and a lot of good support. And as time progressed, a lot of competitors in the same field that were certainly far better yield than we were. But you know, I had the store, I got the store opened, I kept my day job. So, I wasn't draining money from that.
Paid for a couple of people I could hire for cheap to cover it when I wasn't here. And then worked the typical six-day, seven day, you know, schedule, you know, early and late until we could afford to have more of a real staff. And at this point, that's over 20 years ago. Yeah.
Hutch On Hunting: Isn't that something? And we used to have club meetings. We used to have CharkBait club meetings, have a beer and do some line testing or do whatever. We have Gear reps come in and do product demos. It was a great crew.
Charkbait: Like all groups, you wind up going in two different directions or whatever, but it was a good nucleus and good characters. Now, some of which we still work with. Some of them passed on, you know, yeah, if I regret. But it's been an interesting little ride. I was able to leave my day job, which was a good thing. I'm typically only good for about 13 years doing something before I had to pull the plug. First, it was consumers, then it was an education, and now I'm doing this. Yeah. So, things have shifted a little bit in the company. You know, Bruce, I did go ahead and build her up. We got to a point where we had 17 people working here. Yeah, we had in San Diego as well. But as time progressed, as I got older, the drive down to San Diego got longer. Yeah, especially when I'm the one doing a couple times a week, sometimes twice in a day. And, you know, you stay on top of the market and what's going on, and it seemed to me that those inventory dollars would be better back at headquarters. Now then you know, keeping in two different stores, and there are the things that I wanted to do with the time too.
So, eliminating that liability was really a blessing. Because with the pandemic and with the virus, and that sort of stuff, with, you know, businesses being forced to close for X amount of time. Now, it would have been unsustainable, you know, as it stood with this virus stuff, we were able to actually. Thank God, we were in Orange County, in California, and not somewhere else, but we only closed for maybe two, three weeks, and then we opened up, there's no future in being closed. So, we opened, and we did not get put out of business, thankfully, by the county or the state. It freed up a little bit more, you know, and we actually grew last year. The other significant change, excuse me. The other significant change came from my son Sergei.
Our website, you know, one of our comparative advantages was I did everything, you know. Did the website, sell, work the store, all that sort of stuff. But technology progresses, and I wasn't going to get on the learning curve on the software. So, when my son expressed that he would like to do CharkBait, and not pursue his education in a different direction. He recognized Oh, there's a business that has already developed. I told Sergei to rebuild the website. And he worked on that, took him quite a bit of time to learn it. He was a hardware guy, not a software guy, Nodi can I have my cable back, please. And he did. And when he was getting closer to being done, Bruce, we crashed. Our site crashed.
Hutch On Hunting: Oh, no.
Charkbait: Especially at that point, I would have been out of biz. Yeah. Well, all we had to do is flip a switch. And when I flipped the switch, sure enough. We were up and running with a new website. And then Sergei was more motivated to get it finished, which he did. And the new website does a ton for us, Bruce. You know, with the Supreme Court decision, the recent, you know, the quill decision, where basically businesses are responsible for taxation, well outside of their market area. You know, with that decision, which in my mind, is not political. Puts Whoops, I don't know where that went. But it puts…it puts smaller taxes in an exceedingly difficult position. Because administering taxes from 50 different states is hell. California alone, we've got 96 different tax districts. There is no way…
Hutch On Hunting: I'm looking at CharkBait website.
Hutch On Hunting: Okay. So, kind of walk us through it for all the people listening. You know, it's charkbait.com, And so mark, just kind of give us a brief overview. I know there's so much in here. But you know, what are people looking at?
Charkbait: Well, within the website, basically, it is a saltwater tackle store on paper. So, the gear that we represent is posted on the website, we can be a little deeper than that. And that's the way our website has worked really since day one. What's different with the new site is what happens on the back end of things. Security provisions increase and obviously we're able to deal with this tax structure. And the changes that were mandated by the Supreme Court with a quill decision. For a Wayfair decision, as it's referred to.
Hutch On Hunting: So, the CharkBait is the Chalkboards that's your forum, that's been up there forever.
Charkbait: Oh, yeah. Yeah, forever.
Hutch On Hunting: And so, if you want to go to that folks, here, welcome to CharkBait. There's 30 people online, CharkBait Forum, Tackle Talk, fishing reports. And you know, we have trip reports, long-range. And is that the mainstay of your business now? Is long-range or is it just…
Charkbait: Not really, you know, we've always been strong with private motors. A long-range the guys that are traveling to destinations we outfit a lot of guys that are going to different parts of the world, as well. Yeah. The pre-long-range is certainly a strength because kind of comes from that environment. And we do that every year. So yeah, we cater to that clientele, it is unique. Yeah. But we, you know, we try to offer those things to anybody who's escaping, can take advantage of.
Hutch On Hunting: I'm going to stop sharing that we're going to go back. So anyway, so that's the website. And you know that Mark was, and I always remember this, because when I was living in Southern California I was involved and worked up a mountain view and fished on the weekends. But I always remember Mark because he was there. When people still were working with bricks and mortar, and then he went digital, and now direct sales digital e-commerce company, and he was one of the leading people, I think, a while back ICast gave you some award?
Charkbait: Yeah, we've been, you know, recognized now a little bit for what we've done. Positively and probably negatively. Yeah.
Hutch On Hunting: Wow! It comes with the territory.
Charkbait: We are unique. Most businesses were already in business and then went to the internet. So, we clicked to break some story. Yeah, we started with a click on a computer. And that, you know, gave me the confidence to go ahead and do the retail storefront. And so, we kind of built it up backwards. Which, you know, that worked, that worked for us, it put us in the forefront, you know, we were the first ones selling saltwater tackle, on the internet. So even with other people coming into it, they were much better funded than I was, now we still had a place. And then what we did differently, we were not just a database of selling stuff, we always had that personal contact with people.
And we still do on every order. People touch it, people talk to the customers, you know, our clients are, you know, hopefully well taken care of. And that's something that we've gotten better at. As years went by, staffing was trained in different ways and different people. But you know, one of the aspects there, Bruce, that is a strength is being a family business. You know, as good as the people are that we've had working here, nobody works as hard as a family member who's tied to the business.
And that's, you know, so whether it be my wife, Nadia, who's now been here six days a week for two years or Sergei, who's back over there working. Who goes back to junior high school time, working with us. And you know, with that, he had worked in every aspect of the business, from spooling up reels to doing rigging to working on the shipping area.
Hutch On Hunting: That’s good.
Charkbait: Yeah, and I try and make enough mistakes that he'll kind of shoot me out the door sooner than later.
Hutch On Hunting: Okay, let's just think about business and the people that are going to be reading this. The read and American outdoor news is probably all over half a million people in his distribution, digital distribution list. So, they're across the whole spectrum. A lot of them are hunters, some are fishermen.
Others are just outdoor enthusiasts. But what would you say, you know, give me your top three things that you learned that allowed you to be here 30 years later, still talking to a friend, and put that aside. And I just have to share this, folks. If you want a successful business, you have to build relationships, Mark, and I haven't seen each other maybe for 10 years, and such. We've been on trips together, but we built a long-term relationship. And if you build that with your business, then you can't help but be successful. As long as you adapt. You got to adapt, you got to change.
Charkbait: Bruce, Lego has some consumer electronics and was involved in sales training. I remember this fella, Bob Zeric came in to be the sales trainer. And Bob, one of the things I took away from Bob was the law of 25. And the law of 25 persists, which is one person influences the purchasing decisions of 25 other people. And that can either be a positive influence or a negative. So, every person you have contact with is either going to be helping your business grow, or you've done them well and they will help other people stay away from your business. So, you know, I've tried to follow that logic and treat people the way I would hopefully want to be treated. If in a different situation.
The beauty of being a small business is, hopefully, that you can have that contact with people. But it's not always easy to do. So, you know, there are a wide range of people, but all we can do is treat people with respect and hopefully give them the service they expect from us. With that law of 25, you know, that sticks around with me. Yeah, I buy that. You know, one person treated well, is a generator of business. And as a small guy starting up, I couldn't dump a ton of money into advertising. It had to be that type of advertising, which comes from, you know, people. there's Nadia working hard, here she’s so.
Hutch On Hunting: Hi Nadia.
Speaker 3: Hi.
Hutch On Hunting: How are you? Thank you for taking such good care of Mark.
Speaker 3: I try
Charkbait: Not easy.
Hutch On Hunting: I know, he's a wonderful friend and a good man.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Charkbait: So, you know we've been fortunate. We were at the right place at the right time. And we didn't take much out of the business, we started with little and so as a matter of putting stuff in and putting stuff in. And that's worked for us, you know, especially as a family-run business now even better. That way. I'd say the customer service aspect, inventory-wise, we're in an extremely fortunate position, and it is the culmination of 20 years. Hell, we could have done this 10 years ago, Bruce, if Sergei had just been older. I had to wait for him to, you know, get close to the fishing pool. And be able to stay out later at night.
Hutch On Hunting: That's great. So, your three, I picked up on the law of 25. 1 in 25, the one influencer, you know, people going to influence other people. I threw in relationship building because your evidence that you build a nice business, building long-term relationships.
Charkbait: The other part is really easy. You got to love the widgets. You got to love the gear. You know, I went back to fishing gear as a little kid, you know, growing up and I'd get my allowance from my mom. And I'd go to, there wasn’t a Walmart in those days, White Front department stores or whatever. And I would use that, and I buy a stupid plastic or a lure rock. Like a lot of the kids that we've had work here, that's where their mentality was when they were 10. And that's where mine was, too. So, I've always loved the gear. Yeah, I've been fishing not as much as I would like from you know childhood. And I won my first tournament when I was three years old or so. Which no doubt it was a put-and-take like my dad put the bait out there. And I got a fish and I got something.
My first rolling real outfit. I didn't buy what I won. I filled out the back of a carton of cigarettes. No, a carton of Cheerios, cereal, Cheerios thinking cereal coloring contest. And I won a Zebco rod and reel, Bruce. Well, hell, that's neat. My granddad you know, first I learned to fish like he did. My dad just worked. He didn't fish at that point in his career with kids and all that stuff. So, any of them. I've got my rod and reel. I fished every single day in Lake Gregory up in the mountains. Crestline California. I didn't catch a dam fish. Every single day I was out there. Didn't catch the dam fish. Next year, I got smarter. I met an older guy that was catching fish and he taught me a few lessons. Caught my first trout then I was catching catfish. So as a kid from probably six years, you know, whatever. I was locked in. Yeah. There's no better reinforcer. Yeah, then an intermittent reinforcement schedule in behavior modification. You don't want to win every time. But if you win every once in a while, that's addictive. That's a major time reinforcer. That's what fishing is. Now to some people, it's gambling. Intermittent reinforcement, reinforcement schedule. Boom, they're addicted to it. For me it was fishing. A little healthier, pursuit and it didn't cost as much as well, until we started.
Hutch On Hunting: I don’t know about the dollar bill.
Charkbait: It had been my second year Bruce.
Hutch On Hunting: I have nine setups from probably 9 rigs for long-range. And I live in Colorado Springs. The one thing that you're going to like my grandson who lives in Laguna Niguel loves to fish and last time he was at the house I took out all the stuff out of my closet and I laid it all out, his eyes just glowed because of all the black seals and everything. And I said this is all yours. I said this is all yours. But you know, I'm going to bring it out. And then, we’re going to go on trips, three-day trips, and such and five-day trips and get him used to it. But even more than that, I wanted to just take him down to Dana Point Harbor and go on half days and stuff like that. Because he has the passion now my other grandkids like it, but they're not. He likes to catch fish.
Charkbait: Yeah.
Hutch On Hunting: He just flat out catches fish. And I think he will stuff. My stuff is literally my Penn Internationals, Avet, and Shimano. It's 20 years old, but I maintained it.
Charkbait: The gear is on a mission to relationships. One of our clients when I started up, Patrick Avellino, but a real firm, year by two years goes by, he's buying more reels. Patrick retired this year. He's been buying reels like you and buying gear from us for close to 20 years. When he came in this last time, he bought my gosh, 20 some odd reels from us. And he said, Mark, do you realize since I started buying gear from you. I have now purchased over 103 reels.
Hutch On Hunting: That's a great customer.
Charkbait: I thought that many reels. And he's retired now. That's why he bought the last 20 some odd or whatever, reels he did. Yeah, a whole range of stuff. But you know, he's out feeding his family, you know, basically to go fishing and spend time with him. I think he's moving from California to Idaho. So, he'll be further from saltwater. But you'll have time and gear to go do it. And who knows, maybe he'll use his 130s to catch some giant sturgeon. I would not be surprised. Was it 52?
Charbait: 52
Charkbait: 52 reels, his last retirement purchase for retirement. Pretty neat retirement he's got planned, in the end, he better live a long time and do it.
Hutch On Hunting: Well, my wonderful wife, she's put up with all my saltwater gear. I don't have that much muskie gear anymore. But I do have to because I fly fish and I'm going to start guiding again actually fly fishing. So, I've got, I don't know, six sets of, you know, different weights, fly reels and I’m fishing all over the West. But anyway, you know, it's absolutely amazing. You know, the tackle that we have mass, but it stays good. It works, though, that's the thing that people, you buy good stuff. If you buy good quality stuff, and I'm a Seeker guide, there's a Calstar. And there's other brands that I have no knowledge about. But I remember Joe over at Seeker and I used to go have lunch with him. And he has since passed. But I would go with him and I see how the rods are made? And so, I just invested in those rods which I bought everyone for you.
Charkbait: Yeah, those were the days, in those days it was Calstar and Seeker.
Hutch On Hunting: Yeah. And that's what it was. And you think about that. And I fish with those. And I think about one of the trips. I know you and I went to Alaos Rocks one time.
Charkbait: Yeah, with this Bruce.
Hutch On Hunting: We've been on others, you know, overnights and stuff like that. But I just think, you know, each of the rods, it's kind of like I hunt a lot also. And so, all my rifles, I can look at a rifle and I tell it tells a story.
Hutch On Hunting: So, at this point in my life, it's the memories that I've invoked and getting, you know, paying the taxman down the Revillagigedo Islands, with a 200-pound fish, and it ends up you are pulling up a seared off head. I mean if you haven't experienced that you haven't experienced it.
Charkbait: Good memories.
Hutch On Hunting: Oh, yeah, you have those memories. And then you have the times when you do walk out and get a cow or something like that. And but, you know, some of the best times I've had on the trips are especially going down because you meet new people that you've never met before. And it's a tribe, and this is where I'm going with us, you have built the community. And I call it a tribe of people that follow your brands, i.e., the guy that bought X number of reels when he retired, and they are long-term customers. I mean, absolutely long-term customers. And you can't do that by giving 50% off or, you know, doing this and doing that.
It’s a collection of smart business decisions. And you fail sometimes. You made some poor ones. As we all have, but over the years, collectively you develop and I'll go back to the relationship and the customer support, and you treated people, right. And now you got Nadia and Sergei involved in a business. So, you're proof positive, that if you put the hard work in, use your noggin, adapt to what's happening in the digital world, then you could be successful.
Charkbait: We have opportunities, you know, we do have opportunities, if we take advantage of them, and I didn't take advantage of some earlier on, this one came at me, I guess you say I did, I ran with the ball. But it's not always easy. And we like that, we had our challenges. It's a matter of what you do. Another one of those experiences is starting a business.
You know, the first year I was in business. I think I sold about $30,000 worth of fishing tackle, Bruce. And I was wondering, why is it? I don't show that in my bank. Where is this money? Well, the first year I was in business, I probably made an awful lot of friends that I hope are still with us. Because when you take credit card payment, you have to close the batch. Well, I didn't start with any retail background. I didn't know I had to close the batch. So, my first year's business, I gifted everyone that bought something from me, believe it or not. I truly did. I wonder why I had so many repeat customers the next year. Well. But the next year, then I realized how to do the actual billing. And so, it took me a couple years to make up for that loss. But maybe it was good seed money. Maybe if someone was going to start a business again. That's not a bad approach.
Hutch On Hunting: Who knows? Because you're never going to go back there that's for sure.
Charkbait: Thank God.
Hutch On Hunting: Now, how about succession planning? Do you have any plans for the future?
Charkbait: Oh, yeah. Bruce, quite honestly. There are a couple parts to that. State of California helped me not to pull the plug earlier. We had to challenge that and that's a whole another story. But the way it's developed, there's other things I would like to do. I've been doing this for now. 20 some odd years. And I had two 13 year careers prior to this. So, I've been working for 46 or whatever years of my life. Yeah, well, more than that if we go back to high school and junior high school. And so yeah, there's that plan. And when you serve a business like this, your choices are, when the time comes to quit, you sell the business, or you just fold up, you know. And it's something like this, again, with two stores and running around I did, it may not always show a good positive cash flow from the standpoint of selling. And you'll never get what the business is worth in a sale. As much as if you maintain that business, I think. You know, having my son express an interest in it. Well, my succession plan was done.
You know, I could walk away from the business, and be quite happy, knowing that my families provided for. My son who can run the business, my wife has a place here.
And is wonderful as the gals we've had here in the past. There's no doubt, somebody with ownership like Nadia, much more tenacious, and works a lot harder. And it has driven me to work harder too. I get in earlier and work more days than I did before. Because I'll be damned if she's going to be here at work without me. So, yeah, the succession plan is in place. Realistically, I'd like to help here and help Sergei a little bit with the business, maintain that flow, give it a little bit more growth. And then you'll see me doing a few other things.
Hopefully, I'll still be up here and help when needed and hopefully get to go on some of the trips. But I'm at that point now where I'm okay, I'm 68 or so. Yeah, 68. Now, and, you know, there is an end or finality to everything too. And at this point, my family is taken care of, we have a business that is still in business. And thankfully, data California has not put us out of business. We've had some growth and had some success. And if that can maintain, well, then I've taken care of Sergei's younger brother too, if he has an interest. But things are pretty secure, Bruce, it's the last 20 years if something had happened to me, my family would have been in not good shape. There wasn't a plan B or a backup plan that way. Now, at this point, if something happened to me yesterday, my family is fine. Our house is fine. You know life is good. Yeah, that way so I have a much better feeling on the inside and a lot less stress in life knowing that yeah. it's good.
Hutch On Hunting: Well, you’re looking good, my friend, and hopefully one of these days I'll be able to come out and get on the reel with you again and pull on some fish.
Charkbait: Roger that but you know, yeah, regardless, Bruce, without any contact with you, those memories are fresh.
Hutch On Hunting: Oh, yeah. Appreciate
Charkbait: And great to see you again.
Hutch On Hunting: Well, it's been a pleasure to share this. It'll probably be in the summer edition American outdoor news owned and operated by Chris Avena, out of New York and Chris is a heck of a guy himself. And I've enjoyed our relationship. But Mark, you know, as I look at you, you stand for what America has given people the opportunity to be successful. That's it. You just had the opportunity. There was no nothing given to you. I know how hard you worked and what you’re sacrificing. But you were given the opportunity and you ran with it. And what more can you want?
Charkbait: I had the opportunity, and I did run with it. So yeah, thank goodness. I saw it coming and was in a position where I could do something. But you gotta roll the dice at some point, you know.
Hutch On Hunting: Yeah, you do.
Charkbait: And make it happen because you may not have a choice. There is no choice other than to do well. Yeah, and have success with it.
CharkBait can be found at: https://charkbait.com/
Full interview on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bMkRdBsPFg
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