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Tink’s

Listening to Hunters

By Bill & Sherry Krenz

When you talk, you repeat what you already know. When you listen, you frequently learn something. In business, listening to your customers can teach you how to be successful.

“For forty years we’ve been very good listeners,” says Tink’s President Phil Robinson. “We’ve listened carefully to what hunters have told us they wanted and needed. We’ve also listened to our many dealers, working hard to understand what would make them more successful in their efforts. And for forty years we’ve responded. We’ve offered innovative and effective deer lures and related products that worked in the field and sold in the stores. There’s no substitute for paying close attention to your customers.”

Tink’s was founded by Aubrey “Tink” Nathan in 1969. “Tink really did a remarkable job with the company,” adds Phil. “He formulated Tink’s #69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Lure, one of the very first estrous lures for deer hunting, and he did a superb job of promoting and marketing that lure nationwide. Today, fully four decades later, Tink’s #69 Buck Lure is still among the best selling and most effective deer lures in the country. Hunter confidence in Tink’s #69 is both well founded and simply amazing. Tink’s #69 Buck Lure worked in 1969, and it works just as well today. Legions of hunters and their trophy bucks are ample proof of that.”

Tink’s is also a company that has evolved with the years. Tink Nathan actually sold the company to Wellington in 1989, stayed on as an official consultant for a year and then moved to Africa for nearly a decade to hunt, lecture and write. Today Tink communicates regularly with the Tink’s team on marketing and new-product ideas.

Wellington built the brand, expanded the product line and further enhanced consumer awareness of Tink’s. But Wellington was a much larger company specializing in, oddly enough, rope and cordage. Within Wellington, Tink’s was a part of a small but promising outdoor division.

No one knows more about those middle Tink’s years than the company’s current marketing director, Terry Rohm. Terry grew up in a hunting family on a farm in
Pennsylvania. Early on he developed an instinct for hunting and a particular talent for turkey calling. It was that talent, in a roundabout way, that led Terry to Tink’s.

“In the mid-1980s,” explains Terry, “I became one of the youngest callers ever to win the Pennsylvania state turkey calling championship. Later, at the Harrisburg Sportsman Show, I met Ben Rogers Lee, a world champion turkey caller and call manufacturer, and Ben encouraged me to attend the World Turkey Calling Championships in Mobile,
Alabama. I went to Mobile, called in that event, nearly won it and then simply stayed on, guiding with Ben and working in his turkey call business.

“In 1988 Wellington bought Ben Lee Turkey Calls. They already owned a small scent company called Old Timers, and they were looking to expand their outdoor division. As a Ben Lee employee, I shifted over to working for Wellington. Then in June of 1989
Wellington acquired Tink’s, and I was chosen to run the new company. The learning curve was steep. I’d never run a company before, but in short order I learned the business from the ground up. That included sales, manufacturing, shipping, accounting, even working with the media. I had to learn it all, and it proved quite an experience. I remained in that position with Tink’s for almost a year.”

Wellington’s rapidly expanding outdoor division suddenly included two deer lure companies (Tink’s and Old Timers) and a turkey call company (Ben Lee Turkey Calls). The mix proved a struggle.

“The difficulty lay in differentiating and adequately marketing all three brands,” Terry clarifies. “It’s a common problem for companies with multiple brands in the same industry. Over the course of maybe a year, however, it became abundantly clear that Tink’s was a much stronger brand name than Old Timers. Consumers and dealers recognized and trusted Tink’s products, and eventually we folded up the tent on Old Timers and just ran with Tink’s and Ben Lee
Turkey calls. It was a fairly good seasonal approach. Ben Lee Calls was strongest in the spring and Tink’s really took off in the summer and fall.”

Things were about to change, though, with Tink’s emerging even stronger. In 1991 Ben Rogers Lee was tragically killed in a car accident. Lee was the gregarious company spokesman for Ben Lee Turkey Calls. His absence and dramatically increasing competition in the call market severely undercut Wellington’s venture in turkey calls. Eventually the Ben Lee company was disbanded by Wellington and the brand name given back to Ben Lee’s son.

“That placed all the focus on Tink’s,” remembers Terry. “In the next decade we built and enhanced the Tink’s brand at every turn. We significantly expanded the Tink’s product line and we developed one of the most successful marketing campaigns the outdoor industry had ever seen. That campaign involved two talking deer, Hank and Larry.

“To further enhance brand awareness, we knew that we needed a marketing campaign that was both distinctive and memorable. Our overall goal was brand recognition. With over 50 different Tink’s products, it was impossible to advertise each one. We wanted something that would represent and promote the entire product line. With that concept in mind, we struck on the idea of a talking deer. That grew into two talking, interacting mounted trophy deer, and the idea snowballed. The first talking Hank-and-Larry print and television ads hit in 1998, and created a phenomenon. Hank and Larry were an instant Tink’s hit.

“We expanded on the concept in 1999 when we created and installed two animated, talking deer mounts in the Tink’s booth at the SHOT Show. That created a sensation on the show floor and Tink’s won an award for Best Booth, ‘Under Two Bucks,’ which was presented by Shooting Industry magazine.

“Everyone loved Hank and Larry. Hunters loved them. Kids adored them. Even wives got a kick out of the two madcap deer. At shows, people wanted their photos taken with the pair. The Tink’s Hank and Larry Off the Wall Campaign, which today is still as strong and impactful as ever, is ongoing. Over the years its innovative and entertaining nature has generated tremendous brand recognition for Tink’s.”

In spite of that success and Tink’s leadership position in the hunting scent industry, Tink’s was to undergo another upheaval in 2004. Wellington’s rope and cordage business was floundering in the face of stiff foreign competition, and Wellington was forced into bankruptcy.

“Fortunately,” says Phil Robinson, “a group of farsighted individuals recognized the Tink’s business potential and purchased Tink’s from Wellington. The new group, Frist Capital, saw in Tink’s an industry leader with a core group of very dedicated and talented employees and an incredibly strong brand name and product line. Frist felt that Tink’s could go on to create something quite special in the outdoor world.”

With guidance from Frist Capital, Tink’s has once again leapt forward, solidifying its leadership role within the hunting-scent industry and reaffirming its standing with consumers and dealers everywhere. It’s done that by fortifying its management team, focusing on quality, dramatically improving its packaging and by continually introducing new and innovative products for success-minded hunters.

Shortly after acquiring Tink’s, Frist Capital hired Phil Robinson as the company’s new vice president of sales. The youngest of six kids of a Texas Baptist minister, Phil graduated from Southeastern Oklahoma State University with a degree in industrial engineering and business. His engineering and sales career included stints with UPS, Wal-Mart, Proctor and Gamble and most recently with Daisy Outdoor Products.

“My entry in the outdoor industry was circuitous,” says Phil. “Right out of school I went to work for Wal-Mart, and while there got to know the young store manager quite well. Decades later, while working for Proctor and Gamble, I again bumped into that same store manager, only by that time he had become the president of Daisy Outdoor Products. We rekindled our friendship, began hunting and fishing together and eventually he convinced me to join his Daisy sales team. Daisy Outdoor Products is the world’s oldest and largest manufacturer of airguns, ammo and accessories.

“Working for Daisy was great, but when the opportunity to join Tink’s came up, it was just too good to pass by. Late in 2005 I joined Tink’s to head up their sales efforts.

“Once inside the company, I quickly learned that the core employee group at Tink’s was really quite special. It’s a tight-knit group in which the key people all wear a lot of different hats and view the company almost as if it were their own. Julie Sumner is our office manager, which also includes managing inside sales and customer service. Tom Greene is operations manager. He oversees production, all warehouse functions and also purchasing. L.D. Bean is our new controller. Terry Rohm is our longtime marketing manager. Terry oversees all of the marketing efforts, works constantly on new products, is Tink’s hunting pro and over the years has become the face of Tink’s in the public eye. After the Frist acquisition, this capable team set out to remake Tink’s by raising the standard on everything we did.

“Consistent product quality had long been a Tink’s hallmark, but we nevertheless revisited every quality-control yardstick we had in place, and we added quite a few new product quality benchmarks. We also looked closely at the packaging we were using across the entire Tink’s product line.”

“Packaging can make a huge difference in how products and even an entire brand are perceived by both consumers and retailers,” says Tink’s Marketing Manager Terry Rohm. “To do things right, we engaged an outside firm that specializes in packaging. With that firm, we analyzed every aspect of our business, our customers and our objectives. In the end, we jointly developed an entirely new and fresh packaging scheme for Tink’s. It looked bright and bold, displayed our products better and was consistent across the entire Tink’s lineup. It was also more hunter-helpful. Each package included clear user information on when, where and how each product should be used.”

In the end, though, a company is only as good as its products. Tink’s products are very good.

“We’ve listened carefully to hunters,” articulates Phil, who was promoted to the position of company president in 2008. “We’ve scrutinized what they want and need. Tink’s #69 Doe-In-Rut Buck Lure, for example, remains our best selling deer lure because it works. Tink’s #69 is an original formula that we’ve maintained and closely guarded for years. Hunters everywhere have tremendous confidence in Tink’s #69. It’s the most effective estrous lure possible.

“In the same tried-and-true vein is Tink’s #1 Doe-P Deer Lure. It’s an all-season deer lure that’s helpful both before and after the rut. It, too, is a powerful attractant.

“We also keep our ears cocked as to what new products hunters would like to see. In the past few years we’ve heard more and more from hunters about the notion of heating up lures to enhance scent dispersal in the woods. Furthermore, they wanted the process to be non-messy, safe, lasting and affordable. We responded with Tink’s new Hot Bomb #69 Doe-in-Rut Disposable Heated Lure Dispenser. Tink’s #69 Hot Bombs are pre-loaded lure dispensers that safely and conveniently heat the scent. You simply open the individually packed Hot Bombs and air activates the heat pouch. Each Hot Bomb lasts approximately four hours and is amazingly effective.”

“The 2009 Tink’s product line is sprinkled with additional instances of products that we developed in direct response to hunter requests and input,” Terry adds. “Last year we introduced Tink’s Power Scrape Starter. It’s a potent synthetic buck lure specifically designed to be sprayed on the ground to create new mock scrapes in strategic locations and to keep deer-generated scrapes open longer. Power Scrape Starter has been a huge success. In fact, we’ve been literally buried in letters and emails raving about the effectiveness of Tink’s Power Scrape Starter. ‘This stuff works!’ is the typical comment. ‘I used Power Scrape Starter to create a number of mock scrapes in my hunting area just before the season opened, used trail cameras to check out the bucks visiting those scrapes and then shot my best buck ever on opening morning!’ We’ve gotten baskets of such letters and emails, and that’s fun.

“Tink’s Scent Bombs are another huge hit. Hunters wanted an ultra-
convenient way to carry and efficiently dispense scent. We came up with Scent Bombs—sealable plastic bottles that can hold any scent. To use, all you do is remove the cap and pull up the soaked wick. We even made the Scent Bombs orange so that they could be set out as yardage markers around your stand.

“Brand new this year are Tink’s #69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Bombs. To create this product, we teamed up with the makers of The Buck Bomb. Each Tink’s Buck Bomb contains genuine Tink’s #69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Lure.

“Simply set off the convenient fogger or spray it in bursts, and the Tink’s Buck Bomb sends out scent mist that travels with the breeze and adheres to everything it comes in contact with. I used Tink’s #69 Doe-in-Rut Buck Bombs a lot last year, and they really did the trick. I even set them off in my stand whenever deer appeared directly downwind. Normally those deer would spook. But by utilizing a Tink’s Buck Bomb in a timely manner, those deer were calmed and eventually even attracted.”

Tink’s also offers a complete lineup of cover scents (fox and earth are the most popular, although Terry really likes the calming effect that coon scent seems to have on deer), odor eliminators, scent dispersal systems and even wild hog scents.

“Wild hog populations are expanding in many parts of the country,” Terry explains. “And hunters are after them big time. Tink’s Power Pig and Power Pig Sow-in-Heat lures are proving just the ticket. Pigs smell even better than deer and can be readily attracted with Tink’s hog lure. Trappers are even using Tink’s hog lure in their box traps to capture the excess pigs in some areas.”

“We look at it this way,” Phil concludes. “Our ultimate boss is the hunter in the field. They’re the ones that ultimately use the Tink’s products that we so meticulously design and produce. Only when we do things right and provide those hunter/bosses with products that make their days in the field more enjoyable and more successful will we be rewarded with additional sales from those hunters and their friends. It’s almost a sacred trust. We listen to want they want, respond with exceptionally effective products and both sides win.” Tink’s proves the old saw that good listeners generally make more sales than good talkers.

For more information, log onto tinks69.com or call Tink’s at (800) 624-5988.

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