We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Robert Hackney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Robert, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
This answer is not only a where, but who. The where is from growing up on a farm in middle Georgia. We were what I would classify as poor. We very rarely went out to eat. We frequently got donations from the local Baptist church. I remember my 6th grade math teacher actually gave my family a bed that I slept on years. I remember another time, I was in elementary school and signed up for band. I wanted to play the trombone. I went to band class for about a week or before the teacher asked where my instrument was. I went home and asked my mom about it and she said we couldn’t afford to rent or buy the instrument. So I had to drop from band. There are other examples that I can go on and on about, but those 2 stick out for me. I would go visit my dad and grandma in the summertime and every other Xmas in Maryland. Here I would get to do more things like go to theme parks, get some new video games, even a gun or two as I got older. This is not a comparison to look down on my Georgia life, because I grew to absolutely adore it. It just showed me that choices you make in life matter. It showed me that there is bad luck in the world, and how you handle it shapes you. My dad, before he passes away in 2004 lived with my grandma. He never had a house in my life span that he was alive. He did have health issues, as does my mom, but I just knew I wanted more. I did not want to struggle paycheck to paycheck.
Fast forward a bit to when I was around 19 years old. I have moved to Florida with my best friend and his parents. I lived here about 6 months. But I grew as a person so much in this short time. It was my friend’s dad’s words that I will never forget to this day. He was referring to entitlement and the overall world’s outlook on me and my friend. He said the world doesn’t give a shit about you. Why would they? Who are you to them? If you died today, the world would keep spinning. Sure your family would miss you, but you are out on your own now, so what’s that matter? It sounded harsh at the time, and honestly it messed my mind up for a little while after. Today I am truly thankful for that speech. I play it back in my mind frequently. I laugh to myself when I hear someone acting entitled or complaining about something related to that. It’s not a knock on that person, but I just remember when I thought that way as well. This kind of mindset keeps me driven. It keeps my goal oriented. Between growing up without the luxuries I thought I wanted or needed(turns out I never did need any of that), and finding out that the world actually doesn’t revolve around me gave me the fuel, the fire, and the passion to pursue my dreams.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
So, I did one of these interviews last year, and it was the first time I let people outside of my circle sneak a peak at my personal life. So please take a look at that if you haven’t already. At the risk over repeating a few things from that last interview, here is a summary of who I am and what I do: I own Pointers And Hooks, LLC. We sell hunting and fishing apparel online and produce videos for youtube as well. I was raised in middle Georgia. I grew up on the poorer side of the tracks. In high school I found a group of friends that will wind up being like family to me even until this very day. They loved to go fishing and hunting like I did. I got the passion my dad when I was kid, then my uncle after my dad passed. When were all in high school, a lot of the times they would stay over my house since I had the land and space to do all our redneck activities. There is a pond on the property where would catch largemouth bass, and bream. There was deer and wild hogs to hunt. Thank goodness there was because collectively, we were all pretty much broke the whole time. If we wanted to eat something good that wasn’t chicken or a sandwich or something, we would go hunt it, or catch it. We stayed trying to hunt deer, during the season. We would clean them and process them ourselves. It was a great time honestly. My best friend Billy and I have the same dream, even back then. We have always wanted to be a famous hunter or angler. We wanted to find a way to make money in the outdoor industry. This is where I got my idea to start my own business. It wouldn’t come to fruition until much later, but I knew what I wanted to do. Fast forward several years. I am in my mid 20’s, and working at a Chevy dealer selling cars. I was working with another salesman who actually accomplished his dreams in a past life. He had his own clothing line for years. He is actually the one who came up with the current name of my business, Pointers And Hooks.
At this point I have lived in multiple different states. I have fished and hunted in different locations around the eastern US. I learned alot about the differences in behavior for different areas. When I say behaviors I mean the wildlife, and the people. Growing up in the middle of no where, you really can’t grasp that there is other ways to look at things. I mean you can, but experiencing it is a completely different level.
This changed why I wanted to start a business as well. I then, and now want to bring people from all over together that share a common love the outdoors. We all may do things a little different, and see then a little differently, but we all love the great outdoors. We can unite under a common interest. If you read my mission and vision statements on the website (www.pointersandhooks.com), you can see exactly what the company is about.
Lastly, I want to add a few new things we are doing coming up. It’s crazy to me that we started this 2018 and is now 5 years running. We have a sponsored a local fishing tournament on the eastern shore of MD. We will be getting a booth and have a sale on some products, concentrating on performance fishing shirts. We have also been steadily improving the quality of our products. Moving on from basic vinyl decals, to direct to garment,(DTG), screen printing, and sublimation. I love the direction we are going. We are also focusing on raising our social media presence. We are releasing youtube videos frequently, and we post weekly on IG and FB. We are on track to have our best year yet with no signs of slowing down.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I learned all these the hard way. The first one is patience. When I started I bought cheap equipment, (All in one tshirt press) and expected people to just love my idea and buy everything. That couldn’t have been further from what happened. I should have had the patience to do my research on what is the best bang for buck for my current situation. The second is to listen to others. I unintentionally passed off on a lot of positive feedback when I first started out. It wasn’t necessarily from cockiness. It was simply because I didn’t listen. I heard what someone would say, but I didn’t pay it much thought because in my mind, I was on a very tight budget, and I couldn’t afford to do everyones’ ideas. I should have wrote them down at the very least. I have learned people aren’t going to beg me to change to their ideas if they aren’t involved with the business. I was blinded by that back then since I was processing what other people were saying by thinking it was just casual conversation. Bottom line to this long winded answer is, just listen.
The 3rd thing I would say is resilience. Throughout this whole journey it has been constant stress. Ask anyone is “their own boss.” As great as it can be, it requires constant work, and it doesn’t stop. You have to persevere through the late nights, the mental drainage, the constant budgeting, and in the very lows, the thought of perhaps giving it all up. I have been there a few times. Luckily for me I have an amazing wife that keeps me motivated. In addition to her, I have 2 other business partners that help me when I need it, who are also 2 of my closest friends. My own mom and step dad got my logo as tattoos. I can’t let them down now haha!
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Yes, absolutely! I have been looking into doing collabs and rep this brand. I have a couple doing it now, but I want to expand the amount of people by 200% by next year. There are many different ways we can do business together. The thing I want to avoid is I have had a crazy amount of people just ask for free things without providing any value. There are ways to get some free merch, but it has to be earned, and it is actually very easy. To get more details, send me a DM on instagram or Facebook, @pointersandhooks or email @ pointersandhooks@gmail.com
Contact Info:
- Website: www.pointersandhooks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pointersandhooks/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pointersandhooks/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwK5LxELmOOJ9DyD1pW1jg
Image Credits
Straight Professional Media
