Can you give the readers a little background about Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits company?
After returning from a tour of duty as a medic during the Vietnam war, Gary got a degree in data processing. He was working in Los Angeles as a computer salesman when he decided that Los Angeles was not the best environment for his young family. He knew of a beautiful small town in northern Arizona called Page. The town was situated in sight of a famous reservoir, Lake Powell. It is a place that families from all over the world, including many European families, work and save all year to enjoy summer vacation here. Gary bought a scenic RV campground business and moved his family right away. Gary spent many hours on Lake Powell enjoying the good fishing there. Soon he began entering local bass fishing tournaments, but Gary was not satisfied with the available lures. He discovered a Californian company called Twin T’s that would custom build the colours that he wanted to fish with, but he was required to buy 25,000 lures for this privilege. Of the 25,000 lures, Gary kept what he wanted and sold the rest to local fishermen. He began winning the tournaments he fished in, and word soon spread about the guy who had a very keen eye for the styles and colours of lures that attracted fish. It wasn’t long before Gary was selling in a four state area. Eventually, Gary bought Twin T’s and renamed it 'Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits'.
When Gary introduced the lures to the fledgling bass fishing market in Japan, they were an instant success among the highly finicky anglers there that had an almost scientific approach to bass fishing. Soon Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits was the largest soft plastic lure exporter to Japan. It is a position that we still hold today.
What is your background? How did you find yourself at the forefront of one of the biggest names in the business?
I started working for Gary in the early 1990's. My background, like Gary’s, is computers. Gary had met my sister around this time, and they had begun dating. I was given the job of administering his computer systems. Soon, I had built a new network at the office, hooked us into the Internet, built the company’s first website and webstore and had begun to assist other key personnel in the design of a new manufacturing facility. When that facility was complete, we had enormous extra manufacturing capability. I knew that because Japan had put such a strain on our old facility that we had never tried very hard to build a domestic market. This had now changed, and I began researching how to best acquire a US market share. I discussed my ideas with other key personnel and it was suggested
that these ideas be brought before Gary. One fellow and good friend in particular, Jerry Puckett, took it upon himself to present the idea to Gary. Jerry has a gift with words and we had decided that it would be best if he made the sales pitch. When he returned from Texas where Gary was now living (and now married to my sister), he announced that he had startling news. It was in the form of a letter signed by Gary. Essentially, it stated that since it was my idea to begin with, I was to be placed in charge of this new domestic marketing drive in the capacity of president of Gary’s company. I almost fell out of my chair!
I assembled a solid team to assist me and to consult with and we systematically began our attempt to grow our US market share. That was nearly eight years ago. We’ve now grown to be probably the second or third largest manufacturer of soft plastic lures in the world. I guess we’ve succeeded in our goals, but we’re not done yet.
Phthalates are big news globally at the moment – but unlike many of your competitors’ baits yours are phthalate-free. How and why have you been successful in this area when many of your competitors struggle?
Many lure manufacturers buy their raw plastic already made or pre-produced shall we say. There are many such raw material providers in our industry. On the other hand, we have always built our own raw plastic from scratch, and that enables us to refine and perfect our product. We use only the finest raw materials and make it a practice to consult with the chemical and engineering departments of our vendors to assist us in creating a superior product. I would add that some of our providers are the very biggest names in their industries, so the resources are vast. It also merits mentioning that these raw materials are among the most expensive in their class, which accounts for the relatively high price of our lures. But you know what? You get what you pay for; a point that is not lost among the many fans of our products.
I don’t think any lure manufacturer has any way of knowing just how “safe” their products may be. There just has not been enough study in this particular industry regarding that matter. However, I know that we are currently doing research on our own to address this issue and the results look extremely good.
Who designs your baits?
Gary has always been the sole designer of our lures and the colours they are produced in. In recent times Gary has allowed me and members of my fishing staff to design a couple of lures, both of which are doing quite well. Derek, Gary’s son, has also been a designer of some of our products. The tube baits we offer are not designed by us. They are made in Mexico by another company whose main product line is just that (tube baits). We reckoned we couldn't make tubes better ourselves. However, all our other soft baits are manufactured by us right here in Page, Arizona.
Your baits have a long tradition of being made in the US. Why have you never moved production offshore?
It is quite simple. Gary will not allow it. Our lures have always literally been hand crafted here in Page, Arizona by a work force that is 95 percent American Navajo Indians. The Navajo people are amazing in the quality of their work, having a rich tradition for hand crafted goods such as pottery, jewelry and hand woven rugs. Their artisan skills marry well with our quality of products. I continue to be amazed by their abilities. The Navajo people are one of our company's most valuable assets.
Rising raw material costs seem to be impacting every aspect of life at the moment. What sort of impact are they having on your business and can you see an end to the problem?
I would say that at this time, fuel pricing has had the biggest impact on our industry. Costs having been rising in transportation as well as raw materials. I think that only by somehow reducing the cost of fuel can we reverse this trend. I believe that this is an area where our governments play the biggest role. It is a worldwide issue bigger than any one country.
Reflecting back on your tenure as president of Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits are there many things that you would have done differently?
As president of the company and in charge of its short to middle term operations, I’m not sure that I would have changed anything. The last eight years have been a Cinderella story, but I attribute that mostly to our attention to detail and quality. I feel that as long as I keep a firm and conservative hand on the direction of the company, we will do just fine. Gary once said that all we have to do is to get some of the product into the consumer’s hands and the selling will take care of itself. I’m so proud to say that, because of the quality of our products, he is right.
How do you distribute your products in the USA?
We are very fortunate to have as partners some of the largest distributors in the fishing industry. We have some distributors that can do business nationwide. Many of these distributors mostly cater to the 'big box' retailers such as Sports Authority or Dick’s Sporting Goods or Academy Sports + Outdoors. We have many smaller distributors that are meant to do business in a regional manner. Some of our distributors cater largely to the 'mom and pop' or smaller independent retailers. One has to decide how the distributor can best help you; what is his role. Now, as our domestic marketing strategy begins to reach maturity, we select distributors that have very specific purposes, such as their marketing dominance in a particular state. In one regard, we have been blessed: because of the popularity of our lures at the consumer level, we have never asked any distributor to carry our products, they have all asked us if they could.
Has the inclusion of an ‘online store’ affected your business in any way?
The online store has been both good and bad. Understand that in the beginning, Gary sold directly to the consumer. For that reason, we have always had a very strong direct to customer base. Some consumers have been buying directly from us since the beginnings of the company. I think that it is in some ways a source of pride that they have always done business directly with us. In fact, I regularly speak directly with individual customers about particular colour choices, seasonal styles and fishing techniques. The online store was just an extension of our direct to consumer sales. In time, it became a way of getting the particular colour or style that your local store didn’t carry. Of course, retailers of our products didn’t like at all the fact that we could or would sell directly to
their perceived customers. The online store was a threat to their potential sales. But, when we explained that almost no retailer can afford to carry our entire line, and that all the online store served to do was to fill in the gaps in their inventory, they softened. In fact, when we notice from analyzing our retail sales data that a particular lure style or colour is a good seller in a retailer’s area, we contact the retailers in that area and advise them of our findings. For that reason, our online store has been steadily dropping in sales because the retailers now carry what the customers need. Being a computer person, I’m a huge fan of buying online. But, if a local retailer carries the product that I am looking for; where I can see it, feel it, and so on, I will almost always buy it
locally. In short, we try to drive the business to our retailers, where there is someone to explain how the lure is to be used, how to select the best styles or colours for the area being fished and so forth. I don’t think that anything will ever replace the local retailer because of his commitment to customer service.
What is your European vision? Where do you see GYB positioning itself in the short to medium term? Are you looking to ‘go it alone’ or are you looking to build European alliances?
Europe is an interesting place since its fishing history is so much longer and varied than that of the United States. There are many species that are competitively and recreationally fished for that the US pays little or no attention to and many that we do. As a company, GYB needs to get in synch with which lures of ours will work in Europe. Bass fishing is a relatively new competitive fishing arena in Europe, but one that we have tried to fully support, much like what we have done in Japan. We have a European presence at the corporate level in Gary Italia, SRL, a subsidiary of Gary Yamamoto Custom Baits, USA. I view our presence in Europe as an extension of the manufacturer, ready to do business at the distributor level. In fact Paolo Vannini, president of our European corporation, and I have discussed this regularly. I believe that we must look at European alliances as the cornerstone of our success in Europe. I don’t think that any rational person or company would want to go it alone. For us in Europe, the primary focus needs to be that, although originally designed for black bass, our lures work extremely well for many predatory fish species, and in fact, the ones most commonly fished for across Europe. I have saltwater fishermen, walleye fisherman, pike fishermen, crappie fishermen, trout fishermen and the list goes on, regularly email me to discuss their successes with our lures on their particular species. Fishermen as a general rule have what they call a 'confidence level]' in a particular lure for their particular style of fishing. Our goal is to educate the fishermen that a superior quality lure will excel in many styles and species. Just try them.
And your long term goal?
As time goes on, we hope to constantly innovate more and incrementally better and better lures for Europe and elsewhere, in conjunction with our people and business partners there, just as we have done in the USA and Japan.
Our innovation and product evolution is ongoing. Gary has legacy lure models, the best of their kind in the USA for more than 20 years, that Gary is constantly refining and perfecting even today. If we can hopefully make a lure better, we will. It's what we do. Our company name and goal is custom baits.
How will you be marketing your products outside of the USA?
As I mentioned, we have a corporate presence in Europe and, of course, we also have a corporate presence in Japan. This is part of our strategy for the global marketplace. We have an unincorporated presence in Mexico, South Africa, Brazil, Zimbabwe and South Korea. I expect to also have a presence soon in Holland, as this is somewhat out of the range of our current European corporation in Italy, although it will be controlled by the current corporation. All of these entities are, or will be, prepared to do business at the distributor level since the US corporation is exporting the products directly to these entities in volume and therefore, at the best possible price point. In the past, there was quite a lot of black-market export of our products to various places, particularly Japan. Our direct presence in these various countries offsets the effect of black-marketing of our goods because of the price point achieved by shipping in volume. In essence, no one can get the product to a foreign nation cheaper than we can because they can’t ship in the volumes that we can. Obviously this lowers the shipping costs per bag of lures. Certainly, one of my goals is to make available to anyone in the world, one of the finest lures in the world at a reasonable price.