Howdy folks,
Our new website is alive and kickin’. This brings the return of my long-winded diatribes known as a blog post.
“But Sean, no one reads blogs and the analytics will tell you that.”
I’m more of a in-game eye test kind of guy anyways… plus, as the boss, if you don’t get to vent sometimes I don’t know what you do.
The winter is almost at an end. This is our first winter out guiding on Lake Winnipeg and our head guide Brady and his crew have been slugging away in some tough conditions. I’m sure in the guiding industry, like any other, there’s a lot of guys that talk smack about each other etc. But let me be very clear about this, ANYBODY crazy enough to go into guiding on Lake Winnipeg deserves our respect. What an incredibly hard gig.
I’ve often said of our commercial fishing clients that they have the hardest job I’ve ever seen, and I stand by that. But guiding is right up there. Same terrible conditions but let’s add trying to entertain clients to the mix. That’s a hard thing to do when the proverbial “sh*t hits the fan”.
As we send our website out into the stratosphere of the mighty internet, I had a profound moment of accomplishment. I don’t usually let myself feel like that. But this website is a vision I had ages ago. A place where folks could come, learn, be entertained, and maybe shop too.
What’s that weird logo Sean? I’m glad you asked, that is what this dream started out as. I sent this image to my darling wife in 2012. I had been working here at Harvester doing some phone answering and learning the sales ropes. But I wasn’t happy. Some folks are born to be their own bosses and shoulder the burden of everyone’s paychecks. I wanted that… I knew even back then, that Selkirk would benefit from an outdoors store. This was my little dream.
Time moved on and I left that dream behind. I took on a bigger role here at Harvester, eventually running almost everything, and when the time was right, I took the plunge and invested in the business outright. Scariest moment of my life was August 1, 2017. I owned my own business, I owed a terrifying amount of money, and my family and Rob’s family now relied on my decision making to secure the company’s future.
It wasn’t until the winter of 18/19 that someone asked me about fishing licenses. A good friend had some pals up from the states and asked if we had licenses and bait etc. He wasn’t really clear on what a “fishing store” was but that got me thinking, why not have some bait and licenses… boom it’s 2020 and now I own this crazy place that has multiple employees, tons of new customers, and tries to balance all 3 phazes of the business (Commercial, Sporting, and Outfitting) at the same time.
I guess long story short, don’t quit on a good idea….
I hope you enjoy perusing our website. My favourite part is the recipe section and I’m just getting started with all the great meals I love preparing for my family.
Thanks for reading.
Shoot to kill.
Sean Johnston
President and Head Looney Toon
Harvester Outdoors