A Sportsman's Life: How I Built Orvis by Mixing Business and Sport [Paperback]

Leigh Perkins (Author), Geoffrey Norman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2004

When Leigh Perkins bought the Orvis Company in 1965, the fly-fishing and bird-hunting outfitter was a sleepy business with annual sales that had leveled off at $500,000. Over the next thirty years Perkins built Orvis's annual sales to $100 million by revolutionizing the catalog retail industry and reshaping the company's tradition-bound culture. He achieved this by blending his love of nature with his business acumen and bringing the commonsense approach he learned in the streams and on his hunts to his boardroom decision making.
The basic principles he used to run his business include:

The Customer Is Always Right. . . Even When You Know Damned Well He's Wrong: Perkins put such a high priority on customer service that he would personally man the phones at the height of the holiday season each year to keep in touch with his customers.

Product Excellence: Perkins made sure that everything Orvis sold was of the highest quality--even if that meant he had to fight the US government to get access to embargoed Chinese bamboo for fly rods.

Empower Your Employees: By promoting from within, and by empowering his employees to solve problems without manager involvement, Perkins built a loyal and talented team.
Living the outdoor life his catalog popularized, Perkins traveled all over the world to fish and hunt, from Argentina to New Zealand, while devoting his resources to conservation causes worldwide.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In A Sportsman's Life, Leigh Perkins tells a vivid and passionate story about how he turned Orvis into one of the country's most noted fly-fishing and sporting companies. A pioneer in the mail-order business, Perkins boosted sales of the Manchester, Vermont, company from $500,000 annually to nearly $200 million. Perkins believes he succeeded by building a superior product and selling "a lifestyle" in his catalogs--an appreciation of fishing, bird hunting, and country living. "We found not just a niche but an identity," he writes. "It was an exciting place to work." Perkins said he was never afraid of trying something new. Long before the concept became standard, for example, he traded mailing lists with competitors. He also grew Orvis by launching fishing and hunting schools, expanding into women's clothing, involving customers through an Orvis newsletter, offering odd items like bean bags for dogs, and turning out high-quality fly rods and reels.

Perkins, who recently retired, lived the life he sold. Orvis united his love of sales with his love of the outdoors. The book is packed with gripping adventure tales about fly fishing for bonefish off the Florida Keys, hiking the backcountry of New Zealand, Argentina, and Mexico, encountering bear in Alaska and tiger in India, and once almost getting poisoned to death in Africa. He even includes chapters on his favorite bird-hunting dogs and his efforts to protect open space. Written with Geoffrey Norman, the book should appeal to both business and outdoors types. --Dan Ring --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In this combination of personal and company memoir, Perkins, former CEO of the sporting goods company Orvis, discusses how he merged his love of the outdoors with his professional life. Perkins, who once was kicked out of school for going fishing, presents himself as a born salesman who worked for various companies before buying Orvis in 1965. For nearly 30 years, he ran the company, expanding its fishing franchise into clothing and hunting outposts before retiring in 1992 so he could spend his time fishing, hunting and traveling. Perkins has traveled extensively, and the descriptions of his trips to fish in China or hunt in India are quite vivid. Less successful is his consideration of his business experiences. Perkins's voice is more matter of fact and less enthusiastic talking about the work that paid for his outdoor adventures than about the adventures themselves. But to his credit, he presents his story not as the key to life or retailing or business growth, but merely as the story of one man's very fulfilling marriage of business and pleasure. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: The Lyons Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1585748773
• ISBN-13: 978-1585748778
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,567,552 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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4.0 out of 5 stars Fly rods, shotguns, gun dogs and an outdoor life, February 8, 2010

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Dick Paetzke (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Sportsman's Life: How I Built Orvis by Mixing Business and Sport (Paperback)

The title of this book pretty much tells it all. You may not have heard of Leigh Perkins, but any of us who have ever cast a fly, called a retriever to heel, or put our cheek to the stock of a fine 12 ga. double know about Orvis.

This is the story of a man, Perkins, and the creation of that high minded sporting goods business whose ways smack of the trout streams of Ireland and the gun rooms of London. Frankly, to me as a westerner, it is a story of Back East and hunting and fishing that still wears a necktie and breeches. Yet it is an admirable story of a man made of good stuff and solid principles who combined his outdoor savvy with business smarts and pretty much did it like Frank Sinatra -- his way.

If you are an Outdoor Sportsman, his way may not be your way, even though his book makes enjoyable reading. And Orvis may not reflect the outdoor life as you know it. In my own book Postcards. Little Letters From Life there's a chapter titled "Open Season." It asks,"What's your sign, Orvis or Cabela's?" And goes on to detail some of the differences between those of us who pursue the sporting life.