PANIC. A word and feeling we’ve all become too familiar with this year. Rep Your Water, a dedicated TU Business Member, felt that to the extreme during the early days of the pandemic. Cancelled orders from fly shops were flooding in, concerns about retaining its employees kept Corinne and Garrison Doctor (RYW’s owners) up at night, and threats to shutter the warehouse completely from a lag in direct-to-consumer orders also created panic.
But all of this drove the Doctors to reconsider a few things: were they doing the right thing in retaining just one of their two employees, could they put practices in place to keep everyone safe and how could they be poised to bounce back once things returned to normal? Well, normal still hasn’t appeared, but Rep Your Water is encouraged by a few things.
- Dedicated customer orders propped them up in the early days with small orders like a hat and some stickers.
- New customers were introduced by those familiar with the brand.
- As fly shops reopened, hats, apparel and other RYW gear were high on the list to purchase.
- Pre-season orders are pouring in now in anticipation of retaining more anglers into the sport.
Many of these new customers are brand new to angling, and Rep Your Water is dedicated to keeping them in the sport. These anglers found the healing power of nature and RYW looks to capitalize on that by continuing its conservation efforts, and getting those messages across to consumers. They will continue to lead by example through positive social media posts to provide resources for these anglers to learn. By leading in this way, RYW hopes many of these new anglers will soon become advocates for conservation.
