By Will Primos and Primos Hunting Calls

OUR HISTORY
I was born and raised on 50 acres about 20 minutes from town. It was a life in the country with horses, chickens, sheep, donkeys and small game to chase. As I grew up, my enjoyment of hunting and fishing only increased as I had a lot of opportunity to hunt ducks, whitetail deer and other critters such as rabbits, crows, fox, etc. Waterfowl was a big deal in the Mississippi Delta, which was about an hour away from home. Deer hunting in the Mississippi Delta with my uncles was also a big part of my early years.
In college, I got a degree in Business with a minor in Biology. After graduation, I went to work for my family in the restaurant business. During that time, I took advantage of every opportunity that I had to hunt turkeys.

I wasn’t satisfied with the mouth calls that were being made at that time (early 70s) so I started playing around making my own mouth calls. My good friend Buck Dearman encouraged my call making so I made some dies and tools that helped me make more calls more consistently. I started selling my Diaphragm Mouth Calls in 1976 under the name of Primos Yelpers.
I went to various shows and made a little money. The next thing I knew, everybody seemed to want my calls and I couldn’t make them fast enough.

In 1982, I had a guy follow me around the woods with an audio recorder recording my hunts. The equipment was huge and it took both of us to haul it around. I made an audiocassette and called it “Wild Turkey Hunting with Primos and the Southern Boys.” It was a success so I was encouraged.

I got serious about videoing in 1986 to show the effectiveness of the calls. I wanted my viewers to see the excitement and experience a real turkey hunt. In 1987, I released a video titled, “Spring Turkey Hunting with Primos.” The video of the two hunts was just OK, but the instruction part was done well. The video sold about 5,500 copies so I was encouraged once again.
Shortly after that, I hired Ronnie “Cuz” Strickland. Ronnie was working at Rex Sporting Goods at the time. We started what would become “The TRUTH” series. He was the only cameraman and did a great job capturing the spirit of the hunt.

The next thing I knew I owed the bank $60,000. I had six employees at the time and since I was selling turkey calls, I only had sales in the spring. I realized that I had to expand into other game-calling areas if I was ever going to make a living doing this. I started making deer calls and researching the patent process in an effort to protect my inventions. I wanted to invent something and protect it so I could benefit from bringing a product to market. Since then, I have received 25 patents and have a lot of trademarks that protect our products.

In 1988, I decided to get into the elk market. I started learning about elk and the sounds they produce. I took a look at the market and the products that were out there. I found some holes in the market and started creating products.
We now have 131 employees that work in one of two manufacturing facilities. The main plant is our manufacturing and distribution center where we assemble, warehouse and ship all of the calls. Our corporate offices are located there also. Our other plant is in Brookhaven, MS. There we have high-tech equipment that allows us to manufacture our custom products.

WHAT SETS PRIMOS APART
Back when I was thinking about getting into the business, I noticed that the calls that were on the market at that time were cheaply made. The reeds were cheap and inconsistent. I was amazing to me how poorly they were built and packaged. I decided then that if I was going to make a product, it was going to be better. My business degree and experience in the restaurant business gave me an understanding of margins and profitability. It helped me understand how to properly price our products and that is what really helped me to stay in business. Any money we made I put back in the company in order to add to inventory and to have capital to finance receivables.

Our game calls have been received well due to the quality that we established for our calls early on. Some of the calls we invented are unique to Primos while others are improvements to calls that have been around for decades. To build the quality into our products, I have borrowed on technology that was available in the auto and medical industries and adapted those technologies to build better game calls. Finding competent people that knew how to build injection molds was also key in keeping the quality to Primos standards. They know how to design tools and to make a part perfect, which not only is a key in quality control, but also helps control cost.

WHAT IS PRIMOS?
If someone were to ask me, “What is Primos?” I would say we are a lot of things. Our core business is Game Calls. My goal has been to control as many of the processes of bringing game calls to market as possible. We think up product, we manufacture the product, we package the product, we warehouse the product, and we distribute the product.
We are also a marketing company. If we can’t tell a story and let the public know that we’ve got something that might benefit their hunting experience, we aren’t going to sell it. Every call that comes out of our company is hands-on tested. I could do things a little differently to save money, but I refuse to sacrifice the quality.

WHAT'S NEW?
We have some awesome new products. This year we re-did all of our Mastering the Art® series of instructional DVDs. We did this so an inexperienced caller could watch the video and understand what he/she is supposed to do and hear the sounds he/she needs to create. Of course, we continue to produce the TRUTH® series of videos and DVDs. We also have some new package deals where the buyer can purchase a TRUTH® video along with a call.
Primos Brand Gear™ has many new items in the line up. We are really excited about our Bowhunter’s Vest. The vest allows the shooter to keep his/her accessories out of the way allowing them to shoot their bow and still have easy access to the calls, etc.

THE FUTURE OF PRIMOS HUNTING CALLS
We’ve never had a down year. We continue to grow every year. I believe that even though we are a down-home get-your-boots-muddy-and-go-hunting type of company, there still has to be a strong business structure in place to keep the company focused. We are a company with a mission to add to every hunter’s experience.

A DREAM HUNT...
I dream of being in Mississippi in December during the rut with a 170-class whitetail in view. Of course, I’m glad that all the other seasons don’t occur at the same time as whitetail season because I enjoy being outdoors no matter what I’m hunting.
Here’s wishing that all your whitetail dreams come true!

— Will Primos