Kelly McCoy is clearly passionate about providing exceptional experiences for everyone who visits her in Todd, North Carolina. Her fishing and outfitter business caters to everyone from serious fly fishers to families looking for a relaxing trip down the river. She discusses the passion she puts into her business and the community that backs her up along the way.
If you want to be an entrepreneur, just keep working on it till it works because there's no sense in taking a job just to make you a little bit of money that you're not going to be happy doing. Find something that you like doing, do it good, and the universe will repay you in more ways.
River Girl Fishing Co., although here at River Girl Fishing Co. we don't do just fishing — we do kayaking to canoeing eco-tours, biking, we have a small petting zoo here. I started River Girl to teach fly-fishing and to educate about the river, about its inhabitants, and how to take care of its inhabitants, and how to protect our water since it's our number one resource on the Earth that people sometimes forget about. I opened it and folks were coming in, going, "Can we rent a tube?" And I was like, "Nope, but I'll take you fishing." "Can we rent a kayak or canoe?" and I was like, "Nope, but I'll build you a fly rod. I'll tie you some flies." I was like, "Maybe I should get some tubes and some bows." Here we are 14 years later and we have 60 something boats, 200 and something inner tubes, 14 bicycles, we're doing eco-tours, we're doing things with Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Cub Scouts, and it's just great.
A customer service-based business is hard because you think you're providing everything that the customers need, but you have some really high-need customers sometimes that you feel like you're bending over backward for, but they still make you feel this big. Sometimes there's a lot of hard things. You've got to be able to bust through those hard things and keep going with the flow and roll with it. We have one group of tubers that comes every year that's a group of 300, so on the day that they come, the boys from the fire department come and help me. Some of the locals here in town bring their pickup trucks and everyone loads up into the back of the trucks and goes out. You take care of your locals, your locals will come to help you if you need help.
Hey there, I'm Kelly McCoy, owner of River Girl Fishing Co. here in historic Todd, North Carolina. Hope you come to visit us soon!
