How Mike Mills Turned One Week of Childhood River Trips Into a $4 Million Resort

Anthony Codispoti (00:00)
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast, where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity. My name is Anthony Cotaspodi, and today’s guest is Mike Mills, founder of Buffalo Outdoor Center located in Ponca, Arkansas.

It began in 1976 as a simple canoe rental on the Buffalo National River. Today, it is a full wilderness resort offering cabins, a lodge, canoe and kayak trips, zip line canopy tours, mountain biking, and more. Its mission is to help every visitor enjoy the Ozark outdoors while protecting the river for the future. The center earned Trip Advisor’s Traveler Choice Award in 2021.

and is an authorized concessioner for the National Park Service. Mike was inducted into the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame in 2018, and earlier served as the state’s director of tourism. He grew up in Lowell, Arkansas, served in the US Marine Corps, and holds a biology degree from Hendritch College. But before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company, Ad Back Benefits Agency.

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MIKE MILLS (02:11)
Hey, it’s my honor. I appreciate you.

Anthony Codispoti (02:14)
So Mike, let’s go back early. Let’s talk about your time as a corporal in the Marine Corps. What is a specific memory that you have? Something that happened there that had a lasting impact on how you approach life and business.

MIKE MILLS (02:29)
You know, I joined the Marine Corps on Christmas Eve, 1969. My mother knew I was going straight to Vietnam, which I did not go to. When I went through boot camp, boot camp is a series of squads and there are 350 guys in the series. I was the number one typist. I could type.

So my Marine Corps MOS, Military Occupational Specialty, was I was administration. Everywhere I went, I worked in an office. And probably one of the most ⁓ impactful things was when I was in boot camp, I was very athletic. ⁓

I had a year of college behind me. ⁓ I was a little bit smarter than a lot of the other people that were joining the Marine Corps in 1969. And I became the platoon honor man. And I’ll never forget being called to the duty office, which we’re all sitting out in a little ⁓ gathering area. And then there’s an office and they, ⁓

the staff sergeant would bark out corporal or private meals at that time, private meals to the duty hut. And you would walk up and stand at attention in front of this duty hut. And he ordered me to turn around. So I did an about face and he said, the privates are looking at the series honor man out of 350 guys. I was number one.

Anthony Codispoti (04:15)
What led to that distinction?

MIKE MILLS (04:16)
Well, I think once again, it was the ⁓ test that I did really well on. I fired expert ⁓ with the rifle and the pistol. ⁓ I could run. was a runner in high school and college. ⁓ so when we had games, ⁓ would win the race that I was running in. And that gave my staff sergeant an opportunity to go to the

officers and say there’s my ⁓ honor man candidate. And so they got to see me in action. ⁓ it was just that that single thing there. There was another time when I won a race that was very honorable as well. But ⁓ basically, the physical ⁓ and mental preparedness is what what I blame as as as my time in the Marine Corps.

Anthony Codispoti (05:15)
you blame. So you were the total package. Had it been a big confidence boost for a young man?

MIKE MILLS (05:19)
Well I’m from

That was one of the things where I say I always just keep getting better. That time period gave me a lot of confidence.

Anthony Codispoti (05:36)
⁓ Let’s talk about that always getting better. You and I had a short conversation before we went live with this. You’ve got a very healthy and a different kind of mindset, the way that you appreciate and approach each of your days.

MIKE MILLS (05:50)
You know, when you meet a friend or family member or whatever, what’s the first thing they say to you? How are you? Most people just say, fine. My standard answer for decades has been, just keep getting better. Even when I’m in the downs and I’ve had illnesses and that kind of stuff, ⁓ every day in my life,

I just try to make it better. Some people would compare it to a fine wine. Every day it just keeps getting better. ⁓ That’s the way of me. At my age, I have nowhere to go backwards. So the only thing I wanna do is go forward and keep getting better doing it.

Anthony Codispoti (06:40)
And so you still summon those words even when you’re not doing well, when you’re mentally down or physically down, you still pull on that same phrase.

MIKE MILLS (06:48)
And in the last couple

of years, I’ve had some hospitalization for surgeries that I had that weren’t really my fault, but it just happened. ⁓ the nurses, the nurses would always say, we love coming to your room because you always keep getting better. And so, yes, even when I’m ⁓ down, I still keep getting better. And part of it is my family, my wife in particular.

⁓ It just keeps me with that attitude that I’m always going to get better.

Anthony Codispoti (07:24)
You mind if I steal that phrase and start using it for myself? Because I really like that. Okay, so let’s get into the canoe business. What inspired this back in 1974 to start this canoe rental?

MIKE MILLS (07:27)
I’d be honored.

Well, you have to back up further than that. When I grew up, my dad was in the ⁓ business manager. We lived on a farm. ⁓ He was chairman of board of the church. He was the commanding officer in the army reserve. And so as a young man, I didn’t see him very much once or twice a week late in the evenings. And I usually got chewed out for something I did or did not do. But one week a year,

Anthony Codispoti (07:40)
Okay.

MIKE MILLS (08:07)
Our vacation was to take a canoe and a tent and go set up camp on the edge of a river. Dad liked to fish. I was the oldest of the four boys. And so I learned to paddle a canoe at about eight, nine years old. And I didn’t have lessons. just had, dad didn’t want me to beat the paddle on the side of the boat. He wanted it quiet. And when he wanted to stop, he wanted to stop. And so I was doing an eddy turn before I even knew what an eddy was.

And so I learned that at a very young age. In college, in the late 60s, early 70s, it was the Back to Nature ecology movement. And going camping and canoeing was huge. And I could get a date with almost anybody to go camping and canoeing because that’s what they wanted to do. so I ended up

my senior year in college, actually bought my own canoe, although I could use dad’s canoe anytime I want, I actually still have it. And it’s one of those things where it just became, I was in a pre-med biology course and I just decided that I wanted to do what I wanted to do all the time, not just one week a year. And so,

When I got out of college, I went to graduate school, but I put myself through graduate school renting canoes out of my apartment. And then that led to ⁓ managing a business on the Buffalo River that was a canoe business. And that led to me starting my own business in 1976.

Anthony Codispoti (09:56)
So when you were renting canoes out of your apartment, people would drive up and what you’d load the canoe, put it on top of their car and.

MIKE MILLS (10:03)
No, most of the time

it would be a situation where I would meet them at the river. So I had canoes on a trailer and I would drive to the river and then we may have already done the paperwork or the ⁓ exchange of money or whatever, but I would drive to the river, put the canoe in the river for them and then meet them at the end, pick the canoe up and take it back home. I did a lot of guiding early on, so groups of

eight, 10 people. So not only was I renting them the canoes, I was also cooking for them, setting up camp for them. I thought that was the way of life. Then I realized that renting canoes was more profitable than cooking and setting up camp.

Anthony Codispoti (10:56)
And so when did you, I guess, officially hang up your shingle? Did you get a place like right on the river? Restarted Buffalo Outdoor?

MIKE MILLS (11:02)
Well,

this is the Buffalo River. the National Park Service, it became the Buffalo National River in 1972. Then there was a landowners injunction that stopped it from developing until 1976. So for that four years, you could not buy property on the river. Quarter mile away, half mile away, yes, outside the boundary of the National Park.

And then in 1979, the canoe rental operations, were all outside the boundary of the National Park, became National Park concessioners. And so at that point, we were basically told everything and how to do it by people who had never done it before.

one of those challenges.

Anthony Codispoti (11:52)
So you have fond memories of that

experience, huh?

MIKE MILLS (11:56)
Well, it toughens you administratively.

Anthony Codispoti (12:06)
Excuse me. ⁓ So did you ever get a location right on the river or you’re still operating, you know?

MIKE MILLS (12:12)
No, we’ve

never had a location right on the river. And any operation, any canoe business that has their own launch site right next to the river, ⁓ they don’t know how lucky they are because since the inception of my business, I’ve had to move a canoe, even if it was just a half a mile, you had to take it down to the river and put it on the riverbank so that your customer could get in it and take off. There was no such thing as

parking their car in the parking lot and saying, okay, we’ll walk down here to the beach and get in this canoe. That didn’t happen.

Anthony Codispoti (12:49)
And so you’re still considered a concessioner today and you’re still.

MIKE MILLS (12:53)
simply because

we do our business outside the park, but we are performing a service within the National Park boundary. So today, all the canoe rental operations on the Buffalo National River are National Park concessions.

Anthony Codispoti (13:10)
And so back then in the mid 70s, when you were first getting started as a concessioner, what were some of the frustrations? What were some of the things they were, that people who had never done it before were trying to tell you to do?

MIKE MILLS (13:22)
Well, they wanted seat belts for every occupant of every vehicle. Have you ever seen a seat belt on a school bus?

No. And so literally we were going to ⁓ salvage yards, buying seat belts out of cars, because we thought the park service was going to make us put seat belts inside a school bus. ⁓ That’s a lot of ⁓ the operations, that’s how they transported people to and from the river. ⁓ And certainly I was one of those that later on that used school buses. ⁓

We also sell cars. So you drive down to our facility and rent a canoe, you drive to the river in your vehicle. And then while you’re on the river paddling down and having fun, we get a driver and a pickup driver and we drive your car to the end. So when you arrive at the end, there’s your automobile and your whole world is in that car. And believe me, I’ve driven

Anthony Codispoti (14:26)
Wow.

MIKE MILLS (14:32)
hundreds and hundreds of cars and some of them are really nice and really neat and some of them are junky stuff rattling and rolling and drugs and spill beer and I mean just if you never know I Drove a Mercedes one time that was brand new had 400 miles on it and the lady says are you gonna drive my Mercedes? I said, yes ma’am. I am

She said, it’s brand new. how many miles has it got on? She said 400. I said, all yours? And she said, yes. I said, then I got more miles in a Mercedes than you do.

Anthony Codispoti (15:11)
Because you’ve driven so many of them over the years. Yeah.

MIKE MILLS (15:13)
because I had driven

several Mercedes on selfs. I never owned one.

Anthony Codispoti (15:19)
So

you started the business in the 70s. Were you profitable right away?

MIKE MILLS (15:26)
⁓ No. When you’re young, it doesn’t require a whole lot of money to exist. ⁓ And that’s basically what led me to building cabins at one point is the canoe rental business, particularly once the park service got involved, became much less profitable. ⁓ And in the early years, well, you also have to think about this.

In 1975, I bought a four-wheel drive Chevy pickup truck for $3,200 $400. Now they’re $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 for that same truck. And the canoe railing rates haven’t followed that. They have gone up, of course, but not to the extent that everything else around them has. And then when the park service came in, we have to pay them a percentage of gross.

all concessioners do. ⁓ so there was another fee layered on top of already taxes and stuff that you had to pay the government to start with. So it didn’t take very long into the late 70s, early 80s for me to understand that we were no longer going to be able to make a living just renting canoes.

We had to do, first of all, our season was only four months long, March, April, May, June. So we didn’t have traditional vacations this season of June, July, August, September.

Anthony Codispoti (17:03)
does it just get too hot

or why are the other summer months kind of off limits?

MIKE MILLS (17:07)
Well,

we’re on the very headwaters of the Buffalo River. So it’s only runnable in the springtime when it’s raining. When it quits raining, the river gets too low to float. And most people don’t even understand that. It has a lot to do with rain, but it has more to do with vegetation. If you take a giant oak tree and when it’s in full leaves, if you wring the water out of those leaves,

you would have barrels full of water. So once the leaves come out in May, early June, the groundwater is absorbed by the canopy of the forest, lowering the water table. Therefore, the river stops running. It always runs, but it stops running enough high enough to canoe.

Anthony Codispoti (18:00)
Gotcha. So at some point, late 70s, early 80s, you realize we can’t be profitable long term, just running canoes. What was the adjustment that you made?

MIKE MILLS (18:10)
No, in fact, that’s actually when I took the job as a director of tourism down in Little Rock ⁓ because I was not making enough money to really provide a great living. ⁓ And plus, you know, we had had our first child and ⁓ that leads to all new expenses and less time for mom to be a part of the business and ⁓ those

those types of scenarios which people still face today.

Anthony Codispoti (18:44)
So you took this job, how long were you at the director of tourism role?

MIKE MILLS (18:50)
I was there for almost four years. That’s when I actually realized that I was sitting on a gold mine. I just needed to go mine the gold, and that was by building cabins. I was a marketer for the whole state of Arkansas, and the department was the Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism. So parks had a lot of cabins, so I had research available to the cabin rates, occupancy,

and what type of ⁓ profit they would bring. And in private industry, there were no cabins anywhere close to Ponca, and yet it was a very popular place. And so I took out an SBA loan and started building cabins, and the rest is history.

Anthony Codispoti (19:44)
how many cabins that you build in the first go round.

MIKE MILLS (19:46)
The first

set was six cabins.

Anthony Codispoti (19:50)
What kind

of money were you able to charge per night for those?

MIKE MILLS (19:54)
gosh, back then I think it was like $40 a night. And here’s one of the lessons I learned. My rate at that point was too low. ⁓ I attracted the wrong type of visitor. And so once I moved the rates up high enough, I attracted a higher class of visitor and had better profits.

Anthony Codispoti (20:25)
⁓ probably fewer incidents and fewer repairs necessary at that point too.

MIKE MILLS (20:29)
Well…

Exactly. I people would just trash the cabins, trash them. I’ve walked into a cabin where you couldn’t put your foot on the floor without stepping on pizza, beer cans, puke, cards, dice, and literally took a scoop shovel to start off the cleaning because the maids wouldn’t do it. They refused to clean the cabin until I got there. And so that has happened to me.

Anthony Codispoti (20:56)
gosh, it was that bad, huh? Yeah.

So how many cabins do you have today?

MIKE MILLS (21:04)
We have 30 cabins and two lodges.

Anthony Codispoti (21:07)
Why do you think nobody else had come up with the idea to put cabins in that area?

MIKE MILLS (21:15)
⁓ probably it was ⁓ lack of tourism at that particular end. And early 70s was just building in this region. ⁓ There was an old lodge ⁓ that that had pretty good occupancy and and but it was old. It was built ⁓ in the 1930s and ⁓ had two bathrooms for seven rooms. So the cabins

I just literally dreamed of, okay, if I wanted to take my wife and my child to Colorado, what would I like to stay in? A log cabin with a fireplace, a nice little kitchen, maybe a hot tub, port swing, and that’s what I built. I designed it myself. mean, literally just took out a piece of paper and drew out a floor plan. And when I went to the bank, the very first time I’d liked to have been a

fly on the boardroom wall because I was getting an SBA loan, but SBA was putting pressure on the bank to loan money. Otherwise, I don’t think they’d loan me the money. And the money came three or four months after it was supposed to. Fortunately, it was during canoe season, so I used the cash that I was normally saving for winter to get through canoe season.

And I was buying out a couple of other businesses and building cabins and that kind of stuff. And all that started before the SBA money came along. ⁓ Paperwork was about an inch and a quarter thick, which is about equal to what it would be today, but this was 1972.

Anthony Codispoti (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

So paint a picture for us today, Mike. What services that you offer at the Buffalo Outdoor Center? We’ve got canoe rentals, we’ve got cabins, what else?

MIKE MILLS (23:15)
Well, canoe reels have expanded into canoe and kayak and then in high water raft reels. Rafts are much safer ⁓ in higher water than say canoes. ⁓ So we have three different ways of getting down the river. The Buffalo has tremendous hiking trails. ⁓ The highest waterfall in middle America is at Hemdenhalle. You can access it from the river.

You can also access it from the trail. So it’s available year round. While the canoe season is still only March, April, May, first part of June, the trails are there all year. We have two lodges that rent, you rent the entire lodge. One of them sleeps 16, the other one sleeps 36. And so we have a lot of family reunions, weddings.

multiple friends. We have some business, you know, marketing teams, that kind of stuff that want to isolate themselves and work on business. We have a downhill mountain bike course, which is longer than the longest one in Colorado. It drops a little over six and a half miles and drops 1,300 feet in elevation.

Anthony Codispoti (24:31)
How long is that?

MIKE MILLS (24:41)
We have a Zipline Canopy Tour which has eight zips, takes about two and a half hours to do. And boy, the screams that come off of that first zip are exciting. When you want an adventure, ⁓ the interesting thing is we have people that come back over and over again. And the one demographic that I did not see was older women.

80s and even 90s. They’re just out, they’ve lost their husband, their family’s grown with kids and all that kind of stuff, and they’re out enjoying the world. And we’ve done more ziplines for grandmas than I would have ever imagined.

Anthony Codispoti (25:32)
I love that. ⁓ Retail store, spa services.

MIKE MILLS (25:34)
We also have a

large retail store and we have all the camping accessories if you forget something or if you need something, we have it. We have a lot of souvenirs, so t-shirts, hats, stickers, all that kind of stuff. We sell used canoes and kayaks. We have a deli that does breakfast burritos and

When I decided we were going to get into the deli business, I just said, we’re going to be the best. So we make sandwiches that people just rave over because we use the best ingredients, fresh bread, that kind of stuff to do it with. And ⁓ we’re still currently in a dry county, so we cannot sell beer, wine, so those type of things you have to bring with you.

Of course, we sell all kinds of ⁓ drinks as far as soft drinks and vitamin drinks and ⁓ energy drinks. We also sell things that you could make a meal out of.

Anthony Codispoti (26:50)
you operate any of your own campgrounds.

MIKE MILLS (26:53)
We have an RV park. The National Park Service has several campgrounds. ⁓ They used to be free. Now they’re beginning to charge, but they charge a nominal fee. You do have to make reservations for the National Park campgrounds. And then of course our RV park is the same thing. ⁓ When you see it on our website, ⁓ we have an RV park with one of the best views of any RV park.

Anywhere.

Anthony Codispoti (27:25)
What is the view? What are you seeing? Mountain or river?

MIKE MILLS (27:27)
you’re

up on top of the mountain, so you’re looking down at the river valley. And early in the morning, you got fog laying in the valley, sun rising. It’s a really pretty, ⁓ it’s an outstanding view.

Anthony Codispoti (27:41)
So I understand that once you get into June that water’s too low to run the river. Does that mean tourism pretty much dries up or are people still drawn to the area for other reasons?

MIKE MILLS (27:50)
No, they’re still

drawn to the area. Once again, you go back to the hiking trails, a trail like Lost Valley, which your two kids would just absolutely adore. It has a natural bridge that you can actually climb right up and go through. It has ⁓ what’s called Cob Cave, which is not really dark. It’s just this huge undercut bluff. And it’s called Cob Cave because the Indians used it as a shelter. ⁓

500 to 1,000, 1,200 years ago. And when they first discovered it, had hundreds of corn cobs in it. So it was named Cobb Cave. Then there’s another little cave that you climb up to, and you actually go in with flashlights, and it has a waterfall inside the cave. And so once again, a lot of kids, that’s their first true underground cave experience ever. And they love it.

Anthony Codispoti (28:51)
Now have to ask for my youngest son, are there any bats in these caves?

MIKE MILLS (28:55)
There can be a brown, Eastern Pip Australian, which is a little brown bat. ⁓ Maybe you might see two three four of them in the cave. ⁓ And they’re harmless, they’re very common. ⁓ But it’s a great opportunity to educate and to view in real time.

Anthony Codispoti (29:14)
Nothing to worry about. Yeah.

Yeah. It seems like as you’ve gone along over the decades with this business, Mike, that you’ve had a pretty good pulse on what customers want. You know, started out with canoes and the cabins, you’ve expanded into the zip lines and, you know, RB Park. What’s next? What are some projects that you’ve got in mind or are already under works?

MIKE MILLS (29:46)
You know, I wish I could answer that question. ⁓ Let me back up because here’s how we have developed Buffalo Outdoor Center. We ask our customers, what do you want? And when we first started with cabins, we built little family cabins. Well, it became obvious really quick that some of our customers would like just a honeymoon cabin for two people. And so we built, we now have six of those.

Then it became obvious ⁓ from listening to them that they wanted a meeting place, a place where they could gather. So we built our first lodge and has a large meeting space and a kitchen that has like two dishwashers and two ovens and built for multiple, know, 60 people can have dinner there. And ⁓ so we’d listen to our customers. And that is the key to our development in my opinion is,

by literally asking our customers, what do you want? And we’re not a place that’s going to put up a Ferris wheel or a ⁓ water ride or something like that. We’re connecting people to the outdoors. And when you stay in one of our cabins, most of the time when you sit on the front porch, the only thing you can see is the Ozark Mountains. Because we’ve…

aligned our cabins not side-by-side, but at a distance where you don’t know the other cabin is there. You may know it’s there, but it’s never going to interrupt anything that you’re doing at your cabin. And so we’re connecting people to the outdoors. That’s huge part of our success.

Anthony Codispoti (31:24)
Mm-hmm.

What was the most recent thing that you heard customers asking for that you guys implemented?

MIKE MILLS (31:36)
Well, it was the ⁓ downhill mountain bike course. the Walton brothers, ⁓ Sam Walton’s grandkids are very much into mountain biking. And they had huge influence and financial support for the downhill mountain bike trail that we built. ⁓ And it’s free. There’s no cost to it.

other than when you get to the bottom, if we provide a shuttle service back to the top, including your bike, and you can buy a ticket for the day and go as many times as you want, or you can just pay for one ride back up. And some people actually come with two vehicles and they’ve got bike racks and all that kind of stuff and they’ll do their own shuttle, but the trail itself is free.

Anthony Codispoti (32:27)
Wow, that’s tremendous.

MIKE MILLS (32:29)
And it’s a

part of the Ozark Mountain trail bike trail network. And there are a lot of.

Anthony Codispoti (32:36)
Okay.

So what’s something customers are asking for now? What’s the new trend?

MIKE MILLS (32:41)
Well, I wish once

again, when we ask that questions, we’ll get answers that are not realistic for us. ⁓ you know, we continue to ask the question.

Anthony Codispoti (32:57)
So give me an example of something unrealistic that you’ve heard asked for. Yep, in Arkansas outdoors, right? Yeah. Well, it gets cold there in the winter. Yeah. Here in January.

MIKE MILLS (33:01)
ice skating rink.

Yeah. it’s cold now. ⁓ But but you know, I

actually learned to snow ski at a snow ski resort in Arkansas, about 20 miles from here, but it didn’t last very long. It it it made snow. But in Arkansas, if it’s 20 degrees today, tomorrow it may be 50. And.

Anthony Codispoti (33:21)
Yeah.

MIKE MILLS (33:34)
And in wintertime, even when it gets below zero for a day or two and freezing for three or four days, a week later, it may be 60 degrees.

Anthony Codispoti (33:44)
people still coming in the winter?

MIKE MILLS (33:46)
yeah, we have a strong winter business. The interesting thing is we have our second quarter is our peak quarter at 47%. ⁓ But all the rest of the first quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter are all equal at 16%. So we spread our business out throughout the year. ⁓ The holiday season, Christmas through New Year’s.

This time of the year, it’s Valentine’s Day is coming up. We do a lot of romantic ⁓ cabin rentals. ⁓ In fact, I couldn’t even tell you, I don’t know. We have three people on staff that can actually perform marriages. And so we’ve performed ⁓ hundreds of marriages at Buffalo Outdoor Center, but we also have no idea how many engagements have happened here.

And so, you you want a unique outdoor private setting, we’ve got it.

Anthony Codispoti (34:54)
Love is in the air there.

MIKE MILLS (34:57)
It certainly can be.

Anthony Codispoti (34:58)
Yeah. So you guys received at Buffalo Outdoor Center, you received a TripAdvisor Travelers Choice Award, which is kind of a big deal. What do you think led to that?

MIKE MILLS (35:11)
Well, when you look at my development philosophy,

It beckons that type of award. And here’s what it is. I want to compete at the top, not the bottom. And so while my prices may be higher than others, I’m competing at the top and I’m providing the top amenities, the top cleanliness, the top ⁓ facilities, the top equipment. ⁓ And that’s

been my development philosophy since day one. And that brings on awards and recognition. I have a story. I have an airplane and I was flying down to Big Bend one time. I stopped in San Jose, Texas for fuel for the airplane. The guy that came out that waves your arms and then crosses them when you need to stop and all that kind of stuff.

comes out and does his thing and I get out of the airplane and I’ve got on a hat that says Buffalo Outdoor Center on it. And this young man looks at that hat and says, boy, I wish I was there right now. I love BOC. I’m in San Angelo, Texas. And the guy waving my airplane in has been to my business. To me, that was an eye-opening day. I realized that the business that I founded

Anthony Codispoti (36:38)
You’ve got some reach.

MIKE MILLS (36:46)
had become much more than just a ⁓ state business. It was a regional business that was iconic. And it was all because I wanted to compete at the top.

Anthony Codispoti (37:01)
So your prices are a little bit higher, but so is the quality. So is the customer experience.

MIKE MILLS (37:06)
Sure, mean, go to our website versus any other website. That’s just a classic example of information and stuff that we provide that most others don’t. yeah, you can…

Anthony Codispoti (37:19)
It’s a beautiful website.

Yeah, buffaloriver.com for folks listening.

MIKE MILLS (37:22)
BuffaloRiver.com.

You know, I was really lucky when I got that website. This was back in 1996. There were 350,000 people on the internet. And I knew I needed, I had a great mentor that told me I needed to be on the internet. So I went to this internet guru in a nearby town and he said, you won’t need your own domain. They’re all going to be these big AOLs and

and that kind of stuff. And I said, well, okay, how much did one of these things cost? And he said, $20. And I said, well, is Buffalo River available? And he types a little bit and he said, well, yeah. And I said, you know, I think I’m just going to gamble. I’ll take buffaloriver.com for $20. Now I was lucky. If I’d have been really smart, really smart in 1996, I could have

Ford.com, shivvy.com, bankamerica.com, arkansas.com. I could have had, if I’d have spent $200, I’d have been a millionaire. But I was lucky, not smart. And I was smart enough to get buffaloreiver.com.

Anthony Codispoti (38:41)
BuffaloRiver.com. Well, know, Mike, behind every success story, there’s usually a chapter in life that almost broke someone. Can you share a serious challenge that you’ve gone through, personal or professional?

MIKE MILLS (38:56)
You know, we founded the business in 1976. We borrowed as much money as my credit would allow me to buy pickup trucks and canoes and that kind of stuff. And we went through our first season and made the payment. And ⁓ then I was having to do any kind of job I could just to provide food. ⁓ And Christmas of 1977.

I could not buy my wife a Christmas present because I did not have $10. And I probably gave her the best Christmas present that I have ever given her. I handmade a coupon book and it was for a coupon for doing the dishes, a coupon for a back massage, a coupon for taking out the trash, a coupon for cooking dinner ⁓ and on and on and on.

And when I look back now, I didn’t have $10, but I gave her a million dollar coupon book. ⁓ So if you find yourself in that situation, use your imagination, ⁓ use your creativeness. And ⁓ once again, as I look back, that simple ⁓ construction paper coupon book, I wish I still had it.

⁓ was probably the greatest gift I ever gave my wife.

Anthony Codispoti (40:30)
Did you feel like that in the moment?

MIKE MILLS (40:34)
No, I don’t think so. I think I was grasping for straws at the moment. ⁓ It was the best I could do with nothing. ⁓ And there have been plenty of other challenges financially. There was a time when I looked at going, trying to go with a limited partnership or something and get investors to invest. And fortunately,

I went to college with ⁓ several friends that are lawyers and I went to one of those and he drew up papers for me and never charged me anything but I’d never sold a single share either. Well, I think at the time it was the desperation move. And when I made it through to the next canoe season, ⁓

Anthony Codispoti (41:17)
Why?

MIKE MILLS (41:29)
It was a really good year and I didn’t need a partner. And then that was very close to the time where I became tourism director and spent four years in Little Rock and then started building cabins. And when I built cabins, we were a four month seasonal business. By adding cabins, we became a year round resort. And maybe in December, we didn’t make enough money but to pay the electric bill.

But the year before, we didn’t make enough money to pay the electric bill. And so you had to have saved it. And in 1978, I promised myself after not being able to give my wife a Christmas present, that I would rathole enough money for Christmas and never touch it until Christmas. And I have done that for almost 50 years now.

Anthony Codispoti (42:25)
What did you get her this past year for Christmas?

MIKE MILLS (42:28)
Let’s see. ⁓

It was a gift from Tiffany’s. And having said that alone tells you that it was a very nice gift.

Anthony Codispoti (42:42)
Okay.

Maybe not as nice as the coupon book, but a close second perhaps.

MIKE MILLS (42:52)
It, yeah.

Anthony Codispoti (42:54)
you

⁓ I want to go back to some of these financial struggles because almost everybody who has ever started a business has been through this. The gut wrenching, how am I going to, you know, in some cases it’s how am going to make payroll? In some cases it’s how am going to pay the electric bill? How am I going to, you know, go and buy groceries today? You know, looking back, you’ve got a pretty healthy perspective on it. Going through the dark tunnel though is oftentimes a different matter.

How were you coping in those day-to-day moments? What got you through them?

MIKE MILLS (43:32)
You know, I go back to college and really I go back to my dad when I was 10 years old. Dad took me to the bank and we borrowed $100 to buy a calf, a cow. I grew up on a farm and then one week at a time, $10 a week, I paid that $100 off. And dad was actually teaching me financial responsibility. He also taught me that I was the customer.

that the bank when they have the right kind of collateral has no reason to say no. And it’s not something that you need to be afraid of or you should be confident going to the bank as long as you understand how you can make the payment. The funny thing is, remember I told you about the SBA loan that was for $125,000 and

I built six cabins with that $125,000. Now, if I walked into the bank and said, I need to borrow $5 million, they’d start doing the paperwork. They wouldn’t even ask me what it was for. They’d just, you know, and so credit is one of those things where as a young person, you need to borrow some money, even if it’s just a small amount, and pay it back so that you establish, number one, good credit. Number two, always pay it back.

When you borrow the money, even if it’s going to cost you a little bit, I remember a trick that the banks sometimes use to get people credit. They loan them $1,000. They buy a $1,000 CD with it, so the bank still has the money. In the end, 90 days later, you cash the CD and pay off the loan, and now you have credit. What it cost you was the percentage between what the CD rate was

and what the interest rate was. So you may have paid 3 % or something like that, 4 % on that thousand dollars for 90 days, but now you have good credit. And so that’s what has saved me many times is I’ve had good credit. I’ve also learned some tricks. Back in the days when you were buying a pickup truck, if you traded in a pickup truck and the

and the GMAC would loan you maximum amount on the new one, ⁓ they would give you a check for $10,000. So in December, I’d go buy a new pickup truck. I’d trade in my old one. would max out the loan from GMAC on the new one, and they’d give me a $10,000 check. That would hold me over until spring when the cash flow started.

and then I’d pay off the truck.

Anthony Codispoti (46:28)
What other clever tricks do you have like that?

MIKE MILLS (46:35)
Well, my first 20 years of Social Security, I have four zeros and 16 under $2,000. I didn’t pay myself.

Anthony Codispoti (46:53)
think a lot of business owners can relate to that.

MIKE MILLS (46:55)
I put the money back into the business and that’s how the business was able to grow as much as it did, as quick as it did. ⁓ Because I only took what I needed to eat. And back, remember I said early on we were guiding and feeding people. So if I had eight guys on a guided trip and I bought 10 steaks, well that was two extra steaks.

that the company paid for that I ate. It’s just one of those things where you got to be creative and you got to use whatever. ⁓ I don’t suggest credit cards. think credit card interest rates are too out of whack. I think that by going to a bank and paying a bank rate, which

probably is less than the credit card rate, but you’re dealing one-on-one with a person and ⁓ chances are if you have a good relationship with that person, if a month comes that you can’t make the payment, you go in and say, look, I haven’t had the income this month. I can pay you the interest and they’ll forgive you that payment as long as you give them something.

And then when the cashflow starts, you make up for it. And that’s how you always keep your credit is you continue to pay the bank.

Anthony Codispoti (48:35)
Good credit, good relationships.

MIKE MILLS (48:36)
good

credit and good relationship, doing what you say you’ll do.

Anthony Codispoti (48:41)
You know, Mike, we’ve talked a lot about how you invest in your facilities. Let’s talk about how you invest in the team that helps to deliver the services. What is your approach to attracting and retaining good talent?

MIKE MILLS (48:57)
Well, you gotta also understand that the town of Ponca, the population is nine.

So you can hold up four fingers in one hand and that’s the population of the town that I live in. Now I don’t live in town, I live outside of town as most of my employees do. So I’m drawing from a rural county in Arkansas. The one thing I can say is we’ve always paid a very decent wage, more than a lot of

jobs in the same county. So when we put out a job application, ⁓ we get multiple applications for that job. That allows us to interview and to select the right person. ⁓ And once again, it’s very, very quick that we always…

competing at the top. Therefore, we’re competing at the top for the employees. And when an employee doesn’t fit our environment, it doesn’t take them very long. And you know, it’s funny, in 50 years, I have fired one employee.

Now, I’ve had conversations with employees that says, you’re not happy here. Why don’t you go somewhere that will make you happy many times? And you know what? It works. They know when they’re not happy here. They know when it’s not right for them. And you basically just, you’re not really giving them a choice. You’re just saying, hey, why don’t you take this up on yourself and

go somewhere that makes you happy. Sometimes it takes them a week, maybe even two weeks, but it works. mean, if somebody just outrides lies to you face to face, you’ve got to fire them, or if they steal from you.

Anthony Codispoti (51:00)
That sounds like a much gentler conversation than firing somebody.

MIKE MILLS (51:21)
But once again, we’re hiring people that have a higher ethical standard than those. And so to start with, we just know when somebody doesn’t fit. And we’re able to look at that and say, you know, why don’t you go somewhere else? And they understand that if they don’t make their own decision, they’re going to get fired. So why not go on your own terms?

Anthony Codispoti (51:53)
Mike, what is your superpower?

MIKE MILLS (52:01)
I just keep getting better every day.

And I’m infectious with that attitude.

⁓ Whenever you have, we have very few disappointed customers, but it was always my job to go handle that customer. I never sent anybody else. And.

I would always tell them, I’m your new very best friend because here’s what we’re going to do to solve this problem. And sometimes, you know, we get customers where ⁓ Aunt Flossie made the reservations for the family reunion. So nephew Johnny, he could be at the Waikiki Beach Hilton and it wouldn’t be good enough for him.

because Aunt Flossie made the reservations.

We as a team set that person aside and we just give that person exceptional quality service every time they walk in the door.

Anthony Codispoti (53:15)
kill him with kindness.

MIKE MILLS (53:17)
And many, ⁓ vast majority of the time, by the time they leave, they want to come back. In fact, the number one thing that we hear from our own customers when they leave is that they don’t want to leave. They want to stay.

And that’s the same way when we’re hiring employees, we have a reputation that people like to work here. They really want to work for us. And it’s because of that attitude, of that culture. And the interesting thing is I’m now retired. I don’t spend every day down at the center, but we developed that culture. And the greatest reward I have is to see that culture exist.

even though I’m not there.

Anthony Codispoti (54:12)
This idea of I just keep getting better. Where did that first start?

Where did you first pick up that phrase?

MIKE MILLS (54:26)
You know, I honestly don’t know. It started because. ⁓

I think during down parts of my life at some particular point, that was actually the case. ⁓ I was down and then all of a sudden things started getting better. And the number one question that you get when you meet somebody, a friend or a new person or whatever is, are you? How are you doing? My standard answer became, I just keep getting better. And then I explained that

You have a choice. You can either stay the same. You can get worse or you can get better. And I just chose to get better every day.

Anthony Codispoti (55:19)
So as a father of two young boys, I’m curious, dad to dad, have you been able to teach or instill that same kind of mindset in your children?

MIKE MILLS (55:30)
You know, I’ve had. I think the answer to that is yes, I didn’t teach it to him. I just showed him how. ⁓ They’ve seen me in, you know, we’re family. We’re a family business. My kids have worked at the business. My wife has worked at the business. ⁓ Rhonda still handles our. ⁓ Social media and and and our web development. ⁓

that kind of stuff. And so we’re still very much engaged in our business. But I think basically my kids have watched me go through hard times and bad times and heard me always say, I just keep getting better. And I think as a dad, the best thing you can do is, I don’t think you can teach it to them as much as you can show them how to do it.

Anthony Codispoti (56:28)
Are there times where you’ve said it and it’s clear you just don’t mean it? Maybe you’re trying to trick your brain into believing it.

MIKE MILLS (56:38)
No, for me, ⁓ recently I’ve had some surgeries and been in ICU, been on life support. And when I woke up, they asked me how I was and I said, I just keep getting better. And the nurses love me because they came into a positive room every day.

Anthony Codispoti (57:01)
That’s phenomenal. What’s something that you really enjoy doing outside of work, Mike?

MIKE MILLS (57:08)
Well, currently Rhonda, who’s my wife, we enjoy ⁓ petroglyph hunting. So petroglyphs is Indian artwork on canyon walls and rocks, mostly out West. There are some in Arkansas, but not like out in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nevada, ⁓ where the ancient Fremont Anasazi cultures existed.

And it involves a hike, and that hike may be a few hundred yards or it may be eight or 10 miles. ⁓ It involves a treasure hunt because you don’t know where it’s at. You may have been given good directions. You may not have any directions, but you’re on a search. And then when you find it, you take pictures.

The reward is standing there wondering when the last human being touched that wall with a rock and a rock chisel or an antler. It’s not necessarily when the last human being was there. And then you find something. My favorite petroglyph is a saber-toothed cat. And it’s about the size of a large computer screen. So it’s only

three or four feet long and a couple of feet tall. But when did saber-toothed cats disappear from Earth? 10,000 years ago. You know that the guy that pecked this petroglyph had to have seen one. So somewhere beyond 10,000 years ago, there was a human standing there with a rock and a antler or some sort of chisel pecking out.

an image of a saber-toothed cat.

our minds have a hard time even comprehending that. And that for me is just pure fascination.

Anthony Codispoti (59:21)
And so what do you call this, petroglyph hunting? Yeah.

MIKE MILLS (59:23)
Petroglyph, P-E-T-R-O-G-L-Y-P-H,

petroglyph. And then in the same artwork, you find pictographs. Petroglyphs are where they peck it into the rock. Pictographs are when they paint it on the rock. So they use some sort of flour or powder or whatever made a paste out of it and made a paint out of it and then painted it on there. And usually the pictographs are actually older than the petroglyphs. And out west there’s

Anthony Codispoti (59:52)
Interesting.

How do they not like wear away?

MIKE MILLS (59:55)
Well, first of all, it’s the climate. You’re in a desert climate. Second of all, most of them are under under overhanging bluff. So they’re under on a place that never gets water on them. And once again, it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a great. Hobby, because it’s so intriguing, I have seen thousands and thousands of petroglyphs, and it’s just.

Anthony Codispoti (1:00:09)
I got some cover now.

MIKE MILLS (1:00:25)
It’s very, very intriguing. The other part is a lot ⁓ of these are next to rivers. I’m a river guy. So I love going and floating out West River and finding petroglyphs. And you learn real quick that at the forks of rivers or ⁓ a fork of a creek and a wash or the fork of a creek and a small stream, that’s where a lot of the petroglyph sites are.

And so then you start hunting on your own. There are plenty of ways of finding petroglyphs. And you can find GPS coordinates and what they look like and all kind of stuff. I prefer the method of just going and hunting for them. And then the reward is finding them.

Anthony Codispoti (1:01:12)
Old-fashioned explorer. Hey, Mike, I’ve just got one more question for you today. But before I ask it, I want to do three things. First of all, anybody who wants to get in touch with Mike or the business, go ahead and hold up your sign, BuffaloRiver.com. We talked about the domain name, domain name, how he got it back in 1996. BuffaloRiver.com. Easy, remember, easy to spell.

And folks, if you’re enjoying the show today, a quick comment or review on your favorite podcast app goes a long way towards helping others discover the show. So thank you for taking a quick moment to do that right now. And as a reminder, if you want to get more tourism employees access to therapists, doctors and prescription meds that as paradoxical as it sounds, actually increases the company’s net profits, reach out to us at addbackbenefits.com.

So last question, Mike, a year from now, what is one specific thing that you hope to be celebrating?

MIKE MILLS (1:02:11)
Another birthday. You know, ⁓ at my age, you begin to understand that ⁓ you don’t have as much life in front of you. I hope I have another 20 years, but you don’t have as much life in front of you as did when you started your business. And so you cherish every moment with your kids, with your grandkids. And ⁓ I just hope

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:13)
Ha

MIKE MILLS (1:02:41)
that that continues having been in the ⁓ situations I’ve been in in the last few years. I’m thankful that I’m now healthy and happy and just keep getting better.

Anthony Codispoti (1:02:57)
Mike Mills from Buffalo Outdoors Center, I wanna be the first to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate you.

MIKE MILLS (1:03:06)
It’s my honor, I promise you.

Anthony Codispoti (1:03:08)
Folks, that’s a wrap on another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast. Thanks for learning with us today.