What’s in store for today:

• Story: Cavender's Boot City
• Framework: The Power of Authenticity
• Writing Prompt: Name someone you feel is really authentic online. What’s one strategy you can take from them to make your brand/business more appealing to strangers in 2025?
• Inspiring Quote: read to the end to find out!

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Just because you're good at something, doesn't mean you have to do it, even if it's working.

In today’s edition of Western Writing Weekly, you’ll learn how the founder of the largest western retailer in the United States was making a great living in one industry, quit, and built a family legacy in another.

In spite of the fact that everyone in town told him he was nuts.

From fast-food to cowboy boots, this brand stayed the course and won big.

Let’s dive in…

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📕Story: Cavender's Boot City

Most of us in the rural lifestyle space are familiar with the name Cavender’s.

Since 1965, the brand has been synonymous with fair prices, excellent customer service, and dedication to traditional western culture. But what you probably don’t know is it didn’t start out as a boot or clothing store at all.

It was a hamburger joint.

No, that’s not a typo. Founder James Cavender owned The Dairy Hart - a hamburger joint in Pittsburg, TX. The business did well, but after 6 years, James was tired of the late hours and time spent away from family. He decided to open…of all things…a clothing store.

More specifically, a boot store selling just three styles of Tony Lama boots.

The boots sold extremely well due to the brand’s reputation for quality and craftsmanship, and people came from all over to buy them, establishing Cavender’s as a trusted retailer. This initial success with Tony Lama boots laid the foundation for Cavender’s meteoric growth into the largest western retailer in the United States.

Today, it operates over 100 stores in 15 states, and is a leader in boots, apparel and accessories.

But in addition to high-quality boots, it had a bit of help from a very unlikely source…

Hollywood.

Urban Cowboy Craze

In 1980, the James Bridges film Urban Cowboy, starring John Travolta was released in theatres.

Its instant success shocked the film industry, and revived the mainstream public’s interest in all things country and western. From music, to line dancing, and especially fashion.

Cavender’s capitalized on this surge by implementing a strategy so simple, many businesses overlook it and pay the price when a craze dies off.

They knew who their core customer was and stayed the course.

They made more of what their audience loved, expanded inventory, and started acquiring stores from competitors that struggled once the trend eventually started to decline.

They also saw the value of leveraging strategic partnerships and collaborations.

By far the biggest with “King of Country” superstar George Strait, during his surge in popularity in Pure Country.

This further boosted the brand’s visibility and kept them top of mind for anyone in the market for a pair of cowboy boots, rodeo shirt, or new hat.

Eventually, the family developed their own line of western wear.

Always staying true to their roots, the mission behind their brand was for it to stand beside the other, more well-known ones and compete.

And they laced the family legacy into every product name.

For example, founder James Cavender loved to quail hunt. So naturally, when the family was trying to come up with a logo for the JRC (James’s initials) line of boots , it turned into this:

They’ve also recently introduced a new women’s line of boots — one of the more popular ones is named The Nancy after Joe’s wife.

To Cavender’s, everything they do comes back to family.

A New Growth Lever

Running the largest western retailer in the U.S., one would assume the Cavender family were farmers or ranchers.

But the Cavender's aren’t native cowboys.

Sure they rode horses, and James Cavender had a few cows growing up. But the closest they got to cattle ranching was James’s granddad who was in the polled Hereford business.

Not taking the success of the clothing store for granted, Joe Cavender didn't want to be a one-trick pony.

To survive in the long haul, the business had to diversify.

So Joe and Nancy decided to become cattle farmers.

As Joe tells the story, he got a call one day from a guy in Wolverton, TX who had 12 black baldies at his house. The guy told Joe he wanted him to come down and look at the place, buy it, and be neighbors (the guy’s sister ran their Pittsburg store).

Long story short, Joe bought it and started running Brangus cattle on it.

Cavender Ranches - Brangus Cattle was born.

In 2003, Joe bought another ranch, but soon realized that unless he wanted to end up with a lot of expensive yard ornaments, he’d need to start marketing some females and bulls.

Two years later, Cavender’s started their annual stock sale.

The first one was a doozy — held under a makeshift tarp with no doors and temporary pens and bleachers. Nowhere near the well-oiled machine you see today.

Now in its 18th year, they typically sell around 500 bulls, 85 of their best registered females, and over 1,200-1,500 commercial lots. Its also become the highlight sale of the year for the entire Brangus breed, and brings in buyers from multiple states and countries.

​Cavender Ranches also help other cattle owners evaluate their herds and market their stock through their marketing division, Cavender’s Draggin’ M & Partners.

Additional services include analyzing your breeding program and offering recommendations on making star crosses. With seven partners and a combined experience of 20+ years, the company has a pretty good bank of carcass and feed data to prove how just how good the cattle are.

The Future & Sitting Still

The family knows, just like fashion, you always have to be moving forward.

Like most successful businesses, they use lessons learned in one industry to help the other. Being a fashion merchant helps in the cattle business and vice versa.

In the cattle business, you can have a tough breeding season, tough weather, and/or a tough market. In the clothing business you see trends come and go, economic booms and busts, and it’s harder than ever to stand out amongst all the online noise.

Joe's policy: you go through the ups and downs as they come. There's nothing else to do.

For Cavender’s, their goal has always been to stay true to their target audience.

• Keep quality up
• Maintain excellent customer service standards, and
• Don’t saturate the market to the point you have to discount things — it costs too much time, money and effort.

Lowering prices is nothing but a race to the bottom.

Aside from just numbers, Cavenders continues to focus on maintaining a friendly, professional staff, with many employees saying it feels more like a family.

You can see this firsthand on their YouTube channel, which regularly features employee spotlights — simple, 2-3:00 videos highlighting a certain employee and what working for Cavenders means to them.

Family has always been a pillar value of western culture — it’s no wonder Cavender’s Boot City has built a thriving business centered around it.

It’s a dedication to a legacy that can’t be faked.

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📝Framework: The Power of Authenticity

As any good business owner knows, trends come and go, and the era of “fake” is out.

If you’re like my husband and I who prefer living under our rural rock, you may not have heard about the (latest) TikTok controversy. Just hours before the app was shutdown in the U.S. for a full 12 hours, so-called influencers on the platform jumped on a trend where they confessed a secret to their followers before everything went dark.

Turns out, lots of people lie online.

From the coffee girl who confessed she didn’t actually like coffee and never drank her creations, to the countless fitness influencers who confessed their bodies were actually ‘bought’ using plastic surgery, and they never did the workouts they posted. The public backlash has been swift and painful.

How does this relate to Cavenders you ask?

That authenticity is, and always has been, required if you want the best shot at guaranteeing success.

Unlike many western wear retailers that rely solely on traditional cowboy imagery, Cavender’s was able to stand out from their competition through strategic collaborations with creative agencies including Tilted Chair and Balcom.

They brought in the team behind the hit documentary Cowboys, and created campaigns such as “We are Cavender’s and This is How We Live”, showcasing real people in genuine western environments, rather than scripted scenarios.

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How You Can Replicate Some of Cavender's Success

While the family’s impressive growth was built on old-fashioned hard work, grit, and a little bit of luck, there are a few big takeaways from their story.

Be Proactive in Telling Your Story

Not everyone needs to go viral on TikTok. Many successful businesses never have.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be telling your story anywhere you can.

You shouldn't wait for opportunities to come to you.

The way Cavenders Boot City has been able to stay relevant so long, and become the authority in their niche by embracing their core audience and staying true to it is really smart.

1. People connect with stories.
2. You have a story.
3. Reach out and tell them.

This builds your authority, and starts a flywheel effect. Eventually, that loyal customer base will start telling others your story. But in the beginning, it’s on you to make that happen.

Reverse Engineer Successful People

Cavenders came up with the idea to use strategic partnerships and collaborations from others in their industry.

Can you imagine if they weren't paying attention and just skipped the Urban Cowboy/Pure Country craze altogether? Their business would probably be a LOT smaller at this point, even with the commitment to great products and treating customers like family.

You don’t have to go super deep into what your competitors are doing, but pay attention to how your favorite creators and businesses are building (and holding onto) their audience.

Are they doing cross-promotions? Are they getting media and press attention? What sponsorships have they secured?

Can you get those same deals, or start doing cross-promotions with other people who have a similar size audience?

Not everything is going to work for you as well, but this is a great place to start testing out new offers and growth strategies.

If you try it, reply to this email and let me know how it goes. I'm always over here rooting for you!

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✍️Writing Prompt:

Name someone you feel is really authentic online. What’s one strategy you can take from them to make your brand/business more appealing to strangers in 2025?

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🗨️One quote to finish your week strong:

“You will never influence the world by trying to be like it.”

• Cavender’s Western Wisdom No. 92

Stay true to who you are and what you believe. You should feel inspired by trends, not stressed out by them. The world doesn’t need another influencer. It needs your authenticity. Don’t run from it, embrace it.

Have a great week!

Enjoy the ride,

Charlie

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When you’re ready here’s 3 ways I can help:

1. Share this newsletter with a fellow rural brand or business owner.
2. Want me to help you write for your own business? Book a free 30-minute strategy call here.
3. Promote your business to over 300+ rural brands and founders by sponsoring this newsletter. Email charliedicemedia@gmail.com.

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