Favorite Caps and a Saved Marriage

When I first joined the Outdoor Cap team, I had this warped idea that a cap was a just, well, a simple cap. I mean, REALLY, how complicated could selling caps be? Was I ever in for a surprise! I quickly discovered that selling caps is a complicated business. In fact it’s so complicated that Outdoor Cap offers around 2200 different style/color combinations AND a variety of custom programs- just in case one of the 2200 stock items doesn’t suit your fancy! Terms like; 6 panel, ProFlex, moisture wicking, mesh, closure, wash, twill, structured, pre curved, etc… eventually began to make sense and give way to a deeper understanding of the complexity and scope of selling and even owning a cap. (Side note: for those of you wondering- Yes, I’ve had an on-the-job-education and I’ll admit it. I did not know everything when I was hired but I’d like to think I’m gaining ground- now back to it!)

I’ve also discovered that people who are inclined to wear caps are also inclined to have a favorite cap. It’s true! I’ve done the research (well, enough that I’m convinced)! Cap-wearers will wear their favorite cap regardless if it came from a retail shelf, a promotional give-away or if it was custom made to their specifications. And if that cap doesn’t totally speak to them as it was received, they will modify and personalize it to make it their own. Lesson: one should never underestimate the love and affection between a cap wearer and their favorite cap because the cap that earns the moniker “favorite” can reach icon status…

Now imagine your customer’s brand on a “favorite cap”. Imagine how many times it’s worn and how many people see it while it’s worn… Here’s a quick fact from the ASI Impressions Study (http://www.asicentral.com/html/open/EducationandEvents/powersummit08/Impressions_Study.pdf): the average promotional cap is worn 6.06 X per month and encounters an average of 14 people per outing…if my math is correct, that’s almost 85 people per month looking at that one cap and your customer’s brand in one month. I’m also going to stick my neck out and say that a “favorite” cap will generate even more impressions…so remember to remind your customers that quality translates positively into quantity.

Do you have or know of anyone that has a favorite cap? Snap a picture, tell me the story and post it to our Facebook page: http://tinyurl.com/6ekh8rf or e-mail it directly to me: jfranklin@outdoorcap.com

Here are a couple of “favorites” that I’ve encountered:

I ran into this cap-guy in line at a local Starbucks and he was more than excited to show off his favorite, self-customized cap and I was more than excited to find out that it was an Outdoor Cap style. He also told me he has other self-customized caps in his collection at home! He means serious-cap-business.

This favorite was presented to one of our in-house sales managers by a desperate wife of a cap-guy. (By the way, we felt it was worthy of a professional photo shoot -kind of sad it wasn’t branded) She refused to wash it one more time and her husband refused to quit wearing it. Something had to give; so she arrived at our office in a last-ditch effort and in search of a replacement. Luckily, we still carried the style, it was replaced, and a marriage was saved!