Outdoor Cap Interview with Jenny Straub

Outdoor Cap Website

Universal Unilink members can see their Outdoor Cap program pricing and discounts  in the Private Member Site HERE

Transcript:

Marty Hartman: Anybody that knows about promotional products knows that headwear is a huge part of that industry. And Outdoor Cap is a huge supplier. In the headwear space. And, uh, that’s why we are so excited to have Jenny Straub with Outdoor Cap to tell us all about the offerings that they have for our members.

So I think you’re going to be delighted by the, uh, the, the opportunity she’s going to be presenting today. And so she talks all about everything headwear. Jenny, welcome to the interview.

Jenny Straub: Thank you, Marty. Hi, everyone. I am Jenny Straub. I’m the Director of Strategic Partnerships here at Outdoor CAP. So my role really is, um, to help all of our strategic accounts, such as yours, with all of the members and making sure that the vendor relations team knows everything that there is to know about Outdoor Cap.

So I just wanted to share a little bit of the history of Outdoor CAP

real quick. We have been around for 47 years. Our owner, Paul Mahan, who still is involved in the business, he saw a need for headwear actually because we’re in Walmart land. We are out of Bentonville, Arkansas.

Marty Hartman: right in the middle of the country. Great.

Jenny Straub: yeah, I can basically throw a stone from here to the Walmart home office. And Sam Walton needed A source for caps and he knew our owner, Paul, and so he approached him and Paul said, I can do it. He was running a, um, fireworks stand, um, and decided to flip to caps. So that’s the exciting start of outdoor cap.

Marty Hartman: Well, that’s quite a, uh, a big entry into the space.

Jenny Straub: yeah, exactly. So we were one of the very first, um, imported vendors of Walmart. So that’s really exciting to know. And, um, Walmart continues to be one of our very large customers too, because we have three different divisions. One is retail. So it’s all of the Target, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shop, um, Walmart, all of those involved, and then we also have a team business and we are the license holder All minor league and major league baseball off the field.

So in other words, if you’re going to go into your local Walmart and you’re going to shop for me, I’m a Cincinnati Reds fan. Um, I’m going to go into the Walmart there in Ohio and you’re going to see Cincinnati Reds. Headwear and inside of it, it’s going to see say OC Sports.

Marty Hartman: Okay.

Jenny Straub: And so why I tell people this in my presentations is really for the benefit of your customers because we know the trends of headwear well above Well, beyond anybody else in the industry.

And the reason is, is so, for example, I’ve already seen what Walmart is going to bring out for spring of 2026, um, as well as team. They work that far ahead. So we really. are the headwear experts and on trend, um, and retail inspired caps. So I often hear, um, my competitors say, Oh, we shop every month at all of these stores and we know what’s on trend. Well, it’s because Outdoor Cap put those caps on the shelves. It’s all private labeled.

Marty Hartman: Right.

Jenny Straub: So, um, that’s the one, you know, difference I think out of above all of the competitors is we really have that Intel, what colors are going to be popular, what type of decoration and everything that our retailers are asking for.

And sometimes just creating on their own. And then we can quickly respond to that from a promo. Point of view.

Marty Hartman: Right. So you guys already have your finger on the pulse of what people are buying, what people are interested in, which is a huge help for our members because they want to put the popular items in front of their customers.

Jenny Straub: Yeah, and everything is kind of simultaneous So in other words, like I don’t know if you’ve seen the big trend where it’s the backwards or an upside down You know backwards printing. Well, one of our retailers actually suggested that and we’re like What in our, you know, in our vendors overseas are like, this isn’t right.

This is wrong. Well, it started becoming a trend. So promo jumped on it in the sense that when we show you our logos on our caps, we’re going to go ahead and do what’s on trend as far as what we’re seeing in the the retail space to

Marty Hartman: So just curious, what was it that caused people to want to do that with their branding?

Jenny Straub: tick tock.

Marty Hartman: That’s fascinating.

Jenny Straub: Yeah, Dallas was one of the first ones that people started seeing it on a plane, and some of the NFL athletes started having it, even Patrick Mahomes had it for Kansas City, and so people just picked up on it on TikTok, and then it just went widespread. So, it’s one that we have in our sample kit that we show because it gains attention, that’s for sure.

Marty Hartman: Yes, I’m sure it

Jenny Straub: put it on one of the, um, Most trending caps that you see here. This is our OC five five, um, OPF, and it’s a performance, so it, I don’t know if you can see up close that it’s got the perforation on it and this material is just one of the best materials you can have for a cap. Um, you know, that just gives you an example how on trend we can be.

Marty Hartman: Well, that’s excellent. So in the promotional product space, who is it that buys headwear and caps specifically?

Jenny Straub: We like to say everyone buys headwear. The one thing that we know, and these are. ASI stats is one cap can get over 3,400 impressions for the lifetime of the cap. Now what I tell people to do is, typically you’re going to sell the minimum, which is 48 pieces, times that by 3, 400, and now you get 163,200 impressions by that one order of caps of 48. That’s a lot of impressions out there. Because a lot of times people say, well pens are really popular. Well, if I’m writing with this pen, Marty, you don’t know what advertisements on here. Cause it’s, it’s personal. It’s, it’s on me, whereas on a cap, it’s showing the world. And so we like to, um, teach people that, you know, this is a billboard.

This is when you are. at a game or you’re on a plane. I often see this like if, because Bentonville, we’re right by Fayetteville, so it’s Arkansas Razorbacks, right?

Woo Pig, the whole nine yards. Well, when people get on that flight, people pass each other and be like woo pig or you know whatever and so it’s that instant connection with each other or let’s just say if I wore a cap that had a brewery on it’s like oh I didn’t know that brewery opened yep it’s open now

wow you know it’s my it’s basically my five star review that I’m proud enough to wear a cap that has that logo on there um You know, that’s advertising for the company.

Marty Hartman: That’s a, that’s a great concept. I mean, uh, You know, our members listening, if you have any people in the hospitality space, um, just tell those people, those customers, you know, if you have some caps readily available, uh, when people start gushing about the service, you can give them a gift that is in reality serving the, the, uh, the owner of the restaurant.

I think that’s a fantastic idea.

Jenny Straub: yeah, and so some of the other vertical markets, Marty, are, um, definitely construction and what that does, that covers all the bases from the landscapers to, you know, any of the project managers to, um, Roofing, kind of all of everything in between. Um, and then we really see a lot of car dealerships.

Actually, my husband and I bought a car last Monday. And, uh, our salesperson opened up his drawer and I was like, Oh my God, there’s a whole drawer of promotional products. I was so excited. But, um, he handed my husband a hat and of course it was an outdoor cap. Pat, because it was a local, uh, local distributor sold it to this big chain of, um, car dealerships.

And I was like, is he really going to take that cap because I give him all kinds of caps, right? But he wanted it because it had the brand that we purchased, which was a Buick. And so he really loved that hat immediately. So car dealerships. We also, um. Obviously team. Um, believe it or not, I was out in our warehouse, um, last week and I saw somebody embroidering a funeral home on the baseball cap,

which I, I don’t know that I would wear, wear that, but

Marty Hartman: That’s interesting, but I am sure that whoever wears that cap is going to get comments, if nothing else.

Jenny Straub: Exactly. But the, what the way outdoor cap believes is we want to make sure that we offer a great. looking high quality cap so that it’s not thrown in the back of the closet. We want to only produce caps that your customers are going to want to wear forever and ever. And we really don’t play in the low price point. Um, I mean, we have some some caps that are a little bit lower price point, but that’s just not our forte of budget, you know, down and dirty caps because we believe we want to have a cap that will fit great on your head. And then you’ll also want to keep it for a long time.

Marty Hartman: That’s great. So you, you mentioned, uh, licensed, uh, sports teams. Is that something that’s available to, uh, promotional products distributors?

Jenny Straub: The way it works, and these are MLB rules, is the only way that you can sell an MLB or minor league cap is you have to have a brick and mortar store, and your brick and mortar store has to sell, um, bats, balls, gloves, jerseys.

Marty Hartman: Gotcha.

Jenny Straub: It kind of disincludes a lot of people there, but, um, it is a strong business, but we have other licenses. One of our biggest ones, um, are our camo licenses.

Marty Hartman: Oh, yes, absolutely.

Jenny Straub: yeah, we have the most in the industry, so we have very solid relationships. In fact, Realtree, um, they come to us with three, a selection of three patterns, and they let us help them choose which pattern is going to go forward. That’s how solid our relationship is with Realtree. Um, and then also Mossy Oak too, and we have been license holders with them, um, well over 40 years. So it’s exciting when you go to our camo section in either our website And we still print a catalog. Um, you’re just like, Oh my God, I can’t believe there’s this many patterns. And I can’t believe that there’s this many caps that we carry in the depth of the,

of the camo. And we mix it with blaze, which is safe for hunters. Um, And it blazes really great in the construction world. We have a whole high vis section in our catalog as well, so it’s perfect for construction, especially road crews. Um, we even sell the vests, um, as a set with our caps.

Marty Hartman: Okay. I did not know that. Um, thank you for bringing that up because, um, when people think about door cap, we’re thinking of the traditional, um, caps, especially the camo. Um, but I’m sure there are some other things in your, your product line that people may not know about.

Jenny Straub: yeah, we also, um, carry a very strong cold weather line, which is our knit caps. Um, one of the fun ones that we just introduced, sorry I’m sliding back here, but, um, it’s this one right here. Um, this one’s our Holstein, um, knit cap. Knit cap, but we tried to do a little more wild patterns and things like that

just to make it exciting And you can see the patch on it.

It’s great to have a a patch sewn on the um, The knits because it really catches your attention And really what we’ve noticed over the last couple of years marty is that knits are really a fashion statement It’s not I mean, it does help you keep your, you know, ears warm and things like that, but people, a lot of times, men wear it as a fashion statement.

For sure.

Marty Hartman: Absolutely, and it’s one of those things that recipients that receive them, they’re not likely to just toss it away, unless of course it’s got the team name that they just can’t stand.

Jenny Straub: Yeah, exactly.

Marty Hartman: So,

Jenny Straub: then, you know, in summer, I mean, we do a very big business advisors. And then we also have, um, the bucket caps, those kind of returned, um, favorably for the fashion world. And so, and we have a couple of boonies that are very popular among the coaches and things like that. So, um,

Marty Hartman: your landscapers will especially love the boonies.

Jenny Straub: exactly. It just has a wider brim, for those of you not familiar with a boonie. And it’s, um, It sells well. It’s a, it’s a higher priced item because it’s got the sun protection and everything, but it, um, it really does help keep that sun off of you.

Marty Hartman: That’s great.

Jenny Straub: And then we do also just kind of add, um, we have a whole youth section in our catalog. Um, that’s not what a lot of our competitors offer at all. So we’ve got probably 10 different styles for youth. Um, and so it makes it really easy. We actually even introduced a toddler cap this year. Um, it does not have a button up at the top, which, um, it passes all the safety,

Marty Hartman: Oh, right.

Jenny Straub: because a kid can pull at the button,

um, so that’s been wildly popular. Um, and then we also have a ladies section. Um, we have noticed that ladies tend to pick up their husband’s trucker cap and wear it. Well, we really kind of, Shield them against that because it’s going to be too wide on their head. And so for a lady’s fit, we, um, have panels that are shorter and then the circumference of the cap is smaller.

So it fits better on your head. And then, um, We actually introduced, um, a newer version of the ponytail cap because you can put your pony tail or your hair into three different types of ways and the great thing about the engineering of this is the velcro that we use is the same as the toddler cap, but it will not pull at your hair.

Marty Hartman: Oh, that’s excellent.

Jenny Straub: yeah, we try to um, Like, just to dissect every single component to make sure it’s everything somebody would want. This is very, um, boutique ready. We’ve got, gosh, I think it’s 12 different color combinations. And we notice a lot of those local boutiques will buy this through their distributor network.

Um, and it sells really well. Whether they put the town ahead or like this one we did Pickleball, um, which is such a big trend. And then this has been the greatest. We tried to get this in our line for three straight years and, and it just kept being, uh, let’s wait till next year. And now we introduced it and we’re like, oh, we should have done this three years ago. But I don’t know if you can see, it’s a glitter hat.

Marty Hartman: Oh, that’s, that’s, uh, very big in

Jenny Straub: I mean, it is absolutely huge. We did a red one that has sold out three times. Um, and then we had some people, um, at the ASI show wearing these and people were just stopping them left and right and saying, where did you get that? Where did you get that? So this sparkle, um, it’s great because you can embroider it or put a patch on there and it’s, you know, your embroider, it’s not going to rub the glitter off at all.

So.

Marty Hartman: Nice. Now, now what type of decoration, uh, is available throughout DoorCat?

Jenny Straub: Yeah, so that’s a great question. I kind of showed you some of them, but what we do is we offer, look, last year we did 2. 5 billion stitches, um, in our embroidery department, not all on the same cap, but, no, just kidding, but, um, but we really know embroidery by heart. Backwards and forwards

and then we also have perfected 3d embroidery because we just put a piece of foam And then the embroidery needles go over the foam.

So we created that that’s really big and team business But we’ve noticed that if some because it’s it’s a really great look if you do a mixture of a flat and 3D

because it really makes like the icon of the logo pop out. Um, we’ve done some fun ones, like I don’t have it right in front of me, but we’ve done some fun ones with pickleball.

So we made the pickleball, you know, because do you play pickleball?

Marty Hartman: I do not,

but I know it seems like everybody else is playing.

Jenny Straub: Yeah. Well, the pickleball is very distinctive. And so that why we made that pickleball. 3D is it really popped out on the logo. So that’s been really fun. Um, and then we do patches. Now, um, we do our patches, most of our patches in house. So we have an embroidered patch. We have a sublimated patch. We have a leather patch, which we get all of our hides from Amarillo, Texas. We carry it in a chocolate patch or a tan patch. Um, similar to what I showed you here on the Moody.

Marty Hartman: Right.

Jenny Straub: we do faux patches. Now, faux patches are a little bit different because, because it’s laser etched, it’ll have one color and then a different color will show up. So that’s similar to what you see here. This is a faux patch, but you can see it was black. The patch is black, but then the silver pops out after it’s been laser etched, okay?

Marty Hartman: Beautiful.

Jenny Straub: Um, and then, you know, then the sublimation. , this, this, um, this past summer, what we did is we introduced some third party patches. So, just to give some new Type of looks. So we have everything from a flex style flat to a flex style, three DA print stitch. We have heat transfer. We even have a, um, Chanel one as well as woven.

So there’s

some really cool techniques, especially if your customer buys caps all the time and really want something different.

Um, that’s a really great way to do that. Um, and then I will tell you that. One of the biggest trends that have been sticking around is having a patch or the embroidery off to the side. We recommend the right wear side, which means when I put on the cap, it’s, it’s to the right, um,

and we’ll sew that on or we can heat seal those patches on easily. So it’s, it’s an exciting time definitely for outdoor cap with all the decoration methods. And we choose to introduce new styles heavily in the summer because it’s, you know, it’s cap season,

it’s, it’s warm and that’s what we’ve done is so. We like it because it doesn’t overwhelm you because as your members know, everything kind of comes at that, at them in January and it’s, you know, hard goods, that’s the biggest time

for new products. So, um, why we do that in the summer is then that way everybody’s kind of settled down a little bit with new products and then bam, we, we can show you typically we do about 15 to 20 new styles a year.

Marty Hartman: That’s great. So you’re always coming up with something new.

Um,

see something really trending, we’ll go ahead and introduce in January, but it’s usually about five caps, so if anybody is going to PPAI or ASI, you’ll see some newness there as well.

So I am sure that, uh, as our members are looking at all this, they can definitely see on the website, uh, all the things that you’ve got to offer, but if they want to get their hands on samples, is there a way for them to get samples in hand, and what programs do you have to help them do

Jenny Straub: great question. Well, what we do, um, especially for random samples, and what we try to do is not blast outdoor cap all over our, our samples, what we try to do is show you kind of what’s on trend, what, what we’re seeing out there, and try to do some themes in that way. And so we have two kits. One is called a best sellers kit. And the other one is a new styles kit. And so you can order that, any of the members can order that. Um, the only thing that we require is a shipper number. So you don’t pay anything for the kit, you just have to pay for it to ship. And typically those kits have about 10 to 12 caps in it. So it gives you a good variety of both our decoration methods and the different styles of caps.

Marty Hartman: That’s great.

Jenny Straub: And, and really, if you aren’t comfortable selling caps just yet, I would recommend doing the best sellers kit and, um, because you can concentrate on just those 12 caps and know that you’re going to hit pretty much what any of your customers want. The rest of the catalog, which is, it’s pretty big, but it’s, it’s a lot of specific.

Type of caps for specific customers, like that camo customer. Um, so you can delve into that, but that bestsellers kit is really great. Now, if you’re somebody who really is a, you know, versed in outdoor cap and selling it, um. You can always order the new styles kit and now you’re going to get a collection of caps that are really on trend, very retail inspired.

And then the decorations are really good as well. Again, just a shipper number is all.

Marty Hartman: That’s great.

Jenny Straub: We really believe in spec samples. We know time after time after time that spec samples sell.

The way it works is we first get your vectorized art. That’s the best way. We try to tend to tell people, we already know that you might have, um, an embroidery file.

We don’t need that in the sense that we have to redo the file anyway. If it’s embroidery to do the curvature of a cap, so we would much rather take the vectorized art from you and then we’ll give you a virtual and you’ll you can approve it. And I really, um, promote that. You should do. One embroidery one, and then pick one or two of the patches to kind of showcase the logo.

And then that way you’ve got three choices to show your customer, or if you want to surprise and delight the customer, you just approve which one you want. And if you approve all three, that’s fine. We’ll move it into spec samples. And again, those are at no charge. We just need your shipper number to ship those to you or directly to your customer.

Marty Hartman: I think that’s a great opportunity, uh, and I’d encourage our members, even if you’re not doing CAPS already, uh, this is a great way to get in front of your current members, current customers, and also prospects, uh, because, uh, What I have seen as far as the statistics in the industry, that two out of every three spec samples turns into an order.

Jenny Straub: You’re right about that. And especially with caps. And I tell people, too, if you’re already going to sell a wearable, like, for example, my sweater that I have on with the outdoor cap logo, um, you should always say to them, do you want fries with that?

And, you know, they’ll just kind of laugh and think you’re kind of dorky like me. But, um, the fries are really the baseball cap. It’s the accessory on top of the head. I mean, you’re already selling them. Um, One wearable, why not increase your average dollar sale to have the cap on top of it or just make that a, that cap and say, Hey, whoever the business, the buyer or the decision maker is, Hey, I just decided to do this cap up for you as well. And they’re going to fall in love because anytime somebody sees their logo, by the way, Big and bold, um, on a billboard, so to speak, they’ll, they’ll want to purchase it.

The only, um, exception is because of those third party patches. We don’t, they don’t offer free specs, so we can’t.

So, but that’s just the only difference. Um, You can just always order the virtual in the third party patches, but if you stick to the ones that we do, which again is the sublimated, embroidered, uh, genuine leather and faux leather, you’re going to pretty much be able to deliver to your customers a really great look and a just exciting new decoration.

Marty Hartman: And every business owner loves their logo. And when you bring that spec sample by, they’re just, they’re going to love it.

Jenny Straub: Yes, exactly.

Marty Hartman: Well, Jenny, uh, what else, uh, do our members need to know, uh, about OutdoorCat

Jenny Straub: yeah, that’s a great question. So we are very proud of our inside sales team. We have five inside sales reps that cover the whole entire territory, and I can probably send that to you, Marty, the map, um, because the other thing is, is we have multi line reps who carry several different lines, um, but they’re in your area as well, and I would utilize them. The, um, members. list will be going out to all of the Inside Sales reps and our Multiline reps so that they’ll become familiar with all of your members because this is new. So I’m excited about that. Um, and you know, if you’re going to send in an order, um, you’re just going to send it to custom@outdoorcap.com And they’ll start getting everything started for you. Now, for inside sales, the great way to utilize them is, hey, if you need a quick quote, or you’re not really sure what type of cap that you should offer your customer, or if your customer is asking for something very specific. Like, for example, everybody asks for the Richardson 112, and they’ll say, what’s your comparison?

That’s really easy. That’s our OC 771. We have this in 72 color combinations. Um, and most people will say, and we do a lot of blind, um, uh, we’ll blindfold you and have you try on a Richardson and have you try on an OC 771 and nine times out of 10, people will pick ours is the most comfortable

Marty Hartman: There you go.

Jenny Straub: much less expensive, um, our, our, um, Cap is just 4.

30 net at EQP, blank, so that’s a really great, um, price compared to our competitors.

Marty Hartman: Absolutely.

Jenny Straub: And that, that OC771 comes in a variety of, we call them family members where we might print on the back mesh or we might, um, have a more of a performance type of OC771. We call those shapes, so we’ll. We’ll take that same shape and, and use different materials and things like that.

But it is our biggest, um, and best selling family as, as we say.

Marty Hartman: Great.

Jenny Straub: Yeah. And then, um, just on our website, if it’s okay, I was just going to say, um, you know, here when, when we do the resources, that’s. That gives you a lot where you can go and you’ll get a Zoom catalog and things like that. Plus we have a live chat so you can always talk to somebody on there as well. So that’s exciting. Um, Just kind of give us a try. We like to say we’re headwear experts because we really eat, sleep and breathe it. That’s our laser focused. Um, we’re not somebody that’s gonna carry a bunch of other wearables and, um, hard goods and things like that. We concentrate just on headwear.

Um, and, and I think that’s exciting too. Perfect.

Marty Hartman: Well, I hope our members will go to the members site and check out the outdoor cap page. You’re going to have a lot of your information about your program pricing and also the contact information for customer service. And we’ll be hopefully putting this interview on that page as well. Um, so that people can always find it.

Well, Jenny, before we go any, any closing remarks. That you want to tell our members,

Jenny Straub: I really just think if you’re not selling caps, I believe you’re missing out on really selling more product to your customer that they didn’t even really know that you, that you need, that they needed it. And then also I didn’t go all deep into this, but we do have a very, um, popular custom, um, program. We have two different ones.

One is one, it’s called our quick styles. And basically we picked five shapes that your customer can choose from, whether it be a trucker or more of a dad cap. And then we offer you a certain amount of colors both in the front and the mesh, or you can do all solid. And, um, our vendors overseas, it’s out of Vietnam, um, they’ve agreed to keep that material on hand, so it’s really quick to make that cap in 30 days. And then you can choose if you want to fly that cap in, um, for a small price, or let it go by week. Um, so that’s our 30 day, um, program. And then we have a full custom, and we like to say we can make any of your CAP dreams come true. I mean, there are so many examples, too, even on our website of different things that we’ve done.

I mean, we can print on the bill. We can do screen print all over. We can do little loops. I mean, anything. Do some seam tape anything that you can think of we can do full custom now that takes a little bit longer Um, but it’s great to like, okay, we’re heading into january, right

and you can go to your customer and say hey Mr.

Customer last year. I noticed you bought over 288 caps from us over You know, the course of a couple of months, why don’t we bundle those all together, do a custom cap that only you will have, and I can

give you significant savings, and we can get those to you in a pretty quick fashion.

Marty Hartman: So would your design team be able to help and assist with that? If people just want it, they want something different. They’re just not quite sure what. What to do.

Jenny Straub: We have over 15 designers and a lot of times with the custom, what you’ll do is you’ll just say, Hey, this is kind of what they’ve purchased in the past. Here’s their logo. And then it’s great if you can provide a website because then our designers go and they’ll go on the website, they’ll learn, you know, what, what it is for that customer.

So we just try to make it as seamless as possible for, for the members. And we’re just so excited to be a part of and partner with you guys. So it’s, it’s just an exciting time for sure.

Marty Hartman: Well, Jenny, thank you so much for spending time with us and our members today. Uh, we really appreciate the, the inside scoop on, uh, headwear and, uh, we hope our members check out Outdoor Cap.

Jenny Straub: All right. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.