#11 Why Story Matters: Learn from an icon who has helped build multiple iconic western brands....

Welcome to episode number 11 with our friend Keith Mundy, the president of American Hat Company. Let's talk about your business strategy and the juicy details of what actually works, from mainstream fashion to fashion on Main street and the entire ecosystem behind it. How do we scale your company and do it with the balance and the happiness that we all seek? Let's hear from those insiders, experts, and strategists that actually make it happen. I'm your host, Ashley Alderson from the boutique, and I can't wait to chat. Every industry has its iconic leaders, the men and the women who have paved the way and created a new way of doing business. They're the ones who everyone is drawn to the moment they walk in the room, not only for what they've done, but who they are as a person and the way that they make you feel. Similarly, whether you're involved in the Western industry or not, there's also no doubt that you also recognize the American cowboy hat and its iconic value. Well, today on the show, we're going to combine both of those because we're chatting with Keith Mundy, the president of American Hat Company, a man who, once you've met him, you're likely to never forget. He definitely has that aura about him. When he speaks and when he walks into the room, people take notice. So whether you're listening today as a boutique owner, as a wholesale brand, as a maker, a designer, and whether you're Western or not, I want you to get to know Keith and to hear the way in which he uses story to build relationships with others and to show the value of product and the company and the lifestyle that he represents. His ability to tell a great story increases the value of his product and his brand. And I'm willing to bet that simply by listening to him today, whether you're a cowboy or not, you're going to be ready to buy a hat at the end of this podcast. And trust me, he's not here selling one. That's what great leaders do, isn't it? They don't sell, they don't push, they don't talk price. They simply build with emotion and relationship. And in that process, they fill needs that many of us don't even recognize that we have. We're so lucky to have had the chance to visit with Keith not only today, but also at the Western Summit that we hosted in Denver this January. And I know you're going to love hearing about how this businessman thinks and how you can put some of that insight into play in your own Business. So are you ready to get started? Let's have a chat with Keith Mundy. Hey, guys. Welcome back to the podcast. This week we have such a treat for you because we are joined today by a true leader in the Western industry and a leader among so many iconic brands today. So. So please help me welcome Keith Mundy, the president of American Hat Company. Keith, thank you for being here.

Hey, thanks for having me, Ashley. It's great to be here.

We're excited. So I have to start off with a big thank you. First and foremost, you are our closing speaker at the Western Summit this January in Denver, and you had so many great takeaways for not only retailers, but brands and makers and designers and everyone that was in the audience. So thank you for sharing your time with us, and hopefully you're going to be able to join us again.

Yes. That was. That was a blast. That was industry first, I thought, you know, when I came back there at the end and the room was nearly empty, I thought, oh, everybody has left. That's, you know, okay, well, they probably don't want me to even speak. And then. Then I found that everybody's in their breakout sessions, and then the room filled up again. I'm thinking this is. This is kind of a amazing thing with our industry because you guys should have home run there.

Thank you. It was a really exciting day. There was a lot of energy in that room, for sure. And we're excited to do it again because I just. The ability to collaborate among this industry is just its strongest asset. So, big opportunity going forward.

Agreed. And I sat through some of the presentations there, and I learned stuff from the Dale Brisby social media presentation. I learned stuff from Drew Stu. I mean, you know, there was stuff that you could learn from everybody, so it was a phenomenal program.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, you and I have a lot to cover today. I think we could take this podcast into overtime with so many topics we could get to. But before we get started, into some real specific areas for anyone who's listening, who maybe isn't involved heavily in the Western industry and hasn't had the opportunity to meet you yet, I'd love to hear a little bit about your background and where you came from. I know you studied psychology and education, and you've had some successful businesses before you got involved in these iconic Western brands. So how about you tell us a little bit about that backstory?

Okay. I'll kind of give you the reader's digestive version. I grew up in Chino, California, and My grandfather had a big ranch in the Chino Hills. And there's a off ramp there that's called Phillips Ranch Road. And my grandfather's Clyde Phillips. Anyway, so I remember, you know, coming home or coming after school where the bus would drop me off and I'd have to walk the dirt road up to the ranch and I. And I really didn't like that. I thought it wasn't very cool at the time. I was more into baseball and basketball and football and other sports. And the ranch was maybe not the coolest place in my mind to hang out. But then later, as I grew up, I realized how unique and different it was to be there. So a lot of good memories from there as well. Went to Chino High School. That was a great time in my life. Graduated there in 1975, went on to the University of La Verne. And I majored in psychology and education. Those were things that were always near and dear to me. I kind of always was interested in what makes people tick, what makes them do certain things. And so that's why I did that. And then from there started doing some student teaching. But they sent me to East Los Angeles and that was not very good experience. The kids were not what I remember when I was in school. I looked up to my teachers and I wanted to be. I wanted to emulate what some of my teachers were like. And I got to East Los Angeles doing my student teaching and it wasn't like that at all. It was more of a. You're, you know, you were trying to keep everybody together and not hurt each other or allow them to hurt you. Yeah. So I became very disenchanted with, you know, being a teacher at that point. And summers I was working the construction business. I met a guy who was doing the metal fireplaces, became very interested in that. Anyways, long story short, started a business and was Western Fireplace Distributors. And we were there in southern California for 17 years during the building boom, Orange county and as that developed, and then obviously Palm Springs, as that developed. We did lion's share of the fireplace. We were doing about 1900 fireplaces a month. And then started doing the faces, the brick faces and the marble faces on the fireplace. And then started doing the wooden mantles around them so that we were basically a one stop shop. So a Luscombes or a Lewis Homes could come to us and say, this is the fireplace I want in this house or this condominium or whatever. And we would be able to do the whole thing. So that was a good business. But as Prices started to get competitive. I started shopping other suppliers, and my main supplier decided to make an offer to buy us so that they could control and keep us buying their products. And so I entertained that offer. And long story short, we ended up selling Western Fireplace distributors. At that point, I helped them for another year and then took a couple of years off. Actually built a rope and arena in the house and thought, you know, I was going to maybe board some horses and just kind of relax. But that got boring like anything else. And so I bought a casket manufacturing company in El Monte, California. That was interesting. Business is good, great little business. But I wasn't passionate necessarily about. Was really just a way to make money. And then from there, decided to move my family to Boise, Idaho. I'd been there for team roping. I loved it. The skies were blue. The clouds were white and puffy, unlike Southern California. And so moved the whole family to Boise, Idaho. And then I got a call from some people that I knew at Miller International, and they were looking for a manufacturer's rep for their products in the Pacific Northwest. And their products would be Cinch Jeans, Curlgirl Jeans, Rockies Jeans, and then later, it turned out with Miller Ranch and Southern Thread. So there were several different brands there. And so I took that job. And it was a great job. It was fun. My wife and I traveled the Pacific Northwest in a diesel pusher motorhome. So it was kind of like every six weeks, or we'd be gone for six weeks, but we would then, you know, kind of go on a little vacation through the Pacific Northwest at RV parks, call on customers. And that little business bloomed and did really good. And Miller then called and asked if I would be a regional VP and handled the whole 11 Western states. I did that. That worked out good. My next call, they asked me if I come in and run the company as president. So I did that. So I was at Miller for 15 years. I want to say 15, 15, 16 years.

Quite a way to tie, you know, both a successful career and a great hobby together. Right? Every. Every Team Ropers fantasy to get to work that they love every day like that.

Yeah, yeah. And then. But, you know, I had. I had. I had a roping arena at my house, and I started putting on team ropings. And I realized, okay, I don't want to do this forever, you know, My hobby then got kind of ruined. Kind of ruined my hobby putting it on and making a job out of it. So anyhow, when I started selling that stuff, that really was a fun way to get to see the country and travel and be. Spend time with my wife. My wife had several other lines as well. So it was good. It was a great, great deal. Miller got sold, new owner came in. I knew that his philosophy wasn't the same philosophy as the original owners, and so I started looking for another place to land. Eventually, I went to help Chris Cox for a year while I was waiting on Keith Maddox, who owns American Hat company Him and I had talked early and he said, I want to hire you, but he said, I'm just not ready right now. It's going to take me almost a year. So I hung out in Texas for a year waiting to come to work for Keith Maddox, because he's a guy in our industry that the best way I can explain him is everybody wants to sit at his table because you're guaranteed you're going to have some fun and some laughs, and he's very positive guy and he has the ability to, no matter what happens, land on his feet. So, anyway, so I came to work for Keith and Susan Maddox in 2011, and we've had. The last few years have all been 30% or more growth years. The best hat stores up 75% over where it was. So this brand is really going well. But, you know, if you stop and think about it, it's called American Hat Company. Great name. All we do is cowboy hats. We don't make ball caps, we don't make T shirts, we don't make anything else. We just do cowboy hats. And we. Our goal is to make the finest cowboy hat in the world, and we believe we do. So that's where we're at today.

Absolutely. You know, in your time at both, you know, reflecting on you being at Miller and you at American so far, you have a hand in creating some pretty iconic brands and really building these companies, you know, to such a substantial level. What does it mean to you to be at the helm and what do you think those key takeaways are for someone listening who's interested in building their own brand in the way that you've done with these guys? Where would you tell them to start to start building like you have?

Well, you know, I mean, it's. It's. What do they say luck is when preparation and opportunity meet? And so I've been pretty lucky. I had a couple of other options to go do other things, but I wasn't necessarily passionate about those brands. I had an option to go up for Tommy Bahama, and I did not want to go to Seattle. And I just, I like Their shirts, some of them. But I don't like the ones that got the big martini glass and a big swordfish on the back. I wouldn't wear it. So I'm thinking, how can I sell that? I wouldn't wear that. So for me, first and foremost, I have to be passionate about the brand and have to love the brand, have to believe with my heart. If I don't live with my heart, I can't sell it. I just can't do it. So I feel like when I'm talking to a retailer and they ask me, well, how much is this hat going to cost me? And I kind of give them a quizzical look, and I said, I'm not sure what you mean. What do you mean, cost you? Well, how much does this hat cost? And I said, you're gonna make X amount of dollars every time you sell one of these. You're not gonna keep these, are you? You know, and I just try to get their thinking changed, because if they're looking at how many dollars am I spending and what is this gonna cost me? I love to say, the right stuff doesn't cost you anything. It makes you money. The wrong stuff is what cost you money. So you gotta make sure you're giving them and you. And as a salesperson, you don't want to overload them. I don't ever want somebody to, you know, be in a financial crunch, but their goal is to make money, too. So we want our retailers to make money with our products. Absolutely.

Do you think it's that mindset shift that you think you've invited people who've been along this journey with you to take that's made such a big.

Yeah, absolutely. Because when somebody like. I'll use the jeans as an example. You know, we put our jeans on some influencers, Cody Oles and some Fred Whitfields. And then Tough Cooper was a cinch guy for a while. Those are. Those guys are influencers. And so when you're wearing that brand, that brand tells the world who you are, where you fit in the socioeconomic status or stratosphere of the world. You know, when I first went out there, I would. The retailers would tell me, I can't sell a $75 pair of jeans. You know, I got. There's wranglers back here for 1999. How am I going to sell a pair of $70 pair of jeans? And I said, they're not for everybody, but there is a guy out there. And I said, you ought to think about when somebody walks through your store and grabs that 13 MWZ and he spins and makes a move for your register. You better stop him because you're gonna lose some money. You're only making a buck on those things. By the time you reorder it and it ships to you and you unpackage it and get it back on the shelf, you're not making any money. So you got to sell that guy something else. And, you know, we started talking about the quality of the denim, the fit of the denim, the different fits of the denim, and the fact that this is not your dad's jean. This is what where Cinch was born was. Some of the reps for the company. At the time, Rockies was the big gene, and they were out at events and they noticed all these kids buying Gap and Hilfiger and these baggier jeans. And so Cinch saw that. I shouldn't say Cinch. Some of the reps at Miller saw that, and they come up with the idea, hey, let's build a brand that's going to be like that. And we won't go so far to be that baggy because we can't necessarily, you know, we don't want to go from ditch to ditch. But the long and short of it, they made a jean that was baggier than a 13 MWZ. And it took off. It just took off. And so, you know, when retailers would say, they say they couldn't sell a $70 pair of jeans in the beginning, they struggled with it. But then eventually what we did was we tried to drive the consumer back through the front doors using influencers. And at that time, it was all done through print ads and stuff like that. There was no social media quite yet.

Man, that's. It's changing so fast. It's such a good story to share because Western's come a long way, as you can attest, over the last several years. I mean, from the very first urban cowboy phase to kind of a lull the way Western is so, you know, right back in mainstream today. Being involved with influencers from the start, I'm sure you've seen such a change in how that whole progression takes place. How do you look at, you know, influencers today with social media and noticing those changes happening in the industry?

The social media thing is huge, you know, so we were. We were in an environment of interruption marketing. So we interrupted your magazine by throwing a full page ad in there that you stopped and looked at. We interrupted your TV program with a commercial, or we interrupted your radio with a commercial. And so now we've come up with ways to speed through all of that in order to have satellite radio that doesn't have commercials or, you know, we have TiVo so we can zoom through the commercials on TV. And I'm not sure that the, the, the ads work in certain magazines, magazines that are, I'll call them staples or things that stay on the coffee table, Cowboys and Indians being one of them. Or there's another magazine that I really like and it's Rodeo News because it has all of the information about all the different associations and stuff. And both of those magazines I think have, still have a lot of play and do a great job for us. Western Horseman is obviously another classic, but I don't do a lot of print. I do Cowboys and Indians for the store for best hat store. And I use Rodeo News for American to make sure that I'm participating with the associations. But social media now is a permission based marketing, so that's very social. You have to be social. And I cringe every time I see a manufacturer on social media saying, you know, 20% off for limited time, blah, blah, blah. Because I zoom through that stuff as fast as I possibly can. I believe in this day and age with social media, phones and all the things we got going on, our filters are turned up really, really high. So we're trying to keep as much of that stuff away. And so how do you break through? The only way that I know to break through is obviously the traditional or the old, the best type form of advertising and that's word of mouth. Well, social media is word of mouth on steroids. And so I use kids brand ambassadors. And the reason I use kids is we did the same thing with Cinch when we took high school rodeo from Wrangler. We did the same thing in American when we took high school radio away from Stetson. Resist all. So we became the brand of the kid. And anytime the kids adopt your brand, think about branding as a western term. Right? Brand calves. And so as a rancher, you want to brand a lot of calves. You want to have a good calf crop. And so that's what made me think we need to be branding calves in the western industry. And that means the kids. And so when you think about high school rodeo, well, shoot, every year it's 25% new and every four years it's 100% new. And the multiplier, let's say they've got, you know, thousand members, but you multiply that by six because you got mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister. So we are the Official hat of Junior High School Rodeo. The official hat of the National High School Rodeo. The official hat of the American Junior Rodeo association and Little Britches Rodeo Association. The International finals youth voted. So I specifically went and targeted all of the kid related events that where we could go brand caps, get them, get them in American hats. I don't necessarily need to brand, you know, old steers. I love them.

I think about my own kids and our kids all rodeo and they're little, they're all Little Britches rodeo kids. And there's two patches that every single one of them has on their hat. They have American patch and they have a Dale Brisby patch. Both of you done the same thing, branding kids. I love it.

Yeah. And then the Dale Brisby phenomena, you know, I saw that and I started watching some of his stuff and I just thought, oh my gosh, this is hilarious. And then he, he's worn American hats. He remembers going to Houston and buying American hats when he was a kid. So one thing kind of led to another and we had these containers full of these old bodies that go Back to the 60s, the Tall Crowns and short brims. And he was in one day and we had some of those out of a container. We were playing with them and I said, why don't you, why don't we put you in one of these? He goes, I don't think that's me. Long story short, we got it shaped up for him and put a different hat band on it. He goes, I kind of like it. He sold a bunch of hats already just, you know, in his own. Through his own website.

So yeah, you know, and the way he does it, I think it goes back to how you've worked with influencers this whole, whole time. It's so seamless, you know, it's just who he is. It's a part of daily life and it's not trying to sell something or push something. It's just so seamless, don't you think?

Yeah, yeah. And that's what social media is about. I think if you start selling something on social media, you know, they turn you off. So I try never ever sell anything on social media. I'll ask for help if I'm looking for help or, you know, stuff like that. But I will not do any kind of sales. I'll give a hat away on social media, but I won't, you know, do anything that regards to a sale. Social media is a place to be social. And it's like Baskin Robbins, okay? Baskin Robbins has Pink spoons everywhere, right? You go into Baskin Robbins and so they want you to try the bubble gum, they want you to try the, you know, the odd flavors and all this stuff. So you could eat a gallon of ice cream in there, but you got to use their pink spoon, so it could take you. Well, social media are like pink spoons. You got all these different platforms where people can go sample your brand. And that's what social media is about, is giving them an opportunity to say, what does your brand stand for? What's the ethos behind the brand? What does American Hat believe in? And who do they support? And, you know, why do they support them? And why an American? You know, I don't get the difference between an American and something else. And so I let our brand ambassadors tell that story.

Man, such a powerful opportunity.

And you watch the kids at high school rodeo. You watch how they walk around. They walk around in little groups or cubbies, and the front two or three are the true influencers, and the rest of them are the middle of the pack. They are adopting whatever the trendsetters are setting. And then probably the kid at the end of the pack or the kid that may not be there is kind of tried and true. He's gonna do what his dad did and his granddad did. He's not going to change. He still wants a plain white hat. But the influencers up front, and they'll tell you in their dress, they'll tell you with their boots, they'll tell you everything.

What's the new thing, man, do you think today, with so many options out there, I'm just thinking about social media and how this evolves, the way that you brand and the way that you sell. I'm thinking about people listening today that are maybe involved. They're a boutique and there's 10 boutiques in town. Or, you know, you're a hat maker and there's 10 other hat companies out there. What advice do you have to someone who's watching and using social media to keep up on all these things happening across the board? But how do you tell them to stay in their own lane and to continue to develop that ethos of their own company and not get distracted by all the other varieties that are out there?

What I try to do is I try to give them something every day here at American Hat. So we give a positive saying every day. So. And it gets posted from a gal from the Maddox's daughter, Treasure Maddox in New York City. So when she gets up in the morning, she's got A post. And she puts something very, very positive up. And so what we do when we're, when we wake up here in Texas, you know, or from the east coast, going to the west coast, it's there waiting for you, something to start your day with. Then we try not to over post because if you do too much, people get annoyed. Okay, I'm done. But I just try to give away something and that's our goal, is to give something away every day on social media. And that's ours is a positive thought in terms of staying in your own lane. I really don't necessarily pay attention to what the competition does. I'm not gonna say I don't glance every now and then, but there's a reason they don't put a rear view mirror on a jet airplane. You know, you're going forward. And so I try not to spend too much time looking back. I try to just focus on what I do and what I do well and go forward and not be distracted. I think that I somehow lose my focus or my energy if I'm looking to my left and to my right, seeing what my competitors are doing. I'm aware of it, but I'm not focused on.

Yeah, it's great advice. That's something that comes up in our community quite often and we've all kind of adopted this, this movement of community over competition. And how do you work with those around you, but stay in your own lane and again, not look in that rearview mirror. So thank you for that. It's great advice. Let's talk about the Internet in regards to the wholesale side of the business. I would love to hear your thoughts on how this dynamic landscape of wholesale is changing, you know, from the trade show model to now. Retailers can connect with brands anytime, anywhere. How do you see that piece of the industry continuing to evolve?

Well, I think it's going to go more and more. I mean, you know, we, we've already seen our trade shows kind of diminish. There's obviously January in Denver is always going to be a big hit. But that's, that's the, there's no substitution in my mind for Face to Face. The western business. What I love about the western business is it's still a very much a relational business, very relationship. It's not necessarily how much you know, but it's who you know and who you have relationships with. Because when I'm selling something, the first thing I'm selling is me. The second thing I'm selling is the company. And the third thing I'm selling is the product. You know, I just, I focus on relationship, relationships, relationships, relationships. But the Internet does take over. You know, we have a website, but I don't sell to the public. As a matter of fact, I just went through a thing where I had somebody grade our website and it was low because there wasn't any call to action. There were no buy buttons and all that. And I had to explain to them, well, I can't sell on that website. All I'm doing is providing information then telling them where they can buy it at and. But the goal then is to drive them to a Cavender's website, NRS's website, Best Haps website, any of our other retailers who have good websites. Unfortunately, in the western business, we don't do a lot of that. We're not, we're not, we're not as savvy about that as maybe mainstream is. And that might not be an unfair statement, but we have a tendency to be a little bit behind the tick on that.

Do you look at that to change much? I mean.

Yes, I do. Yes, I do. It has to. I went to a big social media seminar here a few weeks ago and you know, the first thing on the screen which hit me was Innovate or die. So you look at, you look at Toys R Us as an example. Toys R Us just filed for bankruptcy. Well, they didn't adopt the Amazon. Amazon basically killed them. They didn't adapt to the shop online. They just thought people wanted to come in and, you know, buy their toys in person. When, if you can look at the, you know, you know, what your kid wants, if you could find it online and have it shipped to your house, how much better is that? But Toys R Us could have done a bunch of different things to, you know, have an online presence as well as an in store. They could have had, you know, the Lego World Championships in their stores and, you know, had kids in to build Legos. They could have had slime pits where people could play with slime. They could have done a whole bunch of things differently, but they did not innovate.

So they died going back to creating that experience. Right?

That's totally what it's about. If you walk through the store, you know, again, in this day and age of Amazon, where I can just go online, I can shop for it, I can read reviews, I can see everything about it and I can hit a button and it's going to show up at my door in a few days. You know, some people feel like that's a successful transaction. The millennials do. But I still, personally, that's no substitute for being able to walk in and have somebody help you and solve a problem and say, here, try this. I use this in the past and, you know, leading you through the way. Or if it's a hat, having it shaped while you're standing there and looking in the mirror and going, oh, my God, that. That's what I want. Or take it up a little on the sides or down a little side. So, absolutely, you got to have that in store experience if you want to keep them. Otherwise you're going to drive them to the Internet.

When I think about one of the great ways you guys have built this brand, both yourself and Keith Maddox together, is you guys have kept yourselves as like a lead, authentic person at the helm that anyone who's looking to come and do business with you feels like they have an immediate connection to you. Right. Do you think that wholesale companies, other designers and makers who are interested in building a big brand like this, do you think that's a key takeaway for them, too? Like you said, you sell yourself first and then the company and then the product, even through social media and online sales. When they can't have that in person experience?

Yeah, I do, actually. Again, it goes back to relationships, and there's people that, you know, you meet somebody like, I went to the American Rodeo just recently and I got invited to a suite and met several people in the suite. Well, all those guys ended up buying hats. And why? Because they met Keith Maddox, the guy who owns the company, or Keith Mundy, the president of the company. And they liked us and wanted to do business with us. They have no affinity or no relationship with, you know, another hat company. So their hat of choice. Now they can get behind it because it's called American Hat Company. And we believe in, you know, the United States, and we believe that, you know, this country is not perfect by any means, but when an earthquake hits or tsunami hit, we're the first ones that are there for help. So I think it's still a great. I think it's still a great country, despite what you hear on the mainstream news these days.

So much truth to that. And for anyone who's listening who wasn't aware of the story, you also built a hat for President Trump, correct?

We did. We got a call. So Treasure Maddox, the Maddox's daughter, is in, Is engaged to Andrew Graves, and Andrew is best friends with Eric Trump. And so Sid Miller had played a big part. The Texas AG commissioners, he did some speeches for Candidate Trump at the time. And Donald Trump got was on one of his rallies in Florida and he said, look, I gotta thank Sid Miller. He said, boy, he's been great and went all through Texas with me and da da da da. And he said, what about that hat? I love that hat. Sid Miller's got beautiful hat. Gotta get me one of those. Well, Sid's wearing our hat, American hat. And so Sid reaches out to Donald Trump and said, it's an American hat, it's made In America, it's 103 year old company. And Donald says, I got to get me one of those. So the long and short of it then when he was elected president, Eric Trump then ordered a hat for his dad. So we were able to make the official inaugural hat for President Trump. And then, and then shortly thereafter we made another one for secretary at the time, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

I've got to know the details of the hat.

It was a silver belly, thousand x belly beaver and mink. And so that retails at about $2,800.

Awesome.

Yeah, they bought it.

Awesome. Let's talk about retailers a little bit. Part of your presentation at the Western Summit in January was all about the book why we Buy the Science of Shopping from Peco Underhill. I want to hear about, as you look at your time both at American and at Miller, what do you think? Just to start this off, were some of the key traits that the most successful retailers that you were able to work with had in common?

Well, the key traits on that stuff is you got it, is you have to pay attention, you have to look. I often say that as a salesperson, you got to listen to your customer because if you listen to them close enough, they're not going to tell you maybe in so many words exactly what they're looking for. But if you pay attention close enough and read between the lines and kind of fill in some gaps, they'll tell you what their hot buttons are. They'll tell you what's the most important thing to them. If it's quality, if it's delivery, if it's, you know, something else, you know, and everybody thinks it's price and it's not price. It's definitely not price. The price you pay is or the great deal you got is long forgotten when the quality is not good. So you forget about the deal you got and how great it was when the thing breaks or doesn't work like it was intended to work. So I have retailers all the time that when I'm showing them hats they'll go, oh my gosh, you know, I don't think I can sell a half that expensive. And I, my, my reply to them is, if your philosophy is to sell based on price, you're going to be battling the guy at the carnival right between the Tilt the world and the cotton candy. And you can't win that battle. So you better come up with another strategy. Because if your strategy is to sell based on price, that is a losing strategy. It's proven it over and over and over again. There's always somebody who's going to come up with a better deal, so you better start selling quality. And that's really what we focus on at American Hat Co. When you take one of our straw hats and you immerse it in water or you crush the hat and bring it back, you know, we put additional petroleum based lacquer on our hats. Our hats are immersed in lacquer where everybody else uses a water based lacquer. So our hat will take the steam, it'll shape, it'll hold its shape, and on top of all of that, it will withstand some rain and everything else. So even a bull rider that gets thrown off and lands on his head, they've brought us the hat and we've reshaped it. And the guy goes, I cannot believe that's the same hat. So it pays. I've had a mom that came to high school rodeo or junior high school rodeo and she says, I'm not paying $119. This is a, for a poly rope hat. I'm not paying $119 for a hat. The last hat he had, he smashed it between the seats in their truck. You know, when I guess they had a club cab, we didn't have back doors. And they said, lean a seat forward. And the hat got in between the seats and got crushed. And she goes, ruined it. And so I took the hat that I had in my hand and I crushed it and then I popped it back out and put. I said, did your hat do that? And she said, oh, oh my goodness, no, my hat did not do that. I said, that's why you buy a hat for $119. She was looking at a hat that was going to be $89. And I said, so $90 is gone. We spend 119. And if that happens again, you got, you know, you can bring it back to life. And she ended up buying a hat. So it's stuff like that. I think I told the story and I'll tell, I'll tell a story for you guys. I was at one of my dealers in Las Vegas, and a lady came in, and she had the right boots, the right jeans, her nails were done, jewelry, hair. She goes to a hairdresser. She had. Everything was put together, you know, in her mid-40s, and she was looking to buy a hat. Well, they sold her a $130 wool hat, put it on her head, and off she went. I shaped it up for a little bit, and off she went. And I looked at my guy and I said, boy, so when she finds out what you just did to her, she'll never buy another thing from you again. And he goes, what do you mean? He goes, that's all she wanted to spend, was 130 bucks. I go, no, you didn't give her the whole story. So we were talking about other things, and about 30 minutes later, here she come walking back, and one side of the hat was drooping a little bit. She said, can you guys fix this uneven? And so I think he thought he would throw me under the bus. So he introduced me and said, this is Keith Mundy, president of American Hat Company. And I looked at her, and I was a little bit for a moment there, dear, in the headlights, and I said, how are you today? And she goes, oh, is this your hat? And I said, no, ma', am, it's not. And she goes, oh, okay. Well, I'm sorry. She said, I hadn't known that. And I no, that's fine. And she said, well, do you like the hat? And I said, I had a money clip with, I don't know, maybe four or five hundred dollars in it. I said, I'll give you $130 and you can keep that $130 not to wear. And she said, why would you do that? And I said, well, I go. I look at things. I said, you got everything. You have, your whole outfit, your hair, everything you got put together. Obviously, you care about how you look. And I said, and you're topping it off with a cheap wool hat. There's nothing cheap about your boots, your jeans, your belt, your jewelry, your top, your hair, your nails. There's nothing cheap about what you've got going on. Your whole outfit. Why would you top it off with the cheapest wool hat you can get? She goes, I did. I just didn't know. She goes, well, show me some other hats. What do I need? And I go, I'm not, you know. So I always start. Normally I start at the top and work my way down, but I started at my. At the Bottom and worked my way up. And she kept saying, well, what's up from there? What's the next one from there? Well, she end up buying a 500x hat for $1200.

Wow.

And her only condition was, I want it shaped like the other one, but straight in the front, so we can do that. And so. And she said, we. And you guys will take this $130 one. I go, yeah, we'll take it back. And so I told my dealer, I said, I'll buy that if you need me to, but I'll take it back. Let's sell her a 500X. We did, and she put it on and she loved it. Loved it. Gave her my card, and she actually sent me an email. Thank you so much for helping me, you know, get the right hat, you know, to go with my outfit. She wasn't. She didn't have an aversion to spending the money. She just didn't know. And they didn't tell her. They assumed because they're used to selling cheap hats. And that's a. The easy path, right? As opposed to telling the whole story. But once she knew the whole story, once she started feeling hats and feeling the difference, she said, that's the one I want, you know, the thousand x. She said, well, I don't need one that good. I said, I agree. I said, you're probably fine in the 40x range, to be honest with you. But she wanted a 500x. So long story short, you know, when she walked away, the dealer and I were standing there side by side, you know, just kind of watching the crowd and looking. And now we didn't say anything for a little uncomfortable silence for a minute, and I just said, I told you so. And he goes, my God, had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would never believe it.

So, oh, yeah, it's customer service on a whole new level today, isn't it?

Yes, it is. You have to. You gotta. You gotta. You gotta inform them. And I'm not trying to push anybody in any direction, but, you know, and I had. I had the. The opposite of that. I had a guy walk into our booth at the National Finals rodeo, and he wasn't dressed to the nines. He looked like he hadn't had any money at all. And he wanted to look at a thousand X hat. So I showed it to him and told him all about it, and he wanted to buy one, but I didn't have it in his size. He was a 6 and 7 8. And so he come back the Next day, and I wasn't there. I was at another booth at that day. And he wanted to buy a ,ousand x hat, six and seven eights, and have it ordered and have his name put in it and have us make it and ship it to him after the nfr. So Keith Maddox was there, and he obviously sized the guy up as well. And the check was. Check was number 103, I think, on his checkbook. We normally wouldn't take a check, but because we're making the hat, you know, we can do that. So Keith said, well, this check's gonna have to clear before I make the hat, but is there money in the account? And the guy goes, yeah, I think there is. He said, if there's not, I can move some over. And so, you know, all kinds of, like, red flags are in. So Keith, basically when we turn the order, and he said, we said, make sure this check clears before we start making this hat. A couple weeks later, I get a call from somebody checking on his hat, and ups, we tracked it, and it was being delivered that day. So I said, well, what. Tell me that guy's story. What's the deal? And Keith Maddox was telling me what a great salesman that I was for selling this guy, young guy, a thousand X hat. He said, I bet that guy didn't have. That was his last, you know, his last $2,000. He said, I don't think he had the money. Well, the check cleared, made the hat, took the hat, he got the hat. When I got the story, they said, oh, he just won 268 million in the North Dakota lottery. And Keith Maddox then said, and you sold him one hat. You know, we'd make it in other colors. Right. But the long and short of it, that guy still buys hats from us every year at nfr. And so I bring the latest and greatest newest color, and I always bring it in a six and seven eights for him. And when he shows up, I go, hey, I got one for you here. New one. Oh, yeah, okay. And he buys hats. He buys not thousand X, but he buys 200X hats and has friends names put in for gifts for Christmas.

Never judge a book by its cover, right?

Nope, nope, nope, nope. Not at all.

How do you translate that to your sales team and then to the retailers that you work with? What kind of training programs do you guys bring your team through so they can translate that same experience and selling what they show to the customers that they have?

Well, obviously, we try to impart that. So Stan Redding is our national sales Manager, and he's the former president over at Hatco that's in resist all. And he's a great salesman. He's an information guy. I'll give you all the information, then you can make an informed decision. So we try to impart that to our sales force, but getting that to every individual in every western store is the challenge. And there'll be times that if I don't have an American hat shirt on, I'll walk into a store and say, do you guys have American hats? And, you know, then I'll ask them some questions about them. And I've had situations to where, you know, I've looked at a nice hat, you know, and I, you know, I go, 500 bucks, man. Who spends that on the hat? You know? And then the sales clerk goes, yeah, right. Not me. I would go, you just killed yourself. You just killed yourself. Because I've had guys, you know, walk in and look at thousand X hats, you know, in their mid-60s, and go, who spends $2,000 on a hat? Are you kidding me? And I go, how many 40 X's have you bought in your lifetime, you know, at 500 a piece? And he starts counting. He goes, I guess you're right. So the better the hat, the longer last. My hats, My hats. I wear a thousand X hats, but my hats all have my name on one side. So it says, made especially for Keith Mundy. And then on the other side, it has either a granddaughter or grandson's name and a birthday. So in my hat, in my family, we've been handing the hat down from generation to generation. And so my grandkids will all inherit one of my hats one of these days.

That's pretty special. Pretty special, yeah.

And it's not to wear. We set them on a buffet table in our dining room and then have pictures of our grandfathers, you know, behind it, wearing the hat. Man.

It's such an iconic piece of American history, isn't it? Do you just find so much joy in getting to spread that within your own family and within our culture? Just because that piece of history is dying? People today don't understand what it means to do business on a handshake. And really what the cowboy hat in our culture is all about. Isn't that a special thing that you get to share?

I love, love, love that that is what is. That gives me the goosebumps. And that's the thing that we are carrying on. The. The tradition of the great iconic American cowboy and the symbol. So I often say this. If you walk through the front doors of an elementary school. The boots don't make you a cowboy. The jeans don't make you cowboy. The belt buckle, the shirt doesn't make you cowboy. It's the hat again to an elementary school kid. So I'm not saying just because you have a hat, you're a cowboy. But I also have had people come in and go, you know, I live in New York, and I don't think I can, you know, think I really could wear a cowboy hat. And I love to tell them, look, here's the deal. If your boots have never hit dirt, but if at night, when you go up to your loft or penthouse or wherever it is you're staying in your high rise and your head hits the pillow and you dream of those bright blue skies and big white puffy clouds and being out in the open and the things that you know, cowboy things, then guess what? In your heart, you're a cowboy. So welcome to the club. You don't necessarily have to live this lifestyle. You just have to love it. So I recently spent a week in Washington, D.C. visiting with members of the Texas, Texas Congressional Group and had meetings with them. And they all, you know, remarked on the hat, wanted a card, wanted to get pictures and so on, so forth. And then actually had a little bit of an emergency. I had a kidney stone while I was in Washington, D.C. so I have to go to the hospital, and I go down out of my room, I get a cab, I got my hat, everything's on, and I get in the cabin, I said, hey, can you take me to the closest hospital? I got a kidney stone. I said, it's not life threatening, but hurts really bad, so get me there as quick as you can. And so a guy who's not from here, face from Nigeria, cab driver gets me there. Well, I ended up passing out in the backseat. He helps me out, gets me into the emergency room and gives me his card and his phone number. And he says, when you're ready to, you know, you're ready to come back, call me and I'll come get you. I'm like, okay, yeah, thanks, man. I appreciate it. He goes, and what room are you in at Hyatt? And I'm like, why do you want to know that? He said, because I work there at the Hyatt. At night, I deliver room service. He said, I'll check on you later tonight if you get out of the hospital. And so I gave him my room number. Probably not smart, but I did. Long story short, you know, I probably. I probably Would have told my daughters not to do that, but I did it. But anyway, long story short, so I get in the whole hospital experience, I do the whole thing, they give me the pain meds, they want to do surgery, I refuse the surgery. And I said, just give me enough pain meds to get me back to Texas. I'll get it done when I get home. Anyway, so I'm in the line at the pharmacy now. I'm at, I'm in a. I'm in an inner city hospital in Washington D.C. and so you can imagine with my boots and my hat and my. I had a long 3/4 inch or 3/2 length black overcoat on. I stood out. I definitely stood out and I had the greatest comments ever. I had people, you know, coming up to me, you know, had some guy tell me that my boots were fly. I go, okay, is that good? And he said, yeah, yeah, that's really good, man. And then, you know, another guy said, man, you look like J.R. ewing with that hat on. I love that hat. I love that show. You know, like, wow, thanks. You know, and so striking up conversations with people from different places, but they did because of the cowboy act.

It makes you awfully proud today, doesn't it? Just to see how the Western industry is so, so back in the middle of mainstream. I think about this even in terms of all the Western influencers that are coming on board today and just how people are spreading this word. Just, it's so relevant today. I'm just so excited that you're sharing these stories because there is something special about the American cowboy and about the hat and about boots that draws people in. So thank you for being.

Yeah. And I tell people all the time, you know, I have the greatest job in the world. You know, I get to get up every day, put a cowboy hat on, some jeans and boots, and I go to work at the, you know, the office here, the factory. And I said, I don't have to ride 40 miles of fence in a 50 mile an hour wind. Bang. And, and, but yet I'm still doing my part to carry on the history and tradition of that great iconic American cowboy. So every time you buy a cowboy hat, you're, you know, you're carrying on the legacy of, if you're a movie star, you're carrying on the legacy of John Wayne and Audie Murphy and, you know, Roy Rogers and those guys. Or if you're a rodeo guy, it's Jim Shoulders and Lane Frost and, and now, you know, the likes of Tough Cooper. So I wear my Hat pretty much everywhere I go. And you know, some people, kids, more days, you know, now you'll see them wearing a baseball cap. And I'll tell them all the time, hey, anybody in the world has permission to wear a baseball cap. Not everybody gets to wear a cowboy hat.

Amen.

If you're gonna be. If you're gonna be some be a cowboy, Amen. We're not. And Carl Stressman, the former commissioner at the prca, tells the story of going to Jim Shoulders place to rope. And he was a big fan of Jim Shoulders and pulls up and he's got a baseball cap on and, you know, getting his horse ready. And Shoulders comes and says, where's your hat? And he says, well, I got one in the truck. But he says, I didn't. I like rope in a baseball. He said, no, no. So we ain't playing baseball. He says, we're doing cowboy stuff. Get a cowboy hat on if you're gonna rope here. And so Carl Stressman is another one. Those guys that you very rarely ever see in a baseball cap, he always wears a cowboy hat.

I can't imagine seeing Carl in anything other than cowboy hat and those jeans, right?

Yep, yep. And so he's another one that's a. Been a great brand builder and an influencer in the western nation.

So, you know, thinking about you and Carl in the same sentence reminds me, and I was sharing this with you earlier. I was visiting with Drew Stu, he was on the, on the podcast as well, and he was talking about his mentors and talked about you being such a mentor to him. And I know, I've heard other people say the same about Carl, what a mentor he is. So listening that are interested in getting their own mentor. I'd love to know your thoughts on, on how people should go about that, but I'd also like to know who your mentors have been as you've grown throughout this industry.

Well, I'll say my first mentor. My father died when I was young, so I was 19. But my grandfather always had a big influence on me. He was kind of, I want to say, maybe rough around the edges type of a character. He always had one liners and funny things that he said, but he could, he could say it in such a way that, you know, you knew exactly what he meant. I mean, there was times that I'd working on his ranch or something and like, you know, picking a splinter out of your hand or whatever, and he'd come riding up on his horse and go, you okay? What are you doing? And I Go. I got this dagum splinter. I'm trying to get it, you know, out, and I've got my little pocket knife trying to dig this butter. And he said, you know what? You mark that with a red X, and you get it on Sunday in church. You're on my time right now. And. Oh, okay. Or, you know, riding up to you when you're fixing fence and just take a stick, draw a big circle, and you're like, what is going. What do you do? Why? What's that for? He said, I'm gonna come back here in about 30 minutes. I'm gonna see if you're even moving. You know? But he just was that kind of guy, but he wasn't mean, but he just. He had a way of needling you. And if he was teasing you, then he meant he liked you. And so I've adopted a lot of that stuff. But then I would. My next mentor, I'd say, would be a Keith Maddox. Here's a guy who has been in this industry for, you know, 45 years or something like that, who I've never heard one person say anything bad about. Everybody likes him. Everybody respects him. He's friends with competitors. You know, he'd rather have a friend than, you know, necessarily an enemy that he's somebody who's trying to compete with. There's no, you know, there's enough hats to go around for everybody. So, you know, he's. He's probably my current mentor, somebody that I look up to just in the way that he conducts his.