Zac Logsdon

HuMAYliation is back, my friends.  And boy am I excited.

What is HuMAYliation? 

Glad you asked.  Every year, Old Hat dedicates the month of May to raising money for the prevention of child abuse.  This will be the fourth year in a row that we have launched an effort to raise money for this cause.  Money raised locally is given to The Abbott House and donations that come in from around the country are given to the National Children’s Alliance.

2 years ago, our May was spent in utter huMAYliation.  Last year we used a different method for raising money but our fans and our staff wanted to bring back huMAYliation because it was so much fun the first time around.

During the month of May, all members of the OH staff will commit to performing a humiliating act of their choice.  Honestly, these tasks range from humiliating to embarrassing to just downright disgusting.  And you can view what we did last time around by visiting humayliation.com.

Last time around, if we reached our goal of $3,000, I personally committed myself to running down Main Street in Norman wearing a speedo, swim fins and a swim cap screaming, “Where’s the pool?” and playingMarco Polowith passers-by.  This year, we’re adding a little twist.

I’ll Do What YOU Want Me to Do!

This year during the month of April, we are soliciting ideas from YOU for what the grand finale humiliating act should be.  Send in your ideas to info [at] oldhatcreative.com, tweet them to us, send ‘em on facebook, or whatever.  We’ll pick the top three most feasible and most humiliating and if we reach our dollar goal, I will perform that humiliating task.

As long as it’s not going to result in me going to prison or the hospital, I’m game.  So send in your ideas and let’s get the ball rolling.  If you submit on twitter, please use the hashtag #humayliation.

The quote above… “A man paints with his brains and not with his hands…”  I read that and thought immediately of all the talented designers we have at Old Hat.  They are not painters but they are definitely artists of the highest grade

Believe it or not, I used to scoff at the idea that graphic designers are artists.  It was easier for me to do that when I was the lone designer and the only person I risked offending was myself.  But I did not see myself as an artist.  I saw myself as a person with a given skill that had somehow figured out a way to turn that skill into a profitable venture.

But saying that the group of designers at Old Hat are not artists ought to get me punched in the the gut.  They create something from nothing.  They take a blank canvas and using their tools (computer, fonts, photos, etc.) they create something beautiful and inspiring and motivational.  Those pieces, be they websites, print collateral or videos, stir emotion inside of sports fans all over the world.  I am in awe of what our designers do.  And I am honored that they continually make Old Hat look so dadgum good.

You Get What You Pay For

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the eight years I’ve been running Old Hat, it’s that finding talented, hard-working designers that understand what it takes to design for this niché industry is HARD.  I never really thought that I possessed any special talent… I honestly didn’t.  I thought, “Well shoot, if I can do this… anyone can.”  Boy was I wrong.  Hiring designers that 1) are passionate about sports and 2) understand what it takes to design for sports is one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do.  I’ll get portfolios from extremely talented designers and when I ask them for a test project related to sports, it comes back and they have completely missed the mark.

I was always told that when you hire a designer, you’re not paying them for the 10 hours they spend on your project.  You’re paying for the 10 years of experience they have that will make those 10 hours result in an amazing product.  I’ve never believed that to be so true as I do now.

Preach it, ‘angelo…

Point is, Michaelangelo had it right.  A designer doesn’t design with his hands or his computer or his Wacom tablet… A designer designs with his brains.  And when you contract Old Hat to create something for you, you’re getting a few hours of our time and years and years of time that it took for the designers to be as good as they are.  And I’ll put my guys up against any collection of designers in the world. 

… but I like listening to records.  I’m not old enough to really remember when that was the only way to listen to music.  But I do remember my parents huge collection of country/western albums.  I had a record player in high school but it broke so for a long time I’ve held tightly to my vinyl collection and finally received a new record player for Christmas.  I love the act of selecting a record album.  No playlists… No mixing songs/artists.  I select an album and I’m committing to THAT album.  I like the act of carefully removing it from it’s sleeve so it doesn’t get scratched.  I like the thought that if I’m not careful, I can’t listen to that album anymore.  I like lightly placing the needle on the record.  And I like only getting a few songs before I have to go flip it over or select another album.

Music is important.  Music is delicate.  I enjoy the notion that if I’m not careful with it, I can’t listen to it anymore.  Don’t get me wrong… I certainly enjoy the convenience of my iPod.  Last time I tried to take my record player on a jog with me, it didn’t work out too well.

I think there are many parallels to this and running a business.  There’s nothing easy about starting a business, marketing it and maintaining the relationships that make you successful.  You can’t simply create a “playlist” of how you’re going to operate on the first day you open your doors and let it play.  You have to choose it carefully, you have to apply it delicately and chances are, you’re not going to get very far with it without going back and re-visiting it.  You might have to flip it over.  You might have to choose a different one altogether. 

Client relationships are the same way.  Getting the client is the easy part.  Just like purchasing the album is the easy part.  Keeping that relationship in pristine condition so you can go to it time and time again is tough.  If you want to be able to rely on that client time after time, you have to treat them with respect every time you deal with them.  You might have 5 years of daily contact and great collaborations.  But one slip, and you could scratch that relationship badly enough that it might never play properly again.

Gotta go…  Time to flip the record over.

Growing up, my father instilled many things into my character.  But the one thing he drove above all else was the importance of saying “Thank You.”  I remember the embarrassment I felt when I’d go stay at a friend’s house and I’d forget to say thank you to their parents when my dad showed up to pick me up.  He’d make me get out of the car, go ring their doorbell and tell them thank you.  It was embarrassing but it also prevented me from EVER forgetting to say thank you for things.

Eight years ago, on this day, I opened Old Hat’s doors for business.  As I’ve mentioned many times, it was me, all alone, it a 10 x 10’ office space on Campus Corner in Norman.  What Old Hat has accomplished since that date is no less than miraculous considering my lack of experience running a business, our location (Norman isn’t a hotbed for creative activity) and our relative obscurity in the market.  And those accomplishments are due to countless people and their contributions to our success.  I wish I could mention them all by name.  But you know who you are and you know what you’ve done for Old Hat.  And for that, I offer my sincere and humble gratitude. 

So thank you to everyone that works at Old Hat for the sacrifices you have made to do amazing work.  Thank you to everyone that used to work here for the contributions you made to our success.  Thank you to every single one of our clients for trusting us with the responsibility of assisting you to achieve your goals.  Thank you to everyone that ever recommended Old Hat.  Thank you to our competitors for pushing us to be better.  Thank you to our families who have also sacrificed time with us so we could make Old Hat great.  Thank you to the book writers who gave us all great ideas on how to make Old Hat better.  Thank you, thank you, thank you to anyone who ever had a positive impact on us. 

Here’s to a great eight years… and hopefully many more.

Side note:  Showing your appreciation to people has to be the easiest thing in the world to do but it’s something we all fail at miserably.  Tell someone, “Thank you,” today for the impact they have had in your life.  It will make you both feel good and they deserve to be thanked for even the smallest thing they have done for you.

In 1977, my parents had a son and named him Zac.  3 months later, they bought a grandfather clock.  35 years later, I still operate just fine but the same cannot be said for the grandfather clock.  Plus, I’ve aged better as I’m not covered in this seventies style spotted wood stain.

The clock hasn’t worked in years and I’m told that it’ll cost more than the clock is worth to actually get it working.  That, combined with the fact that I really have no desire to have a really loud clock in my house made me decide that I should find a different purpose for it.

So here’s what I did.  First, I took a really crappy photo of the clock lying on my kitchen floor.  This was after I removed all the chains and weights from inside of it.

Then, I painted it with 2 coats of Valspar Kettle Black Satin paint.  I was going to use primer first but the lady at Lowe’s said that the paint had primer in it so I shouldn’t need it.  She was right.  The clock was mostly covered after just one coat.  Did 2 coats just cuz.  Then I stood the clock up and took some sandpaper to the edges to give it that distressed look.

What good is a black, distressed clock that doesn’t work besides being cool decoration?  Well, it’s no good at all.  So I decided to turn it into a bookshelf.  I cut boards to size and then put L-brackets on the inside to rest the shelves on. Then I painted those black as well.  Here’s the finished product.  The photos suck but I’m happy with the finished product.

Two of my favorite places to eat in the entire world are Victoria’s Pasta Shop on Campus Corner in Norman, and Meers Burgers in Meers, Oklahoma.  Both have amazing food… some of the best on the planet.  In fact, the MeersCheeseBurger was listed as the 3rd best cheeseburger in the nation by some food publication.  What’s interesting about these places is that their service typically ranges from mediocre to awful.  At both places, you have to wait too long for initial service, too long for the food and the wait staff is anything but friendly.  At Meers, there doesn’t even seem to be a rhyme or reason to who waits on what tables.  It’s like the waitstaff battles over who has to take you until someone finally gives in.

Why are these places successful?  One reason: their product is AMAZING.  Victoria’s serves the best Italian food I’ve ever had.  I’ve eaten Italian food in Little Italy in NYC, in Vegas, in Chicago, New Orleans… all over the United States.  And if I could go anywhere for Italian, I’m going to Campus Corner in Norman.  Their chicken lasagna is something I’d kill for.  People drive from all over the state (and country) for a burger at Meers.  And I have to admit that their burgers are truly stellar.  And at any given time during peak hours, there will be a line of people waiting to eat at each place. 

Is your product that strong?

Victoria’s and Meers Burgers don’t need great customer service.  Their product is why people keep coming back.  And because they have virtually no competition, they can get away with it.  Oklahoma Football falls into this category.  Marketing Sooner Football successfully involves one thing: providing seats.  As long as the product is good, people will show up. 

My assumption is that there are few of us who have this luxury.  Don’t get me wrong… Old Hat’s product is second-to-none.  I stand behind what we do 100%.  However, the 70+ sports organizations that utilize our services don’t do it for the product alone.  The Internet has made the world flat.  While Meers has no competitors anywhere close, the Internet has made it so that every design firm in the world is a potential competitor.  There are probably a thousand places that make Italian food just as good as Victoria’s.  Problem is, I can’t easily get to them.  With the services we provide, there are a lot of places that can provide a comparable product AND our clients can get to them just as easily as they can get to us.

We Flipped It

What Old Hat has done is flipped it.  Our product IS our customer service.  That’s why our clients return over and over again.  I wish I had a few thousand dollars for every client that has come to us and said, “We used to use XYZ Sports Marketing for this but their service was just terrible.”  Oh wait, I DO have a few thousand dollars for every client that has done that.  I cannot count the number of clients we’ve gotten and kept just based on their desire to never work with our competitors again.

So is your product strong enough to make you successful without great customer service?  If so, congratulations.  I envy you.  But for the other 99% of us, our great products have to be combined with great customer service.  Always respond to calls.  Always return emails.  Always communicate.  Never miss deadlines.  Set the bar high and then jump over it.  That’s what Old Hat does.

Almost every time I’m out jogging, I pass someone who is smoking a cigarette.  Considering that most of the time the sidewalks upon which I jog are typically only wide enough for two people, it’s inevitable that when I jog past these people, I catch a face full of smoke and it temporarily affects my jog.  Does this bother me?  Not really.  They have as much of a right to smoke on the sidewalks as I do to jog on them.  This is not a commentary on smoking, the health effects of smoking or the effects that smokers have on joggers.  If it bothers me, I can always make the distance between us greater.

But the other day I was jogging across a street and on the other side, 3 people stood, waiting to cross my direction. One of them was smoking.  As this person saw me approaching, I could see it occur to him that jogging through a cloud of smoke might make things less comfortable for me.  He immediately moved his cigarette to the other side of him and then quickly took 2-3 steps off of the sidewalk and into the grass to get the smoke away from me.  It wasn’t until I was past him that I realized just how considerate this was.  It made my day… seriously.  Not because I didn’t have to breathe the smoke.  That was only a small benefit of the interaction.  What made my day was that he was so concerned about the nuisance of his actions that he did whatever he could do to make it less of a nuisance.

Most of us continue down our paths, absorbed only in what we are doing and are only concerned with how things affect us.  We don’t spend a whole lot of time thinking about how our actions are affecting others.  And we certainly don’t realize that it’s the little things that can have such a huge impact on how others feel.  But this guy had as much of a right to stand there smoking as I did to jog past him while he did it.  It was me that would have been adversely affected by the smoke.  Not him.  He wasn’t getting out of my way because having a jogger run by you is annoying.  He got out of my way out of extreme consideration for me. That’s a rarity.

It’s probably not rare that we do nice and considerate things for the people we love or the people we deal with day in and day out.  It benefits us to be considerate to those people because we (hopefully) receive consideration and kindness in return. 

How often are we considerate and nice to people we will probably never see again?  How often are we considerate and kind when it will not benefit us in any way?  I’m going to make a conscious effort this week to “clear the air” for others even when I get nothing in return.  And hopefully it will become a habit that’s as hard to quit as smoking.

I was recently talking with a friend about the issue of being nice versus being fake.  A comment had been made that being nice to people you don’t necessarily like is being “fake.”  I disagree whole-heartedly.  Being nice to people you don’t like is the sincerest form of being nice.  Anyone can be nice to people they LIKE.  What’s so difficult about that?  Who in the world says, “I have such a hard time being nice to all of my really close friends that l love dearly.”?  People that are labeled as nice and sweet are the people that are nice to everyone.

The Used Car Salesman

Considering that 90% of my job requires that I’m nice to my clients, I’ve struggled a lot with the whole idea of being fake.  I don’t want to be like a used car salesman or be perceived as someone that’s just being nice to people in order to make a sale.  And it’s sometimes hard because I have become really good friends with some of our clients over the years and I’m always scared that they might think that I’m only doing it so I can get their business.  But the thing is, I’m gonna be nice.  I’m gonna be nice to people I like and people I don’t like.  I do it every day.  Not because I’m trying to make a sale.  But because it doesn’t do anyone any good to do otherwise.

The Pro-Active Solution

Taking it a step further, one can be pro-actively nice or re-actively nice.  Again, it’s a lot easier to be re-actively nice.  If someone walks into my office and needs something, I’m going to be nice to them. No matter who they are (probably).  If someone says, “Good Morning,” I’m going to respond.  But being pro-actively nice… that is, going out of your way to be nice… is more difficult.  Sometimes I just forget to do it.  So what did I do to solve this problem?  Ashley Cross knows.  I put a reminder in my computer so I get a pop-up that reminds me to “do something nice.”  Does that make my niceness fake or insincere?  Heck no.  Everything I say or do after that reminder is sincere and from my heart.  It’s just that without that reminder, I’d just forget to say it or do it.

So initiate the “Good Morning” statements instead of just responding to them.  Smile when people walk by you rather than ignoring them.  And if ya gotta… rely on your calendar to remind you to do something extra nice for someone.

Sidenote:  The best way to disarm someone who isn’t nice to you, is to be nice to them.  I read a book that talked about how psychologically, people have a hard time being rude to those that are nice to them.  If you’re rude to someone that’s nice to you, it makes you feel poorly about yourself.  So you stop doing it.  The book also recommends that if there’s someone you have to deal with that is really rude or difficult, one tactic you can use is to ask them for advice on something or ask to borrow something insignificant.  Say, “Hey… I’m in the mood for Italian food.  You know of any good places?”  Or, “Mind if I borrow your stapler real quick?”  The request is too minor to turn down so they oblige.  And then they have to justify to themselves why they just did a favor for someone they don’t like.  They don’t want to think that they’d do favors for someone that they think is a scum sucking pig, so they look for good qualities in you to justify their own behavior.  — This may seem like a manipulation.  But I would disagree.  You’re not trying to sell someone a crappy used car.  You’re just trying to improve relationships.  You’re just trying to be nice.

I know I’m late to the party but I’ve recently started listening to the Avett Brothers a lot.  Some of you have probably never heard of them and some probably own all their CDs.  But I started listening to them because I like Mumford & Sons A LOT and apparently the Avett Brothers tour with them.  I downloaded their CD I And Love And You and it’s really good.  My favorite song on there is one called Ten Thousand Words.  Give it a listen if you are so inclined:

My favorite line in the song is, “Ain’t it like most people, I’m no different, we love to talk on things we don’t know about.”

I know that we all probably have people that come to mind when we hear that line.  Someone that is a know-it-all on every subject.  An expert on everything.  Or maybe we just think about the office gossip or someone like that.

But the very thing we all think of about the person who is an expert on everything, is that they’re an expert on nothing.  If they talk, we tune them out.  There’s a bit of “boy who cried wolf” syndrome going on so that even if they’re talking about something they actually know about, we don’t listen.

I’ve made the statement many times that all you have to do to be an expert on something is make the claim that you’re an expert on it.  There’s no “expert” test you take.  It’s up to you to convince people that you know about a particular subject.  But do yourself a favor and pick a one or two subjects to claim expert on.  Not every subject.