A Conversation with Mike Veeck, Owner of Veeck Advertising Professionals and the Charleston RiverDogs

LowcountrybizSC:
Talk about your family background and growing up in a baseball family.

Mike Veeck:
I was born in Tucson, Arizona and grew up in a large family with nine children.  Many people have heard about my father, Bill Veeck, a franchise owner of major league baseball teams, the St. Louis Browns, the Cleveland Indians, and twice of the Chicago White Sox.  His contributions to baseball in America were many, but he is perhaps most famous for his creative promotions, as the owner who sent Eddie Gaedel, a midget, up to bat in 1951.  My mother was also a very strong influence in my life. Together, my parents created a household where creativity, laughter and the joy of learning were most valued.  In this setting, it is not surprising that every one of my siblings has grown up to be either a writer, painter, or professor. I am the only in family who followed my dad into the business of baseball.

LowcountrybizSC:
Did you grow up spending all of your spare time at the baseball field?

Mike Veeck:
Dad never expected us to go to the ballpark, in fact, it was a special treat to go and see a game, and if we did, it was never in some luxury box.  Dad always liked to sit with the fans.  My Dad was not a big believer in dynasties and was adamant that each of his children was going earn his own way in this world.  Nothing was left to him; nothing was going to be left to us.

LowcountrybizSC:
What was one of your favorite memories growing up? 

Mike Veeck:
My favorite memory growing up was the family fire drill where my job was to make sure to pick up not a rare painting or a lock box, but the family ideas box prior to exiting the house. Ideas were sacrosanct in our house. 

LowcountrybizSC:
How did you get to Charleston, SC?

Mike Veeck:
Fifteen years ago my business partner, Marv Goldklang, phoned me up to see if I might be interested building a new stadium in Charleston. I had been involved in the operations and marketing side of baseball for about thirty years, but never actually had the opportunity to design a new stadium from scratch. 

The chance to build something unique and that reflected our business philosophy (take care of people and the revenue will take care of itself) was very appealing to me.  Architecturally, we wanted it be a good fit for the city so we incorporated a lot of wrought iron, a Charleston mainstay, throughout the stadium. We painted it Charleston green, or as we called it, Mayor Joe Riley green.  Similar to some of the older ballparks, we made the playing field asymmetrical.  Everything in the stadium was built with a goal of creating an amazing fan experience.

We are very proud of the stadium.  It’s in a great location, on the marsh, next to the Citadel, and right on the Ashley River.  We have been able to turn around the people of Charleston’s perception of the RiverDogs and now have over 350,000 spectators a year coming through the gate. 

We moved to Charleston fifteen years ago and now my whole family calls it home.

LowcountrybizSC:
You published a book five years ago entitled, Fun is Good.  Talk about the origins of the book and your philosophy on marketing.

Mike Veeck:
Through my father and mother, I was introduced at an early age to the concept of how to create a stir on a limited budget and the link between marketing and making people laugh.  Humor works! 

From my years in baseball was what I called the Rule of I: Integrity, Incongruence, Imagination and Irreverence lead to Innovation which will in turn lead to Income. Several years back, just after I was fired from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays organization, a friend of mine heard me give a speech about the Rule of I and suggested that I write it down so that it could be applied to other businesses.

We have a beautiful stadium here in Charleston, one of the most amazing stadiums in the country, but what we do well here is take care of our employees.  The 2008 economic meltdown has meant that at many companies, employees are now expected to do twice the work, with half the budget, less pay and all the while, they are still supposed to stay happy and like their job.  Good relationships with your customers flow out of good relationships internally. Happy employees will foster great connections with your customers and that in turn will create a healthy flow to the bottom line of your business. I wouldn’t dream of buying a new baseball team without a crew of happy employees. 

LowcountrybizSC:
Do you have any stories of businesses that have adopted your philosophy and that have turned things around financially?

Mike Veeck:
With the graying of its customers, golf is in a similar position that horse racing was 20 years ago. How do you turn that around?  I worked with a golf course company in California that applied the principles of Fun is Good and turned a losing venture into a profitable one. The owner kept me informed every step of the way about his progress and he is now one of my most vociferous fans.

LowcountrybizSC:
Tell us about your marketing company, Veeck Advertising Professionals (VAP).

Mike Veeck:
We formed VAP as a natural extension of the promotions that we do for the 6 or 7 baseball club baseball teams that we own and that are heavily advertising driven. I love advertising and I find the whole industry fascinating, filled with colorful characters who are the last bastions of renaissance people, talented in so many different areas.  Starting VAP has opened up opportunities for marketing in a half dozen other industries other than baseball.  

LowcountrybizSC:
What are a few of your favorite promotions?

Mike Veeck:
Mimes doing the instant replay at baseball games had just the right combination of silliness to make people laugh. 

LowcountrybizSC:
Has being a published author lead to other doors opening up?

Mike Veeck:
When you are an author, right or wrong, people view you as an expert.  Fun is Good has lead to speaking engagements and consulting for businesses, mostly sports teams. 

LowcountrybizSC:
What advice would you give to entrepreneurs?

Mike Veeck:
First of all, you need to have a spouse who understands that running your own business is going to be tough sometimes. My wife has been a huge supporter, and a great sounding board for my ideas.  Everything I come up with I first run by her.  If she doesn’t laugh, the idea will never see the light of day.

Entrepreneurs need to surround themselves with like-minded people personally, but opposite-minded people at work. There are two sides to a business – building and maintaining – and the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make is thinking that they are good at both.  Entrepreneurs are more often than not builders; they need to hand off their business to a maintainer after three or four years. 

LowcountrybizSC:
Where do you see yourself in five years?

Mike Veeck:
There are four or five ball clubs that we are looking into buying. The teams in New Orleans and Memphis are of particular interest to me because both are in cities with great histories.   

I can see myself doing more teaching in the future.  A couple of years back, I was given the opportunity to teach a course in marketing at the Citadel and I found it to be a humbling and rewarding experience.  I was totally unprepared for the enjoyment that teaching provides. I walked in the first day thinking that the students were there to learn from me. The biggest revelation was everything that I learned from 26 of the brightest and most creative people that I have ever met.  To this day, I still keep in touch with many of them on a regular basis.

I am a quarter of the way through a new book that I am co-writing with Al Fahden, the author of Innovation on Demand, and my go-to guy when it comes to inspiration about business.  The book will focus on the importance of the creative process and of not being afraid to fail. Our working title for the book is Everything I Needed to Know I Learned in a Saloon and our initial concept is to have 12 chapters each of which starts with a piece of bad press that we have received over the years. 

LowcountrybizSC:
Is accepting failure an important part of being an entrepreneur?

Mike Veeck:
Failure is overrated!  Nobody likes failure, but in my mind, if you’re an entrepreneur, you have so many lines in the water, so many ideas on the go that failure is just not that big a deal.  You have 37 deals yesterday; today you have 17 so 20 of them failed.  So what? Keep moving forward to the next thing that you are interested in.

LowcountrybizSC:
Is now a good time to start a new business, given the down economy?

Mike Veeck:
Have you ever noticed that companies regularly cancel the brainstorming session, but rarely sales or operations meetings?  One positive that has come out of the recession is that companies are starting to listen to their employees and to have more ideas meeting, not on some forced corporate retreat, but built into the regular workday. That is the way is should be!  The role that ideas play in a company’s success is getting the respect that it is due, a very positive sign. 

There IS such a thing as a new idea!  Sometimes it might be taking an idea and improving on it (or as I have done on numerous occasions, made it worse), but ideas are important.