We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bryan Goltzman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bryan below.

Hi Bryan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

Our entire team is 100% remote and we always will be. Our custom virtual office definitely deserves some credit in our success. The platform we use for our office eliminates the need to the share links to get on a call with someone. If you need to speak with a coworker, you simply navigate your avatar to the person you want to talk to and you’re instantly connected through a live video call. The virtual environment we’ve created has allowed our employees to communicate “face-to-face” in an instant, and personalize their work space and avatars to allow for individuality.

Yes, there are downfalls to depending on software to host our office (brick and mortar buildings don’t experience “downtime”), but these moments are far and in-between. In the last year, our company was named one of the fastest-growing promo companies in the industry and we have more than doubled the size of our team. Although the hard work of our dedicated team is a large part of our growth, I’d be lying to say that our virtual office has not contributed to productivity and employee satisfaction. Running a company remotely with the right software can give you the best of both worlds: a collaborative environment without the hassle and cost of maintaining a physical office space. Our company has found that sweet spot, and we will never go back to on-site work.

Bryan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In November of 2008 I had been working at a non-profit as a regional director for 6 years. The environment, which had been fabulous had progressively become more and more toxic. The final straw was when I asked for an afternoon off to fly out and propose to my now wife and was told no because a meeting was going to be rescheduled for that day (it ended up not being rescheduled). I decided at that point that the good title and pay were no longer worth it and I left the position that I had worked so hard for. I knew that with my skills and experience I would find another position in the non-profit world and quickly.

Two weeks later Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme broke and the great recession was now in full swing. Positions that I applied for and had interviews lined up were now cancelled. Hiring freezes were in effect and I was left hunting and looking for any opportunity.

Fast forward two years to March 2010 and I was still without a job and income. It was raining as I was flying into Chicago to meet my friend, old boss, mentor, and future business partner, Benji Bearman, to see if he had any ideas…

Over the next two days Liquid Screen Design was born. In our previous positions we had both ordered a lot of swag and Benji had owned a custom t-shirt business in college that he sold when he graduated. He suggested that I could start a promotional products company. Our mission “to reinvent how people swag with clear products, design, and focus, inspiring their audiences to action” became clear even before the name of our new company.

I went home energized! Starting something brand new and pouring hours into developing the website and marketing strategy. All the while still searching for full-time paid work. Two weeks later I was offered a role as the director of social justice at a local non-profit. I was thrilled and the plan became for Liquid Screen Design to be a “side-hustle”. For the next seven years, I worked evenings and weekends as Liquid Screen Design continued to grow and grow. In late November of 2017 the amount of orders and customers had grown so much that I had to make a decision. Leave a job that I really enjoyed in order to make Liquid Screen Design something real or just know it would always be a side-hustle.

I decided that it was time to take the jump and really build my own company. The next question was would I be able to convince Benji to leave his job that he really enjoyed. After a lot of conversations (and much convincing), he agreed to join me as my partner.

Both of us having families and needing a stable income made it tough at first. There were months without either of us drawing any income as we continued to work extremely long hours to make it work. I always say, “the best part of owning your own business is you can work half days whenever you want. You just get to pick which 12 hours!”

As our business continued to grow, we began adding people. Production reps, artists, inside sales reps, and HR. As 2020 came we were in full growth mode with 14 full-time employees and several part-time. Then March hit and Covid put a stop to everything. Within 24 hours President Trump had addressed the nation, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson announced they had Covid, the NBA suspended their season, and we lost $500,000 of orders that were already placed. Two weeks later we had not had even one new sale and Benji and I did the only thing that we could do and let our staff go, keeping just one artist, and one inside person to help us if anything came in. It was one of the saddest days. Everything we had built had fallen apart.

We allowed for ourselves to feel sorry for ourselves for a weekend. Then came Monday, and with no orders we could spend time planning. The 100 hour weeks we had been working on orders now freed up, we spent that time planning. We eventually came up with three scenarios for our business and our customers (best, middle, and worst-case scenario) and a plan to attack each one. We started working every angle of what our business needed to become. And even though what ended up happening with Covid and our business was worse than what we had deemed the “worst-case scenario” we started to come back.

Our big pivot in the Covid years was to custom swag boxes for virtual events and employee recognition. We had done a few boxes before Covid and when one of our customers asked what they could do while shut down for their annual fundraiser I suggested a custom swag box. That swag box went to 500 participants, out of those people three of the recipients decided they needed their own boxes for their organizations. Each box order continued to bring in new box orders and new customers. By June of 2020 we were already bringing staff back (in addition to the new hires) and had never been busier.

In 2020, we were named the 4th fastest growing distributor in the promotional products industry (which was followed up with the 10th fastest in 2021). We have received awards and recognition from our industry, including being named the 12th Best Place to Work in the $27 billion promo industry, a salesperson of the year finalist, and CSR superstar to name a few.

Was it easy, no, but was it worth it, absolutely!

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

When Benji and I left our jobs that we loved to transform Liquid Screen Design into our full-time work, we planned our first budget. We knew we needed to make $350K in sales a year for the two of us to continue with LSD and gave it a three-year runway to succeed. We couldn’t figure out how we were going to make nearly $1000 per day for the year. Quickly the orders started coming in and we realized we were going to need to add staff to make our company successful.

In those early years our expenses outstripped our revenue. We were using orders coming in to pay for yesterday’s orders and if the new orders didn’t match the amount we were in trouble. Needless to say we were highly leveraged. Both Benji and I had used our savings (and not taking any income) and had maxed out our personal credit cards when a new unexpected lifeline came in. Someone asked us if we could help them plan a major convention and also provide all the swag. In the end it was going to be about $75K in revenue (with most of that as profit just paying for our time instead of products). Although it was not really what we were doing with LSD we both had experience in large scale event planning and with that dollar amount we accepted.

We were set to go with the director who had hired us to California to visit the hotel and work on fixing a contract the previous director had signed and the night before we were set to leave we got a call from the director’s boss that they had fired her but still wanted us to go. She was set to pay for everything on the trip (the rental car, the hotels, the meals, etc.) with her company credit card. We were so leveraged that all our LSD cards and personal credit cards were maxed out. The head of the company told us that their person in CA would have a credit card for us to use. When we got there they did not. Our first nervous experience was checking into the hotel. The hotel was prepaid but we were worried our credit cards would not hold for the incidentals needed. They did. The next issue was that we went for dinner at a sushi restaurant. As we sat there and ate, we were not sure what was going to happen when we went to pay the bill with our credit cards. We had about $20 in cash to our names. I was envisioning a scenario where we would be in the back washing dishes. The bill came. We gave them our credit card and a miracle happened. It went through! We often retell this story to our staff as a reminder that all that we have built comes from hard work and these very humble beginnings.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When COVID-19 hit in March 2020, it was like a record scratch moment for my promo products business. One day we’re humming along, winning awards, and planning our growth. The next – BAM! – everything grinds to a halt.

Within 24 hours we lost half a million in orders as events were cancelled nationwide. For two weeks, not a single new order came in. Tumbleweeds practically blew through our office. My business partner Benji and I had to make the gut-wrenching call to lay off most of our amazing team.

We let ourselves wallow in pity for a weekend, but come Monday, we picked ourselves up, and got to work planning our comeback.

We came up with best case, middle case, and worst case scenarios, along with plans to pivot for each. Even though the real situation ended up being worse than our worst case, having those plans helped us adapt.

One afternoon I was talking to a customer (who was also a friend). He was worried about the non-profit he ran and what they were going to do for their big fundraiser with nobody being able to attend in person. Every year they would order 500 custom tshirts for the event and spent $2500. I then proposed doing a virtual event and virtual event box. That box was a $30K order. Their 500 participant swag box that we created, packed, and sent out led to orders from 3 different organizations who saw that place orders for their events. Each new box was like a drop of water after a long thirsty hike. By June we were busier than ever, with orders pouring in weekly. We rode that wave all the way through 2021, pumping out over 50,000 boxes!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.liquidscreendesign.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/liquidscreendesign/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiquidScreenDesign/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/liquid-screen-design
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/liquidscreen