We recently connected with Elisa Serrano and have shared our conversation below.
Elisa, appreciate you joining us today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?
As an entrepreneur in a creative industry, I have been able to see how amazing it is to create a business that is tied in with your passion.
Rodney and I (Elisa) wouldn’t be where we are if it wasn’t for the creative leaders and art teachers we had and who supported our passions.
The reason Rodney got involved with screen printing was hugely thanks to his graphic design teacher, Mr. Layton. He still teaches design, and now the student has truly become the teacher – we print tees for him now!
Spending time exploring and exercising creativity can help in so many ways. Whether you find a career path from it, create fun memories or as an outlet to unwind…having those art classes available for students and encouraged would be so beneficial overall.
Elisa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
In 2007, DLH Screenprinting was born out of necessity when Rodney’s rock band needed merchandise to sell at their concerts.
Armed with knowledge from a high school design class, he started printing shirts in a garage on a homemade press, using a hairdryer to cure them (not the most efficient process, we know). But passion and love for screen printing prevailed, and soon other bands along the West Coast were asking for their own custom shirts.
Today, DLH specializes in creating high-quality screen printed and embroidered apparel, along with other common and not so common promo products.
Our secret sauce? We’re not shy about our quirky side, and we know a thing or two about branding and marketing ourselves – which will only help your brand.
Our goal is to provide quality communication, quality goods, and to have fun along the way.
You can experiment with ordering custom apparel online, but nothing matches the quality and personal touch of working with someone who knows the art of screen printing inside and out!
Any advice for managing a team?
When it comes to teams, we’re a little biased…but we truly believe we’ve got the best one. There’s countless places to find advice about management, but what we feel is the most important piece is determining your company’s core values, and cultivating the culture you want to grow. Secondly, we believe in transparency with our crew. That includes expectations, goals, wins and giving recognition for those wins! Our clients come first, but…without our team we wouldn’t have those clients. So we try to give back to them all that we can for their help that we couldn’t do without!
We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.
Social media is the main way we keep in touch with clients, and it’s especially rewarding to see the merch we’ve made out in the wild on their feeds! We believe that you get out of it what you put into it, and we focus on spreading good energy and socializing with with all the amazing people we’ve gotten to connect with over the years.
Email marketing is our newest focus, for reaching our core, serious buyers. Being able to directly send a longer form piece of content and a call to action is priceless!
Our advice for fostering brand loyalty is to forget the selling (not completely though!) and to focus on building relationships with those who might want to work with you or refer you to someone who does. Things like commenting, sending meaningful replies to messages, and creating fun and down to earth content has truly strengthened the connection with our audience.
Contact Info:
- Website: Dlhscreenprint.Com
- Instagram: Dlhscreenprint
- Youtube: DLHscreenprint
Image Credits
Michael Raines Elisa Serrano