JoshEllsworth.com

Not to long ago I started following a company on Twitter called Black Pearl Clothing.  While following them I quickly realized that they were “one to watch”, clearly a new, fresh style that is making the most of social media and decorating technology available to them.  Getting a feeling that they were successful just by reading their website and seeing the quality of their photography, I reached out with a direct message on Twitter asking for an interview.  Prince Osamede from the company messaged me back right away and agreed.  So here it is…. an interview with Black Pearl Clothing.  The determination and vision of Prince and the company comes through loud and clear.  Once your done reading be sure to check out their website and Facebook page.  And THANK YOU to Black Pearl for sharing with us!

Black Pearl Clothing http://www.blackpearlclothing.com

On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/blackpearlclothing

Josh: Tell us a little bit about your business?  Who do you sell to?  What makes you different?

Prince: Black Pearl clothing started from a custom t-shirt that one of the founders of the company had purchased. Being able to buy a custom shirt was a cool experience and combining that product offering with the vision to enable people to express their individuality was what got things started.

Black Pearl Clothing is a clothing line and a custom printing business. We offer our clients the ability to fully customize a garment and share their message and express who they are while still being a part of a larger vision and a trendy brand.

J: How long have you been in business?

P: We started in September of 2009 and continued to expand and grow our fan base and clientele as well as our product offerings. We now have over 3000 fans on Facebook and clients all over the world.

J: When did you start offering heat applied graphics?  Was it right from the start?

P: Heat applied graphics was the first service we offered as customers requested other types of services, we began to offer more options but heat printing has been our main service from the start.

J: Why do heat applied graphics match up well for what you are offering?

P: Black Pearl Clothing is about more than just buying clothes and printing shirts. The whole concept behind Black Pearl is spreading the movement of individuality and being unique. By utilizing heat applied graphics in our work and designs, all of our individual customers have the ability to have a unique design while still sporting a high quality garment and representing a brand that is a part of a larger vision.

J: What specific heat applied graphics technologies are you offering?  (ie. heat applied film, screen printed transfers, sublimation etc.)

P: We actually provide any type of heat transfer services although the majority of our designs are film, vinyl, and screen printed transfers. We work with a lot of designers and experts in the industry to provide our clients with the best type of heat press for their design to ensure the highest quality of the garment.

J: What about this particular technology impressed you the most?  Why did you choose to use it?

P: What we love about heat applied graphics is that it’s so simple to set up and create high quality garments. Virtually ANYONE can get started printing shirts and it’s a lot of fun to create designs and have them applied to a garment right away for a photo ready look.

Again, because all of our customers demand unique designs, using heat transfer prints allows us to maintain a high quality of the finished garment and provide our clients with a totally individual design.

J: Why not screen printing or embroidery for your business?

P: We actually do screen printing and embroidery as well although the majority of our work is heat press. I think that for most of what our clients are looking for, heat press designs fulfill their needs. We’ve done a few screen printing projects and we usually keep those for larger orders. Embroidery is also something that we’d like to do more of but using it more for our pre-designed lines for larger productions as well.

J: As you were getting started, where did you find out about all of the options available for decorating t-shirts?

P: We did a lot of research online and visited as many websites as we could find about printing options. The sites that were most helpful were pimpashirt.com and YouTube.

I noticed that you have a lot of fans on Facebook – any secrets to what is working for you?

Facebook is really where this whole thing started for us. It it wasn’t for facebook, the nature of our business would be very different. We have worldwide clients as a result of our Facebook page and it’s absolutely phenomenal the kind of loyalty, support, and interaction that we get from our Facebook Fans.

We actually just started off by inviting all of our friends and telling them to invite their friends, etc… And the whole thing just blew up. After posting our first couple photo shoots, people just responded really well to the product and they loved what we were doing and what we had to offer.

We created a family with our products, and our customers bought into this family and facebook was a meeting point for all of us. That’s the easiest way I can explain the secret. It also helps when people see their friends modeling for a clothing line.

J: How has your experience been with using Twitter for your business so far?

P: Twitter has been an interesting experience so far. We weren’t too interested in using it for business because at first, we didn’t understand how it worked. But honestly, we’ve learned that twitter is an amazing way to get out there and build a relationship with your clients and potential business partners. As a matter of fact, Twitter is actually how we got connected so, never underestimate the power of social media!

J: Do you get good feedback on the videos you have produced for your brand?

P: People LOVE videos and it’s a big part of what we’re trying to do more of in the future. The videos we have now have a lot of views and it’s a great way for our viewers to get a behind the scenes look at what we do.

I feel like our videos help us to build more of a real relationship with our audience because they can see the people behind Black Pearl in action.

J: Any tips or tricks for other start ups?  What would you see as being the best return on time invested when talking about marketing?

P: Having a successful start up is really about building a lot of hype behind what you’re doing. Facebook has honestly been the best tool for us to use in building an audience and getting people hyped about what we’re doing. Our Facebook fan base has also been extremely loyal in supporting us throughout everything. That’s also a big reason why we have a lot of views on our Youtube page. So, in terms of time investment, Facebook is hands down our number 1 recommendation. If you do it right, you can get a lot of people interested in what you’re doing. It just starts with creating your Fan Page and then inviting all your friends and telling them to invite their friends, etc…

Another great thing about Facebook is that since everyone and all their friends are on the site, when we tag all of our models in our photo shoots, their friends have access to those photos and in turn, they check out our Fan Page and support our work.

J: Any other advice you would like to share about getting started?  Was it easy, hard…what should someone watch out for?

P: Starting any business venture is a lot of fun. Definitely don’t go at it alone and have a strong team for your foundation. All of the challenges we’ve overcome to get where we are today have served as great teachers and everything has been a very humbling experience.

Definitely make sure that you plan things out well and you have enough capital to keep yourself going for a while. The last thing you want is not to be able to run your business because of a lack of cash flow so planning is key. Other than that, I’d say that if you have a solid game plan and a good product, you’re on your way to a good start. Never underestimate the power of a business plan. Get it done.  Also, learn from others and apply their successes to your business.

J: Thanks for the time Prince.

To readers, please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts…..

So it’s been just over 24 hours since “The Decision” on ESPN where LeBron James announced he is going to South Beach to join the Miami Heat.  I’m guilty, I stayed up late last night – actually until about midnight watching the special and then debating with a friend in my living room.  Once we agreed to disagree on our debate, who would win the Eastern Conference next year and BEAT LA, I started thinking…how can we as decorators capitalize on these types of events????

And so it began….at about 10:00am this morning I went into our video production room and pitched an idea and tight deadline to Joe our video production guru.  After some conversation, he agreed to a challenge of brain storming, shooting, editing (brilliantly I might add) and publishing a video all within 6 hours.  The video – a fast paced, upbeat highlight reel “making a t-shirt for LeBron James”.

So I grabbed my laptop hashed out a design while Joe started setting up the lighting.  After the design was complete, I grabbed a couple different colors of the CAD-CUT film we manufacture and the shot clock was on….

We began creating a shirt that we call “The King of South Beach”.

Here’s how the video  turned out:

Now we’re not sure LeBron will get this shirt or even if he does get it ever wear it, but it’s worth a shot.  The shirts in the mail and we’ll see what happens.  Worst case scenario we had a blast pumping out the video and now we’ll take the concept and use it again and again until it works:)  If you want to get your business on the map, you might try to do the same.  Imagine the PR you can get if a famous athlete, celebrity or business person actually wore your gear.

Oh and one more way you can capitalize…how about designing a shirt of your own to hang in the shop window or to post on your website?  People are pretty passionate about this LeBron debate…you may want to suggest they buy a t-shirt to express themselves.

Special thanks to Joe who did an awesome job with the editing under a tight deadline.  Leave us a comment to let us know what you think.  Also subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Oh and GO CELTICS!