How Elysia Built a $113K+ Merch Empire as a Campus Manager at Rice

Campus Managers build Fresh Prints on their campuses. Many people see the role as a sales role but the most successful Campus Managers have truly made the business their own. From creating a sales plan to scaling their client base, these Campus Managers blow our minds away every time we talk to them! One such Campus Manager is Elysia Wu at Rice University. 

Close your eyes! Or maybe not because you need to read the rest of this post. BUT -

When you think of someone running a merch empire as a college student – what kind of person do you imagine? A Neuroscience and English double major at a small school with no Greek life? Probably not, but that’s Elysia!

The majority of the Campus Managers at Fresh Prints go to schools with a strong fraternity and sorority presence. Their business thrives on Alpha Phi bid day shirts, Delta Gamma’s Philo merch, Chi Omega’s formal merch, and the like. 

‘At Rice, we have residential colleges instead of Greek life. It’s also a pretty small school with around 6K students,’ Elysia told us. ‘A lot of the training that the CMs go through in the beginning covers building Greek life clientele. Sofie Levinson is my manager and we worked together to figure it out for my school.’

Elysia credits Sofie for holding her accountable. ‘Sofie’s always like – let's set a goal for this client. Is there anything else we should talk about for this order? Let's reach out to these parts of campus that might have events going on – you know? She keeps me on track. She also does things like weekly shoutouts for the top CMs of the week. I’m pretty competitive so that motivates me too.’

Elysia became a Campus Manager in the Fall of 2020. Fast forward to Spring 2022, she’s well over $113k+ in sales. That’s crazy, but how did she do it?

‘Think of them as the Hogwarts houses.’ Elysia told us about the residential colleges on her campus. ‘Students are randomly assigned houses when they’re freshmen and every house has its own culture and events. There’s orientation week, college night, beer bikes, and stuff like that. You can’t really compare them to Greek life but they can involve merch.’ She explained.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing, however. ‘My first order was also really big. It was an obnoxiously large $6000 order. They were ordering hundreds of items. I was up until 5 am with my neck hurting working with this big spreadsheet they sent me because I wanted to get everything right!’ Elysia recalled, ‘Back then, I also used to put way too many smiley emojis and exclamation points in my texts to clients because I was so nervous people would think I was mean. I also over-explained everything!’

Elysia told us about how things have changed for her now that she has a lot more experience.

‘I’m a lot more succinct with my texts and way less eager,’ she laughed, ‘I also now know which clients to prioritize and when to follow up and when not to. For example, following up for the tenth time with a client who just won’t respond to you is not worth it when you could be using that time to work with someone else who does want your business.’

Elysia told us how her love for meeting new people and knowing what kind of events are going on around campus appeals to her most about the job. ‘Aside from the money I’m earning, I just think I’m nosey’ she laughed, ‘I’m a part of Lovett College and I enjoy knowing what’s happening in other colleges too!’

You heard it here first, folks: being nosey makes you excellent at your job! Because Elysia is very talented at what she does.

‘Maybe this is egotistical but I’m very proud of what I’ve done. I like that I feel busy and I like the number of clients I have. For a Campus Manager with no Greek life at her school, I think I’m doing pretty good.’

Hey if I, an article on the internet, was doing $113k+ as a college student, I’d be shouting it off rooftops!

‘I always tell people who are considering becoming CMs that the first month is the hardest because it's a big learning curve. You probably don’t know a lot about the business or how to do anything. Once you enter the second month then the third month and keep going, it's way easier.’ She said, ‘I remember putting in my first proof request and I thought I was going to mess it up and it was going to be horrible. I thought I was going to be a huge burden to everyone. But as soon as that order was over and it went fine, I had a lot more confidence.’

Entering her third year of campus management, Elysia’s just having a lot more fun. She’s preparing for law school, getting herself the merch she created and loved, and doing many other extra-curricular activities!