How Riccelo Became One of Fresh Prints’ Top 20 Campus Managers of All Time

Aside from being a TA, a director of a major college organization, and a full-time Industrial Engineering student at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Riccelo is also a Campus Manager (CM) at Fresh Prints. Campus Managers are student entrepreneurs who use Fresh Prints resources to run their own merch business on campus. As of 2022, we work with 500+ incredible students around the US and Riccelo is one of our best.

‘I've always really liked the idea of being able to go into a company to solve problems, optimize systems, and reduce inefficiencies. That's why my specialization is in the supply chain. If COVID taught me anything it’s that the supply chain is a vital part of everything. My degree lets me study it and the work I do here lets me gain experience in it.’ he explained.

Riccelo particularly enjoys the scalability of growth that comes with being a Campus Manager. ‘If you're a new Campus Manager and you’re working with maybe two or three clients - you're learning the basics of everything like how to pitch, how to follow up, and things like that. But once you get to 30-35 clients and start generating $100k+ in revenue, it's no longer how do I land the deal? Because you've mastered that. It becomes - how do I manage everything? How do I maintain business relationships? How do I keep scaling sustainably while maintaining my quality of service?’

He’s right! Akin to a growing business, the areas you need to invest your time and energy in grow as you grow. Subsequently, so does your skillset.

Lessons learned along the way.

Riccelo explains that his growth required him to face challenges head-on.

‘When you’re a Campus Manager, you’re the face of the business on the campus. You are in charge. You’re working through the art, garment selection, logistics, and things like that. Whenever problems happen, you’re learning how to handle them and how to maintain relationships in the face of those problems.’ He explained, ‘I remember this one order with 200 shirts I made a mistake with when I was new. It had Urbana Campaign printed on it instead of Urbana Champaign. I was in such a hurry to place it that I just did not check. I ended up reprinting the whole thing and maintaining the client relationship but now I know to take a breather and check everything before ordering.’ 

He also recalled how he used to reach out to people on campus using a very formal tone of voice and half-ass answers to questions he wasn't sure of instead of reaching out to his team to confirm - you wouldn’t catch him doing any of that now!

‘My approach was a hodgepodge mix of different techniques and approaches that needed fine-tuning,’ and fine-tuning he did! For example, when the first design mockup sent by the art team doesn’t feel like something his client would like, Riccelo requests revisions on his own until it feels right and then sends it to them. In the eyes of the client, what he sends is the first attempt and they love it. ‘I built my own checkpoints in the cycle.’ he explained.

He also learned how to deal with rejection. ‘Sometimes you’ll reach out to people that are straight up mean and dismissive. Other times a client will just ghost you right before placing an order. I learned early to not let it ruin my day. Yeah, this one person didn’t want to do it but there are thousands of other people on campus I can talk to.’

At the same time, he learned that being upfront and honest is a great approach. ‘Clients come up to me and tell me that they’re looking at competitors and ask what I can do differently for them all the time. In the beginning, I used to shy away from answering honestly but now I say things like - I will do whatever I need to do to get you exactly what you need. Then execute on that promise.’

Riccelo let us know that he’s very organized with all of his work so he can stay on top of everything. He has an AM and PM list of tasks that boil down to working on proofs, pricing, and orders in the evening and interacting with clients and his team in the morning.

‘When reaching out to clients, I always customize my texts based on the situation. It ranges from a simple Hey we just launched a new lookbook to just finished an order for Phi Sig! Wanted to check if you guys needed anything.’ Riccelo usually gives people a day and a half before following up. ‘My final follow-up after days of hearing nothing is usually like hey, just checking in. I would love to hear back. If you don't want to work with me, that's fine! And that gets people to text back saying why they haven’t responded or they just don’t text back and that’s fine too.’

These days, however, Riccelo does not reach out to clients as much anymore. ‘I am at a place where I have a decent client base. Sometimes, I wake up to texts from new clients telling me their friend told them about me. That feels great and I work with them but I don’t personally reach out to anyone on campus anymore.’ He now works with many more corporate clients and clients from other schools.

Riccelo finished up by noting the monetary benefit of what he did. ‘I didn’t ask my parents for money this semester. I’ve been able to use my commission from being a Campus Manager to pay for everything including fun things and I still have a lot left over. That feels amazing.’

Tips on becoming an effective CM.

Riccelo said, ‘Anyone can do the job. But a better question is how can you do it effectively? To any CMs just starting out I’d say:

• Know that it’s all about the long run, not the sprint. A lot of CMs burn themselves out when they see one great week and another slow week especially earlier on.
• Learn how to balance your time. As a STEM major, there are academically stressful months where it’s hard to balance everything. Using classic productivity tools like calendars and time-blocking can help you stay on track.
• Prioritize! Look at what needs to be done today and what can be done later, and communicate that to the client. Your knee-jerk reaction might be to put in a client's proof request ASAP and tell them you’ll get it back to them ASAP, but chances are you’re going to have other things going on and you’ll be setting yourself up for disappointment. A simple hey can I get this to you by this evening? Will be appreciated. People are flexible!
• Take advantage of the Fresh Prints team. If you need to ask 5 questions, ask them! Everything you’re doing, they’re in it with you. They will help you out.
• Take care of yourself! Eat well, sleep well.’

There it is! A special shout-out to Riccelo for sitting down with us and sharing what he learned on his path to becoming one of the best Campus Managers we’ve had at Fresh Prints. We learned a lot!

Interested in becoming a Campus Manager? You can apply here.