As I said, I was in my early twenties, I had just graduated from university, and I had a lot of contacts in the university system. I had a lot of contacts in the summer camp world where I had spent a lot of my time as a kid. And I knew these were markets that valued creativity, cool merchandise -- and specifically apparel. I know you'll be interested in that Marshall... and I just went out and I sold the kind of apparel that I thought was cool. And that I knew would resonate with this particular demographic. And looking back all these years later, I think that that was a very successful approach, even though I didn't quite know it at the time. And the reason being is that it was an approach that was highly personal. And one where I deeply believed in what it was that I was selling -- as opposed to just selling the crap out of a catalog. So I was very proud of the merchandise that I was selling to these universities, into these camps, with these taste-makers, and these cool kids that were loving the products that we were putting together. And that really became the foundation of how it is that I saw the promotional products industry and the kinds of clients that we ultimately expanded from that initial customer base. Marshall Atkinson So naming your company Right Sleeve was the tip of the hat to apparel, obviously.
Mark Graham Yep, absolutely. A fun fact for those people that are curious about it.
I was looking to rebrand the company in 2000 and I wanted to create a cool brand that was a little bit quirky and creative, which was kind of my personality and the DNA of the company. And I was looking at my purchase orders. Because I was like, can I look at some things that are right in front of me for some inspiration for the company name? And I started looking at embroidery and screen printing, decorating locations on my PO’s, which were very basic at the time. And you'd see things like left chest you'd think, you know, nape of the neck, right sleeve, left sleeve, so on and so forth and Right Sleeve does seem cool. The URL and the domain were unique and it was available. And I thought, alright, let's go with it. It'll be a fun story. And I've told that story like thousands of times and it works. So... Marshall Atkinson Yeah, that's a great name and it makes me think, “it's a correct decision.”
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