There’s a new ‘Guy’ in town

There’s a new ‘Guy’ in town - A group of people posing for the camera - Saint Patrick

Local firm provides promotional gizmos

The big sellers line the walls at the Promotions Guy showroom located at 100th Street Center — cups, cozies, T-shirts, personalized spatulas, flasks, and poker sets. Owner Ryan Schraffenberger, a.k.a. the promotions guy, sits in their newly furnished space at a tall table working on orders. Brian “Cheddar” Geitz, his best friend and business partner, hollers down from his attic cave where he is steadily pressing logos on to the thousands of shirts they are printing each month.

“I haven’t even made it back to my office,” replied Schraffenberger as Geitz pranced down the spiral staircase to join him at the table. “We are slammed.”

With about 200 customers and growing, they say the biggest sellers are awards and promotional items. The advertising and marketing team offer just about anything to help businesses get their names out there.

“We could supply a gift shop with everything they need to sell,” Geitz said, pointing to the walls. “And, we will match prices on anything found online; we ain’t skeered.”

Some of their local customers include The Island Fish Co., Keys Contracting Services, Keys Strength, ReMax, and DRC.

“Body Language came in earlier today, and we designed her a new logo and ordered some new shirts for her,” Schraffenberger said to emphasize the company’s brand development services.

Promotions Guy is also outgrowing its space; they need more room to accommodate the screen printed T-shirt orders. “We sometimes get 40 boxes in one day, the UPS guy hates us,” Schraffenberger said. He also said Coors Light has put in an 18,000-piece order that will be completed in the near future.

The turnaround time for shirts is usually about two to 10 days, depending on the quantity and number of colors — usually one to three.

The company opened in July and moved into the space in September 2014. With the workload growing, they have recruited reinforcements coming in July to join the four-person marketing team.

Schraffenberger’s degree is in marketing from Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, his home state. He’s also a former elected Key Colony Beach City Commissioner. Although he isn’t serving the public in a political sense anymore, the shop staff is performing monthly good deeds. In May, they are looking to close up shop one afternoon and bring dog tags to the animals at S.H.A.R.K. and spend the day playing with and walking the homeless animals. Last month, they spent Earth Day cleaning the mangroves of trash.

His community mindedness doesn’t end there, either; Promotions Guy recently donated shirts and cups to the new student travel basketball team Florida Tropics and staff can be seen at events all over town, sometimes dressed in crazy outfits, and most recently, chatting with the runners at the 7 Mile Bridge Run, who clearly were amused by a microphone in their mouths at mile 5.

 

 

Kristen Livengood is a Marathon High School and University of South Florida grad, mom of two beautiful little girls, and wife to some cute guy she met in a bar. She enjoys red wine, Tito's, Jameson, running (very, very slowly), and spearfishing.