We had the good fortune of connecting with Bryan & Trenice McMillian and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Bryan & Trenice, what habits do you feel play an important role in your life?
Bryan McMillian: So for me I’d have to say it’s being my own worst critic and being extremely organized so that everything is done in a timely fashion.
Trenice McMillian: It’s definitely organization for me. The more organized you are, the easier the day is. You’re able to accomplish tasks quicker and also have room for error in case there’s some type of mishap. Organization is definitely something that comes with time. I’m much better at it at this stage in our business than I was in our earlier years.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I believe what sets us apart from other businesses like ours is that we create designs as if we were creating them for ourselves. We use customer input to come up with new ideas for future designs.
We’re most proud of coming up with more original designs than other t-shirt shops. It gives our customers more options in terms of versatility.
Platinum is where it is today because we put our focus on quality and giving our customers a product that’s a cut above the rest. It wasn’t a challenge for us to pull this off because we’re always listening to customer feedback.
The lessons we’ve learned along the way…hmm…that’s a tough one. We’ve learned so many lessons I don’t know where to begin. I guess the most valuable lesson would be to get the customer’s approval before anything is printed or constructed. This saves a lot of time and money.
Our business is very small. It’s ran by just my husband and I…nope…not a single employee. We’ve been running our business for almost 17 years now here in New Orleans and I must say, we get pretty good feedback on how fast and friendly our service is.
Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
New Orleans is such an awesome place to visit!
You definitely have to take a stroll through the French Quarter and get some beignets and cocoa from Cafe Du Monde. Oh! And you’ll want to take the streetcar ride down St. Charles. If you have kids, City Park would be an awesome place to take them. There’s Storyland and also a little amusement park inside. You can also stop, get some crawfish and go to the Lakefront and enjoy the breeze.
And don’t leave the city without experiencing a secondline which seems like it can happen any given Sunday.
Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
SHOUT OUT TO OUR CUSTOMERS! They truly keep us busy every single day. Thank you guys for entrusting us with your events, your loved ones events and just supporting our very small business.
Special thanks to our fallen customer, Sadiki Navarre. His popularity and word of mouth really drew a lot of people into our business. A lot of our customers we wouldn’t even know if it wasn’t for him.
RIP DIKI
Gone, but never forgotten…
Website: www.platinumgraphics.org
Instagram: www.instagram.com/platinumgraphics
Image Credits
Model: Bryan McMillian, Jr. (Mr. B)