LOCAL BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Green Mango Print

This month, we’re shining the spotlight on Rocky Castillo, owner of Green Mango Print.

Rocky Castillo (left), owner of Green Mango Print, with Daniel Redus, graphic designer.

What do you want the community to know about your business?

We have three things that we do the most: vehicle wraps, signs, and screen printing on T-shirts.

What makes you proudest of your business?

It’s a family business, and we started very small with actually just a laptop and $200 in the bank account. We slowly started increasing and buying machinery. We moved three times, always making the store bigger. Now we not only have a store, but we also have a warehouse in the back where we do the car wraps and screen printing.

We take customer service very seriously. Part of our slogan is “where quality matters.” Before, I was in the marketing industry. At the company I was working for, we either had a good price and very limited quality on the product or service, or we had a really high price and very good quality. There was nothing in between. We started this business thinking about those customers who wanted to pay something right in between and wanted really good customer service and products.

Our industry—like everybody else’s industry right now—is going online, but you lose that personal relationship with customers. Our business is business-to-business. Most business owners want to deal with a person, a real person and not just on the computer—unless they need something quick—but ours is very personalized, very detailed. If a business owner really wants detail in the product, then our company is a good fit for them.

What might surprise people about your business?

We do it all in-house. Right now, a lot of companies are outsourcing graphic design and also the production—the apparel, the signs, things like that—but we do all of that right here in our shop.

When did you start the company?

We started in the industry in 2008, providing service for friends and family, but officially Green Mango Print was started as a business in 2010.

Tell us about your role with the company.

I’m an owner-operator, so I’m here every day. I visit customers every day. We have a graphic designer in-house, but I help out with the graphic design. With the car wraps, I take care of installation. We also have two guys who help with installation. Every day is a moving target because my business is so customized. It’s not like we’re buying 100 boxes and selling them. It’s more like I have to buy 100 boxes, and every one of the 100 boxes has to be done differently or adjusted differently and sold to a different customer. So every single day is something different. That’s what I like about the business. I don’t think I could just be sitting at a countertop and trying to help out customers. I go out and measure outdoor signs, take measurements for hats or T-shirts when a customer wants something specific on them, or provide pictures of products to make banners and things like that.

Of course we’re local, which I love. Our customers are all the way from The Woodlands to Huntsville, but most of our business is in Conroe, Willis, and part of The Woodlands.

Tell us about your philosophy on buying local.

That’s huge for me. I mentioned that all of the industries are going online. There’s nothing wrong with going online, but in order to have a great community, you have to support your community greatly. Everything we buy here is pretty much local. Our vendors are either in Houston or Dallas.

We receive emails nearly every week from vendors in China. Others are in Japan. But we try to buy as much as we can right here in the state of Texas—or at least from the United States.

Also on our marketing, we encourage buying local. We offer incentives. For instance, we just did an email blast to over 700 business owners. It’s an incentive: $300 off vehicle wraps if you buy local. I think the more we cultivate that culture, the stronger the economy is going to get, and I’m all about that.

We understand the vehicle wrap service you provide is relatively new. Please tell us what inspired you to launch that service and what you want people to know about your vehicle wraps.

We have different kinds of customers now who want to have something unique. We already had the machines right here to do banners, stickers, wall graphics, window graphics, and things like that.

We figured that we could expand into car wraps or billboards. We said to ourselves, having a car wrap is almost like having a billboard—all around town. You pay only one time, and it lasts at least three years. It’s worth the money for the customers.

We started steering toward doing vehicle graphics, and just a year and a half ago we started doing vehicle wraps, which is customizing the whole car and making It look like a walking billboard. It’s really an investment in the car by not damaging it. If they want to sell their vehicle, they can take the whole sticker off and not find any scratches on it. You kill two birds with one stone: You actually advertise your business really, really well and also you protect your car really, really well with the kind of adhesive and the kind of vinyl we’re using.

What advice would you offer somebody who is new to your field?

Develop a really good relationship with your vendors. That, I would say, is No. 1.

No. 2, my field is business-to-business. Business owners want somebody who is a representative of their company; they want somebody who is accountable for what they say and what they do.

Don’t expect to sell only one time. Expect to have that customer come in at least once every three weeks. If you have that thought, you’re developing your marketing with the mindset that you have to keep that customer happy for the rest of your life.

And, of course, testing has a lot to do with this business. Because everything is so customized, you have to do a lot of testing before the final product. For instance, if a customer requests a full-color T-shirt, and you’ve never done one, you might as well just not do it because you’re going to have a bad reputation with customers. Do a lot of testing with your T-shirts and your banners and your signs. If you want to do wraps, test them on your car before you go live and try to sell them to somebody.

What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not on the job?

I have three girls and a beautiful wife, so I like to spend time with them. My girls are 14, 15, and 7.

We understand that Green Mango has provided a number of banners for Montgomery Self Storage. What has been the most memorable thing about your interactions with the company?

My first encounter with them was talking with the owner, Andrew Pena, Jr. It was several years ago. My first impression was he is a straight shooter. What they were shooting for was good quality on everything they did.

Since then, we have helped with everything from promotional and garage sale banners to branding decals for their golf carts. We look forward to completing future projects for them.