Junior Daniel Trust, chief executive officer of Daniel Trust LLC, uses ideas to increase sales and connections
Monica Szakacs, News Writer:
Witnessing his mother’s murder at the age of five and losing his father and two of his four sisters to the Rwanda Genocides in 1994, Daniel Trust, Rwandan American Genocide survivor, (born Daniel Ndamwizeye), did not let his struggles in life claim him as well.
Trust is now a motivational speaker hoping to inspire others to not let negative trials and tribulations hold them back from succeeding and controlling the outcome of those experiences. Trust is also the chief executive officer of his profit T-shirt company, Daniel Trust, LLC, with a mission “To inspire people through art and words of inspiration,” according to his website, Danieltrust.com.
Trust is also the founder and chairman of The D-Trust Foundation Incorporation, a non-profit organization which helps aid orphaned children by providing resources that assist in their educational and career goals, as well as day-to-day living.
Previously, Trust has sold his T-shirts and tote bags on campus and has an online store. He has only promoted his business by students wearing his brand. This semester in his marketing class, Trust was part of a group project where they had to act as an agency and develop a marketing plan for a small business.
“It so happens that I have a small business and we focused on doing my T-shirt business, because it’s been a while since I’ve done any promotional stuff for the brand,” said Trust. “I figured doing the marketing plan and involving the other students would be beneficial.”
Luke Rasile, marketing major and one of seven team members, said he enjoys the brand because it is unique and unlike any other brand in Connecticut. He said it is up-and-coming, and if Trust can get his brand into the Southern bookstore, then he thinks his sales and popularity would increase. Trust said next year he hopes to set up a table once or twice a month.
“I think the ideas from my group members and myself will be very useful to Daniel,” said Rasile. “He got to listen to ideas and thoughts from new people and will be able to make the changes needed in order to perfect his brand and the way he markets it.”
Rasile’s role with the marketing project was the SWOT analysis, which is the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of the brand.
According to the strengths analysis of the project Power Point, the designs are unique, products only contain positive messages, prices are a reasonable price at $15, and 10 percent of each sale is donated to the D-Trust Foundation. Weaknesses include profit money, distribution of items, marketing (only online right now) and there is a small selection to choose from.
Nick Gleifert, sophomore marketing major and group member, had the responsibility to improve the social media and website development. He brought up an idea that Trust can increase fans and customers by having a design competition on Facebook. Gleifert said this would get the community involved with his mission to inspire and perform to their greatest.
“Everyone has Facebook right now, it’s just what you do,” said Gleifert. “We were talking in our group that he should do free T-shirts, competitions and raffles randomly on campus by promoting it through Facebook and then hosting events on campus.”
Gleifert said Trust was lucky to have the group there to help him out for a new marketing plan.
“I think it’s awesome,” said Gleifert, “because if this ends up being a big spark on campus where people are starting to pay attention to his social media and website, we are going to feel important that we aided him to these steps.”
Trust said even though the marketing development is just a class project, he said he will take the group’s ideas and efforts and use them in the long run. He said he likes the idea of the design competition and hopefully next year will host one. Whoever wins the competition will get a percent of the design sale profit, according to Trust. Right now he has expanded with social networking by constantly updating his Facebook page and Twitter feed.
Trust said he wants to expand his brand in the future with more designs and accessories, such as flip flops, sunglasses, hats and backpacks. He also wants to branch out and sell across the U.S., but he said his target market will always remain the same: college students.
“I want to grow my T-shirt brand here on campus first,” said Trust. “Once the inventory I have now sells out, more designs will be produced to connect more with the college life and students.”
