“Local supporting local.” Sherman Creative celebrating 30 years in Youngstown
A woman-owned marketing and promotional product supplier is celebrating 30 years of supporting business owners and giving back to the Youngstown community.
Stephanie Shapiro is the owner of Sherman Creative, founded by Bruce and Carol Sherman in 1996.
“After Bruce and Carol started the business, I worked with them in the office for about three years,” Sherman said. “We’re happy we’re here to celebrate our 30th anniversary. I feel lucky that I became part of Sherman. It aligns with my values; I’m not just here to sell, but I’m here to build trust, create relationships and make the companies that we work with feel valued.”
Sherman Creative specializes in supplying local businesses with the right promotional products, which are everyday products customized with a company’s logo.
“I would say the most popular items are apparel, drinkware and office supplies. A T-shirt could be washed 100 times and worn back out there, getting more and more impressions. Sherman Creative can do virtually anything that any of the online distributors can do, but we’re a small company that’s local supporting local,” Shapiro said.
Sherman Creative also makes lapel pins and customized awards often distributed to employees for workplace anniversaries and recognitions.
“Our services are great for onboarding gifts and community giveaways,” she said. “We work in all sectors, including government, banking, healthcare, manufacturing, non-profits, transportation, and more.”
Shapiro is a board member with the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley, supports local beautification efforts like Youngstown Cityscape and is involved with Potential Development.
“We emphasize community relationships, building trust and creating local connections. The people we work with are our neighbors and families are all part of the larger community here in Youngstown,” she said. “We go by that mantra, ‘Community over everything.’ Our company was built on the belief that business should strengthen the community, so everything that we do is to serve our customer and to support local initiatives.”
Shaprio said since she’s taken over at Sherman Creative in 2018, they’ve implemented a digital order management system which helped streamline the business.
“It makes it easy for any teammate to pick up the order at any point,” she said. “If a business called and asked to get a pen with their company branded on it, we’d start with creating a presentation to send over. We’d then edit that presentation, go over an estimate and a sales order. Then you’d approve a proof online, so the whole process from beginning to end could really be taken care of by anyone on the team.”
