Enough Frugal Business Marketing, it's Time to Start Scheduling the Delivery of Cashmere Socks

You can even be The Obvious Expert of socks.

Do you think people are tired of television commercials and print ads that wax poetically about how meaningful it is to stay home and play games with your kids rather than enjoy a night out? What about all those cheery images of vacationing in your back yard, or how good it feels to eat in instead of dining out?

Red alert here! Bedrolls and cleaning the kitchen after dinner never charms people for very long. And any time the media becomes saturated with a marketing “style” it is then past time for you to move 180 degrees away from that marketing approach in your own business messaging.

Let’s face it, the novelty of brown bagging lunch wears off quickly whether you are literally talking about one too many soggy sandwiches or figuratively referencing self designed business cards, built-it-yourself websites, or print collateral you design and produce on your DeskJet printer. It is not that any of these cost-cutting efforts are wrong or bad, it is just that it is easy to overdose on thriftiness.

Here’s an Anti-Coping with the Economy Strategy for your business or consulting practice followed by one for your clients:

Enough is Enough with the Cutting Corners in Business Marketing

Pick one area of your business marketing in which you don’t cut corners, don’t go the do-it-yourself route, and don’t scale back your approach. Whether it’s a snazzy and engaging website or high quality business cards that make people look twice and perhaps thrice, do at least one thing in your business marketing that is rich, luxurious, inspired, creative and over the top. Cut too many corners and you inevitably lose your edge.

Let Your Clients and Customers Enjoy Some Luxury Too

Your clients are just as sick as you are of being prudent, frugal, sparing, and cautious about everything they do. Find a way that you can package or repackage one (or more) of your products or services so that your clients can have the very best you offer, even if it is delivered in smaller bites. For example, start offering your one-on-one consulting sessions in one-hour blocks as well as the four-hour blocks you’ve always offered.

But wait, Obvious Expert, you promised us a tale of cashmere socks …

Okay, here’s where we get to the socks.

Samy Liechti is a Swiss businessman who early in his career had a humiliating moment during a meeting with Japanese clients. In order to comply with the custom of his host, Samy had no choice but to remove his shoes, thereby revealing to all present at the meeting that Samy’s socks were not only mismatched but that one sported a hole through which his big toe protruded.

With this episode burned into his psyche forever, Samy set out to save businessmen everywhere from humiliating sock experiences. Today his successful company, Blacksocks (www.blacksocks.com) offers a sock subscription service, whereby subscribers receive three pairs of socks every four months via mail delivery.

Available in Europe for nearly ten years, earlier this year Blacksocks became available in the US and Canada. According to Liechti, the average man spends approximately 12 hours per year buying socks, trying to match a pair of socks, or in some other way occupied by his socks.

Blacksocks offers a number of choices for its customers. You can pick the style of your socks, the size, and the frequency of delivery. You can even select luxurious cashmere and silk blend socks. But what you can never choose in dealing with the Blacksocks Company is the color of your socks. Blacksocks only sells black socks.

Samy Liechti is an Obvious Expert in the niche of black socks.