I recently read Bill McKibben’s book, Deep Economy . It is a complicated call to reexamine the “growth” model by which we measure economic health. He suggests a move away from the dominating global economy to one where communities generate more on a local level to meet their needs, and that this kind of economic model is more satisfying and leads to a deeper, more equitable prosperity.

He posits that the concepts “more” and “better” used to be nearly the same thing. If you had more rooms in your house it was better, if you have more products to choose from it’s better. But in our current world, “more” is often resource depleting and polluting and therefore not “better”. I think GladRags fit firmly in the “better” category because they save money for women, and save resources.  So in some ways our products embody the idea of deep economy.

But here’s the irony that we struggle with at GladRags . When your business and your mission is to a make sustainable product that lasts for years, it turns out that your greatest benefit is also your greatest obstacle. We note in our sales literature that our pads last for five years but we know for a fact many women use them for 10.  So as you can imagine we don’t really have many repeat sales. We have satisfied customers but they are not repeat customers.

The first lesson In Marketing 101 is “make repeat sales to your current customers, because it’s expensive to get new customers”.  Hmmm, that sounds good in theory but once our customer has her GladRags or cup she doesn’t need to buy again.  So our solution has to be always finding the new customer.  And while this might seem like the same old “growth” model of economics, we know that if more women are using our products it really means less pollution and a healthier environment. It seems to refute McKibben’s theory because here “more” is “better”, but only because in this case “more” is “less”.  Wow, too many quotes - I’m dizzy!

Anyway, the gist of this is more women need to know about GladRags. And we’re working on a plan where, you, our satisfied-but-not-repeating-customers, help us get new customers. We welcome your thoughts and ideas as we address our challenge. -Brenda