A New Era of Professional T-Shirt Wearing
By: So, how’s business? If you’re Jason Sadler of IWearYourShirt.com, the answer is PRETTY AWESOME.
Sadler, for the uninitiated, is a professional T-shirt wearer, who started his business mid-recession in 2009. It was so successful that he turned it into a mini shirt-wearing empire, hiring four more professional T-shirt wearers and even hitting up his dog, Plaxico, to join the family business and start wearing some shirts.
The business model behind IWearYourTShirt.comisn’t just wearing shirts, it’s wearing shirts and then talking about the company he and his associate shirt wearers are wearing on Facebook, Twitter and in YouTube videos .
The idea was to wear a different company’s shirt every day. The price increased with each day of the year — a business model that was appealing to many businesses looking for a cheap way to advertise and reach a young demographic during the recession. When he started the business, it was $1 on Jan. 1, $2 on Jan. 2, up to $365 on Dec. 31. Of course, that multiplied when he hired four other T-shirt wearers, so it was $5, $10 … to $1,825.
Now, it's the dawn of a new era in the professional shirt-wearing business.
Starting July 1, Jason is going to move to a weekly format, where he wears one company’s shirt for a whole week and helps the company come up with a week-long social media campaign. (The other four shirt wearers will still be daily.) He’s also raising the rate for this weekly shirt wearing – prices now start at $1,500. That’s more than $200 per day.
Why?
Because his business has been so successful, his clients want MORE.
“Companies are always asking me to do more, but there are limitations to what you can do in a day,” Sadler said. “This new weekly calendar will allow for a ton more conversation around brands in social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.).”
He’ll have fewer clients, which would be the kiss of death for other businesses, but he welcomes it.
“It gives me the ability … to focus on making a bigger and more creative impact for each one,” Sadler said.
Sadler said he already has 20 businesses interested, including LifeLock, an identity-theft protection service, and the city of West Palm Beach.
“And they don’t even know what the heck I’m doing!” he quipped.
Now that's a business model you can survive a recession with!
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