This Is How the Sock Adventure Started

When one door closes, another opens.

Toward the end of April 2016, as I was half way through reading my dismissal letter I had just received by e-mail from my employer, I received a message on Messenger from an old friend, whom I got to know in school in England 35 years before. He wrote: „Hi! How are you doing”?

This really surprised me, as we had not communicated at all, and how come he wrote to me exactly at this point in time when I was losing my job. I took a deep breath and wrote back that I was at work and would write more when I got home.

I take care of my dismissal letter and go home, then contact this old school mate and told him that I had just lost my job that very day. We discussed this and that and he asked: “What are your plans now that you have lost your job?” The question took me by surprise, as I had just walked through the door at the end of my last day of work, and hadn't given it any thought. So I joked: “Maybe I´ll just start selling socks.” But this friend owns a sock factory in Turkey, and has been in production for almost 30 years.

„Great idea,” he said. And that is how the sock adventure started. I used my term of notice to set up my new company. Got my daughter to design the logo, started to design my homepage, in spite of knowing nothing about such work, went a few times to Turkey to inspect the factory and place orders. Ten months later, a 20 ft. container full of socks arrived, and the homepage was opened for business!

But nobody knew about my homepage and I didn't have the means to pay for advertising in newspapers, on radio, or TV. So I thought, if the customers won´t come to me, I´ll have to go to them. With a car full of socks, I drove off to the next town. Started at the edge of town and knocked on the first door. A man came to the door with two little girls peeking at me from behind him. 

I start by introducing myself and tell him I am promoting a new homepage with a selection of quality socks. He asks in wonderment: “Are you selling socks door to door?” I think to myself that this is exactly what I feared the most!

I give him a big smile and say “yes.” He comes alive and says: “Brilliant, brilliant, this is total brilliance! I need socks, my wife needs socks. She works in fish and her feet are always cold. Don´t you have good socks for her?”

He ended up buying socks for the whole family. I wrote to him some time later and asked him how they liked the socks. They were over the moon!

Since then I have driven all over Iceland, visited most farms, fish plants, net makers, car mechanics, tire service stations; sold socks from the boot of the car when buying petrol, met women on the street, men by their boats, and so on. They all needed socks!

The adventure is just beginning!

It has been fun to see people on social media searching for the “lady with the socks” -  people who have lost my business card and need more of those “darn good socks!” Members of rescue teams tell about being up in the mountains, cold and wet from exposure, and never being wet or cold on their feet!

These socks are now for sale in over 40 shops around the country, and I am still going around, meeting delightful people in need of good socks!