How did it all start? – Pt.3
It was 2007. Our first order of 1100 trampolines were sitting proudly in our store room. Our excitement at now being the go-to supplier of quality rebounders in South Africa, was high.
Our marketing plan was organic as we realized early on that most people thought “mini-trampolines” were just toys. Social media wasn’t as powerful as it is today – and a budget for a mainstream media campaign to correct this belief would have required another mortgage. However, we really enjoyed doing everything ourselves: planning presentations and demo’s, connecting with people and witnessing their collective “AHA’ moment when we explained the What/When/How and WHY rebounding works!
No big campaign or hard sell was used or needed – when people learnt or personally experienced how great it was – they wanted one and most of our ongoing sales came from word of mouth.
As interest grew, we started to get invites to present our Rebounding talks and demos to clinics, companies, wellness days, sports clubs, spa’s and schools, and Mind Power guru Robin Banks invited us to do our “Cell Power” talks at his seminars. We did radio and TV interviews, had a monthly health column in the Citizen newspaper and wrote regularly rebounding articles for Odyssey magazine. It was very hands on – and we loved it.
When our first container of 1100 rebounders arrived – we thought it would take a year or two to sell them – but they were all sold in 5 months!!! Rebounding had (and still has) the ability to continuously amaze and surprise us – with a constant flow of new findings, uses, benefits and research. In those early days – another thing that surprised us was that NOBODY else was focusing on and marketing it! We were amazed as we believed this was the BEST exercise ever invented. There were a few people using rebounding personally and in therapies in SA from the 1970’s, and we were delighted when they made contact with us.
We’re busy putting together their stories which makes for great reading – and will keep you all posted.
More from this series
The Search for the best supplier!
2007 was a very exciting time for us. Our new passion for rebounding made us want to share it with our world. We were doing talks anywhere and everywhere. Rooms full of curious sceptics suddenly changed to full on rebounding fans, and were all lining up to find out...
How did it all start? – Pt.1
Being the biggest and longest running importers, suppliers, writers and trainers in South Africa’s rebound industry – we are often asked: “How did it all start?” In the 1990s we were running our Natural Health training academy in Johannesburg,South Africa teaching...
