Lessons from setting up shop

Oct 1, 2009 Thursday, 06:00 AM

Actress Wong Lilin mans stalls to sell her new exercise band.

Loopz is not scheduled for sale at the selected Guardian stores for another couple of weeks. But we're already raring to go, starting with a softest of soft launches - sending out emails to friends about www.wureka.com going live and offering a "Buddy of Lilin" discount on Loopz exercise band purchases.

Very quickly we've secured some sales through friends and also online, just by virtue of Wureka! going live! We've also conducted demos and secured sales at the clinics of physiotherapists and occupational therapists including the military!

Most recently, I was at the Singapore General Hospital Active Day Carnival on Wednesday - manning my first ever "stall" and diving headlong into the deep waters of salesmanship!

My booth at the recent SGH carnival.

Being at the carnival was a fantastic opportunity to test the market at street level. What should my stall look like? How do I make it appealing? Does it convey what I'm selling? Where's my company name? Is it just a band or do I have more to offer? The answers weren't all there but the questions were certainly triggered!

There were other stalls, clearly more established and better funded, with glitzier displays and numerous staff on hand. Joan, my recently recruited manager, and I were just team of two but we had the determined heart of many. I talked till my throat was sore - explaining the winning qualities of Loopz while listening closely to what consumers want.

So far, it is safe to say that my business strategy is based more on visceral qualities than what has been gleaned from books! Are all entrepreneurs business grads? Probably not. Does that mean that a great many feel like me, playing catch up most of the time? Business is so not easy! That said, I do love a good challenge.

So we repeated the setting-up of the Wureka stall at the World Physiotherapy Day event at East Coast Park two Saturdays ago - a vastly different crowd from the SGH carnival and good training for this rookie. The guest-of-honour Khaw Boon Wan took home a Loopz band while many fellow stall vendors came round for a look-see. I took the opportunity to share with them what's essentially my philosophy of exercising for life: Whoever you are, whatever you're doing; young, old, busy, lazy; remove the barriers to exercise.

It's clear that just two days at the front line selling in one week has been a real exercise in itself turning Loopz from an idea into something I can hold in my hands. I think of the philosopher Goethe's apt saying: "In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all rests on perseverance."

Loopz is the product of my enthusiasm about wellness, inside and out. Through it, I can now offer a tangible way to share my philosophy that regular exercise is key to lifelong fitness. It is about providing a realistic regime that fits into people's lifestyles so that fitness is not a fad to pick up and drop, but a habit to embrace. Can you hear my conviction? Surely other start-ups must share the same fervour and passion - for business, if not fitness!

And now to hunker down for the journey of getting Loopz to market. The learning curve is s-t-e-e-p!