The Nukkles Story...
The $700 Million Dollar Paper Clip Thank you for your interest in our products.
My name is Don Brown and I am the President of BodyTime Wellness,
LLC. In the following pages I will share with you my own success
story as well as my experience with Nukkles.
In April of 1994 I was sitting at my desk trying to figure out a
way to help the members of one of my fitness facilities perform
a better abdominal crunch. I took a paper clip and bent it into
the shape of a small rocking chair. That paper clip later became
the phenomenally successful "AB ROLLER\AB TRAINER"! With
over 7 million units sold, the AB Roller is still one of the hottest
"As Seen on TV" products ever.
Another paper clip?
Six years later I was visiting my Health and Fitness center located
in Chester New Jersey when I noticed that one of my Personal Trainers
left a funny looking device at the front desk for a client. When
I saw the device I asked her a simple question "What are those
things?" She responded, "Let me show you!" After
rubbing my back for less than a minute, I was sold. I asked my fitness
director, Sean Gagnon, if he knew about this product and Sean informed
me that the trainer who gave me the demo had sold over 70 pairs
to the members in the last two weeks!! Without hesitation, I responded,
"We can sell millions of these things!" With Sean as my
partner, we formed Nukkles to market and distribute NUKKLES.
A $200,000.00 Education!
Excited about the potential of this product, I contacted the inventor
and learned that she had sold over 250,000 pairs with little or
no advertising -- in fact most of her sales had been made through
massage therapists and chiropractic seminars. I was sure if we produced
the proper commercial, we could sell millions of NUKKLES on TV just
like the AB ROLLER.
BodyTime, invested a couple hundred thousand dollars in acquiring
all the rights to the NUKKLES product line, producing a two minute
TV commercial, purchasing TV air time, manufacturing new tooling
and obtaining inventory. When we finally "tested" the
show on TV, to our terrible surprise, we sold next to nothing. In
the words of one of the producers: "That product really bombed."
Success Leaves Clues!
After recovering from the reality of the TV disappointment, we were
determined to find out the best way to sell NUKKLES - a product
that we knew had a successful future. I contacted one of the massage
therapists from Hawaii who has sold thousands of pairs. She informed
me that last Christmas she rented a mall cart and sold over 6,000
pairs, for over $85,000 in sales -- in just 2 months!
Impressed and encouraged, we had to find out for ourselves. We went
to a fitness industry tradeshow and sold over $7,200.00 worth of
product in 3 days. Next, we called the local mall in our town and
were able to test the product for a simple 4-day sale from a mall
cart. The leasing manager reminded us that the week we had chosen
was the worst week of the summer due to vacations and we should
not expect to do well. She felt sales would be so slow that she
only charged us $200 rent for the 4 days.
Using a sales staff with very little training, during a slow, late
summer weekend at the mall, we sold over $2,100 worth of product.
The response was overwhelming, as people just seemed to love this
product!! Now we started to understand the power of demonstration.
