Yes, I sold vacuums. Actually, I sold a vacuum. Well, truth be told, it wasn’t a vacuum, it was more of a “carpet cleaning system.”
That’s right…I’m talking about Rainbows!
If you haven’t heard of Rainbows by Rexair, well, you just haven’t lived. I cannot imagine going back to a traditional vacuum now that I have experienced what Rainbows can really do. I honestly believe that one of the reasons why I don’t get sick anymore is because of the deep-cleaning power of the Rainbow.
To be clear, I don’t sell them anymore, I just really really like them! 🙂
Rainbows use water instead of bags to trap the dirt it picks up. No, it doesn’t get your carpet wet. There’s a bowl where all of the icky stuff goes. Traditional vacuums use bags: bags have holes. When you’re dealing with holes one of two things will happen:
1) the particles are too small for the holes and go right through them, ending back in the air for you to breath and get sick
2) the particles are too big for the holes which result in clogging the holes so no air gets through thereby making the vacuuming pointless.
With water, you don’t have to worry about holes because everything, no matter if it’s big or small, gets trapped in the water.
Oh, and don’t come to me with your “hepa-filters” telling me how superior they are. Filters have holes. See point #1 and #2 above.
At this point, you can probably tell my passion for the Rainbow…so why did I stop selling it? Obviously people can see my enthusiasm, and it would be easy, right?
Well, the Rainbow’s price tag was around $2,000 when I sold it. (Apparently it’s up to $3,000 now.) Kinda hard to convince people they need a $2,000 vacuum cleaner, no matter how awesome it is.
My experience with Rainbow had definite advantages to it. It was my first foray into the Direct Sales arena, of which I learned a LOT about sales and marketing. I was introduced to Richard Poe and his Wave Series. And I couldn’t have had a better trainer in Chris (totallyforgothislastname.) But selling the Rainbow wasn’t for me.
I didn’t like the fact that I had to go door-to-door and “enter” people into a contest to “win” a free vacation. (Hint: everybody won.) I didn’t like that I had to pressure people into giving their friends and family as referrals for me to pitch demonstrate the Rainbow to. And I really didn’t like the fact that over half of the cost of the Rainbow went to commissions of all the people “above” me. If they took away the commission structure, a customer could save around $1000 per machine.
The Rainbow is an excellent product…and no, I don’t think that Rainbow or Rexair is a scam. If the company could just step away from the archaic marketing strategies of yesteryear and bring the price down, they’d sell a hellofa lot more.
I don’t regret the experience, though…not one bit!
