The personal review of the year 2020

Hello dear pimple community,
With today's post, I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Carelessly performed, almost boring.

Then I was linked on Facebook by a dear and regular participant of my courses. He uploaded a picture of his first pimples course from 2009 (many more should follow/ carried out in Saxony with assistant trainer Erik Schreyer, who is now Bundesliga trainer of Post SV Mühlhausen).

He wrote: "Where has the time gone?" I asked myself that too and was really touched by this beautiful memory, which felt a bit like a journey through time. So much has happened since then. This gave me the initial impetus not only to "let go of wishes" without love, but to use this opportunity for a small review of the year at Sauer & Tröger.

And I promise: I'll try my best to use the C-word, which accompanies us so ubiquitously, as little as possible. Surely we all have enough of that ^^. Nevertheless, as soon as I think about it, I notice that it will not be entirely avoidable.

As a company, we started the year 2020 quite unspectacularly. We already knew that we would be launching a new rubber again this year after a break. The launch of the new flagships Hellfire X and Unicorn was then planned for May.

After the first table tennis halls were closed, however, we questioned this and the majority of our dealers advised us to postpone this to a later date. Despite the market trend, we released our new products and we were rewarded for it.

They have done extremely well and we have been able to make many customers happy despite the difficult situation. After a brief period of resignation, we also decided not to use the "ostrich tactic" and not to bury our heads in the sand.

Rather, we wanted to use this situation to tackle and improve many things that we had on our to-do list. In this way we were able to sustainably raise our service for you as a player and for our dealers to a new level. To name just a few points:

• We have made our website and online shop much more user-friendly
• We have made internal structures and processes much more efficient
• We have expanded our product portfolio and now also offer complete rackets with coordinated rubber-wood combinations that are tailored to your playing system.
• We have gained many new partner shops all over the world that are now selling our products (e.g. in Japan, USA, India, Taiwan, South America, Eastern Europe etc.). Altogether we now have over 300 partners in more than 50 countries who equip their players with our products
• We've created this newsletter you're reading right now and we've had a lot of positive feedback for it. So you can get the latest pimple news, accompany us in our daily work and get a better, tangible picture of a table tennis brand.
• We have rented a new and much larger camp, so that we don't have to practice "Tetris" in the Enge like before. This makes us open to new things and Hans-Günter's daily work in order processing is also made much easier
• We have enlarged our team to continue our expansion.
• We have massively improved our presence on social media (Facebook and Instagram) and have been able to gain many new followers and partners. Of course we are very happy if you will soon be part of it.
• We were able to test many materials in peace and gained new insights
• We also have revolutionary things in the pipeline that can shape and change the pimples area as well as the table tennis area in the long term. We are still not quite sure whether everything will work out as we imagine. However, there is reason for optimism and we are not far from our result

In short: Almost every situation offers opportunities and it is up to us to make the best of it. Doors can almost always be opened. Another big highlight for me was the implementation of two pimple courses in the summer.

It was something special to be "among people" again and to speak to you, the players, personally again. The biggest coup of the year was the publication of the pimple rap song.

Outstanding feedback came from a wide range of sources and we were able to put a smile on the faces of many players. Now the song can also be downloaded on various platforms such as Spotify or Apple Music.

In the future it will certainly be used as warm-up music in many sports halls. He has already found his way into the table tennis Bundesliga. So he was played in the game between the TTC Zugbrücke Grenzau and the TTC Rhönsprudel Fulda-Maberzell before the Karakasevic game against Filus. Who would have thought that I could call myself a “rapper” again :D

This may be the end of 2020 for us, but not the path we have taken in the next few years. We will remain fresh, modern and creative and will continue to provide special highlights in the table tennis scene in the future. Our partnerships with the innovative companies Bruno Banani & Leguano also stand for this.

As already announced, there are exciting things in the pipeline that are just waiting to be let out of the "bag". Allow yourself to be (positively) surprised. Now the time has come to wish you a Merry Christmas and a good start into a hopefully better year 2021!

Your Sebastian from the Sauer & Tröger team