Lori Bosch - June 1, 2022
The Atlanta Open – EEKs & Tears
Jojo and I are all about “EEK moments” and celebrating every success…big or small. Sometimes we just can’t contain our joy and that’s when we simultaneously shout “EEEEKKK" and high five each other. Our week at the PPA Atlanta Open was filled with lots of EEKs!
We brought fun new merch to display…including “Let’s Go” tees and tanks, “Banger” and “Dinker” towels, tees, tanks, and caps, as well as our “Dink Local Atlanta” tee featuring the silhouette of Georgia with a peach pickleball. We are becoming more efficient at setting up our pop-up shop and after the two of us spent about an hour getting all of our merchandise organized and displayed, it looked so cute! Lucky us, our pop-up shop just happened to have the perfect view of Center Court! We looked around at our new merchandise and our incredible view of Center Court and it was a big “EEK moment”. Soon after, people were stopping in to shop and the tournament was underway.
Our pop-up shop (where it's always happy hour) had an amazing view of center court.
The third day we found the perfect matching Joola pickleball bags at the Pickleball Central tent to hang with our hot pink jojo+lo bag “Hook-ups” just in time for our upcoming match the next day. Later, our friend Nicole from Pickleball Central stopped by our pop-up shop to check out our new merchandise, offer positive feedback and encouragement about our business. She also brought us cute orange Pickleball Central tees—so thoughtful!
On day four, we were gEEK’ed to compete in our cute new jojo+lo navy “Let’s Go” moisture-wicking tanks—it was about 90 degrees outside. Fortunately, our first match was inside, and our court was right next to Catherine Parenteau’s and Lea Jansen’s warm-up court, EEK! But ugh, we lost the first match in 3 close games, so we were off to the opportunity bracket. We won the second match 15-7! Unfortunately, we lost the 3rd match to a really nice sister-sister team, but we had some amazing points.
Riley Newman all smiles and looking good in our “1965” tee after winning double gold at the 2022 Atlanta Open.
The last day of the tournament - day five was filled with EEKs!!! Our friend Ruth is friends with one of the top-ranked professional players, Riley Newman, so she was sweet enough to text him and ask him to stop by our shop. He had just won double gold, but he is so nice that he carved out the time to meet us. If you haven’t checked out our reel with Riley on our FaceBook and Instagram pages please take a look! He loved our “1965” tee because he is from the state of Washington. Apparently, Riley is also a natural salesman because he owned the camera and because of the reel he has increased the sales of our “1965” tees this week! EEK!
Callie Jo loved our banger towel and our “Let’s Go!” tees & tanks! 💛
Throughout the week, we hung out with our friends from Medicileaf who sell CBD products. Their tent was next to us…Don and Cheryl Heller and their son, Max Heller who is a 5.0 player and an amazing rapper @pickleballwallmusic. Whatever we needed…a tarp, fingernail clipper (Jojo), cooler, etc. they had it and shared with us. Including their Aloe MD Acute Relief Cream which really helped my sore knees on match day! They also introduced us to Callie Jo Smith’s mom, Leslie, who was so friendly and loved our shop. She promised us that she would ask Callie Jo to stop by. The next day Callie Jo and her mom walked by our shop and Callie Jo waved to us and said she had to get to her match but that she would be sure to stop by. On the last day, Callie Jo and Lucy won gold in Women’s Doubles. About an hour after the match Callie Jo came to our booth and said…”we left the tournament but then I realized that I hadn’t kept my promise to stop by your shop so we came back to see you!” EEK! How sweet is that?! Callie Jo and her mom are the real deal! She also added our “Banger” sport towel our “Let's Go!” tee, and our “Third Eye” tank to her pickleball wardrobe.
Throughout the week, we spent time with a sweet, young mom with three little ones, and her mother-in-law who was helping her with the children all week. They sat near our tent every day and would stop-in to chat and shop, and we all just hit it off. They told us that they had been to a lot of tournaments in the past year and had seen a lot of pickleball merchandise, but that they loved our apparel and accessories more than anything they had seen. It turns out that the cute, young mom is married to a rising pro, and on the last day they told us that they want him to represent our brand. This huge, generous gesture literally brought tears to our eyes. EEEKKK!!! We hope to have more news to announce to you about this partnership soon! Until then…check out our new merch at jojoandlo.com and please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.