How to turn your life's passion into a business

YOKE HAR LEE meets a woman who believes that anyone with a focus can make a company grow.

You can choose and grow your own small company - provided you first find out what your life's passion is. Without this passion, you will not succeed.

For one of Wendy Evans' clients, whose only passion was to play golf and drink wine, that became the basis of a successful golf tour-organising venture that always ended up at a winery with a restaurant.

Another client was passionate about music, so she developed a business that offered systems to teach children how to play the piano.

Wendy Evans, author of Choose and Grow Your Business in 90 Days, has certainly found her passion - that of researching, writing and travelling. This book, she said, was written for those who often say they would like to start a business but do not know how.

How she came to be a writer has a biblical tone, likened to Saul's conversion on the road to Damascus, where she heard a flashing voice telling her to travel to three places, spend two years in each, to find out the reasons why people succeed.

She started towards the first destination, Hong Kong, but got sidetracked, instead landing herself a job at Saatchi & Saatchi ahead of 80-odd others who applied for the same job.

At Saatchi, her innate talent at reading trends was developed and she soon was heading Saatchi's Asia directing marketing team.

One of the most successful projects was helping Procter & Gamble raise its Pampers (nappy) market share to 42 per cent from 14 per cent, purely by keeping in touch with mothers.

The most priceless bit of information she culled from her years at Saatchi was the 90-day cycle rule. She has kept this rule religiously and swears that it works everytime. She also is convinced - and says she has tested it - that by the fifth contact, key relationships have been made or broken.

According to her, 60 per cent of all sales contacts start to show results after the fifth (90-day) cycle.

An example is to be found in a company started by an ex-KPMG head honcho who formed an executive recruitment company, called IMCOR, after KPMG merged with Mayne Herdman in the US, leaving him without a job.

"The client's complaint was that the new company had too few prospects. I found them 8000 companies across America that would offer the new company prospective clients and told them to mail these companies every 90 days." The trick was to mail these out in large white envelopes with a blue line on the side.

She told them: "You are going to hate me for this - I know you are not going to believe me, but it will happen, read my lips, you are going to hate the sound of my name because you will have so much to cope with once the cycle is completed."

She said: "When I returned to New York to follow up on IMCOR's success, they were on their fifth three-month cycle of contacting 8000 prospects America-wide. As I arrived, they said: 'Just as you promised, we are overwhelmed with success, exactly on the 15th month, and yes, we are having trouble keeping up'."

Entrepreneurs have a certain personality trait, according to Wendy Evans. Her book offers a simple personality test to find out whether you fit the bill.

"[Entrepreneurs] are usually fairly arrogant, have a strong sense of what is wrong or what is right, have very clear goals and total vision or sense of purpose. They are usually the 'my way' or 'highway' type."

Once you have found the passion of your life, Wendy Evans suggests you take a simple look around at where you can find a point of difference before developing the product. The rest has to do with understanding some basic principles about marketing and management.

"Most companies fall over because they don't understand the pitfalls of being under-financed, under-managed and hire the wrong people.

"Too many people are often being put in the wrong jobs. The people who should be out selling - these people are often independent, don't mind living in hotels or travelling all over the place alone - could find themselves inside, feeling punished or jailed. Companies often fear these people because they are very self-contained and have independent streaks.

"The quieter people who should be in the office nurturing the business are put out in the field. But you can't forget that the home or family is truly pervasive in the workplace. So the guy cannot be out there in a sales job and calling home to a partner or child crying on the phone who can't understand why he is not at home when he said he was," she said.

And one of the most consistent pieces of evidence she has found in why companies do not function well is to be found in five areas:

* The procedures and systems do not support the realities of the business.

* Induction for staff is almost non-existent.

* Too many people are put in the wrong jobs.

* People are doing too many things at the same time.

She said companies also often put people in a slave-master relationship. Those wanting to break this bondage should consider finding a business of their own.

Buy a franchise if you like a bit of security - good franchises provide the product, the system and management. It is a bit like being in a job.

Otherwise, finding the proverbial pot of gold could lie just within what she calls "the circle of love". This comes from people, places and things you love and know best.

Do not worry if you do not have big dollars to spend on advertising. Try your local community for a start, she advises.

"Visit your clients personally, talk to them. Do nice things for your children's school, become your community. That is a great way of advertising."

These pointers come from someone who used to be known as the "chocolate and flowers lady" in her days at Intercontinental Hotel, where her success in building room bookings stirred interest from the company headquarters, who asked her to write a training manual.