KEY POINTS:
Five years ago, when Hayley Buttimore decided she wanted to turn her passion into a business, she had just $1500 in her bank account and a mobile phone full of contacts.
Aged 24, Buttimore left her job in event management and set up an office in the bedroom
of her Epsom flat, dividing off the bed with a Chinese screen.
Having danced since she could walk, studied business at university and worked in events for three years, the school holiday programme she had in mind would combine the phases of her experience.
Called Artz on Show, it would fill the gap between holiday programme and arts tuition - offering small classes, tuition across six disciplines and culminating in a "big shebang" performance at the end of the two-week block.
Thirteen days after deciding to go ahead with the business, Buttimore had attracted 101 enrolments through a small-scale leaflet drop and word of mouth.
A sweep of phone calls across friends of friends, past colleagues and girls she had danced with when she was a 5-year-old drew six talented tutors out of the woodwork.
"It was like trawling through a web of people from all facets of my life," Buttimore says.
Door-knocking led to contacts at Auckland City Council, who helped to secure the vacant Alinghi syndicate premises in the Viaduct for the two-week period.
Buttimore says swift networking skills were crucial to growth, especially as she was so young and new to business.
"I don't expect people to come to me. I tend to go out and try to find them on my own."
Five years down the track, Artz on Show is run simultaneously across three Auckland locations twice a year and takes enrolments for 300 children.
Some are booking up to six months in advance, and 80 per cent are repeat clients.
The company is now run out of offices in Newmarket, complete with a boardroom, which the 62 tutors squeeze into when they come for their workshop briefings.
Buttimore says she tries to employ young people who are studying arts or education as tutors.
"It's a win-win situation for everyone; our tutors enjoy working in a fun, supportive environment imparting their knowledge and skills to the next group of talented performers, and the students learn new skills and develop what we hope will be a lifelong love of the arts."
While she has employed an office assistant and three workshop managers, Buttimore is still very much "hands on" - she has her workshops themed, venues booked and programmes planned until the end of next year.
"In this business, it pays to be organised."
And with that, she lays the next business card down on the table: events management.
When Buttimore left the events management company in 2003, she gave up her wardrobe, her laptop and her car. But her cellphone, filled with contacts, was hers for the keeping.
In the months after her resignation, it rang hot with clients requesting her for their corporate dinner function, their launch, their opening night.
Buttimore needed the cash. And she couldn't get past the rush of organising a great event. So Eventz on Show was born, and Buttimore co-ordinated 11 events in the first year of business.
"Then the accountant rang and said, `Hayley, you are too big; you need to be registered, we need to set you up properly'," she says.
She now co-ordinates around 40 events a year; almost all for repeat clients.
This year she will arrange a wedding in a castle in Toulouse in France and several in the Pacific Islands.
"Everyone thinks it's glamorous and you walk around drinking champagne and eating caviar, but it doesn't really work like that," she says.
Buttimore will walk into a ball venue half an hour before the guests arrive and see cables hanging from the roof, boxes exposed, harsh lighting, a DJ half set up. But she says she has come to realise that - whether it's events or workshops - generally everything comes together at the 11th hour. "If you're naturally an anxious person, it's not the best industry," she says.
Which brings her to the third business card: Kidz on Show. The talent agency was established in 2006 when Buttimore saw there was no one agency specialising in children. Kidz on Show puts children who have developed their skills in dance, drama and modelling through Artz on Show workshops forward for work.
"We saw such a lot of talent coming through and it seemed a waste for the children not to use it," Buttimore says.
With three businesses set up in three years, it's little wonder that Buttimore was named a finalist in the Her Business awards in June.
Sometimes she is surprised to have successfully built something she loves into a viable business.
"I was 24 years old. I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to give it a go and if it didn't work it didn't work - and it did work and it's still going [and has] been really successful."
Buttimore attributes her success largely to having a fantastic accountant, lawyer and business mentor. "They've taught me so much about owning and running a business - I don't know where I would have been without them."
The collective companies started turning a profit in the 2007 financial year and Buttimore is optimistic the figure will continue to increase year on year.
She is looking to roll out 10 new Artz on Show workshops across New Zealand over the next five years.
Eventz on Show will remain an Auckland-based business, and Buttimore hopes to remain her clients' most preferred events outfit.
This year, for the first time, she took a step back and employed another events co-ordinator. "You can't keep working seven days a week, and I had done it for over four years, and I didn't want to get to the stage where I was grumpy or regretted it."
Hayley Buttimore
Age: 29.
Lives: Central Auckland.
Enjoys: "Mucking in" on her family's farm in South Auckland.
Roles: Managing director, Artz on Show - two-week educational school holiday workshops.
Casting director, Kidz on Show - children's talent agency.
Managing director, Eventz on Show - event management company.