BARB de Corti describes it as her "aha" moment, the sudden realisation of a solution to the long-time suffering of her asthmatic son.
BARB de Corti describes it as her "aha" moment, the sudden realisation of a solution to the long-time suffering of her asthmatic son.
It came in 1993, courtesy of her Austrian mother-in-law, who handed Ms de Corti an Enjo cleaning cloth during a family visit to her home village in Austria.
Speaking at a recent WA Business News 'Success and Leadership' breakfast, Ms de Corti said she was so impressed with Enjo's chemical-free microfibre technology that she invested her family's $40,000 life savings and became the German manufacturer's sole Australian distributor.
"That was the defining moment for me, that moment everything fell into place, my turning point," she said, detailing how for years she would clean daily with disinfectant to rid the house of the germs she thought were exacerbating her son's illness.
"For those of you who've had to deal with a sick child for a long period you may relate to my obsession with trying to strip the home clean and so I kept cleaning and disinfecting with my usual detergents, not knowing what I was really doing.
"It got to the point where the overwhelming fumes from the chemicals I used were virtually killing my son."
Fifteen years later, Ms de Corti has turned that initial investment into a $100 million cleaning empire.
In 2000, the business enjoyed is first "million dollar month" of sales, with annual turnover doubling to $10.3 million.
Today, Enjo works with 1,000 consultants throughout Australia, with plans to double that number in the next 12 months.
Ms de Corti said the direct-selling business model suited Enjo because it provided leverage by training others, enabled control through a protected system similar to franchising, facilitated creativity and expandability, and provided the capacity to predict income.
"However, it still requires an entrepreneurial spirit and that means focus and perseverance and self-motivation," she said.
"You know, if you said to me 15 years ago that I'd be standing here talking to you as an entrepreneur and part of Al Gore's climate change project, believe me I would have laughed.
"From accounting to aerobics to Enjo, it's all a long way from the Austrian village I grew up in."
"I guess there's a certain resilience you only get growing up in the country and it armed me perfectly for the challenges of the business world that were to come."
