Enjo founder plots next step

Having built an empire that turns over more than $100 million per year, Enjo’s Barb de Corti insists that people are the key to her success. Alison Birrane reports.

ONE of the most striking features about Barb de Corti is her energy.

The managing director of an Enjo empire that turns over more than $100 million a year, Ms de Corti exudes an intensity that suggests she manages her time and runs her business with a controlled amount of vigour and concentration.

Her personal life, you could imagine, is lived in much the same way.

With the company now embarking on an ambitious plan to market Enjo products in the US, Ms de Corti insists she is taking the rapid company growth in her stride.

A day in the life of one of Australia’s richest young entrepreneurs, who at 40 has reputedly amassed a personal fortune in the vicinity of $60 million, begins at four in the morning.

An hour later she has started an intensive fitness training session with a personal instructor that she insists is her “time out”.

“In a position like mine, you have to make sure you are fit,” she says.

Ms de Corti also describes herself as a very disciplined person “not so much by training, but by nature”.

However, a focus on health and well being is both a personal mantra and a business philosophy for Ms de Corti.

It makes sense, with Enjo products billed as an environmentally safe cleaning system that use only water and fibre-based technology.

Created in Austria in 1990 by father and son team Friedrich and Johannes Engl, the Enjo product range was brought to Australia by Ms de Corti in 1994 after she learned about the products through her mother-in-law, who was selling Enjo in Austria.

An often-reported story is that Ms de Corti noticed a link between her then infant son’s asthma attacks and the chemical-based cleaning products used in her domestic cleaning ritual.

While there is some basis in this, Ms de Corti insists it was also her firm belief in a wider environmental philosophy and a strong business sense that drove the business through its difficult first years.

Arriving in Western Australia in her 20s from her native Austria, Ms de Corti, who is an accountant by training, found that her English language skills were initially a barrier to finding employment.

She spent her first years in WA working as an aerobics instructor, and studying English, before embarking on a plan to import the Enjo products to Australia with just $40,000 of her own savings.

Having a knack for figures has certainly helped company growth, Ms de Corti said.

But while business sense and a quality product have contributed to the company’s growth in Australia, Ms de Corti said Enjo’s people underpinned its success.

The entire business strategy is based around nurturing staff and consultants to have a sense of ownership in the business, according to Ms de Corti.

A flat hierarchy with no middle management is the cornerstone of Enjo’s Australian operations. The company has a custom built facility in Myaree, with the products sold through party plan.

“I’m not a great believer in management or carrying a title,” Ms de Corti says.

“I have to work here too.”

Staff are involved in business processes and there are monthly ‘inside Enjo’ meetings, where everyone is kept up to date on the latest corporate developments and plans.

There is also a profit sharing strategy for staff to reap the rewards of the financial growth of the business.

Team-building exercises are also an instrumental part of company culture, with Ms de Corti citing regular sundowners, lunches and trips away as rewards for reaching monthly goals.

Educating customers is the lynchpin of sales, with ‘people-driven’ product marketing and word-of-mouth an immediately obvious strategy.

“From the beginning we knew it [the product] needed to be demonstrated,” she said.

“We assume the customer is educated about the environment and chemicals, but probably the hardest education is that cleaning doesn’t have to smell,” Ms de Corti says.

“We have really rewritten the book on party plan.”

Elements of Ms de Corti’s business strategy are now being used in Europe as a means to increase sales, with Friedrich and Johannes Engl making regular reciprocal visits to Australia.

While the first three years of the business were slow, “after that, the growth was staggering”, Ms de Corti says.

The company now employs more than 80 staff, including Ms de Corti’s husband and (now) adult son, with much of the growth occurring in the past four years.

Australia’s Enjo operations far outperform its European counter-part, selling more than $A8 million a month.

“We are the biggest market [for Enjo products] by a huge margin. Enjo headquarters have already had to employ a further 40 people to cope with the Australian operations.

“They had to develop new machinery to manufacture enough product.”

Despite this dramatic growth, Ms de Corti says she remains firmly on top of all business operations.

“I know how many demos are on at any given time in any State,” she says.

The company’s growth is set to continue, with Enjo embarking on an aggressive marketing strategy in the US later this year.

The market for cleaning products in Australia is estimated at $1.7 billion a year. The value of the US market dwarfs this figure.

The plan is to capture 30 per cent of the Australian and US markets by 2010.

Ms de Corti is taking the rapid growth in her stride.

“You have to have a sound business plan. With good planning, you can avoid collapse under growth,” she says.

The company is also preparing to announce the appointment of a new advertising agency for the next stage of its marketing campaign. West-Perth based MJB&B, which was responsible for the previous advertising campaign, recently failed to retain the account at tender.

Ms de Corti says while the company’s initial advertising campaign was about product awareness – for example, the pronunciation of the word ‘Enjo’ and the fact that it was an environmentally friendly range of cleaning products – the company is now looking at a different strategy.

However, she insists she is not in the business of denouncing chemical-based cleaning products or the companies that produce them.

Rather, the company is built upon a sustainable philosophy centred on offering a viable alternative. And, of course, people.

“I really enjoy working with people and want to help people reach their own potential,” Ms de Corti says.