Twenty-two years ago, Candy Tang was a beautiful young dancing teacher in Taiwan. Two decades later, she is the President and CEO of the Alexander Group, responsible for over 20 luxury fitness clubs with total yearly sales of over NT$2 billion (US$58.8 million) - and she still looks young and pretty.

Tang who Taiwanese have described as "the woman who best knows how to sell health" said she had only slept for an average of three hours a night over in the past four months and yet never felt fatigue. Her goal is to extend her fitness kingdom from Taiwan to the Chinese mainland, which she sees as a huge potential market.

"I must walk faster than others, that way lies the possibility of making a profit in the business world," she said, while maintaining a very feminine smile.

Maternal support

During her girlhood, Tang said, she was not a good student, never receiving enough good marks to attract praise from her teachers.

But working life gave her new confidence. "I worked very hard to become a dancing teacher in a small training school, only aiming to win people's approval," she said. "Money was not that important to me. I am the sort of person who can dance and dance just for the applause.""

Because of her excellence at the job, Tang became famous in the Taiwan dance world - to such an extent that her boss began to distrust her. Unable to cope with this suspicion, Tang quit the job, making the decision to open her own dance school.

"When I talk about starting from scratch, I should always mention my mother. She gave me the first and very important sum of money needed to start my business," she said.

During Tang's frustrated jobless days, her mother sold the family's only house to raise money for investing in Tang's dream.

In 1982, Tang's own dance school was set up in Taipei. At that time, she was only 22 years old and without any background in the business world.

"Now when I look back on those days, I can still feel the cold sweat. If I had failed back then my family would have been in a very difficult situation," she said.

"I felt I was very lucky because I didn't know much about finance or business operation in the beginning, so it took courage to enlarge the business," she said. "I only knew that if I had enough money to pay the staff salaries, it would be possible to continue.""

But the beginning was certainly not easy. On the first day, Tang used a quarter of her available business funds to pay rent. After bargaining with various vendors of wood, glass, lights and decorations, Tang's school finally opened and enrolled over 400 students in two months.

But soon afterwards, Tang began receiving anonymous threatening calls. At midnight, the telephones the school and in her home would ring. Someone unknown swore at her repeatedly. At first Tang tried to shrug off the call, but when they continued, she began to feel her life was becoming similar to a horror movie.

"One night, I received yet another of the calls. I was so scared that I ran out to the police bureau in my pajamas," she said. Investigations finally revealed the identity of the caller, a business competitor. "I know every boss is under pressure, but it is better to make friends than enemies. I have tried to learn to be tolerant," she said.

Meeting the market

The dance school managed to break even after just six months, but Tang didn't stop working." I knew there was a lot of demand for what we were providing, so I felt I had to increase our capacity to meet it," Tang said.

During that time, Tang worked every minute she was awake. She lived for her work.

"I had experienced all those essential aspects of being a young person -- such as love, balls or travel -- before I arrived in Taipei," she said. "I had had these experiences in advance, so my greatest source of satisfaction in my 20s was arranging courses and designing new dances for my school." I

In 1991, Tang earned her first NT$8 million (US$235,295) and opened seven outlets in Taipei. "I had never seen such a large sum before that time, so I decided to reconstruct my business," she said. Her idea was to open a fitness club which also enrolled male members.

Against Tang's expectations, before the club's opening, another fitness club, which was bigger and more luxurious than Tang's, opened just opposite.

"At that time, all I could think was that I had been very unlucky," she said. But after calming herself down she immediately began to carefully compare her school with that of her competitor. Taking advantage of her other venues, Tang made the decision that all the members of her various schools should be able to enjoy the new club. She believed more venues would mean each became more attractive, and she turned out to be right. The next year she made another NT$8 million.

In 1992, Tang opened her Alexander Health Club, which included a swimming pool, fitness center, skincare and a restaurant. "The problem was that I had to invest all my available capital in it. It was one of the biggest gambles in my life," Tang said. Yet it was a gamble she won.

Vaulting ambition

"The key to doing business, simply speaking, is nothing more than selling products," she said. "I can proudly say, sales have never been a difficult thing for me."

Tang'd business approach is based on recognizing three essential ingredients: tempting goods, demanding consumers and efficient staff. In accordance with these three elements, Tang designed new projects while organizing an promotion and award system within the company.

Tang'd masterpiece, however, was her flexible price strategy. From as early as 25 years ago, when most training institutes in Taiwan still sold membership cards with time limits, Tang sold dancing class tickets without time limit, helping her to win more customers.

"Business people should try to understand the viewpoint of consumers and consider their demands. The more flexible the service, the more consumers you will have," she said.

As a group leader, Tang also met with some embarrassments during her business career - because she is a woman.

Sometimes, when she visited clients with her male assistants, the clients - who had never met Tang - would greet her assistant first because they had assumed the leader of such a large enterprise could not possibly have a woman as its boss.

"When thinking about successful entrepreneurs, many people in this society still put a lot of emphasis on the fact I am a woman. But if the entrepreneur was a man no one would consider that to be an interesting point," Tang said.

Tang's present step involves targeting the Chinese mainland, with Shanghai as the most sparkling star in her ambitions.

With one Alexander City Club already opened in Xintiandi, she aims to open another two in Beijing this year. She is also looking for anther good site to open a second venue in Shanghai.

(Shanghai Daily August 6, 2004)