By Smita Krishnaswamy

IT'S useful that Ms Annie Sun sells fitness equipment, given the arduous and at times rocky road that she has trekked to get to her high-flying job here.

There is the journey itself - she was born in China, and raised and educated in Australia before she moved here in 2001 - as well as the many twists and turns she has encountered on the career path.

After majoring in hospitality and health science from Victoria College in Melbourne, Ms Sun, now 40, entered the hotel industry in Australia.

She was instrumental in setting up and managing the gym and spa at the Crown Casino in Melbourne and the W Hotel's Asian flagship in Seoul.

Singapore beckoned in 2001 in the form of a job as personal assistant to the chairman of Chyau Fwu Development, a property developer operating here and in Hong Kong.

She left in 2004 to head the three-dimensional gym design team at local firm Dynaforce, whose primary business at the time was to distribute brands of fitness equipment.

Ms Sun turned the division, which created 3-D computer graphics drawings for the equipment sales team, into a profitable global business in its own right. She achieved this by marketing the 3-D design service independently at international fitness convention shows and through the Internet while training the designers to communicate better with their clients.

The division now carries out over 600 design projects a year - more than twice the number before Ms Sun took over - in regions as far-flung as North America and Europe.

Another turn in her career path came in 2006 when Dynaforce's founder and chairman Jimmie Lee decided to change its strategy of selling many different brands of gym equipment and focus on products from a single firm.

Mr Lee said he realised Dynaforce's margins were being squeezed by Taiwanese and Chinese competitors when he visited a fitness exhibition in China in 2005.

'We were carrying several brands at that time and for each of those brands, there was an almost exact copy featured at that exhibition, but at a third to half of the price,' he said.

When he got a call from an old business partner, he seized the opportunity to become the exclusive distributor in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia for Technogym, an Italian fitness equipment manufacturer. Technogym, which Mr Lee describes as the 'Ferrari' of fitness equipment, has been the official provider for the Olympic Games since 2000.

'I was convinced that their products would allow me to reinvent our company from just a seller of treadmills, bikes and free weights to a wellness lifestyle company,' Mr Lee said.

Dynaforce provides a complete package, from equipment to programmes and trainers.

To make the strategy work, Mr Lee turned to Ms Sun and appointed her chief executive. He saw that her passion for the business, as well as her meticulous and driven personality, would more than offset her lack of experience with fitness equipment.

But soon after her appointment, the company was in crisis mode when the entire sales team - five employees, each with 10 years of experience - quit.

The team did not really believe in the Technogym line, according to Ms Sun, partly because they were comfortable selling the brands Dynaforce had specialised in for the past 10 years. 'We dropped other brands when we were at the peak sales - not because we couldn't last or couldn't do well,' she said. 'We heard rumours people were betting that in six months we'll be gone.'

Ms Sun and Mr Lee then converted top performers from the company's club management division - who had no prior sales experience - into sales personnel.

Recruiting and training people while picking up knowledge herself was difficult, but Ms Sun said forming a new team let her start with a clean slate. Her bigger challenge was to make people trust her despite the lack of a track record.

'I only knew hotels and spas and design - I knew nothing about shipping, equipment, inventory - or daily fitness industry matters,' she said.

Sales in 2006 plunged by half from the previous year while Ms Sun battled the in-house crisis. The turning point came when the team won a high-profile project outfitting the gym at the St Regis Hotel and Residence in Singapore in mid-2006. The win helped motivate the sales team and allowed the management to start a rebranding and marketing campaign.

Other top hotel projects followed and high-end condominiums like Orchard Residence and Nassim Park soon joined the company's growing clientele.

Dynaforce's new strategy paid off - sales sky-rocketed in 2007 and profits tripled. Last year, the company had sales of $15 million, up from about $6 million before the change in direction.

Ms Sun, who works out three times a week and plays golf, deems the sales team's mindset a key factor in the company's success. 'You've got to get the attitude and the mentality right; if you don't have that, I cannot force you to love the product you're selling,' she said.

Her challenge now is to navigate the tricky economic climate. Dynaforce is fortunate as it has a backlog of projects and has managed to secure new contracts despite the downturn.

But Ms Sun wants to diversify Dynaforce's business and is focusing on both ends of the age spectrum.

The company is targeting the 'active ageing' market, providing equipment and training to improve senior citizens' strength, endurance, flexibility and balance. It is also working with local schools to roll out a programme to keep kids fit and minimise obesity.

According to Ms Sun, Dynaforce is in the lifestyle business: 'The real Dynaforce is about creating a better life for the community.'

A dream to reach the masses

• What is your biggest dream for Dynaforce?

We need to continue to reinvent the company. When we started this current journey in 2006, we had also decided to focus on the top end of the market, targeting exclusive hotels, resorts, residences and high-net-worth individuals.

We did this successfully and profited from it. But now we want to see how we can package our high-end products and make them available for heartlanders.

This is our challenge for the next few years - to cover a wider spectrum of the market and to help more people exercise and maintain a (good) quality of life.

I hope I will see the day when Dynaforce teams up with the Government to offer affordable wellness programmes for the masses.

These will be diverse programmes covering the spectrum from senior citizens to school children.

• What do you need to achieve that dream?

We have started to learn how to deal with the Government. When it comes to the people's welfare, they don't always think commercially.

But we are a commercial company, so internally we have to adjust our mindset and learn how to deal with the bureaucracy and public values.

I hope we can make this transition and I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. It is still in the early days, but this dream has great appeal for me and I would like to persevere.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.