CHILDREN run a mile at the sight of Mr Kelvin Yoo and they would certainly bar him from crossing the threshold if they could.

His crime? Assessment books. Hundreds of them. Maths, English, Science and so on - ranging from kindergarten to A level standard.

And Mr Yoo never fails to hand assessment books out to his friends at the start of each school year.

He is every child's worst nightmare, but he is unconcerned about his effect on children. He chuckles as he relates tales of young ones hiding from him and says he has no plans to change what he does.

Mr Yoo, 34, a father of a two-year-old boy, is the chief executive (CEO) of Singapore Asian Publications (SAP), a 31-year-old publisher that sold more than two million assessment books last year, recording a turnover of $7 million.

A key player

SAP is considered one of the major players among the more than 30 publishers of assessment books in Singapore, according to the president of the Singapore Book Publishers Association, Mr Tan Wu Cheng.

Mr Yoo, whose company produces books in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, reckons that SAP has close to 20 per cent of the Singapore assessment book market, estimated to be worth up to $40 million.

The company also exports books to 20 countries, including Cambodia, India, Saudi Arabia, Mauritius, and even the United States.

The fast-expanding publisher is growing too big for its 4,700 sq ft office and warehouse in Henderson Industrial Park, and is preparing to move to bigger premises in Bukit Batok in two years' time.

By any measure, SAP is in a comfortable position but things have not always been this rosy.

The company, set up by Mr Yoo's parents and some partners, used to have average sales of $2.3 million a year, a figure that was stubbornly hard to grow before 2003.

Mr Yoo's father, former teacher Yoo Tiang Che, ran the show with some help from his wife and two daughters.

He was happy to focus on producing good books for his regular customers without much thought of expanding sales.

The younger Mr Yoo says: 'We didn't talk about mission, about growth drivers, about strategy. We just produced books and hoped they sold. If Plan A didn't work, we'd wait and see, and say: 'If we have food to eat, it's okay.''

After getting a degree in business administration from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1996, the young gun joined his two older sisters at SAP as a salesman but left within eight months.

A real boss

HE NEEDED a 'real boss', he says. 'When we made mistakes at SAP, nobody would reprimand us. My dad would say: 'Okay, next time don't do it again.' '

Mr Yoo adds: 'I wanted to learn on the outside about how my boss would scold me if I did something wrong.'

He joined accounting and audit firm KPMG as a banking consultant, but spent 'half the time' photocopying documents for senior staff.

Four months later, he moved to Standard Chartered Bank (Stanchart) as a management trainee and found his groove as a credit officer dealing with small and medium-sized enterprises.

It was exactly what he wanted to do. 'Every day, I looked at the financials of a company to see if was healthy,' Mr Yoo says.

He spent hours talking to the bosses of local enterprises, noting their achievements and learning from their mistakes.

He still remains close friends with some clients he met during those days from industries as diverse as retail, shipping and food manufacturing.

But while banking was rewarding, his heart was set on business and he returned to SAP in 2000 as chief of sales and marketing.

This time round, he was better prepared.

While his KPMG stint had instilled a meticulous streak in him, the Stanchart experience gave him a close-up view of the actual process of running a company.

He now knew better than to rush headlong into massive restructuring.

In his first spell at SAP, Mr Yoo tried to divide his sales team according to neat but impractical geographic boundaries of the clients they served.

But second time around, he began to appreciate the close personal relationships between sales staff and local booksellers that drove transactions.

Yet, Mr Yoo struggled to make his mark in the saturated assessment book market in Singapore. While SAP's sales was not faltering, it was not growing much either beyond that stubborn $2.3 million a year.

The pressure to prove himself was immense: 'I didn't want people to say I was in my position because of my father. Of course it was. There are certain things you can't deny. But I want to be praised for foresight.'

That was when he decided to look abroad. He began visiting book fairs all over the world - in Hong Kong, Taiwan, the US, Britain, India and Malaysia - to try to raise the profile of his wares.

But the exhibitors were more keen on selling books than listening to his sales pitch. His father was also concerned about getting payment for books sold abroad.

'That was a really difficult period,' says Mr Yoo. 'I needed a breakthrough. I had told myself that after I came back, sales must increase.'

A new tactic

THE first big change of tack came in 2003 when SAP set up a sales office in Malaysia and Hong Kong, and adapted books with local lingo.

Slowly, SAP's books started getting picked up by people around the region and travelled even as far as Germany.

Later that year, Mr Yoo's father handed him the reins of the company. His two older sisters, its chief administration officer and chief publisher, are still in the firm.

The strategy of going global has surely earned Mr Yoo an A+ grade. About 40 per cent of SAP's books are now sold overseas and he aims to raise that to 50 per cent in the long run.

SAP's assessment books are written by a pool of around 50 freelance writers who each have at least five years of experience teaching the subject they write on.

Each book goes through three rounds of vetting by different editors before making the cut, says Mr Yoo.

The best-sellers in SAP's line-up are its English assessment books, which ride on the growing reputation of Singapore's education system.

SAP began also marketing itself more aggressively in 2003. One approach has been to give free samples to teachers, allowing them decide if the books are suitable for their students.

The company also began producing more titles to broaden its range, growing it from about 500 titles in 2003 to 600 now.

SAP stays ahead of the game by keeping an eye out for new trends.

For instance, Mr Yoo puts his personal e-mail address in each book, which brings in feedback from all over the world.

These range from teachers making the odd complaint about errors to parents in the Philippines trying to find out where to find the complete range of SAP titles.

Mr Yoo says he is exploring producing online games as learning tools, as well as acquiring a school in China's Anhui province that will teach students the technical skills required in SAP's publishing business. The aim of this, he says, is to groom talent for his production team.

Plans to set up an office in India and Indonesia are also in the works.

Mr Yoo envisages SAP evolving into an education group running learning centres as well - all this while not letting up on its sales expansion drive.

'Our target is to penetrate one to two countries every year,' he says.

'My dad never thought that our books could travel that far...and that's what I am proud of.'