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NEVER GIVING UP ON HER SOAPSUDS

One could say Annie-Marie Faiola made a clean getaway from her original profession of choice: Corrections officer.

In December of 1998, then 20-year-old Faiola left the justice system because "it wasn't terribly satisfying or a good fit," she says. That month, Faiola - who'd made personalized soaps for friends and family as a teenager - put $15,000 on her credit card to buy a pallet of soap, five fragrances, and a handful of molds to start an online soap-making supplies in her Bellingham, Washington, living room.

Today Faiola's company, called Bramble Berry, has more than 2,500 products, a retail store called Otion, and annual sales of some $5 million. (The company donates about 10% to charity, and everyone at the management level donates time.) Last month, the now 34-year-old Faiola was recognized by the U.S. Small Business Administration as Washington State's small business owner of the year.

Faiola's biggest challenge: "Definitely learning to work with employees and being a decent human resources person," she says. "There are so many personalities to learn how to manage. I'm still learning this part of my job and suspect I always will be."

Faiola says she knew within three months of starting the company that it could sustain itself. But her goals then weren't lofty: "I just wanted to pay the mortgage and have a little leftover for food, so it was a little easier to envision success," she said. Sales rolled in slowly, but, she says, "I loved what I was doing and people seemed genuinely thankful that I was around to help them out."

Faiola, whose major business experience when she started consisted of breeding angry Russian dwarf hamsters to sell while in high school, did have one dream that at: the start seemed unfathomable: She wanted to attend MIT's Entrepreneurial Master's Program, which is for business owners under the age of 40 grossing a million or more in sales. She ripped out the full page, sepia ad for the program (then called "Birthing of Giants") and put it on her wall.

The first year she grossed $70,000, none of which she took home. "I thankfully had craft shows and a few wholesale outlets to keep selling finished bars of soap at," she writes on her blog at SoapQueen.com. (SoapQueen.com. and SoapQueen.tv are the company's social media outlets, offering tutorials and information on all things suds.) "I didn't eat out at a restaurant more than one time in two years.. .and we didn't have heat in our home for three straight Christmases."

In year two, the company rang up sales of $280,000. And when Faiola was 24, her four-year-old company grossed its first million. She applied to MIT and was one of five women (out of 65 students) accepted into the three-year summer program. However, the formal training neither kept her from struggling with funding nor with making mistakes. In 2003, after five years of profitable growth, she hunted for a loan to help her launch a retail store and get a new warehouse.

"After the dotcom crash, many banks were unwilling to loan on a purely online play and my youth and relative inexperience played against me," she says. In 2004, after finding a banker and forging ahead, Faiola admits she nearly bankrupted the company. It went $280,000 in debt in less than a year, as she underestimated how expensive retrofitting the warehouse would be and how slowly cash would come into the retail store. (Faiola has no outside investors; she is the company's sole shareholder.)

Faiola hired a business coach and kept working. Key to her company's success, she thinks, is likeability and authenticity. "People buy from people they like and though the mediums to connect with customers have changed, I believe our success has everything to do with being genuinely excited about the craft first and sales second," she says.

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions based on the content of the text:

1. Why did 20-year-old Faiola leave the justice system?

2. What did Faiola put $15,000 on her credit card for?

3. What are annual sales of Faiola's company today?

4. Why was it easy for Faiola to envision success?

5; What program was Faiola accepted into when she was 24?

6. Why were many banks unwilling to loan on a purely online play?

7. What is the key to her company's success?

Exercise 2. Put questions to which the following data are the answers:

1. 2,500 products.

2. 10%

3. $70,000

4. The age of 40.

5. 2004

Exercise 3. Fill the blanks in the text with the words given below it. There are two extra words.

Who could have imagined back in 1998, when Faiola decided to her original

occupation, that five years she would become a successful business lady?

Having used her teenager as a start, Faiola launched tier own business with

only $15,000 on her card. Besides her wish to something different

in the area of soap-making, she was driven in her career by the to attend

MIT's Entrepreneurial Master's Program. And she was after her 4-year-old

company had managed to accumulate 1 million dollars in, Being the

company's sole , Faiola faced with hard times in 2004 when she was on the

verge of not able to repay a loan to the bank. This didn't her,

though, and Faiola hired a business coach and kept

accepted bars being change credit desire discourage doing hobby later make sales shareholder struggling