BACK in his secondary school days, Mr Thang Teck Jong realised with delight that he had the gift of the gab.
For Mr Thang, who hails from a poor family, that changed everything.

Struggling academically, he was able to set his sights on a working life in sales.

Twenty one years on, he now boasts a multi- million-dollar business selling travel bags - but the road to success has certainly been no holiday.

He has battled adversity: sleeping in warehouses on occasions to save money, being battered by the Asian financial crisis and crushed by debt.

But he never packed his bags and quit.

Mr Thang, now 46, has just seen his business, Travelite Holdings, list on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) on May 16 - a lifelong dream for a man who, as a child, did not have much growing up.

Growing up in Kampong Chantek, in a small house 'with a hall and no rooms', he dreamt of prosperity.

'I always had the strong burning desire to succeed. I grew up poor, so you admire people who have big houses, cars and comfortable lives,' he says.

'We had limited food to eat, but as the youngest, whatever meat that was left, they would give it to me,' says Mr Thang, who cuts an imposing frame in a meeting room of his warehouse in Tampines.

Mr Thang's father Meng Kim was a sailor while his mother Siew Hock, who had three children from a previous marriage, was a maid at Goodwood Park Hotel.

Mr Thang was not strong academically. 'I was retained in primary school for two years,' he says, but discovered his 'talent' while working part-time during his secondary school days.

'I could sell,' he says in a matter-of-fact manner. In just two weeks, after going around and knocking on the doors of HDB flats, he managed to sell a cookware set for an eye-popping $2,800.

'My first instinct was, the only way to get better income was to go into sales,' said Mr Thang, who speaks in English but uses Mandarin and Hokkien phrases to emphasise his points.

So he joined Samsonite Singapore, selling pieces of luggage for them during the day.

At night, he worked at what was known as an 'expo', selling toys to supplement his income. These were funfair events of the 1980s, where people purchased tickets to enter a fenced-up area that had games, food and entertainment stalls.

His first big break, and the birth of his company, came via a friend during the economic downturn of 1986. Retail store Yaohan, he learnt, was starting operations in Malaysia the following year.

The senior manager wanted him to supply pieces of luggage to them. 'The big players like Delsey and Samsonite had someone representing them in Malaysia, but the suppliers got burnt during the crisis, so it was an opportunity for me,' he says.

Mr Thang - now executive chairman of Travelite - was a one-man show back then, dressing smartly to meet customers, typing out his letters and preparing his own invoices.

Worn out by dusk, he would sleep in the warehouse which stored the goods delivered from Singapore.

'To rent a house, you would pay $200 to $300 dollars a month. I wanted to save money,' says the father of three, demonstrating thrift and prudence with his finances.

A few months later, his goods were sold in departmental stores such as Metro and Parkson in Malaysia. 'I served Yaohan well, and I banked on that name to get me more customers,' he says.

Not neglecting the Singapore market, he also rented two retail outlets at Golden Mile Complex to sell travel bags. Says Mr Thang: 'I couldn't afford to rent a warehouse, so I bought two 16-foot container trucks, parked them permanently at Golden Mile, and used them as my warehouse.'

However, his focus was on the Malaysia market which was bigger. He spent most of his time there, but travelled back by rail every weekend to visit his parents in Singapore.

A period of rapid expansion in the early 1990s saw him actively promoting his merchandise through tradeshows in the major cities of Malaysia, such as Kuching and Penang.

He also increased his stable of brands, distributing travel bags for the likes of Pierre Cardin and Crocodile.

The firm's growth came to a grinding halt in 1998 when the economic crisis struck home. Heavily indebted, Mr Thang was wrong-footed by the crisis, and owed banks more than $1.5 million.

He took swift action and cut his customer base from 50 to fewer than 10, retaining key clients such as John Little and Mustafa.

He also downsized his Singapore operations and transferred his stock of suitcases and bags to Malaysia, which had consistently proved to be a bigger market for the company.

'If we had maintained both sides, we might not have been too successful. If you've poison spilt on you, you need to know where to cut off your hand to save your heart, so you won't be killed,' says Mr Thang, who redoubled his efforts in Malaysia during those tough times.

The crisis bonded his staff together, as everyone including himself took a pay cut, and nobody was retrenched.

During the Sars outbreak in 2003, his staff again chose to put their salaries on the line, and nobody was asked to go.

'That is why I treasure my team a lot,' says Mr Thang.

Today, the firm has more than 300 employees and over 100 customers such as Takashimaya and Isetan. It clocked up revenues of $25 million last year.

'To be successful, you need to work hard, be honest and know your business well. You need to be sincere, humble, and when the opportunity arrives, you need to grab that opportunity,' says Mr Thang.

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