When Enoch Poon reserved a booth for selling Chinese dinners at Greenville College’s Christian musical festival, AgapeFest, back in ’86, he wanted to give concertgoers a taste of China and make a little money. Though he lacked cash, supplies, and manpower, Poon – soon to graduate with a computer science and mathematics major – was rich in resourcefulness.
Poon persuaded a local grocery store to provide him with food for the event and accept payment afterward. He borrowed electric woks and frying pans from the married students he knew. He outsourced the tricky task of preparing egg rolls to a nearby Chinese restaurant and hired students to staff the booth.
By the end of AgapeFest, more than 200 attendees enjoyed his alternative to hotdogs and pizza. After Poon paid the bills and his helpers, he pocketed more than $400 in profit (adjusted for inflation, about $840 today).
“It went so well, I could have doubled what I sold,” Poon tells management students in the Professional Business Leaders class on the Greenville University campus where he occasionally returns to speak. “People often ask me, ‘Is it true that you need money to make money?’ I say, ‘It helps. Still, you must start somewhere; just be creative.’”
Creativity seems to be Poon’s specialty, particularly creating opportunities for profit. When his early employment as a programmer and systems engineer proved less than inspiring, he chose a new direction and earned his law degree from the University of Louisville.
As a first-year associate, he generated over 50 new clients for the law firm where he worked.
Poon tells students that he was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. Trade with China had just opened up, and his fluency in Mandarin, Cantonese, and Taiwanese proved valuable. He traveled often to China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan to size up potential business partners and suppliers for his international clients. One client, a logistics firm, wooed Poon away from law to build its international trade division from the ground up.
“My function was really to drum up import business for our logistics clients,” he explains. “I was supposed to be in charge of Far East operations and have someone else manage sales and marketing, but the firm never hired that person. I had to do both. That’s when you really have to learn and be creative!”
Poon worked with customers like Samsonite and OXO to develop new product lines and identify strategic manufacturing partners. The market welcomed his ideas, and Poon grew his division’s revenue from zero to $2 million in two years. After 2½ years, he left to create something new, his own international trade business, Innovative International, LLC.
“Keep your eyes open,” he encourages students, “Truly look at everything and be curious. Learn as much as you can. Think about how things link together. Accounting, marketing, finance, even the Bible and business – they all work together.” The classroom conversation covers a lot of territory like the end of the “Made in China” era, labor costs, and the changing landscape of international distribution. Poon’s experiences, connections, and expertise prove as broad as the continents his business spans. By the end of class, one thing is clear: Innovative International LLC began with far more than a fax machine and phone.
Alumni like Enoch Poon inspire students to be creative as they enter the workforce after their time at GU. Donors like Enoch Poon make a huge difference in their lives through scholarships that allow them to enter their careers with far less debt.
