Dr. Wendy Liew, Director and Founder – The Image Creator Sdn Bhd
A tenacious styling and imaging talent, Dr. Wendy is profoundly passionate in what she does. Her work is born out of her philosophy that one’s image should never be used to cover up who you are but should instead be use as an accessory that brings out your true self and at times, allows one the power to dream and to dare.
Dr. Wendy possesses a D Prof (GULL, USA) from her development pathway that includes a professional project application in Image & Brand Management. Dr. Wendy has created an E-Commerce platform in Personalize Image Consultancy services to the doorsteps with just a few clicks away.
The whole idea created is to make women’ life simpler for any occasion, whether they are a fashion diva or practical dresser. She holds Certificate from some of the finest worldwide institutes including The Australian Image Company and International Image Institute of Canada, Charleston School of Etiquette & Protocol in USA, London College of Fashion by world famous Luxury Brand Consultant and she is also an International Licensed Practitioner of NLP™.
Till date, she has trained over 150 companies and more than 50, 000 of corporate people ranging from clerical level all the way to CEOs, MDs and VVIPs. She loves to learn and see new things especially through travelling. For the past few years, she flew over to different countries in taking up additional courses to upgrade her. She is passionate about living her mission in inspiring individuals to attain higher level of self-achievement through cutting edge knowledge in appearance, behavior and communication.
Team ABT tries to know more from her interesting journey in this interview with Dr. Wendy Liew.
How did you decide to start your own image consulting company, ‘The Image Creator’?
I used to be a freelancer doing a lot of things from make-up to emceeing and speaking engagement back then. I’ve registered myself a company in 2007 and started it home- based.
There was one night, I was very tired sitting on a couch at home, and suddenly I had a feeling of fear. I was questioning myself whether I love what I do? I used to, and I thought that I always do. But I had fear of insecurity and the fear of going no-where again. I was helpless.
The next morning, I told myself, I need to commit into something so that I can be more focus in what I do. And that’s how in Dec 2009, I opened my own office and converted it from “sole proprietor” to “Sdn Bhd” in 2012.
Share an example of when you established and accomplished a goal that was personally challenging. What helped you succeed?
The toughest time throughout the journey in building my business was when I started my own office and the amount of jobs was not sufficient to cover. My initial goal was to have the business “break-even” within the first year. However, there are many months that I do not even afford to pay my own salary and some other overheads.
What I did to solve this was finding other people to collaborate, hoping to leverage on others to get some business. I made much collaboration, but only 1 made it through. I’m thankful and blessed that with this collaboration in doing styling and photography and some other jobs pouring in after that, I achieved not only to break even but with additional 20% of profit within the first year.
Do you feel privileged as a Woman Entrepreneur? Tell us more.
Of course, yes. I personally find that being an entrepreneur is difficult; being a woman entrepreneur is even more difficult! Juggling between work and family with different roles as a mother, wife, daughter and daughter-in-law is no joke. Many times, we have to sacrifice our own “ME” time in order to give more time to our children, family and our business.
Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader?
I have to say that the person is my husband, Tim. He is a very supportive husband that he never says “No” to anything that I wish to do. He allows me to chase my dreams and try to support in any way he could. He’s passionate about his business and building his people. I hardly hear him telling me the challenges that he faced or complaining about his people. He never chooses to set any of his employees even though some of them are not performing well.
Unlike me, I’m more impatient on people, I used to have hard times working with people and I’m demanding in the work quality of my employees. Ended up, I’ll do everything myself and that’s one of the reason why it took me many years to grow my business to the next level. From him, I realize that as a leader, it’s not how good we are in our capabilities at work, but how we must first build and groom others. How we see the best in them and not the worst.
Could you recall any one proud moment/milestone?
I’m into corporate training for many years and so far, I see every session is a little achievement for me. I have great satisfaction from getting deals of smaller companies to big projects of MNCs & GLCs and even from training lower/middle management to the Top Senior Management of big corporations.
All these are the accumulated milestones in building my business. And what’s the best to keep me moving forward are the changes on the participants or even impacts left in them, whereby they remember what has been taught and use it for years. I’m proud that I’m able to make a difference in many people’s life. Throughout the years, I’ve been working persistently with passion and I’m blessed that finally the hard work paid off by being recognized and awarded as one of The 100 Most Influential Young Entrepreneur 2017 and as one of the 19 Women Icons Malaysia 2018 by BERG Singapore. I’m humbled to be able to share the same platform with many successful, inspiring and influential entrepreneurs in Malaysia.
What would you like to achieve in the next coming years?
In 2018, I’m looking into more of e-commerce and consultancy work instead of the heavy loads of trainings engagement. Anyhow, we are already moving into e-commerce and offering some of our services online. We must face the fact that to cope with the faster-paced lifestyle, people nowadays are looking into convenience and many have had almost all their stuffs done online. Should clients prefer physical trainings/ coaching with more human touch, we can still accommodate it with our new upgraded training contents and delivery for our clients.
Here is a snippet of Dr. Wendy Liew, at the Women Icons Malaysia 2018 Awards by BERG Singapore