| Established in September, 2002, Laurence Lai Gallery has entered its third year of operation. These past three years are not easy for a new starter in business. Through continual hard work, exploration and learning from failures, Laurence Lai is growing up into a mature man.
Photography is not a new thing for me that I have only toughed on these two years. Starting in 1989, as I was keen on running around in the local area, travelling abroad and going on business trips, I wanted to record down my experience. Naturally, photography is my best tool. When I first started with photography, I toke pictures of everything! From close-ups of teenage girls to snap shots on the street, as well as the marriage of friends and commercial products... I got hold on all books, magazines, exhibitions, talks on photography. From then on, I have been constantly building up my knowledge, as well as interest in photography. Before August, 2002, I was still a 100% export financier. In an afternoon in August, I met my old friend Rebecca Tam when I had tea with my family in Siu Sai Wan/ Island Resort. She was responsible for promoting a "Sunday Market" stall named Montmartre. She knew that I love taking photos, so she asked me why don't I try to share my photos with the public, that more people can appreciate the beautiful scenery. She gave me an application form, which I took back to my office without much notice of it at that moment. My original work was as a clothing exporter/local wholesaler and retailer. 2002 was a hard year. It had been difficult to do business after the Financial Crisis, no matter wholesale or retail. On one afternoon, I found the application form that I was given when I was flipping through some files. At that moment I thought: why not have a try? There won't be any loss at all even if I did not succeed! In the light of my personal interest, I filled in the application form and handed it back to Rebecca. My application was quickly approved. On the first day of opening up the stall, I had only two tables(!!!yeah!!!), one red-and-white checked cloth, and one hundred and twenty 4R/5R photos. My photos taken all through the years! Being attentively packaged, on the back of each photo I added the descriptions of that picture as well as my autograph. Surprisingly, I attracted many passerby's to view my photos. I sold more than thirty photos in a short while. Some customers even ordered large-size photos, which made me very pleased and content. From then on, I continued my fashion retail/wholesale business on Mondays to Fridays, and opened the photography stall on Saturdays. I never imagined the business of the stall would expand so swiftly. In the first two months, I had a playful mood towards this stall. With little pressure on my own, more and more customers knew my stall. After working on Island Resort for three months, even my colleagues at Sino Group/ Gold Coast recognized my success in these small businesses. All my products are original and introduced to customers by myself. They thought me as creative and unique. And so they invited me to establish a stall at Gold Coast and reserved the best site for me. I was extremely excited to this. Business at Island resort was running well. Now that I had to open another branch at Gold Coast, I had to spend more time on this. However, my previous expertise and aspiration was on garments trade. My rational side reminded myself that garment-making was still my first priority. In less than four months, I had already established two stalls, one at Island Resort and another one at Gold Coast. There were more local people and tourists at Gold Coast than Island Resort, and the business there expanded quickly. On the fifth month, the stock of photos had expanded from 120 to nearly 600. That was a growth of 5 times and business was continuously expanding. It is under these circumstances that I finally allocated more time to Laurence Lai Gallery.
I was not in the photography industry in the past. I was only a fever fans in taking photographs.In my early years, I took part in the garment industry. I started as a merchandizer ( taking a part-time garment and spinning course in a technical school ) in a clothing manufacturer, and then as a merchandizer in an overseas exporting company. I also worked as the buyer of an acquisition company. I started my own business after gaining capital and experience. I set up a boutique at Tsim Sha Tsui. I woke up at 7:00 am everyday and worked till 12:00pm, wanting to make a career out of it. Then, I rented a small office at Kwun Tong and worked seriously as a fashion wholesaler and exporter to areas like United States and Australia. I created my on brand, Music Production and Oriental Art. In the beginning, I had only got a fashion designer, a sales, a writing desk, a computer and a facsimile machine. I worked day and night, bringing newly designed samples for customers' viewing and hoping for new orders. It was difficult to find new customers in a highly competitive market. On one hand, I fought for new orders; on the other hand, I had to pay attention to production matters. I travelled a lot from Hong Kong to Mainland, working seven days a week industriously for my dreams in career. I abandoned photography in that period of time. When my business was going steady, I picked up this hobby again on weekends. Photography fulfilled my spiritual needs. My first business was operated under scarcely limited labour and resources. Once the factory delayed handling over the products. As the customer was in a hurry to leave Hong Kong, he threatened to cancel his orders. I could not sleep for 3 nights, worrying about this. In the end, I called the international line to inform the customer about the reasons of the delay and also to apologize. The customer was touched by our sincerity. Instead of cancelling the orders, he placed a large amount of orders in the later period, enhancing the development of my business. It was such a breath-taking process like ridding on a roller-coaster! LaurenceLai Gallery 之歷史來由 創業難, 守業難, 創新更難 |