Down to Business: Desperation and persistence the two ingredients that made Naperville medical supply biz a success

Business: EKLA Corp.

Address: 1707 Quincy, Naperville

Phone/website: 1-800-328-4215, www.eklacorp.com

Owner: Erin Lu, 69, of Naperville

Years in business: 29

What does your business do? “Medical supplies. We supply whatever the customer or hospital asks us to supply. ... Any kind of product, we can get. We have 3,000 to 4,000 suppliers. ... We spec. What kind of product we want, the manufacturers make for us,” Erin Lu said.

What does EKLA stand for? “Erin. My last name is Lu. My daughter’s first name, Kristen. I needed a vowel, so I got an ‘A.’”

Why did you start this business? “Desperation and frustration. ... I was a nurse for two or three years in Taiwan. I came to the United States in 1977 to do medical research. I was 23. They told me research doesn’t make money, you better go into medical technology. ... I was in that for 15 years. ... I got bored. ... After I got my MBA, I started looking for jobs. ... I didn’t know my own strengths. ... I had no job and a baby. Every time I have a degree, I find a profession related to my degree. ... I had to find a job with my MBA. After 200 resumes and rejections, I said to myself, ‘I’ll do it myself.’ I didn’t know anything, no experience, didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

But you had the medical background? “The medical part, I had a lot of knowledge, but not in terms of knowing how to sell. ... The product has to walk out of your warehouse.”

How did you grow this business? “In the beginning, every day I made 150 to 200 cold calls. Every day. Doctors. Dentists. You just call. The rejection rate is 99.9, but I said to myself, that 0.1 percent, if you don’t pick up that phone, you’re not going to get it. ... One smart call I made was to my old employer, the American Red Cross, my first client. ... I own 80 percent of this company. Ten percent my brother, 10 percent my husband, Duncan Campbell. ... I started this business on Jan. 5, 1995.”

Any favorite stories? “In the beginning, I’d go the Hines Veterans Administration Hospital in Maywood. Every time I went in there, they’d ask, ‘What do you have?’ I’d say, ‘I have gloves.’ They’d say ‘We don’t need that right now.’ Then, one Thanksgiving, somebody called from Hines, said, ‘We don’t have gloves. Can you deliver now?’ Their regular delivery didn’t arrive. That was in 1999. I’ve been with them ever since. ... Now, we do business with 128 VA hospitals (around the nation). ... Persistence pays off.”

How many employees do you have? “I have 11 employees. This business is $10 million a year.”

How much do you work? “Nobody can outwork me in EKLA. I go to my customers Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., come back, work my second shift till midnight.”

You work 16-hour days? “That’s right. And I never feel tired. ... A lot of my suppliers are overseas. You call them at night. ... If you don’t have that drive, that motivation. It’s a passion. You have to have that drive. Everybody told me to retire. The day I retire, I die. ... I know myself. I compete with myself. And I feel good. ... If my health holds up, why not?”

What about competition? “There’s plenty. If you focus on your goals, competition is good. It’s not bad. My vice president, David Whiteside, said that we have no strategy. We throw spaghetti on the wall. Which one sticks? We don’t have a strategy. We have a scheme. It’s working.”

Is Naperville good for business? “It’s a very good location for me. People working here feel safe. The landlord keeps up the facility. ... It’s close to lot of places.”

What do you like best about your job? “It’s liberating. I really am my own master. During the course of 29 years, especially after my daughter passed away, there’s a lot of understanding. I have more compassion. ... You find out everybody has strengths and weaknesses. It’s up to me to utilize those.”

Any negatives? “No.”

How did the pandemic impact your business? “Business-wise, (2020) was the best year ever. You know the thermometer? Nobody paid attention before COVID-19. Who’s going to buy a thermometer? With COVID-19, because it’s so contagious, we sold 2 million thermometers.”

What’s your advice for someone starting a business?

“Do you have grit? Do have the ability to taste failure and come back again? ... The past is the past. It’s a good memory, a bad memory. But the future is exciting because it’s unknown.”

If you know of a business you’d like to see to profiled in Down to Business, contact Steve Metsch at metschmsfl@yahoo.com.

Steve Metsch is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.