Niamh Crowe realised she was onto something big when the Russian pharmacists got in touch. Could she compose a sales pitch for a new product launch, they wondered? She thought it was someone's idea of a joke. Slavic scientists begging advice from a Dublin housewife - sure. Pull the other one, Vlad.
Crowe sells speeches over the Internet. Her one-woman company, Speechwriters, operates from a modest desktop computer in her Killester home in Dublin. Weddings, funerals and anniversaries are a speciality. Marketing pep-talks to east European industrialists aren't.
Not interested, she told the Russians. Don't know the first thing about Russia, pharmacy or hard-sell presentations. But if any of you guys is ever asked to be best man . . .
A flurry of emails, each more insistent than its predecessor, rained down from the Steppes. The bombardment lasted for a weekend before she capitulated. Since then she has been inundated with business from across the former Soviet Union. Word travels fast in cyberspace.
Not that Crowe, 55-year-old mother of four, harbours ambitions of global conquest. She's busy enough already. Last month her charmingly low-key website - the wainscotted borders and quaint pastels summon images of late-1970s tea rooms - attracted more than 60,000 hits. The site offers customers a wide variety of speeches - wedding toasts, funeral orations, even golf dinner addresses. Monthly turnover topped £5,000 in October.
The speeches brim with earthy, homespun wisdom, although Crowe confesses to "going heavy on the schmaltz" for the US market. But why would someone want to download an intimate speech written by a complete stranger? Because they just can't be bothered making up their own, says Crowe.
"The hassle factor is a major selling point. Many people don't have the time to sit down and write out a few words. Or maybe they lack confidence.
"Some customers tell me that while they have no difficulty speaking in public in their professional capacity, they are much more nervous when it comes to talking in front of friends and family. After all, how many times in a life will someone be asked to be best man? It's not something most men have any experience of. They often feel they are on shaky ground."
Funerals are more challenging but also more rewarding she says. "I find it absolutely heart-breaking to write for funerals. It can be very difficult. You get very involved. I've been asked to write for several suicides. That was extremely difficult."
Crowe's first foray into a speechwriting business was at a wedding fair in Dublin five years ago; she didn't sell any of the hand-written sheaves of script she and husband stayed up all night photocopying, but the experience reinforced her conviction that her dream had potential.
She was right - but the market wouldn't be in Ireland. More than 90 per cent of Speechwriters' sales come from the US, Australia and South America.
Speechwriters went online in 1994, but business only really boomed following the introduction of a fully automated service last summer. A sharp increase in inquiries over the previous six months encouraged Crowe to develop a range of "pre-prepared" speeches; shrink-wrapped vignettes stacked on the shelves of her virtual supermarket like so many tins of soup. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
The success of Speechwriters leaves Crowe with a curious dilemma: should she sacrifice the personal touch which she cites as the principal reason for her success to further expand her service? She is already planning to extend the site to include a video-based public speaking tutorial scripted by her daughter Ciara, currently taking a media studies course at Ballyfermot senior college.
"I'm still a one-person operation running a business from my own home. I want to maintain hands-on control. But I'm facing a watershed. I have to ask myself - what do I need to do to grow any bigger? And in doing so, could I sacrifice the very qualities that makes the service so attractive? It's a dilemma. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can strike a balance."
