Virdi had once again won over a sceptical client. In fact, her first assignment came the same way. Over a decade ago, she started out by doing the rounds of companies who would keep asking her about previous assignments. Finally, exasperated, she walked into the office of Emcure Pharmaceuticals and vented her anger on the manager: unless someone gave her a chance how would she ever have anything to show. The bewildered manager capitulatedand Emcure has been Wordsworth's client ever since.

It is this confidence combined with the ability to deliver that has helped Virdi to create a reputation for her company, recognising which the Association of Women Entrepreneurs/Industrialists of Maharasthra (WIMA) presented her the best woman entrepreneur in the service industry award for 1997-98 at Pune last month. Virdi renamed the agency after the poet whose lyrical ballards inspired her.

But it is not verse or prose that occupies her in her spare time. In all likelihood she would be engrossed with IBM catalogues on their latest workstation or this self-confessed Macaholic would be dabbling in animation, graphics or 3D and morphing at her own own studio. She offers her clients complete design service, corporate communications, promotional material, product launches and publicity.

Virdi insists that despite the small size of her agency she uses the latest technology for delivering quality be it creative and innovative brochures, product literature,calendars, annual reports, packaging, gift articles or external hoarding on media ranging from photo glossy paper, vinyl, film to back-lit translides. Wordsworth has also developed an expertise for designing stalls at exhibitions and was in fact one of the official designers of IMTEX 97 in Delhi. But it has not been a fairy tale ride and there were times when Virdi gave it all up. Her agency had touched a billing of Rs 50 lakh in 92-93 when she went through a traumatic marriage with an alcoholic husband. Business hit rock-bottom when her husband, who had joined as partner, kept accumulating debts. But she hung as work "was the only thing that kept her going."

Soon, she was reduced to a one-woman agency and had to start from scratch. "I had to work day and night to pay the debts and it still haunts me." But the goodwill and reputation she had earned earlier saw her through and she was back on track by 1995. By next year she hopes to cross billings worth Rs 2 crores with a clientele that includes BharatForge, Kinetic Engineering, Electronica and United Western Bank. She makes no bones about being ambitious and says, "Business was my first love and career has always been a priority." Ajay Narayan, a corporate real estate and HRD consultant, who became an associate of Wordsworth, says the agency will shift to a new office in Pune and open a branch in Delhi to handle the exhibition business.

A market research cell is also on the cards. Business would get a boost if only companies in Pune would look closer home instead of forever rushing to Mumbai, says Narayan. But Wordsworth's thumb rule of never taking on more work than can be handled is paying off. "We never send client servicing executives but handle all work ourselves."