At Work With | Lori Ann Talens, owner, Strategic Marketing and Printing

As told to The Pilot's Sarah Kleiner Varble

My father told me, "Lori Ann, don't be the girl who goes for the guy with the hooked-up nice car and the power suits. You be the woman with a nice car, and you be a power suit, because the only person you can depend on is yourself." By the time I was 16, I had two or three jobs.

When I first got my car at 15, the first thing I wanted to do was to start hooking it up and put in a system so it had a loud bass in it, like all the other cool kids in high school. It was a '94 Toyota Celica. I put the system in, and then from there, it was an addiction. I started modifying the engine, the interior and the exterior. I joined a car club. We would go to car shows together up and down the East Coast, and we competed.

I have probably four or five dozen trophies. My car was featured in an international magazine on a two-page spread. It was featured on the cover of calendars and on posters. It was also featured on television internationally on Spike TV, and it reran for three years.

At my first car show, I had just finished detailing my car for about five hours. My hands were black and covered with brake dust. A photographer said, "Wow, you are gorgeous. Can I take a picture?" I was like, "Um, OK." I just hid my hands behind my back, and he took a head shot that went in six magazines. He said, "Hey are you going to enter the bikini contest?" and I said, "Hell no!" But my whole car club was trying to get me to do it because we got points for participation. That's when he said I would get paid $300 an hour for a two-hour shoot.

I was the most-booked model that was East Coast-based, and I was the only one who owned a hooked-up vehicle. The girls that modeled in these shows had no idea about the cars.

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When I started getting attention, I created a marketing kit and a resume for my car. I got sponsors. Someone paid for a website to be built for me. First, I got discounted products locally, and then the sponsors were giving me the products for free. Then they paid to put the product in my vehicle. I had them pay to put their graphics on my car. As a spokeswoman separately, there was a fee for that. I had marketing material, like posters and calendars, featuring me, and there was a fee for that. My fans came for my autograph, so I got anywhere from $5 to $25 per autograph.

My average was about $5,000 to $10,000 a weekend. By the time I was 20, I was making six figures. This is part time. I started creating my own terms with modeling too, just like with my vehicle. And then, just for me to appear, my base pay would be $1,500 for the day. This was at the peak of my career.

While I was modeling, all these girls would come up to me and say, "Gosh, how do I model?" So I thought about using girls as a marketing tool. I was in such high demand, I'd say, "No, I'm not available at that rate, but I do have these people available."

I was always in a booth, under the tent being a feature vehicle for products companies. The other vendors saw that I was in demand and wanted to know my rates, and it would just go up and up. "How much are they paying you? We'll pay you double." That's how my rate got so high.

I was referring business to other places, and the companies were like, "You should just start your own printing company." I learned the business and had them order their printing through me.

I was doing that for from 18 until about 28. They are actually asking me to get back into the scene because I was so product savvy, and because I'm in sales. These guys would come up and they'd say, "Hot girl!" and "What's that in the car?" They'd try to say what they think the product is, and I'll correct them. They're like, "What do you know, you're just a model." I said, "No, I own this vehicle." They're like, "What? Tell me more." Come to find out they're a shop owner, and they start ordering in bulk.

The premium GTR is one of the vehicles I own. The dealership told me I was the first female in their 20s to own a hundred thousand dollar-plus sports car. My Celica was just a show car, and people at car shows used to joke with me and say, "All show, no go." The GTR is the fastest street vehicle import car in America. It's my dream car, and no one can say it's slow or all show, because it's both.