My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What’s important about you? Why does the customer need you?
Embrace what you don’t know, especially in the beginning, because what you don’t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will absolutely be doing things different from everybody else.
When I was 7, I came up with the idea of ‘charm socks.’ My mom would take me to buy bags of plastic charms, we would sew them on frilly white socks, and I sold them at school.
Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale’s here in the United States.
Courage is doing something despite the fear, and I’ve worked hard on being a courageous person.
The smartest thing I ever did was to hire my weakness.
I think very early on in life we all learn what we’re good at and what we’re not good at, and we stay where it’s safe.
I think my story says that, when women are given the chance and the opportunity, that we can achieve a lot. We deliver.
There is a hidden blessing in the most traumatic things we go through in our lives. My brain always goes to, ‘Where is the hidden blessing? What is my gift?’
My saddlebags are why Spanx exist! Now that I have a baby I also have a muffin top.
With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, ‘Where is the hidden blessing?’ In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.
I started thinking about joy. Everything in our society is so purposeful. Let’s bring joy back to the experience.
I didn’t want women to walk out of the dressing rooms feeling depressed and wanting a cocktail.
Failure to me became not trying versus not succeeding.
When something I can’t control happens, I ask myself : where is the hidden gift, where is the positive in this?
My first account was Neiman Marcus. I cold-called them just like I had cold-called businesses when I was selling fax machines for seven years.
If we can put a man on the moon, we can make pantyhose comfortable.
The word ‘Spanx’ was funny. It made people laugh. No one ever forgot it.
I shopped for body shapers for the first time in my life and I was horrified. They were thick – it was like wearing workout clothes and they all had a leg band on one side that showed through the pants.
I’d get kicked out of buildings all day long, people would rip up my business card in my face. It’s a humbling business to be in. But I knew I could sell and I knew I wanted to sell something I had created. I cut the feet out of those pantyhose and I knew I was on to something. This was it.
I got a call from the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah had chosen Spanx as one of her favorite products in 2000. I had boxes of product in my apartment and I had two weeks notice that she was going to say she loved it on TV and I had no shipping department.