Spanx: Sara Blakely
Create your own luck
Background
When Sara Blakely was 27, her life did not turn out as she had imagined. She wanted to be a lawyer but failed her LSATs twice and ended up at Disney World being a ride greeter. A few years later, she wound up selling fax machines door to door, which later would help her develop the cold-calling skills needed to make Spanx a reality.
After realizing she wasn't happy with her life, Sara started observing the problems she was encountering daily. One of those problems she noticed was that she could only wear a few outfits due to the incompatibility of outerwear and undergarments. She wondered, "Why can you see undergarment outlines when wearing clothes?"
Starting Point
Finding the Problem to Solve
Create pantyhose that stop undergarment outlines from appearing
Money
$5,000 in savings
Experience and Skills
0 experience in sewing, manufacturing, engineering, design, or business.
0 connections to anyone in the fashion or retail industry
Can cold-call and hustle
Problems and Pivoting
Finding Patents and Competitors
Used www.uspto.gov to search for pantyhose patents.
Ended up not finding any competitors!
Validating The Idea
She went to Neiman Marcus and asked the sales associate, "Would anybody ever want something like a footless pantyhose to wear underpants?"
The sales associate's face lit up, and they said, "Yes! We have customers making their own homemade version since there isn't anything that does this yet."
Creating a Prototype and Getting a Manufacturer
Sara tried making the prototype herself with a few clips, tape, and scissors.
Realized she needed a machine to make the prototype.
Cold-called and got rejected by multiple manufacturers since they were all men and didn’t understand the problem.
Moved to cold walk-ins and got rejected again because she had no credibility.
A man named Sam, who initially rejected Sara, pitched the idea to his daughters, who all thought it was brilliant. He still didn't know if it was a good idea, but Sara's enthusiasm when cold-pitching him sold him.
Getting It Into A Store
Cold-called Neiman Marcus. After many calls to get to the decision-maker, she finally got to one.
Her pitch was, "Hi, I'm Sara Blakely, and I invented a product that is going to change the way your customers wear clothes and if you give me a few minutes of your time, I'll fly to Dallas and show you."
The decision-maker agreed but only to the fact that Sara would only receive 10 minutes of demo time.
After arriving in Dallas, Sara asked the decision-maker to wear her product. The decision maker was so impressed she placed an order and put it in seven Neiman Marcus stores.
Product Placement
Turns out all the Spanx items were put into tiny pockets of the hosiery department, which made it nearly impossible for customers to discover them.
Sara moved the racks closer to the checkout lines without permission to catch people's attention.
This did little but it made her realize she needed to do a better job at marketing.
Marketing/Growth Hacking - No Money and No Experience
In 2000, took a chance and sent one to Oprah
Oprah's hairdresser got the package and placed it in her dressing room to try on.
Oprah then picked it as her favorite product of the year, resulting in an international sales explosion.
$4 million in revenue for that year.
In 2001, decided Q.V.C would be the move.
After demoing her product on that channel, she sold 8,000 units in less than 5 minutes.
$10 million in revenue that year.
Results
Today, Spanx generates more than $400 million annually with only 750 employees. That means each employee is generating more than $500,000 on average!
Due to her hard work and a little bit of luck, Sara Blakely was America's youngest woman self-made billionaire in 2012.