The Spanx Story

What's Underneath the Incredible success of Sara Blakely's Billion Dollar Empire

Charlie Wetzel, Stephanie Wetzel

• Publisher: HarperCollins Leadership
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781400216178
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Storia aziendale
• Index: Business

What can you learn from one of the most successful companies in the world? The Spanx Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled entrepreneur Sara Blakely to dominate the shapewear industry and become a billionaire.

Sara Blakely had a problem. She had a beautiful pair of white designer pants hanging in her closet just calling out to her to wear them, even though they accented her least favorite feature: cellulite. After searching high and low for a solution and coming up empty, an idea was born: Spanx.

The Spanx Story chronicles Sara's journey from long nights researching patent and trademark law, to years of cold shoulders she received from the titans of the pantyhose industry, to the cold call that led to the shelves of Nieman Marcus. It was a long road of incredible hard work and determination that led Spanx to become the iconic brand it is today.

Through Sara's story, you will learn:

• How to develop an idea and turn it into a business.
• How to start a company with very little capital by thinking outside of the box and dedicating every spare moment to your goal.
• How to recognize when it's better to hire a CEO than to be the CEO.
• How to stay the course and continue to believe in your idea, despite naysayers and going against an industry resistant to innovation.

The Spanx Story educates and inspires entrepreneurs and innovators to find the problem for their solutions and persevere through the hard work that goes into building a billion-dollar company.

CHAPTER ONE

A BILLION-DOLLAR IDEA

Sara Blakely never set out to revolutionize and revive a dying industry, create a new category of clothing, or become a billionaire at age forty-one. As she has told it, all she wanted was to make a good impression at a party.

Standing by her closet door, Sara looked down at the invitation in her hand. For the young, single twenty-seven-year-old, still new to the big city, an invitation to a big social event in a swanky rooftop bar would have been a huge deal. Like many other recent transplants to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1998, Sara had moved there for work. A few months after relocating, she would have met and interacted with many of her coworkers in the offices of Danka, a national business machinery company.

Sara spent several days each week outside of Atlanta, visiting small cities and towns like the one where she’d grown up and been offered her first real job out of college. There at the Danka headquarters, in her cozy beach hometown of Clearwater, Florida, she had started selling fax machines door-to-door. But it didn’t take long for her work ethic and sales results to attract the attention of management. A fast learner and skilled salesperson, she was soon called upon to guide and help others in her department. And when it became clear that Sara was also a skilled instructor, Danka offered her a promotion—out of sales and into the training department at the regional office in Georgia. Now she spent her time teaching other salespeople throughout the country how to get a foot in the door, connect with potential customers, and close the deal.

Naturally outgoing and charismatic, Sara normally had no problem making friends. The invitation to this social gathering created a high-stakes opportunity for Sara. And it had to be more energizing than drinking office coffee while discussing sales strategies for office equipment.

Like everyone preparing to meet new people, Sara knew first impressions matter a great deal. Of course, when she walked into the room, it was important to look her best: professional, put-together, appropriate. The clothes she chose needed to meet those criteria. But it was even more crucial to look confident and relaxed. To appear confident and relaxed, she needed an outfit that would enable her to feel confident and relaxed. And, honestly, was that too much to ask?

That Moment in Front of the Closet

Sara has described in dozens of interviews that moment in front of her closet. And, according to her, the answer to that question was a resounding yes—it was too much to ask. Over and over, her eyes kept being drawn to a pair of brand-new white pants that would match perfectly with the light summer blouse and strappy sandals that she had in mind for the party. But the pants, which had looked amazing on the hanger and beautiful in the dressing room mirror, had yet to be worn out of the house. In fact, they’d hung there in the closet for eight months with the tags still on. For one thing, she said that seeing the trousers was a reminder that she’d paid too much for them—nearly $100—not to wear them. According to Sara, her attention immediately went to every imperfection, making her feel insecure and unsure of herself. So, every time, she ended up taking them off, hanging them back up, and changing into something else before leaving the house.

Picturing Sara in 1998, at just twenty-seven, she was pretty, slender, and petite. Her long blonde hair, white teeth, and casual vibe made her look like she’d grown up on the beach—which in fact she had. In her hometown of Clearwater Beach, Florida, Sara said she grew up where everyone wore shorts, flip-flops, and swimsuits—for eleven months out of the year. The professional attire that businesswomen wore in Atlanta was much more structured, formal, and expensive. “High fashion and design were foreign to me,” Sara said of her life before Atlanta.

Everything moved faster in Atlanta, too (aside from the traffic). People walked fast. Serious people in serious clothing strode purposefully to do serious work for serious employers. The men tended to wear dark-colored suits, ties, and shiny dress shoes. Even on Casual Fridays, they all wore a uniform of sorts, of khaki trousers and golf shirts. But the women’s attire really stood out. Many of them seemed to put a lot of effort into looking effortlessly fabulous. In downtown Atlanta, “I noticed everyone dressed up,” Sara said, “whether they were working in offices or . . . shopping or having lunch with their friends.” On the street, she noticed, “All of the women looked so cute, wearing pretty colorful dresses or little capri pants and high heels.” She said she wanted to look like she fit in—thus the white pants. And they didn’t just look great on the hanger; every time she put them on, they fit her perfectly. They fit the bill for “effortlessly fabulous”—in every way but the one that counted.¹

The problem with the pants—in a nutshell—was the rear view. Sara believed they looked amazing everywhere except on her rear. The issue was that she could not figure out what to wear under them. Regular underwear definitely didn’t work—the panty lines were lumpy and clearly visible. They drew attention to her backside for all the wrong reasons. She even tried the pants on over a thong a couple times, but she didn’t like how they felt. Plus, thong underwear solved only the VPL—visible panty line—problem; they didn’t help at all with her other issues. “I was terribly frustrated by not having the right undergarment available,” she said, “so I could wear those pants with comfort and confidence.”

Only a size two at the time, Sara was both tiny and physically fit. Yet she couldn’t help noticing what she described as “some cellulite on the back of my thighs that you could see through the pants.”² The curve-hugging trousers, both white and thin, made every bump and ripple stand out. That was not confidence-building.

With the party only weeks away, she stood paralyzed in front of her closet. For the anticipated warm summer evening, she’d already settled on a beautiful blouse and her favorite pair of high-heeled sandals. As she considered the bottom half of the outfit, her thoughts kept going back to the white pants. A good mix of businesslike and fashionable, they would project self-confidence and style.

The Shapewear Problem

Sara finally made a decision. This time, she was not going to put the trousers back on the hanger and try to find something else. She was going to wear the damn pants. This called for an undergarment expert.

Taking the pants with her, Sara started visiting local department stores. At each store, after weaving her way through racks to the beige back corner, she explained her problem to a lingerie salesperson. She soon learned that the solution was “shapewear,” which she’d never even heard of. But the clerk eagerly pulled several items off the shapewear rack, plopped the stack into her arms, and guided her to the dressing room. Willing to try anything, Sara gamely tried them on.

“When I put on the leggings they suggested, they were so thick,” she noted. Plus, she said they “provided more control than I actually needed, which made them extremely uncomfortable.” Instead of creating a smooth look under the pants, these undergarments actually created more lumps. Wherever the elastic components had been stitched together, the seams showed clearly through the pants. And even the smoothest underpants dug into her skin at the waist and along their bottom edge, creating ugly “dents” with bulges above and below.

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Every item she tried on made her feel like she was wearing running gear that didn’t fit right. Like a bad sports bra, the available shapewear tended to smoosh rather than smooth.

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“Those leggings weren’t solving my issue. If anything, it made things worse,” Sara said.³

And she knew right away that she could forget about feeling comfortable in any of them. Every item she tried on made her feel like she was wearing running gear that didn’t fit right.⁴ Like a bad sports bra, the available shapewear tended to smoosh rather than smooth.

Sara left every store empty-handed. Everything she had found was uncomfortable and totally inadequate. Then it suddenly occurred to her: pantyhose might be a great solution. She knew from experience that a good pair of control-tops would certainly smooth and shape her thighs and rear. And because she could wear them as her only undergarments, she’d have no VPLs.

Back at home, she tried on the whole outfit with pantyhose under the pants, and she was right. She felt and looked amazing—until she looked at her feet. With the hosiery seam obvious on her toes and peeking out of the sandals, she looked like somebody’s grandma.

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Back at home, she tried on the whole outfit with pantyhose under the pants, and she was right. She felt and looked amazing—until she looked at her feet. With the hosiery seam obvious on her toes and peeking out of the sandals, she looked like somebody’s grandma.

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Like most working women in the late 1990s, Sara was familiar with the shortcomings of pantyhose. After all, women at the time were expected to wear pantyhose all day, every day. Many employers spelled out the pantyhose requirement in office dress codes. Women in the southern United States dealt with the heat, itchiness, and overall discomfort of pantyhose at least seven months of the year. For Sara, the only loophole she discovered for skipping pantyhose was when she wore trousers. Only then could she wear sandals without a pantyhose seam.

The day of the party inevitably arrived. Out of other ideas by this point, Sara did the only thing she could think of. She cut the feet off her control-top pantyhose, enabling her to wear what was left of them out of sight under the long pants. And it worked! She felt completely confident and comfortable in the pants. “I looked fabulous, I felt great, I had no panty lines, I looked thinner and smoother,” she later said. “I remember thinking, ‘This should exist for women.’”⁵

She had no way of knowing that she had just come up with an idea that would change the world, one bottom at a time, and in a few years, make her America’s youngest female self-made billionaire.⁶

LESSON WE CAN LEARN FROM THE SPANX STORY: DON’T OVERLOOK YOUR OPPORTUNITY

What common problem, obstacle, or annoyance in your daily life can lead you to a breakthrough idea? What are you stepping over that you could or should be turning into a stepping-stone for your success? Open your eyes and look for your opportunity.

“For every failure, there’s an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour.”

—MARY KAY ASH,
Entrepreneur and Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics

CHAPTER TWO

AN UNLIKELY ENTREPRENEUR

The billion-dollar question is, Why, Sara? She wore her invention to that party in 1998, but after it was over, why didn’t she go back to her apartment, toss the ruined pantyhose in the garbage, go to bed, wake up the next morning, and get on with her life? Cutting the feet out of pantyhose wasn’t groundbreaking. It wasn’t even that unusual. Women had been doing it for years. What did she see in the idea that no one else had before her? And once she recognized the idea’s potential, how was she able to take it from concept to prototype to phenomenon—with no debt and no outside funding? How did she turn her life savings of $5,000 into $1 billion?

The short answer? She was ready. The long one? She had only just arrived at that point. For most of her life, Sara had been trying to get ready for something else entirely—but was thwarted or diverted at every turn.

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Once she recognized the idea’s potential, how was she able to take it from concept to prototype to phenomenon—with no debt and no outside funding? How did she turn her life savings of $5,000 into $1 billion?

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Taking Aim at an Early Age

From the age of eight, Sara Blakely knew exactly what she wanted to do when she grew up: she was going to be a lawyer, just like her dad. While other children progressed through career dreams that might include “fairy princess” or “movie star” or “firefighter,” Sara stuck with hers throughout her childhood.

In their hometown of Clearwater Beach, Florida, Sara’s father was a prominent trial attorney. She said that ...