Sara Blakely on how she sold SPANX out of department stores herself for two years

But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that's when you have arrived. That's when I double timed. I got on a plane and was gone for two years straight. And I went to every department store in the country that sold Spanx, every Neiman Sachs, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale's. And I would go before the store open and do an all store rally and tell them what my product was, explain it to them, do a demo, give out free product and then stand there in the department for, you know, eight hours a day and tell customers what it was. Because I didn't have any money. Advertisers, I was selling it for them. But what I didn't realize I was doing was I was building a sales force not on my payroll. Because all these people started to become ambassadors, Ambassadors. And they were rooting for me and they loved the product. That was a really important part of the formula. And then I learned what my next products were going to be because I was standing right there with customers and they told me what they wanted. Amazing. Yeah. This is unbelievable. You were like willing to do whatever it takes, above and beyond. Totally.