Your Seat At The Table With Sara Blakely (trailer.)

You're listening to Business Lunch with Roland Fraser. This is your seat at the table. Coming this Monday on Business Lunch with Roland Fraser, we've got Sarah Blakely. So listen in to find out what Sarah's father taught her that set her up for success. How she doubled down on her superpower as a salesperson by learning from certain motivational speakers. How she decides what products to work on and what she does to come up with her best ideas. So here's a taste.

So for anybody who doesn't know, Sarah founded a company called Spanx. Just so everybody kind of understands a little bit about the story, would you share kind of how it started and kind of how it came to be? Where did you.

Yeah, sure. I mean, I, I see a lot of men in the room, which is always really fun and interesting. And being interviewed by a man is also really funny.

We're going to distribute to all of the attendees. And then it was like, that just could be awkward.

So, well, I got interviewed by Coach K from the Duke basketball team and he spent 40 minutes interviewing me trying not to say the word panty. Like, he was so uncomfortable. And finally I just turned to him and I'm like, panty. It's okay, you can say it. He was bright red. It was really funny. So anyway, yes, thanks. What happened was I actually just took an idea in an industry that was very established, that had been doing things the same way for a really long time. So hosiery had been being made to be seen on the leg, and it was in a double digit decline, this industry. So the industry and what they had been doing for many, many years was no longer really serving women as much as it once was. So for me, showing up and saying, I just want your material and I want to make an undergarment out of your material that nobody can see was so confusing to them. I mean, it's almost like on autopilot. Like, no, we don't understand. I was like, your material will change the game. If you can help me figure out how to make it so that it's underneath the clothes and completely invisible, I don't even want to see it on the leg. But I knew as a consumer that hosiery material was so lightweight, it was like second skin. It wasn't going to make me feel like I was wearing workout clothes under my beautiful slacks or dress. And that if we could, if we could figure it out, we'd fill a lane for women. And that's exactly what happened so. Well, with Spanx, you know, I never had a business plan. I was very interested in creating a product that I knew I could sell. I actually wrote this in my journal when I was selling fax machines door to door. My life was pretty depressing. I was being kicked out of buildings almost once a week. I had people rip up my business card in my face at least once a week. And I was trying to sell $20,000 worth of fax machines in four zip codes in Clearwater, Florida a month. So all I did all day long was cold call. And I pulled over the side of the road one day and I just started crying. And I just remember thinking I'm in the wrong movie. Like this is not my life. Call the director, call the producer. Cut. This is not right. And I went home and I started asking myself, what am I good at? What could I possibly be good at?

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