From Fax Machines to Fortune: Sarah Blakely's Billion-Dollar Spanx Revolution | Sarah Blakely EP 705

0:00Hey everyone, this is Lewis Howes, and I am so excited to invite you to the Summit of Greatness 2024 happening at the iconic Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California. This is more than just an event. It's a powerful experience designed to ignite your passion, boost your growth, and connect you with a community of other inspiring achievers. Join us Friday, September 13th, and Saturday, September 14th for two days packed with inspiration and transformation from some of the most incredible speakers on the planet. Don't miss out on this chance to elevate your life, unlock your potential, and be part of something truly special.

0:34Make sure to get your tickets right now and step into greatness with us at the Summit of Greatness 2024. Head over to lewishouse.com slash tickets and get your tickets today and I will see you there. Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:56I sold fax machines door-to-door for seven years. Seven years. Did you wake up every morning and say, this is my dream to sell fax machines door-to-door? Or were you thinking, what am I doing in my life? Exactly. So what happened was, a lot of people think that Spanx started when I cut the feet out of my pantyhose, but actually it started long before that. It started when I was selling fax machines door to door and getting my business card ripped up in my face, being escorted out of buildings all day, every day, that I woke up one day and just thought, I'm in the wrong movie. Like, how did this happen?

1:28This is not my life. Cut scene, director, like, call the producer. and I got out a piece of paper and I wrote down, what am I good at? And the only thing in the good column was sales. And I thought, okay, what am I going to do with that? And I ended up writing in my journal, I'm going to invent a product and sell it to millions of people that will make them feel good. And then I asked the universe for an idea and I was very specific and it took two years and I only cut the feet out of my pantyhose one time and I was not going to squander any idea the universe gave me because I had really asked for it.

2:01And then the minute I cut the feed out, I started trying to make it. I started looking up manufacturers on the internet. This was before Alibaba, wasn't it? Yes. Because I did this about eight years ago and I used Alibaba for something and it was easy to find like a manufacturer in China and test different things. But how did you find a manufacturer at that time? A website called thomasregistry.com and it lists all the manufacturers in the country based on category. And that's when I found out that a lot of hosiery and undergarments were being made in North Carolina. Oh, really? Yeah. So you got a local.

2:34Yeah. So I called and called and no one would take my call and they'd either hang up on me or say they weren't interested. So I took a week off of work and drove around in person. And just showed up and said, hey, I want to create a sample. Yeah. Because if they weren't going to get a big order for something, they're probably like, what's, I'm not going to do a little sample for you. Right. Right. Yeah. I showed up with my lucky red backpack from college. It's always with me. You still have it? Yeah, of course. You didn't bring it here. Come on. It's with me. It's with me in LA. Oh, wow. Yeah.

3:07So anyway, I went into the manufacturing plants and they asked me the same three questions. And you are, let's say, Sarah Blakely. And you're with? Myself. Sarah Blakely. And you're financially backed by? And I was like, Sarah Blakely. So you can imagine how those went. I was like, well, have a nice day, honey, and good luck. and um about you know a few weeks after i made all those rounds i got a call from a guy in north carolina who had to pity on me and said sarah i've decided to make your crazy idea wow i'm gonna ask why the change of heart he said i have three daughters wow yeah so he ran the idea by them and they're like dad that sounds interesting you gotta give that girl a chance amazing so he called you back you didn't follow up with these people Oh, yeah, I was following up but gotcha no avail, but he he followed up and said yeah, we'll give it a shot Yes, we'll make this so what was the next step?

4:04Was he just making a sample for you or testing different models or sizes are yeah? So it just set up to make the garment while I was making it with his Manufacturing plant I was also wanting to patent the idea and I was also trying to come up with the name for the invention So I was doing those three things simultaneously driving up on the weekends and working with ted in the back of the manufacturing plant that I'd become very close with And i'm in north carolina from florida no from atlanta. I was living in atlanta at the time ted became my buddy And I went to get it patented but all the patent lawyers wanted between three and five thousand dollars And I had five thousand dollars set aside to do this.

4:42That's it. Yeah, so I wrote my own patent I went to Barnes & Noble and I bought a book called Patents and Trademarks. And I wrote the patent and then I called one of the patent lawyers that was the nicest to me and said, please, please, please, will you write the claims over the weekend for a discounted price? I've done all the other rest of the patent. The legwork you'd done. Yeah. You just kind of needed to button it up. Yeah, you needed to do the legal part. And so he did. He actually admitted to me that when I came to visit him, he thought I'd been sent by candid camera. Yeah, he thought he was being punked.

5:15He thought that his friends were playing a joke on him. No way. Yeah, he goes. Who's this girl? He goes, Sarah. I mean, like, you're not the typical person who walks in the door saying, I've got a product and I want to patent it. So anyway, he did that. Then at the same time, I'm trying to think of the name. I had horrible names written on scrap pieces of paper all over the place in my apartment, in my car, in rental cars, on the back of like Avis agreements. And you want to hear how bad the runner up name to Spanx was? Yeah. Open Toad Delilahs. No way. yes i cannot believe that was even an option it was it was a runner i was like how bad is that open toed delilah i so wouldn't be sitting here with you right now if i named it that that is the horrible yeah it's so bad wow yes so anyway okay so spake stand for well it's all about the butt and it makes your mind wander a little bit nobody ever forgets it i had no money to advertise it was risky it was fun at the time listen now it's become a household name but when i first invented it i would call people and say hi i'm sarah from spakes and they would hang up right because i They thought it was probably like a porn.

6:15Yeah, they thought I was pranking them. I'm like, no, really, I'm Sarah. My company really is called Spanx. And I had department stores across the country that wouldn't sell it. They thought it was too risque of a name. And my mom sent her whole lunch into the wrong website when I first started. I was like, mom, it's with an X. It's super important. It's with an X. So, yeah. Anyway, I ended up buying the word Spanx from a man who said he was holding out from the porn industry. It came to me because I narrowed down my thinking. I knew that Kodak and Coca-Cola were the two most recognized names in the world at the time.

6:51And I thought, what do they have in common? I like to think about words and phrases a lot. They both had a strong K sound in them. And the man that created Kodak liked the K sound so much he took a K and put it in the beginning and the end of the word and played with letters in the alphabet. And I also had a bunch of friends who did stand-up comedy and it's this weird secret among comedians that the K sound will make your audience laugh. So I put all that together and I'm like, okay, I want my product name to have the K sound in it for good luck. And literally Spanx came across my dashboard in my car in my mind and I pulled off the side of the road.

7:22I wrote it down. I went home that night. I typed it in my computer for$150 with my credit card. And at the last second, I backspaced the K and the S and put in an X.

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8:30Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.