Make Your Billion Dollar Idea A Reality | Sara Blakely EP 749

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11I wanted to be a lawyer, but I failed the LSAT not once, but twice. So then instead of going to law school, I drove to Disney World and tried out to be goofy, but you have to be 5 '8". And you're 5 '6". And I'm 5 '6". And so I was the height of a chipmunk. So you got the chipmunk? I got the chipmunk part, but I didn't end up doing it. I put people on rides in a brown polyester spacesuit at the World of Motion and Horizons at Epcot. Epcot Center. And I would see people that I hadn't seen in a while and come through. Yeah. I'm walking on the moving sidewalk, putting people on rides and they'd go, Hey, Blakely, is that you?

0:45Didn't you graduate from college? And my big Mickey mouse here said, Sarah Blakely. And I'd be like, yes, get on the ride. Oh my gosh. But that's what I did. And then I 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? Were you thinking, no, 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 car 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.

1:23Like, how did this happen? This 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.

1:57And then the minute I cut the feet out, I started trying to make it. I started looking up manufacturers on the internet. 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. 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 and you're financially backed by. And I was like, Sarah Blakely. So you can imagine how those went.

2:36It's like, well, have a nice day, honey. And good luck about, you know, a few weeks after I made all those rounds, I got a call from a guy in North Carolina who had pity on me and said, Sarah, I've decided to make your crazy idea. Wow. And then I asked him why he had the change of heart. He said, I have three daughters. Yeah, so he ran the idea by them. And they're like, Dad, that sounds interesting. You got to give that girl a chance. 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.

3:18and I went to get it patented, but all the patent lawyers wanted between three and$5 ,000. And I had$5 ,000 set aside to do this. That's it. Yeah. So I wrote my own patent. I went to Barnes and 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. So that was the hard part. And then once I had it, I cold called Neiman Marcus. And that was the first account I called on.

3:53Did you get it? I was so excited. It was my moment. I flew to Dallas. I called them and said, if you give me 10 minutes of your time, I'll come and meet with you. And she said, all right. I went in and halfway through my pitch, I could tell I was losing her. So I said, you know what? Will you please come to the bathroom with me? And she was like so buttoned up. I mean, Neiman Marcus, like her pen matched her belt that matched her shoes. And she was like, what am I going to do in the bathroom? I was like, just follow me to the bathroom and show you my own panty line. And I went in the stall with Sphinx and my pants and without it in my pants.

4:24And she was like, Oh, I totally get it. It's awesome. And I'm going to put it in seven stores. Wow. Yeah. I mean, just like that, just like that. It was so unbelievable. I was so nervous. So I paid all my friends and friends of friends to go buy the product. that is brilliant and I said to get some yeah I said go in I said I gave him a whole script I'm like go in and say I've been looking for this all my life I can't believe it's here and create all this excitement this is amazing and then of course a week later the knee I talked to the Neiman's buyer and she's like Sarah we are blowing out I'm like you don't say no way well I was buying them all yeah brilliant you have to wow you have to you have to ensure your own success absolutely so then once I started running out of money Oprah called and put it on as her favorite product of the year.

5:09So unbelievable. I had no money to advertise in the back of my apartment. I was selling fax machines like a month before that, but I have to say I was working every night and on the weekends for two years, quietly trying to get this thing, building it. I had no option in my mind. I was like, I am scripting a new life for myself. But when I got Neiman Marcus, I think a lot of people think that's when you've arrived. That's when I double-timed. I mean, I, 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.

5:42And I would go before the store opened 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 averages. 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 so ambassadors and they were rooting for me and they loved the product. And so 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 let's say what they need.

6:22They told me what they wanted. I can't do this. They told me what they wanted. Amazing. Yeah.

6:33I am so excited for you to finish the rest of your day strong. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description and it'll take you to the full episode of my other show, The School of Greatness. Make sure to come back tomorrow for another episode of The Daily Motivation Show.