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My revenue was $4 million my first year in business, off of one $20 item.

Sara Blakely

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Sara Blakely
Age: 53
Born: 1971
Born: February 27
Businessperson
Businesswoman
Patron Of The Arts
Stand-Up Comedian
Clearwater
Florida
Revenue
Million
Millions
Year
Business
Firsts
First
Item
Years
Items

More quotes by Sara Blakely

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Within the first year of launching my company, Spanx, I decided to go over to England and cold-call Harrods, Harvey Nichols, and Selfridges the same way I had cold-called Neiman Marcus, Saks, Nordstrom, and Bloomingdale's here in the United States.
Sara Blakely
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Most of us want to tell our coworkers or friends, or husbands or wives, our ideas. For what reason? We want validation. But I feel ideas are most vulnerable in their infancy. Out of love and concern, friends and family give all the reasons or objections on why [you] shouldn't do it. I didn't want to risk that.
Sara Blakely
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I aim to be pretty - I gave up dressing to be sexy in the eighties.
Sara Blakely
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Everything about my journey to get Spanx off the ground entailed me having to be a salesperson - from going to the hosiery mills to get a prototype made to calling Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. I had to position myself to get five minutes in the door with buyers.
Sara Blakely
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If somebody can do something 80 percent as good as you think you would have done it yourself, then you've got to let it go.
Sara Blakely
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You’ve got to visualize where you’re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you’re going to be in a few years.
Sara Blakely
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What I most identify with is effortless fashion, looking as if someone's not put a lot of effort into their look.
Sara Blakely
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My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn't have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don't be afraid to fail.
Sara Blakely
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Money is fun to make, fun to spend and fun to give away.
Sara Blakely
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Whatever you can think, you can create just have a very clear vision... Once you have your snapshot, work on filling in the blanks to get to that place.
Sara Blakely
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Instead of failure being the outcome, failure became not trying. And it forced me at a young age to want to push myself so much further out of my comfort zone.
Sara Blakely
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When I was 7, I came up with the idea of 'charm socks.' My mom would take me to buy bags of plastic charms, we would sew them on frilly white socks, and I sold them at school.
Sara Blakely
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With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, ‘Where is the hidden blessing?’ In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.
Sara Blakely
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Ideas, even million-dollar ones, are most vulnerable in their infancy don't share them with too many people. However, don't hide your plan from people who can help you move it forward.
Sara Blakely
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Embrace what you don`t know
Sara Blakely
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I'm obsessed with the customer. I am the customer. I really don't think you can go wrong if you don't take your eye off of that. Serving the customer. How does she feel? I feel like the fashion industry has cared a lot about how we look but not about how we feel.
Sara Blakely
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The thing about fashion - it's like ducks going quack, quack quack. It's being dictated from above, and it just makes me want to rebel against it.
Sara Blakely
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I got a call from the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah had chosen Spanx as one of her favorite products in 2000. I had boxes of product in my apartment and I had two weeks notice that she was going to say she loved it on TV and I had no shipping department.
Sara Blakely
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I pledge to invest in women because I believe it offers one of the greatest returns on investment. I am committed to the belief that we would all be in a much better place if half the human race (women) were empowered to prosper, invent, be educated, start their own businesses, run for office essentially be given the chance to soar.
Sara Blakely
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Failures are life's way of nudging you and letting you know you are off course. Trying new things and not being afraid to fail along the way are more important than what you learn in school.
Sara Blakely