The Queen Of Underwear Became The World's Youngest Self-Made Woman.

　　 Underwear Spanx, who is only 41 years old, has landed on the list of the world's richest men without her husband's help or inheritance. It is the youngest self-made billionaire.

　　 Sara Blakely (SaraBlakely) bare upper body and stand at the conference table. It was a Monday morning, at the headquarters of the underwear company Spanx in Atlanta. Its founder just attended the product research and development conference, and suddenly went out five minutes later. Another minute passed, and she was only wearing a gray lace. Bras Black trousers and cream colored shoes went back to the conference room. She adjusted the costume before the dress mirror and complained loudly about the metal clasp on the early sample. Will they make their clothes bulge up? LaurieAnnGoldman, her chief executive, Laurie Ann Goldman, a lady in a leopard print dress, charming and charming, has helped her get a bra buckle.

This conference room looks like a boudoir designed by Willy Wanka, the magical chocolate factory owner in WillyWonka (Charlie and chocolate factory): here is a jar of gum, with a dog's checked fabric. Although I myself and her five colleagues were present, Blakley was still free to take off her bra and change to another suit, and there was no shame in it. In the past ten years, in order to control every detail of this new type of women's dress -- body sculpting underwear, she has never been reluctant to face the public in a semi nude image. Everything in the company started with the magic product she invented and sold everywhere in her apartment.

Today, Spanx's position in the underwear industry is comparable to that of Kleenex (Kleenex) in the field of tissues. The company's annual revenue is slightly below $250 million, and its net profit margin is about 20%. In recent months, four Wall Street investment banks have assessed Spanx separately, with an average valuation of up to $1 billion. The Forbes reporter confirmed the data with the help of industry analysts. Blakley, a wholly owned company that has not yet been listed, has no debts, has never received external investment, and has not paid a cent of advertising. This year, she is only 41 years old. She has landed on the list of the world's richest men without her husband's help or inheritance. She is the youngest self-made billionaire. The number of American women who earn ten figure family by their own strength is very few. They are all elites. Apart from brek, they include Oprah Winfery (OprahWinfrey) and Meg Whitman (MegWhitman).

From Betty Glebo (BettyGrable) to Kim Kardashian (KimKardashian), many women boldly use their natural advantages to get ahead and become rich. Like Blakley, it is necessary to overcome three kinds of phobia - fear of heights, fear of flying and stage fright. Blakley said she was always on business. She feels dizzy when she is in a tall building. (when she lives on the 37 floor of an apartment building in Manhattan), she often cries when she flies to the air. Without iPod, she refused to board the plane at all, because every time she took off, she had to listen to Mark's song "WhatItIs" to relieve the tension of MarkKnopfler. "My palms are full of sweat, panic, and heartbeat." Blakley said. She occasionally sends the word "I" to "Ah", which must have been brought up in Florida. For a while, she had to summon up the courage to show up 6 to 12 times a month on QVC TV shopping channel to promote her products. Now Spanx is quite well-known, and these kinds of errands usually only need once a month, but it can last several hours every time. Blakley had practiced a single crosstalk in his early years to exercise her own ability to overcome her nervousness and anxiety, and occasionally she would perform on stage. "Every time I came to the stage, I was so frightened that I almost vomited," she recalls. "I understand why people call the actors' lounge" greenroom "lookgreen.

Spanx was originally a woman's one-man show. At the beginning of her career, Blakley used a folding table to promote her new invention in the lobby of Neiman Markus (NeimanMarcus) in the boutique department store. Beside her, there was a huge contrast picture of the front and rear buttocks: on the side of the picture, she wore white trousers, and her bikini shorts were clearly visible and embarrassing. On the other side, she was wearing Spanx $30 body pants (Wow, completely removed the embarrassment).

Over the past few years, Spanx has been selling underwear and maintaining its leading position relative to several imitative manufacturers, which no longer rely on the face of the body and other parts of the body. The company is now run by a team of 125 people, of whom only 16 men sell 200 products through Spanx, including 1.15 000 department stores, boutiques and online shopping centers in 40 countries. Retailers around the world scramble for opportunities to cooperate. Goldman said: "in the international market, we have just started warming up."

Spanx sends nine product catalogues to 6 million consumers every year. Blakley still likes to put on the cover only with Spanx, but she knows that Goldman, 49, won't agree too much. "I'm interested in doing everything," Blakley said. "Company colleagues have to pull me back." It was Goldman who created the first business plan for Spanx, even though Blakley opposed it at the time and thought it would hinder innovation. Blakley acted slightly impulsively, and prudent Goldman was her good partner.

Her husband Jesse Itzler (JesseItzler) will only encourage her impulse. At the age of 43, he is a rapper from Long Island, New York. He and his wife are keen on starting their own business and have been involved in the creation of several start-ups, including the MarquisJet of the retail business aircraft. When I met him at his office in midtown, Manhattan, he hurried down the stairs with his belt around his head, and his golden curly hair was dripping with sweat. He had just done a high-intensity aerobic exercise with a seal commando. He hired the soldier to stay with him for a month with Blakley. He used to rent home from his office, but he could not help but grab the steering wheel to drive himself. An all-around seals will be more cost-effective.

For Blakley's achievement, he was surprised and smiled. "Half of her is Lucille Bauer (LucilleBall, the late famous comedians), the other half is Einstein, and I still have a pile of Sara's performance on my cell phone." He jokes that he refers to Blakley's "happy moments" here. "This interesting thing happens every day." Recent examples: mistakenly wearing two different shoes, a red Christian Louboutn, and a light colored boot, had to limp up to the blooming DELL department store. The most legendary: when attending a Screen Actors Guild Awards awards ceremony, Blakley found herself in the limousine and left her jewelry in the hotel. But she did not hurry to turn back. Instead, she told the driver to stop by a candy store, and then bought a candy chain and bracelet with good extension to decorate her dress. Spanx fans often recognize her in the streets, shops or airports, eager to show her loyalty. "Some women will open their coats and show her the Spanx underwear directly," said Ed. "Think about it. She has done so successfully. She is the best."

Blakley was not an early ambition to be an inventor, but she really had a good idea of selling goods. Her parents were personal injury lawyers and artists. When she was born in Clearwater, Florida, she was always looking for opportunities to make money. Every Halloween, she will set up a "haunted house" to collect fees for neighbors who want to go in and explore. By using Tom Soya's tricks, she can also pack herbicides and other things into some kind of competition, and induce her friends to help her finish the chores. In the girlhood, she was a popular cheerleader and the champion of the debate team (when she had no stage fright), and the people who could do all two things at the same time were really rare.

However, the sunny childhood soon ended with a series of tragedies. Riding a bicycle wandering around a dead alleyway near her home, her best friend died under her eyes. "I think if you see death at the age of 16, you will inevitably feel a sense of urgency in life," she said. "I think that my life is limited. I often think about this problem, and I think it is inspiring, because your destiny may come to an end at any time."

In the same year, Blakley's parents separated. Before long, two boys who had attended the formal dance with her were all killed. She seeks comfort through her father's WayneDyer speech tapes. The inspirational master's speech on how to break her limits has ten tapes, all of which are remembered in Wayne Dale's heart. The teaching of DELL's self actualization and elimination of misunderstandings impressed her deeply, so that she rushed to the principal's office and suggested that the school tape be classified as a compulsory course in Clearwater high school. Friends are not waiting to see her change. "Before that, everyone would rush to take me home at the end of the party," recalls brerecrey. "But then no one would like to ride with me - they would say," no! She will force us to listen to those broken things about encouragement! "

In 1990, she started a business at the Hilton Hotel in Clearwater beach. She opened a nursery in the Hilton Hotel at the beach to take care of the children who were busy with sunbathing for a few hours, charging 8 dollars for each child. She had just graduated from high school and had no experience and no cardiopulmonary resuscitation training. For three summers, she was lucky enough to escape supervision until she tried to rob customers from other hotel summer camps. 20 year old brek, wearing the first business suit bought from CasualCorner, went to the general manager of Hilton Hotel to discuss this matter, which turned out to be a question of his qualifications. "Without exaggeration, he escorted me out of the hotel." Blakley recalls.

After receiving a degree in judicial communication from Florida State University, Blakley took the LSAT exam for the two time, trying to get into law school, but his two performance was pretty bad. Frustrated, she drove from Clearwater to Orlando for a job in the local Disney park. She wanted to play Goofy, but the uniform of the role required the actor to be 5 feet 8 inches (1.73 meters) tall, and she was two inches behind. As a result, she got the job: working in the sports world of Carter's theme park (WorldofMotion, now closed), standing on the mobile aisle for 8 hours every day to help the tourists fasten their seat belts. "I think I didn't want to face the reality at that time, because I grew up feeling that I would become a lawyer," Blakley said. When she was a child, she liked to see her father in the court. "But it didn't work. On the first day of Disney's work, I saw snow white smoking while I was resting."

After three months of Disney's hard work, Blakley applied for another job on the basis of an advertisement she saw on a notice board. She spent the next 7 years at Danka, a $1 billion Florida office appliance company, but now bought by Ricoh, a Japanese printer giant. This experience taught her the art of telemarketing. "They gave me a checker room, a telephone directory, designated four postal districts in Clearwater, and said to me," now you sell one by one, and you need to sell a fax machine worth 20 thousand dollars in a month. " She recalls.

Blakley found that she was faced with the experience of being escorted from the office building. "There are even people who tear away my card face to face because I am too active in marketing." However, with her approachable charm, beautiful face and skilled debate skills, she became a national sales trainer of Danka at the age of 25.

Like many other start-ups, the creation of Spanx stems from the solution to a vexing problem. Whether in Disney or Danka, he has to wear pantyhose, but they are uncomfortable and old. "This is Florida, the weather is so hot, and I have to move the fax machine." She said. Wearing toe sandals or short heels is particularly uncomfortable with panty hose feet. But she noticed that the waist and hip design of pantyhose removed the possibility of underwear lines and made her petite look even more upright. At that time, she bought a milky white trousers from the ArdenB women's clothing store for 78 dollars and wanted to wear it to the party. "I cut off the toe of a pantyhose and then put it under my trousers," she said. "The stocking legs rolled up all night. I remember thinking at that time, "I have to figure out how to solve this problem." I've never worked in fashion or retail. I just need a kind of underwear, but it doesn't exist yet.

At the time, brek, 27, moved to Atlanta and took out all the savings of $5000. In the next two years, he worked meticulously on how to launch his products for Danka's nine to five job. She spent seven nights in the library of Georgia Polytechnic University, studying all the stockings that had been patented. She also visited craft shops like Michaels to find suitable fabrics. She found a phone call from the yellow pages for stocking factories, calling each other to ask for OEM, which was rejected repeatedly. However, many years of door-to-door marketing experience has long denied her immunity, so she decided to visit. In the Acme-McCrary stockings factory in Ashe borough, North Carolina, she was rejected again, but two weeks later the manager called her again. The manager said that her daughters felt that Blakley's invention should not be missed. Today, the Spanx products are manufactured in 15 countries, including Thailand, Israel and Honduras, but cotton crotch is still hand sewn in North Carolina.

In order to save $3000 in attorney fees, she bought textbooks from Bano (Barnes&Noble) bookstore, wrote her own patent application, and then spent $150 to set up a company. The name of the company also annoyed her for a while. After trying a few bad ideas, she decided to take the name of Spanks, but at the end of the moment, she changed "KS" to "X", because she read a saying: the product name created is more conducive to promoting sales. The word "Spanx" is very interesting, "she said." it makes people laugh and never forget. In the summer of 2000, she spent a lot of time in front of her friend's computer and worked hard to design product packaging. She chose cherry red, and then with the help of a graphic artist, she created a golden hair cartoon model with long ponytail and named it Sunny - this is Blakley's comic portrayal.

In the same autumn, brek flew to Dallas to meet with Neiman Markus's purchasing staff. Neiman Markus, the current CEO of KarenKatz, was the chief executive of the department store in charge of all the high-end chain stores, and she remembered that Blakley had seen sales in a conference room in. "Sara is committed to solving an ancient problem in modern ways." Katz said. She also adds that the obvious charm of brek and the unusual background stories are also helpful. "We were fascinated from the very beginning." After taking Neman, Blakley persuaded the top department stores such as DELL, Sax and Podolf Goodman to give her a chance.

At that time, breik worked in Danka during the day and kept the sideline as a top secret. All night, she was busy ordering Spanx products into the white envelopes bought from OfficeDepot. She is a gold medal customer service in 7 days and 24 hours. Even in the bathtub or bed, she never forget to answer the phone. Her boyfriend also resigned from work, responsible for delivery and handling matters.