The Spanx Story
What's Underneath the Incredible Success of Sara Blakely's Billion Dollar Empire
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The Spanx Story
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Narrated by:
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Hayley Cresswell
About this listen
What can you learn from the most successful companies in the world? The Spanx Story will help you understand and adopt the competitive strategies, workplace culture, and daily business practices that enabled entrepreneur Sara Blakely to dominate the shapewear industry and become a billionaire.
Sara Blakely had a problem. She had a beautiful pair of white designer pants hanging in her closet just calling out to her to wear them, even though they accented her least favorite feature: cellulite. After searching high and low for a solution and coming up empty, an idea was born: Spanx.
The Spanx Story chronicles Sara’s journey from long nights researching patent and trademark law, to years of cold shoulders she received from the titans of the pantyhose industry, to the cold call that led to the shelves of Nieman Marcus. It was a long road of incredible hard work and determination that led Spanx to become the iconic brand it is today.
This book educates and inspires entrepreneurs and innovators to find the problem for their solutions and persevere through all of the hard work that goes into building a billion-dollar company. Through Sara’s story, you will learn:
- How to develop an idea and turn it into a business.
- How to start a company with very little capital by thinking outside of the box and dedicating every spare moment to your goal.
- How to recognize when it’s better to hire a CEO than to be the CEO.
- And, how to stay the course and continue to believe in your idea, despite naysayers and going against an industry resistant to innovation.
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What listeners say about The Spanx Story
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- J. Rulo
- 10-11-22
Good story for any entrepreneur
The story of Spanx is a good one but an unrealistic one for most entrepreneurs. She caught a few breaks quickly in the business development phase but she made the most of them which is the key to any successful business.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- yanelys thompson
- 12-26-24
Recommend to every woman in business!
Loved the business and life lessons on this book. Sarah’s talent and vision it’s truly inspiring, especially when it comes to making a great product… start small think big.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Hemali Tanna
- 10-28-20
Very enjoyable and inspiring
Sarah Blakely's story is enchanting - truly an entrepreneur and a doer! How she pressed on through all the challenges she faced when she was starting out is beautiful! The pace of the book is great, and the narrator is excellent!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Kathleen
- 12-10-21
Amazing Story
I loved each chapter of this story and hearing how Sara grew the company mostly by herself for the first few years. Never give up and failure is welcomed.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Mrs. Fergie
- 11-18-20
Inspiring, but...
Inspiring story, but I didn’t learn much information I hadn’t already heard Sara say in previous interviews.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Danielle S.
- 07-06-21
Life changing
This book was eye opening, kept my attention, and spark my continued passion to extend the olive branch and give .
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- AQuand
- 09-10-22
she's a force
entrepreneurship is a wonderfully messy thing and its encouraging to see behind the curtain. keep hustling
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Cindy P.
- 07-30-24
her story and drive!!
a fantastic book, i highly recommended. fun and enlightening story. light, easy, funny, entertaining reading.
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