Even though most of you reading this are dudes, you are still very likely familiar with the CEO and founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely. She built her business into a $400 million+ brand before selling it for $1.2 billion, making her one of the wealthiest and most influential entrepreneurs in the world.
Her “invention” wasn’t some hot SaaS app or tech breakthrough, but a pair of control top pantyhose with the legs cut off. Early on, her marketing consisted of approaching people on the street, showing before and after pictures of her own butt in white pants to demonstrate how the product works, giving away samples and asking people to tell their friends.
When Sara finally landed the Nieman Marcus account, she didn’t think she’d “arrived” and let whatever happen happen. She saw this as THE chance to really build sales for her product. She said in an interview, “I wasn’t going to allow this to NOT work.”
She knew that Nieman Marcus wasn’t going to sell her product for her and that women who were shopping for clothing weren’t going into the lingerie department to look for shapewear to make them look better in the dress or pants they were buying.
Relentless Drive
So, for 2 years, she traveled all over the country on her own dime to stand in Neiman Marcus stores, without their permission or request, to personally promote and sell her product to their customers.
She looked at the situation and knew that her product would be put in the sleepiest corner of all department stores (lingerie). She knew that a sales clerk making $12 an hour wasn’t going to go out of their way to sell a $20 product. She initiated what she called “Spanx Days,” arriving at the store at 8:30 in the morning and spending the entire day working the store to sell her products. She organized a morning rally for ALL the sales reps (not just those in the lingerie department) before the store opened, holding contests and giving away free products and prizes to get them to her morning meeting so she could educate and motivate them to sell Spanx.
She would then stand at the entrance of the store for 6 to 8 hours, selling her product to people walking in. She bought cheap envelope holders from Target that would hold three to four pairs of Spanx and placed them at every register in the store, all without Neiman’s permission. When the clerks asked if she had permission, she lied and said she did. All of this was a BIG no-go for Neiman’s brand since they are very particular about how the store looks … so having her stack product by a register and hustle people as they came in the door was going against the rules.
But all of this led to a surge of in-store sales of Spanx, which got the attention of the CEO of Neiman Marcus, who then told his team to continue to let her do whatever she was doing.
Why Real Hustle Is Ongoing
What I just described to you is known as HUSTLE, which is a character trait that is seriously missing in not only most salespeople, but MOST entrepreneurs.
Be honest: Would YOU be willing to do what Sara did, particularly early on?
Would you be willing to stand in a public square for hours and approach total strangers to passionately sell them your idea? To risk having someone call the police on you? To risk someone ignoring you or telling you to bug off again and again, without losing steam or giving up? To risk standing there all day and not making a sale, then getting up early the NEXT DAY to do it again? And again? If you wouldn’t, I’d question how sincere you are about achieving your goal.
Hustle isn’t done in a day, a week or a month. It’s not a once-in-a-while thing. REAL hustle is ongoing. Sara didn’t do this for a season, but for YEARS to get the company off the ground. This IS what it takes if you are serious about growing your company.
A Giant Hole in the Bucket
A recent departing member wrote me to say he left because NONE of the program works for HIM because it requires “too much time to implement.” He wasn’t willing to “make all those calls” or clean a list, or send e-mails, post on social media, send out a newsletter, attend networking events or ask for referrals. ALL of that is too much to ask for “a small business like me.”
Exact words.
ZERO hustle.
One hundred percent of the blame on me, not him.
Another member who had not closed a single new client all year asked me to review their marketing to see where it was failing. They were generating leads, but only a tiny percentage were ending up as appointments, and none of them were closing.
In under 3 minutes I figured out why: ZERO sales efforts or follow-up. No phone calls. No packages mailed. No visits. They just put all of the leads they were getting into an e-mail drip campaign and “hoped.” The good news is that it didn’t take a lot of diagnostics and digging to figure out where the GIANT hole in the bucket was. They were blaming marketing and wanted me to help fix that when it was clearly a sales FAILURE.
Teaching hustle is hard to do. Most people believe they are working “hard” at something when they’re barely scratching the surface. Twenty prospecting calls a day is NOT “hard work.” It’s barely the minimum to get in the game. Many MSP owners see cold prospecting as “beneath” them and prefer “building relationships.” Nuts. You gotta go GET relationships started by attending networking events, trade shows, canvassing, cold outreach and asking for referrals—and in sufficient numbers so your pipeline overflows. How many of you are willing to do this?
Shoe Leather Sales and Persistence
A “secret” of Sara’s was the advantage she had of previously learning how to sell fax machines door-to-door to small businesses, in any kind of weather, no pre-marketing done, no brand awareness, no inbound leads, no welcome mat. Just shoe leather sales. Many rich people have the same inglorious, undignified, humble beginnings. I learned to sell via old-school cold-calling. No special lists, marketing, USP, brand awareness or inbound leads. Just call and SELL.
Early on, billionaire John Paul DeJoria slept in his car while selling his shampoo and conditioners door-to-door to hair salons. Legendary ad man David Ogilvy sold cookware to restaurants in a similar fashion. Daymond John created his own clothing line by figuring out how to convince rap artists to wear his clothes for one concert, one photo, then asking for it back since he was too broke to make more.
If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs, you’ll find a similar golden thread: HUSTLE. Whatever activities you’re doing today to get a customer in the door, triple it. Eliminate ANY and ALL distractions. Break the rules. Work LONG hours. PERSIST. If you have that kind of hustle, you don’t need a fancy campaign or script to succeed.
For more on customer acquisition, see The Painful Truth About Customer Acquisition Costs Right Now
