Originally, you were a salesperson, how did that play into being an entrepreneur?
It was a huge part of it. 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. My first account was Neiman Marcus. I cold-called them just like I had cold-called businesses when I was selling fax machines for seven years.
More: How Failure Molded Spanx’s Founder
