{"id":711,"date":"2012-03-12T21:54:53","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T21:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/blog\/2012\/03\/12\/small-business-quote-of-the-week-sara-blakely\/"},"modified":"2024-03-07T16:09:11","modified_gmt":"2024-03-07T16:09:11","slug":"small-business-quote-of-the-week-sara-blakely","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/blog\/small-business-quote-of-the-week-sara-blakely\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Things Sara Blakely Said about Starting a Small Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Sara-Blakely-e1331588162921.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1274\" title=\"Sara Blakely\" src=\"https:\/\/startwp.logomaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/Sara-Blakely-e1331588162921.jpg\" alt=\"Spanx Founder\" width=\"299\" height=\"327\"><\/a>Sara Blakely started her first business just out of high school\u2014a kid&#8217;s club at the local Hilton charging $8 to babysit a child while parents sat in the sun tanning. She wanted to go to law school, but when she failed the LSAT, she took a job at Disney World. After a few months, she joined an office supply company, becoming the national sales trainer in less than 5 years. But, like so many other business start-ups, her real break-though came when she tried to solve a nagging problem\u2014how to look firmer and eliminate the lines created by typical underwear. With just $5000, she launched Spanx and hasn&#8217;t looked back. Last week she was named to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/clareoconnor\/2012\/03\/07\/undercover-billionaire-sara-blakely-joins-the-rich-list-thanks-to-spanx\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"(Opens a new window)\" rel=\"noopener\">Forbe&#8217;s list of World&#8217;s Billionaires<\/a>, the youngest woman ever to achieve that success entirely on her own. But most impressively to us, she and Spanx have &#8220;paid it forward&#8221; by donating nearly $18 million to favorite charities. We&#8217;re inspired by her story and by some of the things she has said about starting a new business:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Most of the reason we don\u2019t do things is because we\u2019re afraid to fail. I just made a decision one day that I was not <em>not<\/em> going to do things in my life because of fear.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With every obstacle that has happened to me in my life, my brain immediately says, \u2018Where is the hidden blessing?\u2019 In starting a business and growing a business, every day is learning how to manage obstacles.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My advice for an entrepreneur just starting out is to differentiate yourself. Why are you different? What\u2019s important about you? Why does the customer need you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You\u2019ve got to visualize where you\u2019re headed and be very clear about it. Take a polaroid picture of where you\u2019re going to be in a few years.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Embrace what you don\u2019t know, especially in the beginning because what you don\u2019t know can become your greatest asset. It ensures that you will be doing things absolutely differently from everybody else.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Don\u2019t solicit feedback on your product, your idea, or your business just for validation purposes. Be really careful about that. You want to tell the people that can help move your idea forward. But if you\u2019re just looking to your friend, coworker, husband, wife, for validation, be careful. Because out of love&#8230; a lot of people will express some concerns, and it can stop a lot of multi-million dollar ideas right in their tracks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Sara Blakely, Entrepreneur, Founder of Spanx<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sara Blakely started her first business just out of high school\u2014a kid&#8217;s club at the local Hilton charging $8 to babysit a child while parents sat in the sun tanning. She wanted to go to law school, but when she failed the LSAT, she took a job at Disney World. After a few months, she [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":697,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,39,36,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advice","category-quotes","category-small-business","category-start-ups"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>6 Things Sara Blakely Said about Starting a Small Business | LogoMaker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Six inspiring quotes from Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) on fear of failure, getting feedback, embracing the unknown, and visualizing the future.||Six inspiring quotes from Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) on fear of failure, getting feedback, embracing the unknown, and visualizing 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