Sara Blakely understands the power of show-and-tell. The inventor of Spanx shapewear and founder of the company that sells it, Blakely recalls pitching her first product, a pair of slimming, footless pantyhose designed to be invisible even under a pair of pants. A cold call to Neiman Marcus in 2000 got her a meeting, but after five minutes the buyer started to lose interest. Blakely ditched the prepared pitch and moved the meeting into the bathroom. There she changed into a pair of ill-fitting cream pants and pointed to the resulting lumps, bulges and panty lines. She modeled them again--this time with Spanx underneath--and closed the deal, no explanation necessary. Neiman Marcus promptly began selling Spanx.
This is the emotional experience--a beauty secret shared between friends in a ladies' room--that Blakely, 41, hopes to replicate with her company's first stand-alone retail store. Spanx plans to open its first three outlets in October at destination malls in Tysons Corner, Va., Paramus, N.J., and King of Prussia, Pa. While many other retailers are scrambling to transform their brick-and-mortar businesses into online empires, Blakely is doing just the opposite. After first selling Spanx in high-end department stores like Neiman Marcus, the company expanded quickly. The brand is now sold at nearly 12,000 retailers worldwide, from Europe to Australia. Spanx moved online in 2000, when the footless tights appeared on Oprah Winfrey's annual list of her favorite things. (Blakely quickly set up a website to handle the post-Oprah windfall.) Online sales of Spanx products have been "robust," according to CEO Laurie Ann Goldman, but the bulk of the company's sales still happen in stores. "Our business is all about emotion--this feeling of women coming together, being honest about the help they might need and knowing we're all in this together," Blakely says. "When you're doing everything online, you miss a lot of that connection."
Camaraderie and female support are woven into the corporate culture at Spanx. The walls of its Atlanta headquarters are painted hot pink, and Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" blasts in the background, making it feel more like a sorority house than a corporate office. (Blakely was a member of Delta Delta Delta at Florida State University.) Blakely says customers can expect this same "You go, girl" aesthetic at the Spanx brick-and-mortar stores. Some of the features are gimmicky, like an interactive "affirmation station" at which customers can hear positive catchphrases from Sunny, the cartoon doppelganger of Blakely that adorns Spanx's packaging. Blakely is serious, though, about training salespeople and making sure they can give customers firsthand advice about the products. "This is definitely a girlfriend-to-girlfriend business, and these stores are going to be a place where you can go and the sales associates know your name and your bra size," she says.