YouSaid · the spoken record

Estée Lauder

lines on the record: 57
first: 2021-11-18
most recent: 2021-11-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Whatever your target is, big or small, grand or simple, ambitious or personal. I've always believed that success comes from not letting your eyes stray from that target. Anyone who wants to achieve a dream must stay strong, focused, and steady. She must expect and demand perfection and never settle for mediocrity. If you push yourself beyond the furthest place you think you can go, you'll be able to achieve your heart's dream.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“An empire of her wishes, and don't allow anyone to say you can't have it all. You can you can have it all if you're willing to work. I always believe that if you stick to a thought and carefully avoid distraction along the way, you can fulfill a dream. My whole life has been about fulfilling dreams. I kept my eye on the target, whatever that target was, I never allowed my eye to leave the particular target of the moment.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then this is Este once again on the importance of wishes, dreams, and victories. First comes the wish. Then you must have the heart to have the dream. Then you work and work. From where you sit, you can probably reach out with comparative ease and touch a life of serenity and peace. You can wait for things to happen and not get too sad when they don't. That's fine for some, but not for me. Serenity is pleasant, but it lacks the ecstasy of achievement. I have insisted on the long stretch rather than the gentle reach. I celebrate this sweet country where the work ethic and the beauty ethic walk hand in hand. Living the American dream has been intense, difficult work, but I couldn't have hoped for a more satisfying life. I believe that potential is unlimited. Success depends on daring to act on dreams. How far do you want to go? Go the distance. Within each person is the potential to build.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“and achievers from all walks of life seem to know the secret. And then this is not myself as the hard work is all worth it. Imagine how good this would feel. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to believe what hard work and prayer have brought me. They've taken me from carrying a tiny bottle of cream in my purse on the off chance I'd meet a woman who needed a quick lift to seeing a streamlined white streak as I drive along the long island expressway, 33 miles due east of Manhattan. That streak is my factory and as my car approaches my name gets larger and larger. It is a thrill that will never diminish for me. My name not in lights as the little girl from Queens dreaming of being an actress hoped to see, but my name on a working monument to beauty.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Trust your instincts. I discovered that pondering facts and other people's judgments usually leads me down the wrong path. Common sense, instinct. Trust that part of yourself, whatever you call it. Act tough. What other calls tough I call persistent. If you know you're correct, you must be firm and not bow to pressure. Too often women are taught as little girls that sweetness is more valuable than persistence or stubbornness. Little boys, on the other hand, are taught to win. Persistence in being tough can make for success. I can't count the number of little plaques that Ronald, that's one of her sons, has given out that red it can be done. I agree. Anything can be done if you're certain it's right and you stay firm.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Couple lauderisms, there's a bunch. Obviously, pick up the book if you want to read all of them. Keep your image straight in your mind. From the beginning, I never, or excuse me, I knew I wanted to sell the top of the line, finest quality products to the best outlets rather than have through drug stores and discount stores. And so we have. We don't do dungarees. We don't do tablecloths. We do the best skin products available today. The best makeup and fragrance products. Another one, keep an eye on the competition. This doesn't mean copying them, as I've made clear. Being interested in other people's ideas for the purpose of saying we can do it better is not copying. Innovation doesn't mean inventing the wheel each time. Innovation can mean a whole new way of looking at old things. She's going to say learn to say no, Steve Jobs has told us focus is saying no. Saying yes all the time stems from a childish desire to please and be loved by all the time. Executives must say no to inferior products and ideas.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Mind how I did it. I'm sending you more. You don't sell cosmetics, he responded. You sell yourself. We opened in Canada. Now do you see why I mentioned earlier if she could be reincarnated, she could be brought back, how difficult it would be just to compete with somebody like this? It's crazy. So her main message in the book, though, I would say is be determined and sell. Something she repeats over and over again. Let's get a little bit into that. It's not enough to have the most wonderful product in the world. You must be able to sell it. One woman with definitive ideas, pride in her product, and a hands-on approach can lay the foundation of a strong business. Creating the finest perfume in the world is an accomplishment, making people aware of its existence, let alone getting them to try it is sometimes harder to do than creating the product in the first place. And so this is again her obsession, her ongoing obsession with the quality of her products packaging, and where she feels. She actually makes a really good point here about, okay, selling it's probably in getting them to try, it's probably even harder than making it, right?”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you don't, you've lost nothing. Okay, he said. But send me just a few bottles and only the oil. So as I was wrapping the bath oil to send from New York to Canada, I decided to put in a few more creams with a note, take these on consignment also. You certainly wouldn't want to have to say no to any woman who asks if there's anything else in this line, right? And then's response. What about our exclusives with the other company? What about my lack of spate? What about what about what about? He sputtered when I spoke to him later. Look, you must go with the trend. With the world, I said. Everyone is using this bath oil and these creams in America. You don't have to pay me for them until you sell them. Oh, okay, he said in resignation. When I came to make my personal appearance at the opening of the Estay Lauder in Canada, my sales department sent everything. The bath oil, the cologne, the youth do cream, and so on and so forth. And little boxes of powder I could give away as gifts. We sold out of everything. The buyer came down to see me after three or four days. How did you do it?”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Getting the demand from the ground up, just how she did with sex, if you really think about it. Customers also appeared. I was on my way. Women began asking for Este Lauder. That's why I just said what I said to you. The Harris buyer was reluctant to notice, but she had no choice. In the flush of a good week's sales, I summoned up the courage to ask if she could give me a more important counter. Oh no, she said. Other counter space is definitely not available. About six months later, I made my third trip to London. Well, we seem to have many London women asking for your product, she grudgingly admitted. I think I'll give you a small spot at a more prestigious counter. And that was how Este Lauder came to Europe. So this is about how she gets into Canada. She's good. She does. Everything I'm about to tell you, she did after being told no. She's talking to the buyer. You need a bath oil, I told him. She says, no, no, no, no, no. Women would love to come into a department store instead of a drugstore to buy it. Look, buy it on consignment. If you sell it,”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, the answer was no. There was no space at this time. There was no call for my products. This wasn't the right time of year. Maybe another time, et cetera, et cetera. I stayed in England for a month visiting every beauty editor to make my name known. I was getting write-ups, but no Herod's order. It was looking very bleak. The next year I went back to London Anne Herod's Sanash talks to the same buyer as a year later. She was not as quite as hostile, but she says, let me tell you, I have no room here as I told you before, she said, but perhaps I could take a tiny order and put it in with the general toiletries. It won't be next to the good cosmetics, that you'll have to understand Miss Lauder. So she's tiny order, not in a place she wants. It's not a victory yet. I visited every one of those beauty editors again to remind them of me. Another round of makeups, another round of samples. Do you think you might write another piece I asked now that we're in London at Harrods? The articles appeared. Customers also appeared. I was on my way. Women became, remember how it's kind of like going up from getting...”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Editors of various magazines. This is in London. She would do the same thing, give them gifts, give advice, make them up, okay? Yes, they'd be happy to write a piece about my products. What store in London would be carrying them? My products are not available in London. I had to be my reply. Well, she answered, I'll write a piece saying that Este Lauder's cosmetics will be coming soon. Again, I went to Harrods.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Perfume. That would be acceptable to buy because it was feminine all American and very girl next door to take baths, wasn't it? And so think about the difference in size of bath oil, how many ounces you would sell compared to the size of like a perfume or cologne. We created a mini revolution in the whole world. As I saw it, it took on a fresher, more stimulating aspect. Instead of using their French perfumes by the drop behind the ear, women were using youth dew by the bottle in their bath water. It doesn't take a graduate school of business to figure out that that meant sales, beautiful sales. In nineteen fifty three, youth do about fifty thousand worth of business for us. In nineteen eighty four, that figure was over one hundred fifty million dollars. That is just one of her products. That is crazy. In 1953, 53, YouTube did fifty thousand worth. Thirty years later, it was doing $150 million a year. I think the legendary Chanel put it best.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fights to get it back. I covered that. I think it's Founders number 199. But anyway, she signs the deal where she gets 2% of all sales of Coco Chanel number five or any perfume, but Coco Chanel number five winds up becoming one of the most successful commercial products of all time. I think she signs the deal in 1947, if I recall correctly, that pays her. What she says, okay, I'm going to get 2% of all sales for the rest of my life, and you have to pay every single of my living expenses. Large or small, right? One of the craziest deals in history. Make sure the richest woman in the world at the time, if I'm not mistaken. Page is like $25 million a year every year till the day she dies.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, in this next few pages later in this paragraph, she compares two ideas that I think is fantastic. Relentlessly resourceful, which comes from another Paul Graham essay. I think that's the clearest description of how he would describe the art of entrepreneurship. Relentlessly resourceful and seeing your goal in your mind helps you see it in person. We've seen that over and over again. Make the most of what you have. I operated full time on that precept. If you can't have everything you think you deserve at the moment, you will do well to surround yourself with symbols of your ideals. In that small office, her very first office, I surrounded myself with touches of the good life, the lovely and intricately tapestried life of my imagination, an imagination that has always been, I'm proud to say, large enough to admit any possibility. So one of the craziest stories I've ever heard in studying the history of entrepreneurship is the fact that Coco Chanel, when she was a young entrepreneur, she mistakenly gave away 90% of her perfume company. Two decades later, she”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, another thing that Bill talks about in his talk is the fact that you develop pure relationships, not only in your field, but you can also learn from fields adjacent to your own. And the way Este would describe that same idea is never underestimate the value of an ally. Here's an example of that. Never underestimate the value of an ally. So she's talking about somebody she met in the beauty industry that worked for other companies. Her name is Helen Blake. You know she would say to me quite casually during a phone call, I think you might give Miss Pope, the merchandise manager from Woodward a call. I was with her yesterday and she mentioned that I look wonderful. I told her it was due to your cosmetics. And, well, I think she'd like to know more about you. That instant, I would call Miss Pope. If you don't do important things when you think of them, you probably never will and may lose out. Today they call this networking, the sharing between business colleagues. It is one of the most powerful tools in the business.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Advice. I promoted beauty. I made friends. Everywhere I made friends. There is no such, oh, this is fantastic. There is no such thing as bad times, I kept telling myself. There is no such thing as bad business. Business is there if you go after it. Oh, this is a fantastic idea, too. Give your full effort always everywhere. No community was too small for my attention. My absolute full efforts. I had ridden for an instance on a bus for six hours to open a small store and Corpus Christi, Texas, the store's clientele was modest in size and economics. No matter.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Almost against their will, but she looked at herself. She couldn't believe it. I gave her a little bit of everything to take home. She still writes me. How crazy is that? And then this is, she talks about, you know, I talk to everybody in an elevator going on and on to this day. I still receive mail from women I met all over the world, met, touched, and made up during spontaneous moments. And so she also does this not only with customers, but also with influential people, with people that work in her industry, people that can be helpful to her. One note left on this page, one word relentless. To this point, the point was to keep thinking, keep placing the products in the public eye, keep devising new ways of capturing the consumer's attention. During the week, I usually spent at an opening promotion, I made it my business never to leave a town without seeing every beauty editor of every magazine and newspaper. I bought them samples, made their faces, gave them beauty.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They can focus on their interest more steadily than their youthful counterparts. It takes a certain tunnel vision, the ability to look directly ahead until the daylight is in sight. Older women are not quite as easily distracted. Women are usually more successful when, believe it or not, they have an advantage of years. And so let's go back to this thing that I've mentioned a couple times that if you're on the train with her or you're in an elevator, you're getting a product demonstration. And I know that myself is how many people are willing to put in this type of effort, recruiting customers one by one. In the early days, I spent an endless amount of time riding the rails. The sound of train wheels became background music to my dreams. That's just good writing. As I traveled around the country to be present at each SA Lauder Counter opening, I met women who would one day be my customers. At least I hoped they would be. To that end, I never stopped talking to people. Not ever. So she talks about she sees this woman on train. You know, I'd love to make”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our first year sales amounted to about $50,000, expenses ate up just about every dime, no matter forward And then Este has another great trade where she takes something that other people see as a disadvantage and flips it to her advantage. And so she's talking about the fact that she started her business, quote unquote late, which I think the numbers, if I'm not mistaken, actually support her. It's much more likely for an entrepreneur in their 40s to succeed than it is in a young person. Doesn't mean obviously you can't. You can't succeed as a young person. But this idea that somehow there's a window. And if the window closes, it's too late. I'm pretty sure the data I've seen on this is the exact opposite. And so she flips this trait or the fact that she was older that some people think, oh, you have a disadvantage. She's like, no, no, you're actually mistaken. It's an advantage. I started late. I didn't have the time for waiting nor I guess the disposition. By the way, it's never too late to start a business. Women of a certain age are seasoned enough to bypass certain frivolities. You know the word I'm trying to pronounce. Certain temptations.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The route around the stone wall. It's the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says give up. Just before we decided to commit ourselves to cosmetics full time, our accountant and lawyer took us out to dinner. They had something grave to tell us. Don't do it was the advice. The mortality rate in the cosmetics industry is high, and your rule the day you invested your savings and your time to do this impossible business. I hate when people give this advice. It's just another way to say, which I think is the worst advice that any human can give to somebody else. Be realistic. Makes me want to vomit. So it says the mortality rate in the cosmetics industry is high. You'll rule the day you invested your savings and your time into this impossible business. Don't do it. We did it. Mark Twain once said something like keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that. But the really great make you feel that you too can become great.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You sleep with it, eat with it, think about it much of your time. It is in a very real sense an act of love. If it isn't an act of love, it's merely work and not business. What makes successful businesswoman? Is it talent? Well, perhaps, although I've known many enormously successful people who were not gifted in any outstanding way, not blessed with a particular talent. Is it then intelligence? Certainly intelligence helps, but it's not necessarily education or the kind of intellectual reasoning needed to graduate from the Wharton School of Business that are essential. How many of your grandfathers came here from one or another old country and made a mark in America without the language, money, or contacts? What then is the mystical ingredient? Its persistence. It's that certain little spirit that compels you to stick it out just when you're at your most tired. It's that quality that forces you to persevere.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'd have to agree. It was simple. Most good ideas sparkle in simplicity, so much so that everyone wonders why no one ever did that before. The sample was the most honest way to do business. You could give people a product a try if they like its quality. They buy it. They haven't been lured in by an advertisement, but convinced by the product itself. This is what I mentioned earlier. We took the money we had planned to use on advertising and invested instead in enough material to give away large quantities of our products. It was so simple that our competitors sneered when they heard what we were doing. Today, even the banks are copying us. So now she talks about the single most important trait to have. This is not going to come as a surprise to you. Everybody says the same things, persistence. Business is not something to be lately tried on, flippantly modeled. It's not a distraction, not an affair, not a momentary fling. Business marries you.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“yourself. And so he had learned from that mistake because those two mistakes cost him a lot of time and money. And even though he's a multi-billionaire at the time, he's flying down and going around in a little boat making sure, okay, I'm going to do it. STE's very was using the same tactics very early on. I would open each store myself. I might have to travel by bus, train or donkey, but I'd be there for a week to train the salespeople to set out the merchandise attractively to create their aura. So she goes back to talking more about the free sample sales technique that she pioneered in the beauty industry. Not enough of myself on this page. I already talked to you about Claude Hopkins agrees. There's two podcasts in the archive on Claude Hopkins if you haven't checked them out. One is Scientific Advertising, which is the book he wrote that sold 8 million copies. And then I also read his autobiography called My Life in Advertising. I think that's Founder's number 170. The reason to appear at my counter was the gift to the customer, the free something that would sell everything else. It sounds so simple.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know the ending to the story before I write it. She bought two of everything I use on her face, and the next day her relatives did the same. I never forgot her. She symbolized so much for me. Never be patronizing, never underestimate any woman's desire for beauty. That proud woman embodies my whole philosophy. There's a great story that I left myself on this page. Do it yourself, Daniel Ludwig. There's a great story. I think it's founders number 68. It's this book. It's a really hard to find book. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, I paid over $100 for it. And it's called Invisible Billionaire, The Biography of Daniel Lundwig. The name of it's a biography of Daniel Ludwig. I can't remember the subtitle, but the name is Invisible Billionaire. And Daniel made billions of dollars without anybody knowing who he was back in the 60s and 70s and I guess 50s too. And he was in shipping and did all kinds of crazy stuff. But anyways.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All the people to whom I'd given samples, all the people who'd been telling other people, all those people had been telling other people, all the people, all of these people appeared on opening day at Saxfith Avenue. In two days, we sold out. The fund was about to start. And with that came the endless work, the endless traveling, the endless streams, rivers, tides, torrents, oceans of words I would utter in praise of the products I knew where the cream of the crop. I was a woman with a mission. I had to show as many women as I could reach not only how to be beautiful but how to stay beautiful. On the way I hoped in my secret heart to find fame and fortune. It was nineteen forty six. And so this is the official beginning of Este Lauder Cosmetics. She is forty years old.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fortunately, our confidence equaled our excitement because we had to have enough faith in our work to invest all of our savings. Our first home base was a former, so this is there. You can think of this as like a makeshift manufacturing, I guess a factory, if you want to think about that. Our first home base was a former restaurant on Central Park West. We had to pay six months rent in advance. We swallowed hard and signed. On the restaurant's gas burners, we cooked our creams. We did everything ourselves. Every bit of work was done by hand. Four hands, Joe's and mind. We stayed up all nights, we stayed up all night for nights on end, snatching sleeps and fits and starts.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ready for this. We decided to send my own customers and all the people with charge accounts at SAX, a small, elegant white printed card with gold lettering that read, Saxfifth Avenue is now proud to present the Este Lauder line of cosmetics now available at our Cosmetics Department. Did we have 100 wonderful treatment products? No, we had four. We only had four products, but they were made of pure gold. Breaking that, this is what I meant. Breaking that first mammoth barrier was perhaps the single most exciting moment I have ever known. Look how crazy that is. Think about how much life experience she had since this time. She's now 79, unbelievably wealthy. Estay Lotter is still a private company. It doesn't go public till after she passes away. She got homes all over the world. She's just world famous, and she's saying the most exciting moment she's ever known in her life was an $800 purchase by Saxfifth Avenue.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this whole time she's just still working in counters. She's going to try, this is where she breaks through to get how she breaks into Saxfifth Avenue and she does it from the ground up. A lot of genius stuff she does in this book. This is one example of that. This is where she really feels is the beginning of her company. And so let's go into this. My customers asked me repeated, do you have a counter at Sax Avenue where I could charge? The answer was no. I knew I would soon have to transform that into a solid yes. Sachs then and now represents one of the most elegant and finest of shopping places. I resolved to break the rules that sheltered this traditional and exclusive store from experimental merchandisers who would sell their souls to sell from sacks. So that's what you can consider what she is at the same time. She's not well known. And so she says, my name was not exactly known there. The Tell a Woman campaign had already resulted in hundreds of phone calls from women asking for my product. So this is what I meant about she breaks in from the ground up.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is why Bill says if you're going to compete, I'm going to use that line again. If you're faking it and that other person, they're going to get smoked. There were silver bathrooms, purple bathrooms, black and white bathrooms, brown bathrooms, gold bathrooms, pink bathrooms, red bathrooms. Which color would look wonderful in any bathroom? I deliberated for weeks. I spent an inordinate amount of time freshening up. People must have been worried about my long absences from the company. I knew that women would not buy my cosmetics in garish containers that offended their bathroom decor. I wanted them to be proud to display my products. The jars had to send a message of luxury and harmony. They had to be unique. A great package does not copy or study, it invents.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Having obtained sample jars, my research consisted of matching the few colors to which I had narrowed my choices to Oh this is so crazy. So she's got a bunch of sample jars. Now her research says I'm going to match these colors to which I had narrowed my choices to wallpapers in every guest bathroom I could manage to visit. I would fill my evening purse with a few small sample jars. Every time I went to a friend's home or a restaurant, I'd excuse myself from the company, visit the bathroom, and match my jars against a vast array of wallpapers.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Women were telling women they were selling my cream before they ever got to my salon. Tell a woman was the word of mouth campaign that launched Este Lauder Cosmetics and more about the importance of practice. Every day I touched fifty faces. Okay, so this is what I meant about. She talks about product packaging all the time. It's very important to her. In the book on Johnny Ive and Sam.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So going back, this whole chapter I'm in, by the way, is all about the importance of word of mouth. She calls it to tell a woman campaign. Nothing happened fast, so think about word of mouth as her base. It's really probably the only distribution channel that makes a durable company. It does not happen that way. I cried more than I ate. There was constant work, constant attention to detail, lost hours of sleep, worries, heartache. So euphoria and terror is a great way to think about this. We're in the terror part. And it is obviously euphoria mixed in. Friends, this is so wild. Friends and family didn't let a day go by without discouraging us. Despite all the naysayers, so they're like, Estate, what are you doing this for? Stay home with your son. Despite all the naysayers, there was not a single moment when I ever considered giving up. That was simply not a viable alternative. I had a secret weapon. There were in those days before television and high gloss advertising only two key ways to communicate a message quickly. They were the telephone and the telegraph. I had a third. It was potent.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Referencing the first husband. So the third husband has more faults than the first husband who looks better and better on someone else's arm. I always try to talk people out of divorcing. People divorce these days as fast as they change their hair color. So Joe and I were remarried this time forever, but with a few changes. We decided that Joe would give up his business and come into mine, where we would be equal partners in every sense of the word. We would work together, and so she talks about it very important to have a partner or people working with you that have different skills than you do. She's obsessed with sales. She travels all over the country. She's selling people one by one for decades, selling buyers, selling everybody she can. Really, the, and that's extremely important because a lot of people like developing products, this is something we learned from Arnold. Schwartzenger, where he says, like, you know, whether it's a book, a movie, it doesn't matter. Everything has to be sold. You should sell aggressively. So when he came into the movie industry.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Game as a backdrop, I'd make up their friends and sell more creams. The mood at these sessions was exhilarating for me as for them. I didn't need bread to eat, but I worked as though I did. From pure love of the venture, for me, teaching about beauty was and is an emotional experience. I brought them charisma and knowledge about their possibilities. They gave me a sense of success. I felt flush with excitement after each session, pure theater in the end. That's what it was, this rendering of beauty, pure theater for me Now, the traits that she's demonstrating, the fact she's obsessed, she works constantly, she's in love, she's single-minded in her pursuit, which she mentions multiple times.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Quite by accident I discovered my eager audience waiting for me in the fine hotels on Long Island. During a short vacation, I would make up a few women at Poolside. It's just randomly approaching people that are out there sunbathing next to the pool. The response was electric. In the next few years, I'd spend some weeks at hotels on what might be dubbed Working Vacations. Many women would gather and ask me to teach them about skin care and cosmetics. It was fun for them and profitable for me. Women wanted to learn. So before I continue this thought, when she starts off this section quite by accident, the note of myself is by accident my ass. She's obsessed. Imagine competing with her. One summer after another, I pushed myself lauding creams, making a woman, selling beauty. In the winters, I'd visit these eager ladies at their homes where with a breeze.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of course, my products were the finest. The beauty salon atmosphere was perfect. Women were already in the self-improvement mood. Why should they go home? This is actually, you know, really smart. Why should they go home with beautiful hair and a tired, lifeless face? It made sense to sell a total beauty package. Word spread. Business moved gradually, but steadily, and that's the biggest thing where, again, why I think Steve picked up on and other people picked up on why you have to really, really love it because building a business from a strong foundation, as we've seen over and over again these books, takes a long time. Even in her case, she does 50,000 in 1946, 11 years later, she's doing $800,000. Not bad by any means, but it's, you know, her business was founded 75 years ago. It took her 75 years to get to 18 or 16 or 14 billion or whatever the number is. But there's just no way that she's going to give up.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the product, the reason I say this is one of my favorite ideas. I guess it's going to happen later in the book. But she's starting the company. Her and her husband do not have a lot of money. So they're like, okay, well, do we spend money on advertising? And Este makes the wise idea. It's just like, I'm going to take what I was going to spend on advertising and I'm going to produce more products and I'm going to give away those products. And so now her products are selling. She starts, she has the ability to hire some of her first employees. She's insane about the level. I love that quote by Steve Jobs, be a yardstick of quality. Most people are now used to an environment where excellence is demanded. I'm doing that off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure it's similar to that. She was the same way. She interviewed 40 people just to get figure out what one salesperson she wants to hire. She says, I made it my business to check with each of them each day to make sure she's talking about the salespeople, to make certain she was selling as I would. A devoted clientele was developed not to my surprise.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even though I had not yet named the technique, that a GIF with purchase was very appealing. In those days, I would even give a gift without a purchase. The idea was to convince a woman to try the product. Having tried it at her leisure in her own home and seeing how fresh and lovely it made her look, she would be faithful forever. Of that I had not with single doubt. And so you see this, I think this is well known idea now, just in case it's not. I would say that you see it in this is a shining example of these ideas that we come across, the United I come across over and over again. They're used by founders that don't know each other that lived in different times, different cultures, different countries, different periods of history, and yet they all still arrive at the same idea, same conclusion that that is like flashing red lights. Hey, this is an idea I need to use. So we see that demonstrations, demoing your product as much as you can is actually the best sales tool, the best way to convince somebody that there's actually value.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, this is also one of my favorite ideas that I learned the first time I read the book about a year and a half ago. She calls it the sales technique at the century. Again, I would say Claude Hopkins had figured this out as well. Albert Lasker, a bunch of advertising people, but this is fantastic. Now the big secret. I would give, she was the first, Este was the first one to use this technique in the beauty industry. Now you see all of them use it. Now the big secret. I would give the woman a sample of whatever she did not buy as a gift. It might be a few teaspoons of powder in a wax envelope. Perhaps I'd shave off a bit of lipstick and tell her to apply it to her fingers, perhaps in another envelope, I would give her a bit of glow. I don't know what that is. The point was this. A woman would never leave empty-handed. That's her point. I did not, oh, this is such a good idea too. I did not have an advertising budget. She's going to talk about this later. I did not, maybe she talks about it now. Let me not jump ahead. I did not have an advertising department. I did not have a copywriter, but I had a women's intuition. I just knew.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Examples in the book where she does a department store buyers with, what are they called, like editors of beauty magazines, a bulldog, she's relentless. I showed her, so I skipped over the demonstration telling you what happened. I showed her a mirror. She was a raving beauty. Silence. She was thinking. Do you think you would be interested in running the beauty concession at my new salon? she asked. I didn't hesitate for a second. Up until that point, I'd been giving away my products. This was my first chance at a real business. I would have a small counter in her store. I would pay her rent. Whatever I sold would be mine to keep. No partners. I never had partners. I would risk the rent, but it worked. This is one of my favorite sentences in the entire book. I would start the business I always dreamed about. Risk-taking is the cornerstone of empires. No one ever became a success without taking chances. Risk taking is the cornerstone of empires is a fantastic maxim.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So she comes back. She says, Would you mind? This is so funny because she does this all the time. Oh, she's, oh man, I would not want to compete with her. Would you mind leaving them with me? she asked, as I offered her my four products. I'm so busy now. I'll try them when I have time. I knew better. Just let me show you how they work, Miss Morris. I said, give me five minutes, and you'll see right away to use them. Nothing could have induced me to leave my bounty without a demonstration. Remember what we learned from Claude Hopkins? David Ogovy, Albert Lasker. There's not a better selling technique. These are some of the most successful and knowledgeable people in the advertising industry. You could argue that Claude Hoppins is the most successful copywriter of all time. This is nothing beats product demonstration. There's no words, nothing you can do in just demoing the product. I showed Mrs. Morris a mirror. She was a raving beauty. Silence. She was thinking. So not taking no for an answer is extremely important, right? So I go, no, no, I'm not leaving this. We're going to do it right now. And she does this over and over again. She does this with buyers of...”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so this is about some of our first customers. And then this is where we see the Este Lauder Empire, the one I just described to you, insane size and profits, starts just one counter. Many of the young women who came to the floor, Morris, Beauty Salon, to get their hair done, would come to my home for a quick beauty lesson. I loved sharing what I knew and creating excitement about skin. One day Mrs. Moore said to me, what do you do to keep your skin looking so fresh and lovely? It would turn out to be a question of great moment for me. So this is obviously the, I don't know if I'm clear. This is the owner of the salon. I don't know if you could tell just by matching the last names. It would turn out to be a question of great moment for me. I didn't have to be asked twice. The next time I come, I'll said, I'll bring you some of my products. My heart was pounding.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Make it better. I knew now that obsession is the word for my zeal. It was never quiet in the house. There was always a great audible sense of industry, especially in the kitchen where I cooked for my family, and during every possible spare moment cooked up little pots of cream for faces. I always felt most alive when I was dabbling in the practice there's that word again when I was dabbling in the practice cream. I felt as though I was conduct this. You do not talk about this this way if it's a job. Check this out. I felt as though I was conducting a secret, absorbing experiment, a real adventure. This is not a business. This is a passion. Remember, she's not trying to sell these creams. She's giving away. She's eventually going to sell some. She recruits some of her first customers out of the beauty of the beauty salon that she goes to. But for many, many years, she's making this and she's doing this just as a labor of love.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So she winds up getting married rather young, and this is where she has to, she delays her dream, but her obsession grows. So it says love interfered. It really did, and postponed my dreams of being a skin specialist. Like I said earlier, her family expected her to go straight from my house to your husband's house. You support him, you have a kid. He's the one that's supposed to be doing the business. He's going to start a business. It's going to fail. They wind up getting divorced, then remarried, and then she joins her in her business. So it says we were struggling so hard to be independent. And sometimes things were not easy. Times were very lean. We had a beautiful son and I spent my days mothering. And all the time, all the time. She writes that twice. That's on me repeating it. And all the time, all the time, I was mothering my zeal for experimenting with my uncle's creams, improving on them, adding to them. I was forever experimenting on myself and on anyone else who came within range. Good was not good enough.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, this is not going to happen. If I was to be a scientist with Uncle John, I needed live subjects on whom to experiment. So this is all about honing your craft, about the importance of practicing. I didn't have a single friend who wasn't slathered in our creams. If someone had a slight redness under her nose that was sure to emerge into a sensitive blemish the next day, she'd come to visit. I'd treat her to a cream pack and voila, vaseline-proof skin. Friends of friends of friends appeared. I devised a name for my uncle's cream, super rich all-purpose cream. This is the first thing she sells, if I'm not mistaken. My reputation among my peers at high school grew by leaps and bounds. I gave away gallons of cream to friends. So that's another thing that Bill says in his talk. Let me see if I can find the quote real quick. So towards the end, this is about 50 minutes into the talk. He says all five of them out of all five people that he profiled, I don't think a single one of them started what they were doing for money. They were chasing a passion and a dream that allowed them to want to.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many more dreams are destroyed by a lack of self confidence than by overconfidence. So says, I began to value myself so much more, trust my instincts, trust my uniqueness. With my uncle, I was preoccupied with research into possibilities, mine, trusting oneself does not always come naturally. I learned when young the practice sticks. Today there is no one who can intimidate me because of a title or skill or fame. I do what's right for me. And we'll see later in the book. I mean, it's rather remarkable, even when she's just starting out, she's experiencing a bit of success. She winds up meeting other beauty company founder and CEOs, most of which are males at the time. They're rather patronizing to her, and they're like, oh, you know, you don't know what you're doing. Let me buy your business. And she'd clap back. She's like, no, you're not buying my business. I'm buying yours. And she says, you know, I never for once thought about selling.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I loved his creams, loved his potions, loved my uncle John. You don't speak this way if it's just a job. This is the story of a bewitchment. I was irrevocably bewitched by the power to create beauty. Uncle John had worlds to teach me. We constructed a laboratory of sorts in the tiny stable behind my house. Do you know what it means for a young girl to suddenly have someone take her dreams quite seriously, to teach her secrets? I could think of nothing else. After school, I'd run home to practice, there's that word we've been talking a lot about in the last few podcasts. I still can't get out of my mind how much Michael Jordan was obsessed with practice. I don't think the idea is ever going to leave me. After school, I'd run home to practice being a scientist. I began to value myself so much more. Remember, she talks about the importance and started with her mother, but somebody can jump started, but you've got to develop this on your own. The fact that you have faith in your abilities and self-confidence.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He was a skin specialist. What glories those words conjured up? He captured my imagination and interest as no one else ever had. I was smitten with Uncle John. He understood me. What's more, he produced miracles. I watched the Experience in a beauty industry is actually going to be selling and giving away and demonstrating his products. It was a precious velvety cream. This potion one that magically made you sweetly scented, made your face feel like silk, made any passing imperfection be gone by evening. I recognized in my Uncle John my true path. He produced his glorious cream in our home working happily over a gas stove. I watched and learned, hypnotized. It was a mystery to me. My education was just starting. Listen to me, Este, said Uncle John. Just try my cream. Try it. I was devoted to it.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so something's going to happen when she's in high school that I think is a combination of a bunch of these ideas. She picks a career about what she has an immense passion. She's obsessive about learning in her field, but she also develops mentors in her field. And that mentor is going to be her uncle John, who's going to hold her dream job. When I dreamed in my private universe, I dreamed of being a skin specialist and making women beautiful. In every life, there's a moment, an event or a realization that changes that life irrevocably. If the change is to be a happy one, one must be able to recognize that moment and seize it without delay. Rose Kennedy once told me that good luck is something you make and bad luck is something you endure, a very wise observation indeed. People do make their luck by daring to follow their instincts, taking risks and embracing every possibility. My shining moment came in the form of a quiet man who also loved touching faces. My uncle John Shotz.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If you actually love what you do because so few people actually do that, go back to what Bill says if you're faking it, you're going to get smoked by somebody that's not faking it. So he says, I want to paint a picture of the young girl I was. A girl caught up memorized by pretty things and pretty people. Thinking about my childhood now reveals such early patterns. My drive and persistence were always there. And we're going to talk a lot about that today. My drive and persistence were always there. And those qualities that are essential for building a successful business. Still, I sometimes wonder, if I had set my heart on selling tassels, cars, furniture, or anything else but beauty, would I have risen to the top of my profession? Somehow I doubt it. I believed in my product. I loved my product. A person has to love her harvest if she expects others to love it too, and beauty was such a bountiful harvest. How could I have known this at twelve? I don't understand it, I just did.”
2021-11-18 · Founders · #217 Estée Lauder · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source