Susie Tompkins Buell is one of the most successful women entrepreneurs of all time. She co-founded Esprit (ESHB), which grew into one of the most recognized global brands with over $800 million in annual sales. From the beginning, Esprit was known for its revolutionary fusion of corporate mission with social responsibility. Gloria Steinem and Earth First! spoke at their corporate functions, employees were given ten hours off each month for volunteer work – that translates into three weeks each year, more than many employees get for vacation time. Despite criticism, they were an early sponsor of the AIDS Walk. The Esprit Foundation was created in 1990 to support at-risk youth, AIDS awareness, women’s issues and the environment. It has since been renamed the Susie Tompkins Buell Foundation but continues to carry the original spirit of innovation and social responsibility by focusing on empowering, educating and promoting leadership among women. Listen in for a glimpse into the mind of this extraordinary woman.

Betsy: Susie, it’s so great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Susie: It’s nice to be here

Betsy: I was hoping that you could take us back to when you started Esprit and where you were and how you got the idea.

Susie: Well it’s very impulsive, and kind of intuitive and instinctual, and it’s just kind of hanging out, and thinking, you know, just jamming with your friends and one thing leads to the other, and you have an idea that you should do something, and you know somebody that could do something with you. And why not, it’s just very, very like I said it’s instinctual, and it was impulsive and there was not a plan, there was totally, completely, not a plan, and first we, when we had this idea that we should make clothes for young women, it was because I couldn’t find any clothes, and there was like one small shop in the Bay area, and it was kind of great and it was like, why weren’t there a lot more, and I had been to Europe and I had seen all these great looking women and they had such great style, they had so many great scarf’s, and wonderful fitting pants, and great little dresses, and it was like, well, how do you get that way? Well you have to be able to go shopping to find it, so it’s like there is an amazing vacuum so let’s fill it. And, I wasn’t interested in fashion; I don’t even like fashion today. Actually, I don’t like fashion. I think fashion is kind of stupid. But I love style, and I love clothes, and I like putting myself together and I love being in a mood and expressing it with what I am wearing. So, I think it’s really, really important to not be controlled by fashion and not to be saying this is the look for the season, and if you’re not wearing this look, you’ve got a problem. And isn’t that too bad. And, it’s not about money, because you can now buy this look at probably Wal Mart. So it isn’t so much of a kind of class thing anymore that it used to be. Now it’s, it’s very available at all prices. But, I just think fashion has happened and there’s no way we are going to make it not happen. I’m getting off the track a little bit. What I was saying in the beginning was we just started the business because we had a combination of people, time, and this kind of lack of anything else to do. Okay, well what should we do? Well, why don’t we have clothes that are fun? Well, I don’t know, let’s make clothes. Let’s just open a store, let’s do something. And so, we thought about opening stores and manufacturing clothes and then we came to the conclusion, well my ex-husband, I remember him saying, Oh no, retail ties you down. Because we had had a store before that, we had actually started the North Face before we started Esprit, and that was also a completely intuitive way that happened. But you know, you just kind of, you let a process, you’re just really comfortable with the process, and you let yourself wander around, and not knowing exactly what you are doing and, and then one thing leads to the other. And, I really live my life that way, and I’m not afraid of it. I’ve always been that way and it used to be really hard because people didn’t understand people that were like that, now everybody says, Oh that’s because you’re ADD, or you’re this or you’re that, and whatever it is, I was not a normal student but I was very intuitive and I was very able to come up with ideas and so, that’s what we did. We just thought, okay, let’s just make clothes, and find out how to sell them and one thing led to the other.

Betsy: So, were you entrepreneurial as a kid? Did you have any businesses?

Susie: I don’t think entrepreneurial just means business, because I think I’m entrepreneurial now in my political work. I think that I do things differently than everybody else, and that’s why I’m successful at what I do, and that I didn’t follow a guideline on how to do what I do, it’s just, I had this idea, and then one thing led to the other, we do the idea and it works, and okay that makes you do another one, and oh, we did that, we better do this, and it just kind of keeps rolling out. And, I think it’s a problem if you always have to show your plan, and I know in a lot of businesses, and a lot of things that happen in the world, you have to show your plan. Your six month plan, your two year plan, you have to have all the costs and all of the budgets and everything, and I think that’s very, very hard on entrepreneurs, because I think when you’re an entrepreneur you have an idea, and you don’t know how you’re going to do it, you don’t even know where you’re going to go, you just have this idea that if you start something, it will turn in to something. And you don’t know how much it is going to cost, and you don’t know where it’s going to go, and that sounds really sketchy to a lot people so it certainly isn’t something that a lot of financial backers would feel very good about unless you have a track record, and they have a track record with working with entrepreneurs and knowing to have trust and to have instinct in people that have good ideas. But I think to really have a very, very well organized plan, can hamper a lot of your thinking, and so I think you just have to follow your instincts, and get started and let one thing go to the other, at least that’s what worked for us. And then you get to a certain point, and yes, you do need to have plans, you do have to have organization because when you get bringing people in, and you have to guide them and you just can’t be kind of winging it all the time. But, I think that that allowing creative processes is really important for entrepreneurs and not to put it down and not to say, well, this doesn’t make sense, or you can’t show me or there’s no plan or you’re not showing me how you’re going to get, what is plan B? You know, what’s your plan here? And, I think that could really hamper people with good ideas, but I also think that some of the questions are good for the entrepreneurs, because it makes you sit down and think of some of the practical stuff. But there’s a balance there. Does that make sense?

Betsy: Yes, definitely. Now you said that you think differently than most people. And I think a lot of people who think differently than most people, struggle because they don’t fit in and it’s hard for them to get something going because of what you said, they have to convince someone else to get funding. So to those people out there in the world that are trying to start something up and are a little bit different, what would you say to them?

Susie: Well, I think if you just have a great idea, and you don’t really know for sure if that’s the idea that is going to end up being the result, but you just have an energy, an intuition, and you want to try something, and you’re smart and you’re going to figure it out on the way, you see a void, you see that there is something needed that you could create, you have to trust yourself. You have to believe that you could actually figure it out along the way. And you can.

Betsy: Right. So it sounds like you were incredibly resourceful in terms of being able to figure it out along the way

Susie: Very resourceful, all of us were resourceful, even my ex-husband was resourceful and my original partner, she was resourceful, and there are all kinds of different ways to be resourceful. I mean, this was back in the days, when we didn’t have even faxes, we had telex’s and there was no way, you, honestly, it sounds pre-historic, but that’s the way it was, it wasn’t that long ago, but then, listen to this. And there was no Federal Express the way we have it today. So, by Telex, I would tell my office in Hong Kong that I needed to send over some colors, and I would take them to somebody at the airport, and I’d say I’d telex the details tomorrow. So I’d go to the airport with the manila envelope full of paperwork and color chips or swatches, or whatever it was, and I’d go out to whatever airline that had the direct flight, it’s like, we’re talking Pan American again, and I’d look for someone who looked like they were going to Hong Kong, they’d be standing in the Hong Kong line, and I’d say, ‘could you take this to Hong Kong for me please?’ and it would be like a little package, and they’d say, well who do I, how do I know who to give it to? And I just said, well, there would just be somebody there holding up a sign. Just look for that when you go down that ramp in Hong Kong. And they’d say, ‘Oh sure, fine.’ And that’s how we used to send stuff back and forth all the time. And sometimes, we’d give them a phone number and then they would call, can you imagine, trying to do that today? And, we’d figure it out. You know, you always figured it out. And it was so fun, you didn’t take no for an answer, it was very great to learn how to do things without spending a lot of money and be resourceful and there wasn’t stuff like frequent flyer miles but you could figure other ways, and you’d stay in funky hotels, and just do it, just do it.

Betsy: Now, I think a lot of times resourcefulness comes from struggle to one degree or another and I’ve also heard it said that the best leaders are people who grow up with some kind of struggle. And I’m wondering if you have an opinion on that.

Susie: Well, I think almost everybody grows up with some kind of a struggle. You were really short, or maybe your mother was an alcoholic or your father beat your mother, everybody has problems. You live in the wrong neighborhood, but I think there are some struggles that really do give you insight and confidence, and I know I had an interesting youth, I was in boarding school when I was three years-old, sort of a private boarding school for privileged, but I think maybe I was so naughty when I was little that’s what happened, and I learned to be very independent, and I never really realized I was independent because I always wanted to be with somebody but yet, I was always very, very independent. And that gave me a lot of strength, and I believe I am very very much somebody who believes that struggle gives you strength. I was just saying that to somebody yesterday in a letter. That the struggle is so important for you in life, and I think sometimes, our children are so protected, that they don’t get that kind of nourishment that you get when you do have to struggle. You know, when you plant grapevines, you have to use very rugged, rocky soil. Because when the roots struggle, it creates much better wine, and that’s a very good example. And I really do think that’s true. I had to figure things out as a child and I just worked on solving things and I, for some reason, I don’t know why, I was a very rebellious child and I just always knew better than anybody else, I would just always find my way to do things, it was a way of getting attention, I don’t know what it was, but it just gave me the experience as a child that I could do it myself. I could find my own way. And I think that’s where a lot of my conviction that I can do it comes from. Especially now, that I am older and that I’ve been able to do this successfully so much, that I really have a lot of confidence in my intuition and I don’t have to defend it, and I used to have to defend it a lot more. But when you’ve been successful using you intuition and your instincts, people kind of get that so they let you be that way, and they help you, they make it easy for you.

Betsy: I read a lot about Esprit and repeatedly people said that it was your insight and your intuition about fashion and about people that really led to a lot of the success, and I also read that your husband said that you see things before other people do. And I’m wondering where that insight comes from. Do you think that it’s inherent, or it’s learned?

Susie: I think it’s inherent. I still see things nobody else sees, and I’m not a psychic but I’m always thinking ahead and it scares me. It scares me because I don’t like what I see

Betsy: So let’s talk a little bit about the non-profit that you started because I think that’s probably, to some degree, in response to some of the things that you’re seeing. Can you talk about why you started it, and what some of the missions are?

Susie: Well, when I first sold, a big portion of Esprit then I had a large amount of money and I took about a third of it and put it into a foundation, I just knew, that, I don’t need money like that, and so I put it into a foundation and I targeted it to go to girls, young women and the environment, because I was worried about the environment, and I’d made the money basically off of young women so I thought, oh, I owe it to them and I had two daughters, I was a born feminist, I understood that women were the source of solution, but I was very immature in a way in those days, about how to work with this money and what a foundation could do, but I just knew that I wanted to give back to the young women community. And since then, it has evolved because of my interests and my experiences, it has evolved to really helping young women, and women that want to get involved in politics because I see that politics is really the problem that we are having here. And, the lack of women leadership is the problem. So I feel very strongly that if we can get more women interested in politics and make it really exciting and make it, make it really productive for them individually and productive for our society, it will be a very healthy productive experience for the women and for the outcome for the general public.

Betsy: I think that so many people are not more involved in politics because they feel it’s so difficult to make a difference, so, how do you go about changing that perception?

Susie: Well, there are so many different ways of getting involved in politics. You know, you could say, I’m just going to be an activist, and I’m going to go hang things on doors and help old people get to the polls and do whatever they need people to do. Or I could help raise money, or I can work for a politician, or I can go in to politics, and usually it’s kind of an evolutionary thing. So, I don’t know if you see and understand the problems that we are having, and you recognize that it’s because there’s a problem in our political system, and the issues you care about are being ignored and you know how important they are. Then you find your way, you just find your way. I mean, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was very lucky that I had the resources, I had the foundation, but I didn’t even know how much I could do in politics, I just suddenly recognized that things were so bad and they were so bad because we had terrible politicians calling the shots. And so, I saw this as a problem that I could be involved with, and I could feel better about myself, I could feel good about what I was doing and I could be productive, but I didn’t know what it was going to be, and I’ve ended up, probably one of the most successful woman fundraisers in the country, and it’s not just because of me, its because I wanted to do it and I knew that I could do it and I knew, in order to do it, I’d have to get a very good person working with me, and it would grow and all that happened and we’ve grown and we have an office and a little staff and we’re really, really regarded, and we have this like, little incredible team, and we have fun doing it. And we’re innovative; we do it differently than anybody else. So in a way, I could have started another business and it would be the same thing, only instead of raising money for what I care about, I could be making money for myself or for my shareholders or whatever.

Betsy: With everything that you’ve done, you’ve been incredibly innovative. I look back at the Real People campaign, and I think that was just genius, and I wonder, now you have this track record of being innovative and again, like you said before, people don’t question you, but I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about what you did before when people did question you how you would recommend to people when they get questioned to trust themselves more.

Susie: Yes, that’s a good point. Well, I, I remember when we did the Real People campaign at Esprit, and I remember having the idea on an airplane and I remember coming back and it was obvious to me, it was so obvious to me, so I just think that if you trust yourself, you believe in yourself, because you do build up your appreciation of yourself, over the years. And if you doubt yourself, well, test yourself a little bit, and I think if you are, if you do have an entrepreneurial spirit, you have an energy, you have a self-trust, you have a lack of fear of being wrong. I think that is really important. I think you just have to go for it. You just have to go for it. And don’t even think about it. Just, just try it.

Betsy: And I know recently, there’s been more attention to socially aware businesses. I know with Esprit you were looking at that 20 years ago, and I think there are some people that say, ‘It’s too difficult, or you can’t compete in this environment.” So how do you respond to that?

Susie: Well, I completely believe that you have to try to be socially responsible in everything you do, and I think that you will have more loyal employees, you’ll have loyal customers, and yeah, it costs money to do it, no doubt about it. But I think you make up for it in other ways, but when you hit hard times, that’s the first stuff to go, especially if your company is big and you’re on a budget, but you have to stay true to yourself. And you can’t just do it because it’s a fad. You do it because you believe it. You live your life that way, I mean, I think you should run your business the same way you live your life. And it should be an extension of you. You shouldn’t just run your business to make money; you should run your business to create a business culture. And it could be three people, or it could be 3000 people. But you do want to have a style, you want to have a way you do things, you want to have a mission that has a philosophy and not just about bottom line.

Betsy: If you had known as a child that you’d be where you are today, would you have done anything differently?

Susie: I can not imagine what I would have thought, if somebody told me when I was little that I would be friends with the most important woman in the world, and that I would be very involved in politics and I would be a role model to women. I mean, I would have laughed, I would not have believed it. I wouldn’t have believed anything. And that I would have been very successful in business, because my mother always told me I would never amount to anything because I didn’t study, and I was such a rebellious person, she really did not build up my confidence. But I think in doing that, she really did. But she didn’t realize it. She was unconscious, I mean, in those days, you did not have any awareness about how to support your kids emotionally, it was just like you said anything that came to mind, and it’s really funny, because when you talk to people my age, they always recall things that were said to them, and if you say that to your child today, you’d probably be arrested. But I think it gave us a certain amount of tenacity and self-confidence. I mean, either it makes you or it breaks you. So, I don’t know. That’s a very hard question because I think that wasn’t what I wanted to be, I don’t know if I would have aspired to be that. I don’t know, I was just hanging out, but I was working really hard. I mean I never had a plan like I didn’t finish high school. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t worry about it, I got married when I was 18, to this crazy guy, just because I didn’t want to go home, and in those days, you either got married or went to college or became a nurse. And you know, I just wanted to do something else, I don’t know if it was instinct, or just not being afraid to try something the next minute.

Betsy: I think that you are such a great role model in terms of just launching out, and trying things, and for women, both in terms of your entrepreneurial ventures but also in terms of what you are doing today. You do get involved and have really committed yourself to trying to create change in the world. And so, I want to thank you. So, it’s been so great to have you, thank you for taking the time.

Susie: It was fun.

 

 Susie Tompkins Buell's advice for entrepreneurs [2:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (74)

 

 How Susie Tompkins Buell got the idea to start Esprit [3:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (111)

 

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 Full interview with Esprit founder Susie Tompkins Buell [23:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (239)