Estée Lauder

Leonard Lauder, chief executive of the company his mother founded, says she always thought she "was growing a nice little business." And that it is. A little business that 1 45% of the cosmetics market in U.S. department stores. A little business that sells in 118 countries and last year grew to be $3.6 billion big in sales. The Lauder family's shares are worth more than $6 billion. But early on, there wasn't a burgeoning business; there weren't houses in New York, Palm Beach, Fla., or the south of France. It is said that at one point there was one person to answer the telephones who 2 her voice to become the shipping or billing department as needed. You more or less know the Estée Lauder story because it's a chapter from the book of American business folklore. In short, Josephine Esther Mentzer, daughter of immigrants, lived above her father's hardware store in Corona, a section of Queens in New York City. She started her 3 by selling skin creams concocted by her uncle, a chemist, in beauty shops, beach clubs and resorts. No doubt the portions were good — Estée Lauder was a quality fanatic — but the saleslady was better. Much better. And she simply outworked everyone else in the cosmetics industry. She 4 the bosses of New York City department stores until she got some counter space at Saks Fifth Avenue in 1948. And once in that space, she utilized a personal selling approach that proved as 5 as the promise of her skin 6 and perfumes.