Business Advice from Ebert, Thatcher, Pulitzer
They say that bad news comes in threes. Unfortunately, this was true this past week, which saw the passings of Roger Ebert, Lilly Pulitzer and Margaret Thatcher. While all three figures were famous for quite different reasons, each was a giant in his or her field (journalism, fashion, politics), and each has left a legacy that will endure for years to come.
It might not be immediately obvious what a movie critic, fashion designer and former prime minister have to do with your wallet. However, as I’ve been reading their obituaries and biographies over the past week, I’ve found that there’s a decent amount of business advice we can glean by the way they lived their professional lives. Consider the following:
Roger Ebert. Thatcher may have shaped economic policy for Great Britain, but as this fantastic column from the Chicago Tribune points out, it’s the life of Roger Ebert that can teach us the most about business and managing a personal brand. Among the things we can learn from him: know your identity, know your consumers, be a mentor, and be great. As the Tribune says: “None of this advice is any good if you’re no good at what you do. Ebert was the best. … He knew when and how to take himself seriously and when and how not to. Being the best is no guarantee of success, but it helps.”
Lilly Pulitzer. Did you know that her famously colorful clothes came about by accident? As a young wife in Palm Springs in 1959, she found that she needed a dress that would hide the stains of orange and grapefruit juice. It was a very specific problem she was solving, but the brand took off, and is still popular today. (And profitable to boot — the New York Times put the company’s 2012 net sales at $122 million.) Yet, for all her accidental business savvy, a recessionista she was not. “A budget,” she once said, “how embarrassing.”
Margaret Thatcher. Whether you agree or disagree with her policies as prime minister, she remains the U.K’s first and only female prime minister, and I’d like to think her strength as a leader will continue to inspire girls for generations to come. The Wall Street Journal gathered her most memorable quotes, and they range from wise (“You don’t win by just being against things, you only win by being for things and making your message perfectly clear”) to wisecracking (“If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman”).
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