Joy Mangano: So welcome back to she Pivots. I'm Joy Magano.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Welcome back to she Pivots, the podcast where we talk
Emily Tisch Sussman: with women who dare to pivot out of one career
Emily Tisch Sussman: and into something new and explore how their personal lives
Emily Tisch Sussman: impacts these decisions. I'm your host, Emily Tish Sussman.
Speaker 3: Today we're re releasing one of my all time favorite
Speaker 3: conversations with Joy Mongano for a very exciting reason. The
Speaker 3: new musical Joy is now on stage in New York City.
Speaker 3: You know Joy as the inventor of the miracle mop,
Speaker 3: the author and the inspiration behind the movie Joy, starring
Speaker 3: Jennifer Lawrence, and of course.
Speaker 4: A previous She Pivots guest.
Speaker 3: As a lifelong theater lover, I couldn't pass up the
Speaker 3: chance to help bring Joyce story to the stage. It
Speaker 3: felt like a full circle moment to come in as
Speaker 3: a co producer of this show. Her journey is everything
Speaker 3: we celebrate in She Pivots, Resilience, reinvention, and the magic
Speaker 3: that happens when women bet on themselves. Now, Joy, the musical,
Speaker 3: starring the phenomenal Betsy Wolf, is out this summer. Seeing
Speaker 3: Joy come to life on stage has only deepened my
Speaker 3: appreciation for the conversation that you're about to hear. She's funny, fierce,
Speaker 3: and deeply honest about the highs and lows of building
Speaker 3: a life and a business as a single mother of three. So,
Speaker 3: whether you're discovering Joy through the musical or revisiting her
Speaker 3: incredible story, I invite you to listen with fresh ears.
Speaker 3: This episode is a powerful reminder that the most extraordinary
Speaker 3: pivots often begin in the most ordinary moments. So let's
Speaker 3: jump back into Joy's story.
Joy Mangano: So, my name is Joy Mangano, and I am first
Joy Mangano: and foremost a mom and an inventor.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I think I'm going to ask you this question now
Emily Tisch Sussman: at the beginning of the podcast and actually again at
Emily Tisch Sussman: the end. I'm interested to hear how it may change
Emily Tisch Sussman: once we go through many various steps of your career
Emily Tisch Sussman: in life. But the premise of this show is that
Emily Tisch Sussman: I'm trying to change culture, and particularly the culture around
Emily Tisch Sussman: the way we think about our careers and even within
Emily Tisch Sussman: that the interplay of how our personal decisions impact our
Emily Tisch Sussman: professional lives. And I think that's happened to you over
Emily Tisch Sussman: the course of your career, Like I feel like there's
Emily Tisch Sussman: so many pieces that I could point to, how do
Emily Tisch Sussman: you think your personal decisions have impacted your professional choices?
Joy Mangano: Well, my personal decisions guided everything in my career. They
Joy Mangano: were so intertwined. I always said, my life, my family life,
Joy Mangano: my personal life and principles are the same as they
Joy Mangano: are in business. It's not you know how You'll hear
Joy Mangano: people often say, oh, it's just business, don't worry about it.
Joy Mangano: So for me, you know, my growing up being a
Joy Mangano: caretaker so to speak, with my family going through the
Joy Mangano: various stages. You know, I grew up in an Italian family,
Joy Mangano: and of course you you know, they say, you grow up,
Joy Mangano: you get married, you have children, and you cook, and
Joy Mangano: so you know, I started to follow that pattern rite
Joy Mangano: and things in that way kind of didn't go exactly
Joy Mangano: as it was supposed to. So I had to make
Joy Mangano: very hard personal choices and actually find the courage in
Joy Mangano: me to discover who I was and what I actually did.
Joy Mangano: Going back to not knowing, you know, I didn't start
Joy Mangano: my career, so to speak, in my mind until I
Joy Mangano: was in my thirties.
Emily Tisch Sussman: When you were young, did you think you would have
Emily Tisch Sussman: a career at all? How did you envision yourself as
Emily Tisch Sussman: being a grown up?
Joy Mangano: Right So when I was young, I always I loved animals.
Joy Mangano: I always thought I wanted to be a veterinarian, and
Joy Mangano: I was very, very studious person. So I graduated high
Joy Mangano: school a year early and I went to work in
Joy Mangano: an animal hospital and the doctor was creating a healthy
Joy Mangano: pet food before everybody was focused on that, and designing
Joy Mangano: the packaging and creating the recipe for that was fascinating
Joy Mangano: to me. So I ended up realizing the business aspects,
Joy Mangano: the creation aspects in my brain took over everything else,
Joy Mangano: and that started me in the direction of product and
Joy Mangano: I actually invented my first product.
Speaker 5: Then.
Joy Mangano: It was a fluorescent flea collar because at the time,
Joy Mangano: the most common thing that happened in an animal hospital
Joy Mangano: where dogs or cats hit cars, and there was there
Joy Mangano: was no such thing at the time. So I said,
Joy Mangano: what does every animal? What does every owner put on
Joy Mangano: their animals? And it was a flea collar. So I said,
Joy Mangano: if I can get one, that's make one that's reflective. Now,
Joy Mangano: remember you have to reel back how many years it
Joy Mangano: didn't exist. So I got a lot of veterinarians together
Joy Mangano: and I started it, but I never followed through with it,
Joy Mangano: and a year later, a major, major company came out
Joy Mangano: with the first ever fluorescent flea collar. So I said,
Joy Mangano: next item, I'm going to follow through with. So I
Joy Mangano: was doing that my entire childhood. I was transforming things
Joy Mangano: into other products because I see the world through product.
Joy Mangano: That's how I view the world. And so when we
Joy Mangano: went to build a treehouse in the back, you know,
Joy Mangano: my brother was like, you know, help me build a treehouse.
Joy Mangano: And I built a seven story treehouse with slides and
Joy Mangano: this and that. And even before I even knew what
Joy Mangano: organic gardening was, I ripped up my parents back lawn
Joy Mangano: and was planted vegetables and things. I always tried to
Joy Mangano: create a better, better, a better mouse trap, so to speak.
Joy Mangano: It was just something I did naturally, and I never
Joy Mangano: really thought about it. It just happened organically. I would
Joy Mangano: see something and I'd say, I'm going to do this
Joy Mangano: in a bigger, better way so that it helps the
Joy Mangano: person or helps people in a better way.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Still, Joy did what was typical at the time. She
Emily Tisch Sussman: got married straight out of college and had three children.
Emily Tisch Sussman: And as someone who had three kids in four years,
Emily Tisch Sussman: I know how overwhelming that can be.
Joy Mangano: It shifted everything I did, and much like you, I
Joy Mangano: just you know, when I decide things, I decide to
Joy Mangano: do them. So I had three children in three and
Joy Mangano: a half years, and it obviously was the life change.
Joy Mangano: That is, it's what I live for today. But it really,
Joy Mangano: you know, that's hard and it's you know, as everybody knows,
Joy Mangano: it's a parent. If you put your heart and soul
Joy Mangano: into it, it's all consuming. So I was at the
Joy Mangano: time the miracle mop was in my brain. So I
Joy Mangano: would just be in my bedroom at night with them
Joy Mangano: and I'd be sketching and I'd be trying and I
Joy Mangano: and I kind of was almost like in a holding pattern,
Joy Mangano: knowing I was headed in a direction, you know, at
Joy Mangano: the time. So yes, that you know, that was a
Joy Mangano: time where I took a little bit of a time out.
Joy Mangano: I still, you know, because I didn't have a lot
Joy Mangano: of money or anything. I still was working doing things
Joy Mangano: here and there. I was making grapevine reafs and selling
Joy Mangano: them where I could at you know, fairs and flea markets.
Joy Mangano: I always I was always working in some form or fashion.
Joy Mangano: You know, It's just something I did. But it was
Joy Mangano: inclusive now of children. You know, I was pretty much
Joy Mangano: in a very short period of time doing it on
Joy Mangano: my own. But what I find more than anything having
Joy Mangano: had the children was that I learned this capacity of
Joy Mangano: love that I never had even knew I had, And
Joy Mangano: it just for me opened up a different kind of world.
Joy Mangano: It wasn't you know it was it was about me
Joy Mangano: and what I could do to make them have a happy,
Joy Mangano: healthy life.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Eventually, all her scheming and sketching led her to her
Emily Tisch Sussman: breakthrough idea, the Miracle Mop. By this point, Joy was divorced,
Emily Tisch Sussman: a single mom, working tirelessly to make ends meet while
Emily Tisch Sussman: raising her kids.
Speaker 4: When we come.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Back, Joy talks about what it took to get the
Emily Tisch Sussman: Miracle Mop off the ground. Well, you put so much
Emily Tisch Sussman: at stake to bring the Miracle Mop to the market
Emily Tisch Sussman: and mortgaging your house, going into debt. You know, you
Emily Tisch Sussman: put so much in there. But you had had a
Emily Tisch Sussman: number of ideas. What made you so sure that this
Emily Tisch Sussman: was the product that you should go for?
Speaker 4: Broken?
Joy Mangano: Well, because I was broke. No, that's what you were true.
Joy Mangano: It was in my instincts. And I say, you have
Joy Mangano: to follow your instincts right, because you know it's some
Joy Mangano: people think they have a great product, but you know
Joy Mangano: their instincts are wrong. It's it's not right. But I
Joy Mangano: hate to say that, but nonetheless I knew that this
Joy Mangano: was a great product. It was a different mop. There
Joy Mangano: was a whole story behind it, And at this point
Joy Mangano: in my life, I said, you're either you know, you
Joy Mangano: don't know you're brave until you have to be brave, right,
Joy Mangano: So you know, I had really what were my choices,
Joy Mangano: and I said, I'm going to go for this, and
Joy Mangano: I am going to go for this. So it was
Joy Mangano: I put everything on the line. But it wasn't even
Joy Mangano: that simple. It was one obstacle after another. It was
Joy Mangano: it just from discovering something about the patent to discovering
Joy Mangano: that the people who I ended up you know, my
Joy Mangano: father actually ended up having make it were not reputable.
Joy Mangano: There was just every rediscovery along the way. And I think,
Joy Mangano: you know, that's why I say to somebody, just don't stop,
Joy Mangano: because my if I stopped one hundred percent, I would
Joy Mangano: have failed. But if I tried to keep going and
Joy Mangano: figure out another way to get there, my odds were
Joy Mangano: still better than zero.
Speaker 4: She had risked it all and it was paying off. Soon.
Emily Tisch Sussman: She had hit her goal of selling to Kmart and
Emily Tisch Sussman: had a huge order in from QBC.
Speaker 4: She was getting her legs under her or so she thought.
Speaker 4: If you've seen the movie, you'll know that.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Joy soon realized that her manufacturer was taking steps to
Emily Tisch Sussman: steal the product, idea and freeze her out, all because
Emily Tisch Sussman: she didn't have proper guidance on her patent.
Speaker 4: In fact, she had no guidance at all, just her father.
Joy Mangano: So my father was a kind of father like, listen,
Joy Mangano: we'll do a deal. I'll take care of it. Don't
Joy Mangano: worry about it. So that's a lesson you learn right
Joy Mangano: away after you know anyway, find out that there was
Joy Mangano: a gentleman we were paying royalties to for the patent
Joy Mangano: to make the mop, the mop that I thought I designed.
Joy Mangano: He said, somebody already designed it, which okay, so then
Joy Mangano: they started to manufacture it. He did a deal. I
Joy Mangano: discovery one night after, to make a long story short,
Joy Mangano: that the patent we were paying royalties to was not
Joy Mangano: the mop I created at all. It was the mop
Joy Mangano: we were making, but it was my design, was an
Joy Mangano: original design. My father mistaken lee a very long story,
Joy Mangano: said oh, there's already a patent. We'll just pay him
Joy Mangano: a royalty. We'll make the mop. So this gentleman in
Joy Mangano: Texas knew it was not the mop we were making.
Joy Mangano: That he was getting a royalty on a patent that
Joy Mangano: was very different. So, to make a very long story short,
Joy Mangano: Eye and the people in California, what had happened is
Joy Mangano: I had been on QVC, it had been successful, and
Joy Mangano: they ordered sixty thousand mops. So the manufacturers in California said, oh,
Joy Mangano: we'll make the mops for you, but we're going to
Joy Mangano: raise the price, which would have meant we were going
Joy Mangano: to lose money. So my father said, and his girlfriend
Joy Mangano: at the time said, that's it. We're at a business.
Joy Mangano: We can't do this. And I said, Okay, I am
Joy Mangano: going to figure this out, and if I do, I'm
Joy Mangano: going to run this company, and so on and so forth.
Joy Mangano: So I flew to Texas. I literally showed him the
Joy Mangano: patent and what he had been getting royalties too, and
Joy Mangano: in a very serious way, I told him that that
Joy Mangano: was unlawful and that he had to sign a letter
Joy Mangano: to say that he would not get the royalties, and
Joy Mangano: that I could go directly to deal with the manufacturers.
Joy Mangano: So when I went to California, he did. When I
Joy Mangano: went to California, and I'm minimizing this whole thing because
Joy Mangano: it was really very like I could have been you know,
Joy Mangano: it was just amazing how I was shaking when I
Joy Mangano: came out of the hotel room that I met him in.
Joy Mangano: When I went out to California claim the mop molds
Joy Mangano: because you have to make the mops from a mold,
Joy Mangano: I went there, landed there and they said, oh no, sorry,
Joy Mangano: we don't have the molds. We're not giving you the molds.
Joy Mangano: We own them. And I said no, no, no, you don't, Mike,
Joy Mangano: cause my father never did contracts with anybody. He never
Joy Mangano: signed contracts. So I said, no, here is the money
Joy Mangano: that's owed for the parts. I'm going to pay you.
Joy Mangano: Those are my molds. And I'll never forget. This guy
Joy Mangano: was not a good guy. And I was sitting there
Joy Mangano: and he had a can of Pepsi on his desk
Joy Mangano: and he said, little girl, go away. He literally said,
Joy Mangano: little girl go away. You just don't. We're going to
Joy Mangano: do this and you're out of it now. I'll never forget.
Joy Mangano: I took the can of pepsi and I slammed it
Joy Mangano: on the desk and the Pepsi just flew all over him.
Joy Mangano: And I said, you're going to see me in court
Joy Mangano: That night. I got the lawyer because I had brought
Joy Mangano: my lawyer with me. We met with a California lawyer
Joy Mangano: and it was an entire night of going through everything.
Joy Mangano: They said, you can't go to court with this. No
Joy Mangano: judge will ever give you because I needed the mop
Joy Mangano: mold back to make the mops to make the order.
Joy Mangano: And I said, no, we're going to go to court
Joy Mangano: because the judge is going to know with all this
Joy Mangano: information that I have, he's going to know who's in
Joy Mangano: the right and who are the bad guys. So they
Joy Mangano: were like, okay, we'll go to court, but there's they
Joy Mangano: never will hand these molds over to you. You're in California,
Joy Mangano: give them to you to take back to New York.
Joy Mangano: It's going to take years to make a long story longer.
Joy Mangano: We went into court the next day, you know, and
Joy Mangano: the lawyer said to me, don't say a word, just
Joy Mangano: sit there right. So they walk in unbeknownst to me.
Joy Mangano: I think they had been in front of this judge before.
Joy Mangano: So everything you know. They're saying, we have manufactured them,
Joy Mangano: we have no contract that she owns them. And I did.
Joy Mangano: I said, judge, here is the money that we know
Joy Mangano: she owes me money. I said, here's the money, here's
Joy Mangano: the you know the evidence that we paid for the mold,
Joy Mangano: so therefore we should own them, even though we don't
Joy Mangano: have a contract. And everything was done, and I hadn't
Joy Mangano: talked yet that they were showing all this information. And
Joy Mangano: the judge said, is there anything else? I said yes,
Joy Mangano: and I got up, and the lawyers were like, oh
Joy Mangano: my god, Oh my god, what's she going to say?
Joy Mangano: And I said, you know, this is my whole livelihood.
Joy Mangano: And I talked earnestly to the judge. He sat back.
Joy Mangano: I sat down, and he said, I'll never forget. He
Joy Mangano: slammed down the gavel and he looked at them and
Joy Mangano: he said, tomorrow at noon, I'm going to have the
Joy Mangano: sheriffs at your manufacturing plan and Joy will be there
Joy Mangano: as well. Joy. You're going to you have a truck
Joy Mangano: to take the molds. I'm like, yes, of course, I
Joy Mangano: had no truck and I had so and he said,
Joy Mangano: and if you don't hand over the molds to Joy,
Joy Mangano: I'm going to have the sheriff's arrest you. So the
Joy Mangano: lawyer at the time had never it's called a certain
Joy Mangano: kind of injunction. He had never seen it happen, and
Joy Mangano: he's never seen it happen. After that and he wrote
Joy Mangano: serious law briefs about this. It was the most incredible thing.
Joy Mangano: And so the next day there was a truck there.
Joy Mangano: The molds were on the truck. They were headed back
Joy Mangano: to New York. I flew back to New York and
Joy Mangano: had to create a fine molders to mold them, create
Joy Mangano: a business to make the mops. And then the last
Joy Mangano: day that the sixty thousand mops had to be on
Joy Mangano: their way to QBC, sixty thousand mops were on their
Joy Mangano: way to QBC.
Emily Tisch Sussman: You were so young when you started. Do you remember
Emily Tisch Sussman: what was going through your mind when you not just
Emily Tisch Sussman: walked into QBC and said take my product, but then
Emily Tisch Sussman: you went back and said it has to be me.
Joy Mangano: So at the time, as we know, you know, the
Joy Mangano: miracle mop was something that I did bring to fruition
Joy Mangano: and I thought the perfect place for that because I
Joy Mangano: used to go to fairs and flea markets and demonstrate
Joy Mangano: it and people loved it. Everybody who watched the demonstration
Joy Mangano: would buy it. So for me going to QVC being
Joy Mangano: able to replicate that, but on TV, I said, this
Joy Mangano: has got to work. And of course, at the time,
Joy Mangano: so it's interesting, you know, I was the only female
Joy Mangano: at a table with men. At the time, this was
Joy Mangano: an industry that loved celebrity, so there was you know,
Joy Mangano: I was like nobody again, you know. So they put
Joy Mangano: the miracle mop on the first time with one of
Joy Mangano: the hosts because they said, you know, you don't go
Joy Mangano: on to you. You know you're not who are you?
Joy Mangano: And it failed and I was I that was it.
Joy Mangano: I had everything to lose. So I said, you have
Joy Mangano: to put me on with that miracle mop and it
Joy Mangano: will work. So they did. You know, there was an
Joy Mangano: executive there who I could see. He saw the determination.
Joy Mangano: He said, okay, we're going to give her a shot.
Joy Mangano: I'm forever grateful for that. And it was unbelievably successful,
Joy Mangano: so successful at the time, it was probably out of
Joy Mangano: all the thousands and thousands of products they had. It
Joy Mangano: became their single biggest success. Not only did we sell
Joy Mangano: twenty thirty forty fifty sixty thousand in a day. At
Joy Mangano: a time, they created a commercial on TV and at
Joy Mangano: the time, if you remember direct Response, it's very interesting.
Joy Mangano: It was always a commercial with a male voice talking
Joy Mangano: through the commercial. Always. It was never any different. So
Joy Mangano: this same executive, I was like his thorn in his
Joy Mangano: side he said, we're going to make a commercial. It's
Joy Mangano: so successful. We're going to make a short form commercial,
Joy Mangano: two minute commercial with the miracle Mop, and we're going
Joy Mangano: to have a gentleman talking over it. And I said, no,
Joy Mangano: it's going to fail. I said, I want to do
Joy Mangano: it this way with me demonstrating it with another this
Joy Mangano: other female host. And he said, okay, well we'll let
Joy Mangano: you do that, but we're only going to put a
Joy Mangano: budget of very little into it, but we're going to
Joy Mangano: film it the other way with a voiceover, and we're
Joy Mangano: going to test both. So they did, and the one
Joy Mangano: with myself and Jane demonstrating the mop, you know, naturally
Joy Mangano: organically right, was like through the roof compared to the
Joy Mangano: other one, and it became the number one direct response
Joy Mangano: TV product in its time at the time and first
Joy Mangano: time ever it was in the forum where you were
Joy Mangano: watching two women talk about a product. So it was
Joy Mangano: pretty cool. Hi, I'm Joymangano, and I invented the Miracle Mop.
Joy Mangano: It's the original cotton self ringing mop, therefore the most absorbent.
Joy Mangano: It will clean that mess again and again and again.
Joy Mangano: And I'm daingered All Tracy host on QVC where we
Joy Mangano: have sold over three hundred thousand mops.
Speaker 4: To people all across the just like you.
Joy Mangano: In fact, let's hear from some of them. I love
Joy Mangano: your mop. It's been a lifesaver. This moth is wonderful.
Joy Mangano: I would tell anybody to buy it. I am Joymangano,
Joy Mangano: and I invented the Miracle Mop. It's the original content
Joy Mangano: self bringing mop. You've seen it, seen even the toughest
Joy Mangano: nets again and again and again. Hundreds of thousands of
Joy Mangano: satisfied customers have ordered their Miracle Mop and love it.
Joy Mangano: And now the Miracle Mop has earned the Good Housekeeping seal.
Joy Mangano: It's quite easy.
Speaker 5: I mean it really changed the industry, Like it changed
Speaker 5: the way that we thought about women marketing, women being
Speaker 5: the face of something but also giving value, like business
Speaker 5: value to a product that really only in this case
Speaker 5: it was women because they were doing the majority of
Speaker 5: the housework, could understand like considered a real serious business category.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Did you have those kinds of conversations at the network, Yes,
Emily Tisch Sussman: very much so.
Joy Mangano: So then at the time became this big aware that
Joy Mangano: you know, the story telling, the authenticity behind a product
Joy Mangano: is more important than just somebody talking about it or
Joy Mangano: a celebrity endorsing it. It's all about the authenticity. And
Joy Mangano: it's a funny thing that for now twenty five years
Joy Mangano: probably I do. I've always done the most business out
Joy Mangano: of any I just it's something that I do, right.
Joy Mangano: I can't sing or dance, but this I do. And
Joy Mangano: I've been creating product, you know, And it's an interesting
Joy Mangano: thing because you know when you create something new. Example,
Joy Mangano: for the first time, I launched the first non stick
Joy Mangano: ceramic cookware in the world before anybody was taught. Now
Joy Mangano: the whole industry is nonstick ceramic cookwaar. But I was
Joy Mangano: like possessed because I knew that the traditional nonstick was
Joy Mangano: not healthy when it got to high temperatures. And I
Joy Mangano: even with a chef. I got chef because they were like,
Joy Mangano: you know, you know you have to cook and everything.
Joy Mangano: I'm like, fine, I'll get a chef and so we
Joy Mangano: for two years. I fought the battle to launch this
Joy Mangano: product because it's a healthier alternative to the traditional nonstick.
Joy Mangano: And I mean batteries of lawyers saying we're going to
Joy Mangano: get sued because there was only one major company that
Joy Mangano: made the nonstick in cookwear. And you can't say this,
Joy Mangano: and you can't say that, and they said they're not
Joy Mangano: going to understand it. The consumer isn't going to care.
Joy Mangano: And I said, oh no, they're really going to care,
Joy Mangano: because remember, you have to have a heart for that
Joy Mangano: consumer and know how smart they are. And we launched
Joy Mangano: it and the phones literally blew up. I mean literally,
Joy Mangano: the whole system went down. People were so excited about this,
Joy Mangano: and obviously we changed an industry, totally changed in industry.
Joy Mangano: So it was It's been an amazing path.
Emily Tisch Sussman: So you've told the story of your life yourself in
Emily Tisch Sussman: your own book and then became a huge blockbuster movie,
Emily Tisch Sussman: Academy Award nominated, Golden Globe winning, and now a Broadway musical.
Emily Tisch Sussman: How involved were you with those retelling of your life
Emily Tisch Sussman: stories in different mediums?
Joy Mangano: So the movie, you know, is interesting because I'll go
Joy Mangano: back to the story where Barry asked me to go
Joy Mangano: out to California and make this show with him. The
Joy Mangano: producer of that show a very amazing, brilliant man. At
Joy Mangano: the end of this series, he said, come on, let's
Joy Mangano: go out to dinner because I'm always working, right No, no, no,
Joy Mangano: no no. Everybody used to go out to dinner and
Joy Mangano: I would go home to bed at the hotel. So
Joy Mangano: we went out to dinner and I don't know how
Joy Mangano: he got me talking about my life, my path. And
Joy Mangano: he got up from dinner and he said, one day,
Joy Mangano: I'm going to write a movie about your life. Five
Joy Mangano: years later, I get a phone call from him. Joy's ken,
Joy Mangano: I'm in here with a bunch of Hollywood producers. We're
Joy Mangano: going to write your movie. And they did. So, you know,
Joy Mangano: I feel blessed that David o'russell was the writer and
Joy Mangano: you know, director and producer and everything. And obviously it
Joy Mangano: goes without saying Jennifer Lawrence was amazing. She's just I
Joy Mangano: love her, love her, love her way beyond her years.
Joy Mangano: And everybody else involved, obviously, Robert Genio, Bradley Cooper. I mean,
Joy Mangano: he just couldn't pick a better family than meet in Hollywood, right. So,
Joy Mangano: but David o'russell, he is like a saffon. He just
Joy Mangano: you know, he he would talk. He'd call me like
Joy Mangano: at dinner time and we'd still be talking at three am.
Joy Mangano: So he really wanted to, you know, to really understand
Joy Mangano: and go even deeper into things I had already therapy
Joy Mangano: in life. I mean, that was it, you know, it
Joy Mangano: was really incredible but you know, at a point, you know,
Joy Mangano: I you have to trust people, right, I trusted him
Joy Mangano: and he's like, whatever he did, I had to entrust
Joy Mangano: in him at that point. So I really at the
Joy Mangano: end of the day, he was the creative of artist
Joy Mangano: for the movie. But I will tell you the story
Joy Mangano: is true. I mean there are little tiny aspects of it,
Joy Mangano: you know, like I had three children in life. There
Joy Mangano: were two in the movie. They thought Jennifer was too
Joy Mangano: young to have three children. So I'm like, wait a minute,
Joy Mangano: I was young. But it was very surreal. They flew
Joy Mangano: me to Hollywood. They put me in a studio and
Joy Mangano: actually I was with my son, and I was like,
Joy Mangano: they didn't think I really knew, but they said there'll
Joy Mangano: be people watching, you know. For the first time I
Joy Mangano: was watching it. They were all the executives. Everybody was
Joy Mangano: like worried about my reaction, and I was watching it
Joy Mangano: and I was like, this is amazing. It was so
Joy Mangano: surreal and to see like his interpretations of things, and
Joy Mangano: you know, obviously different people being me and my father
Joy Mangano: being you know, it was just you know, and everybody
Joy Mangano: was still alive, right, So it's a very touchy thing.
Joy Mangano: So oh my gosh, so I just to to this
Joy Mangano: day consider it to be an honor. I'm not like
Joy Mangano: the Hollywood type, you know. I'm like, you know, in
Joy Mangano: the sense of like I went to the Oscars and
Joy Mangano: I looked at my daughter after it were over, I said,
Joy Mangano: let's go back to the hotel and have cheeseburgers and
Joy Mangano: thick shakes, you know, so, you know, instead of all
Joy Mangano: the parties we were supposed to go to, but it
Joy Mangano: was I think people have told me that it's inspired them,
Joy Mangano: and to me, that's what matters. I you know, I
Joy Mangano: just recently, I hear it all the time. I watched
Joy Mangano: that movie every year, and it just inspires me to
Joy Mangano: keep doing what I'm doing. And if that's the result
Joy Mangano: of that movie, that's a beautiful thing.
Emily Tisch Sussman: After the break, we dive into how Joy became a
Emily Tisch Sussman: leader both in her own company and to entrepreneurs around
Emily Tisch Sussman: the world, and she talks about her second pivot, selling
Emily Tisch Sussman: her company to HSN, the direct competitor to QBC, all
Emily Tisch Sussman: that and more. When we come back, something that I'm
Emily Tisch Sussman: noticing as we're talking through you as a manager and
Emily Tisch Sussman: as a boss, is that it seems like, not only
Emily Tisch Sussman: do you have a talent for inventing, coming up with
Emily Tisch Sussman: the ideas.
Joy Mangano: But you also have a talent for putting people in.
Speaker 4: The right roles.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Has that been something that you've always had a natural
Emily Tisch Sussman: talent at doing or has evolved as a manager.
Joy Mangano: Yeah, well that's something I think that evolves because in
Joy Mangano: the beginning, you know, when I started this, it would
Joy Mangano: be like, Okay, my girlfriend Jan, she used to be
Joy Mangano: a graphic artist, so we need packaging, Jan, do you
Joy Mangano: want to work for me? And so over time, you
Joy Mangano: know that those are the resources I had at the time, right,
Joy Mangano: you know. And then over time as the business grew,
Joy Mangano: you know, and I mean I think I'm now nearing
Joy Mangano: you know, four billion dollars worth of product in homes
Joy Mangano: across America. It's important to get the right people doing
Joy Mangano: the right thing so that, you know, so that you
Joy Mangano: don't have to worry about it. But I still am
Joy Mangano: one of those people that still gets involved in you know,
Joy Mangano: I can't help myself sometimes because I love it right,
Joy Mangano: and I love you know, when they're creating the label,
Joy Mangano: or they're creating the texture on something or picking out
Joy Mangano: the colors. You know, I was famous for walking into
Joy Mangano: the room and say, okay, can I be part of this.
Joy Mangano: That's why I often say anybody that would ever listen,
Joy Mangano: you know, you don't have to build rocket ships. If
Joy Mangano: you have something that's going to benefit somebody's life and
Joy Mangano: change their life and it's a better way and it's
Joy Mangano: not out there, you will have success. You know, a
Joy Mangano: really big advocate. There are no experts. You know. Don't
Joy Mangano: stop yourself if you feel like, well, I'm not an
Joy Mangano: exact expert in this, because if you have no matter
Joy Mangano: what it is, if it's a service, if it's a product,
Joy Mangano: you know, it doesn't matter what. If you really believe
Joy Mangano: in it and you have something to offer that's better
Joy Mangano: than what's out there, I say, go for it.
Emily Tisch Sussman: A defining characteristic of Joy is her family, from the
Emily Tisch Sussman: time they were young kids running around the warehouse all
Emily Tisch Sussman: the way to now she has involved them. Her daughter
Emily Tisch Sussman: Christy was even at this interview. Her life and business
Emily Tisch Sussman: are all one and she's mastered that symbiosis better than
Emily Tisch Sussman: perhaps anyone I know.
Joy Mangano: So I think we create a great atmosphere now as well.
Joy Mangano: It doesn't get better than when you're able to live
Joy Mangano: your passion and what you do and do it with
Joy Mangano: the people you love. So for twenty years, my oldest
Joy Mangano: daughter has created product with me. She I don't think
Joy Mangano: anybody can get a better price and a better quality
Joy Mangano: product than her, you know. And it's and my son
Joy Mangano: who went to Georgetown and then Columbia Law school, went
Joy Mangano: to a really big law firm. Eventually I grabbed him
Joy Mangano: and we are in business. And my daughter, my youngest
Joy Mangano: daughter was in Project Runway and you know, a fashion
Joy Mangano: personality and is on Amazon Live presently and doing other
Joy Mangano: things in fashion. But I came on TV with me
Joy Mangano: and did a lot of things with us on Live TV.
Joy Mangano: So you know, we're all you know, my son in
Joy Mangano: law was my producer for twenty years at HSN, So
Joy Mangano: you know, now we have our business clean boss and
Joy Mangano: we're all working together. And the people there worked with
Joy Mangano: me in the past, so it's kind of it becomes family.
Joy Mangano: So when you I think, when you love what you
Joy Mangano: do and you have a beautiful business and environment and
Joy Mangano: care about the people that work with you, they stay there,
Joy Mangano: they don't go away. You know, it's a quality of life.
Joy Mangano: That's a beautiful thing.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Well, you were with QBC for so long but ended
Emily Tisch Sussman: up selling to HSN, the direct competitor.
Joy Mangano: Can you give us a little backstory. Yeah, no, it
Joy Mangano: sounds sinister, doesn't it, But it was not at all,
Joy Mangano: not at all. So when I was at QBC at
Joy Mangano: the time, Barry Diller was the CEO, and he had
Joy Mangano: asked me to go out to after the success of
Joy Mangano: Miracle Mop and other products, jewel Kit, Rolliquit, many things there,
Joy Mangano: he had asked me to go out and do a
Joy Mangano: show out in California for him, be a judge. And
Joy Mangano: so I think, Barry, I think the world of Barry
Joy Mangano: Diller is brilliant. And so after a certain amount of time,
Joy Mangano: so I did a lot with him and for him.
Joy Mangano: There he left. He owned what expedia, dot com, Ticketmaster,
Joy Mangano: He bought HSN iac the company. He kept asking me
Joy Mangano: to come to HSN And of course you if you
Joy Mangano: haven't figured out how loyal I am in life, I'm like, no,
Joy Mangano: I can't, I can't. He goes, well, then I'm going
Joy Mangano: to buy your business. And when somebody says that you
Joy Mangano: have to think twice about it, I didn't even think
Joy Mangano: twice because it was such an amazing offer. But the
Joy Mangano: offer was amazing. Not you know, money's one thing, but
Joy Mangano: he was giving me the ability, you know, in our
Joy Mangano: conversations to really expand what I did. And really, you know,
Joy Mangano: I became an executive HSN. I ran their only sourcing division.
Joy Mangano: We sourced products. We actually created product for other brands.
Joy Mangano: So whether it was a chef, we sold more guitars
Joy Mangano: than Gibson and Fender. I was creating guitars for Keith Urban.
Joy Mangano: And with Keith Urban and Serena Williams and Emon, we
Joy Mangano: did all her fashion with her. So I expanded. I
Joy Mangano: was able to do so much more. So it was
Joy Mangano: it was a really good move. And it was nice
Joy Mangano: to get off the plane in sunny Tampa in from
Joy Mangano: New York in January. I must admit that. So that
Joy Mangano: was the time that I was able to grow so
Joy Mangano: much so and I had the liberty to create something
Joy Mangano: like change the cookwear industry or you know many other things.
Joy Mangano: Do you consider that to be like a second big
Joy Mangano: pivot of your life? Yes? Absolutely, absolutely, you know that
Joy Mangano: really changed everything. And then obviously my third big pivot
Joy Mangano: was leaving there when QB ironically enough, after QVC purchased HSN. Right,
Joy Mangano: you go figure this, right, it's like you know, a
Joy Mangano: family drama. But I knew it was time, you know,
Joy Mangano: because in that industry, it's very important that it's exclusive
Joy Mangano: on TV, you know, and they can't get it anywhere else.
Joy Mangano: So for me, there was a whole big vista out
Joy Mangano: there in the retail world, direct to the consumer, and
Joy Mangano: I really wanted to focus in, as I said, on
Joy Mangano: the whole health and wellness aspect of creating great product.
Joy Mangano: And so, you know, so now in lieu of everything,
Joy Mangano: you know, my company is Clean Boss, and I am
Joy Mangano: very much focused on the health and wellness aspects of
Joy Mangano: everybody in life, and I want that to be my
Joy Mangano: life legacy because we're creating a safer choice in your
Joy Mangano: home to clean with.
Speaker 4: If you're keeping up. Joy is on her third pivot.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Inspired by her grandchildren, she wanted to make safer cleaning
Emily Tisch Sussman: products and the opportunity to create Clean Boss came along
Emily Tisch Sussman: when she met none other than Pitbull.
Joy Mangano: So together Armando Christian Perez, Pitbull and I are going
Joy Mangano: to be the face of changing the way the world
Joy Mangano: cleans and its way beyond that, it's you know, laundry
Joy Mangano: detergents that are incredible in the you know, you really
Joy Mangano: don't know about the ingredients of things until you really
Joy Mangano: know about the ingredients of things, right, So that's what
Joy Mangano: I'm passionate about. We both want to leave that legacy
Joy Mangano: so that you don't have to worry. You know, my daughter,
Joy Mangano: I watch her spray the highchair for her two little
Joy Mangano: boys with clean boss. And you know, when that my
Joy Mangano: kids were young, I was using something. I didn't have
Joy Mangano: a choice. I was using you know, whatever with AMMONI
Joy Mangano: in it or whatever. And now you know, I feel
Joy Mangano: like this is such a beautiful thing. And so that's
Joy Mangano: what we're focused on. What was something in your life.
Emily Tisch Sussman: I know there's been a lot, You've done a lot,
Emily Tisch Sussman: but what is something in your life that at the
Emily Tisch Sussman: time you thought was a negative but then now in retrospect,
Emily Tisch Sussman: you see it as having like you couldn't have had
Emily Tisch Sussman: this kind of success without it.
Joy Mangano: So I guess so be pre QVC right. My goal.
Joy Mangano: I was demonstrating affairs and flea markets, and my goal
Joy Mangano: was to get in every kmart because I felt like
Joy Mangano: everybody went to kmart to buy a MOP. So my
Joy Mangano: goal was to get into retail across the country, start
Joy Mangano: there and then get it everywhere. And I tried to call,
Joy Mangano: I talked to a buyer, and nobody, you know, no, no, no,
Joy Mangano: you know, nobody talked to me. I sent letters at
Joy Mangano: the time, letters and finally I got through to a
Joy Mangano: VP there and I talked to him about the mop.
Joy Mangano: I said, let me just come out there and show
Joy Mangano: you this product. And again why he said, yes, I
Joy Mangano: don't know, but flew out there demonstrated the product. And
Joy Mangano: you know, there were major stick goood companies that you
Joy Mangano: know they made not only they made a whole display
Joy Mangano: of things for these stores. Right, I have one miracle
Joy Mangano: mop and a mophead. So I had my meeting with
Joy Mangano: him and he said, all right, He said, why don't
Joy Mangano: you let me see you demonstrate the mop in our
Joy Mangano: flagship store in a couple other places, and let's see
Joy Mangano: what happens. I guess he was being kind, I think,
Joy Mangano: you know. So we did. We went to the flagship
Joy Mangano: Kmart store and I literally was demonstrating and wringing that
Joy Mangano: mop out. My hands were raw, but everybody that stood
Joy Mangano: around and watched it basically bought it. And I'll never
Joy Mangano: forget He came and he was standing back and he
Joy Mangano: was watching this happen because he said, you know, we
Joy Mangano: sell five dollar mops, We're not going to sell a
Joy Mangano: twenty dollars unth So after that, I went to various
Joy Mangano: other stores, you know, to demonstrate, and he saw the sales.
Joy Mangano: So afterwards he said, Okay, this is what I'll do.
Joy Mangano: I will give you every kmart east of the Mississippi
Joy Mangano: and leave this major stick goood company with west of
Joy Mangano: the Mississippi in the country, and whoever brings in the
Joy Mangano: best dollars wins. And I was like, wow, I mean
Joy Mangano: east of the Mississippi. I'm in every k marty that.
Joy Mangano: It was like the biggest thing in my life. And
Joy Mangano: well we won. But then I went on QVC and
Joy Mangano: I couldn't even make enough, you know. It was just
Joy Mangano: like amazing, So and QBC investing in the commercial and
Joy Mangano: everything said you have to come out of retail, so
Joy Mangano: that my whole life then became electronic retailing at the time, right,
Joy Mangano: everything I did was for QVC. Then HSN interesting, but
Joy Mangano: it was perfect because it was instead of standing in
Joy Mangano: front of people and having a group of people, I
Joy Mangano: had millions of people watching every creation that I made.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Yeah, I have to ask the question again that I
Emily Tisch Sussman: asked you at the beginning. The premise of this show
Emily Tisch Sussman: is that we use personal factors in our decision making
Emily Tisch Sussman: when we make professional decisions. How do you think you've
Emily Tisch Sussman: done that.
Joy Mangano: I think more than not. I think about because my
Joy Mangano: family works with me, right, and because I love my
Joy Mangano: family and the consumer. My personal decisions about how everything
Joy Mangano: I do is going to impact them guides what I
Joy Mangano: do in business. So that's really important to me. And
Joy Mangano: I feel like because I've been able to stand in
Joy Mangano: front of it's you know, America and many other places
Joy Mangano: around the world, but you know, primarily here, you know,
Joy Mangano: I think you know, people will come up to me
Joy Mangano: and when they look at products, they see me right
Joy Mangano: because that you know I'm standing there, I'm talking to
Joy Mangano: them directly about that. So for me, everything I do,
Joy Mangano: I know that I'm not invisible. It reflects me to them,
Joy Mangano: and so everything is personal. It's everything I do is personal.
Joy Mangano: It's not a business. It's all kind of it just
Joy Mangano: all intertwined together.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for coming on. It's been so
Speaker 4: great having you.
Joy Mangano: Oh yes, it's a great conversation. And I will say that,
Joy Mangano: you know, she Pivots is a perfect, perfect name because
Joy Mangano: I as a skier, I always say you have to
Joy Mangano: shift your skis right, so you always have you can't
Joy Mangano: feel like you're in a path, and it's unchangeable. It
Joy Mangano: constantly changes constantly, and you have to be open to that. Yeah,
Joy Mangano: thank you so much, thank you. Yes, we're done.
Speaker 4: We did so.
Speaker 5: That was great.
Speaker 4: That was amazing.
Speaker 3: Joy is still a busybee, from Clean Boss to Joy
Speaker 3: the Musical.
Speaker 4: She doesn't slow down.
Speaker 3: You can keep up with Joy by following her on
Speaker 3: Instagram at Joymongano, and of course, be sure to grab
Speaker 3: your tickets to see Joy on stage this summer. This
Speaker 3: is when you won't want to miss. Visit Joythemusical dot
Speaker 3: com for tickets. Talk to you next week.
Emily Tisch Sussman: Thanks for listening to this episode of she Pivots. I
Emily Tisch Sussman: hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, leave us
Emily Tisch Sussman: a rating and tell your friends about us. To learn
Emily Tisch Sussman: more about our guests, follow us on Instagram at she
Emily Tisch Sussman: pivots the Podcast, or sign up for our newsletter where
Emily Tisch Sussman: you can get exclusive behind the scenes content on our
Emily Tisch Sussman: website at she pivots the Podcast dot com. Special thanks
Emily Tisch Sussman: to the she pivots team, Executive producer Emily eda Velosik,
Emily Tisch Sussman: Associate producer and social media connoisseur Hannah Cousins, Research director
Emily Tisch Sussman: Christine Dickinson, Events and Logistics coordinator Madeline Sonovac, and audio
Emily Tisch Sussman: editor and mixer Nina pollock I endorse Che Pivots