The Forbes Magazine's "Celebrity 100" issue listed and profiled the 100 top celebrities that they ranked by a combination of yearly earnings and influence (i.e. number of news stories about them). Unfortunately, they no longer provide free access to back articles from the magazine, so I can't give a link directly to the story.
Among the celebrities profiled was Tyra Banks, who was #84 on the list. It was interesting to read how she has leveraged her intitial modelling success into other ventures, thereby building her brand, and avoiding the limited career lifespan of modeling.
Banks began modeling at 15, and retired last year at 32. She is now the star, co-producer, and co-owner of the show "America's Next Top Model" (ANTM), which is a big hit with the 18-34 female demographic. Soon, she will have her own talk show, and has other ventures in the pipeline. She looks towards Oprah Winfrey and Martha Stewart as her inspirations to building a franchise.
Here are some lessons that I think both businesses and individuals can learn from this story:
Don't be satisfied with success just in your intial field. At her modeling peak, Banks was earning $50,000 a day. She could have just coasted along. However, she says she always had aspirations beyond what she calls the typical model's "booking mentality" - i.e. just tell the model where to show up, and she does the job.
Don't give up if your first efforts at branching out don't meet with success. While still modeling, Banks tried acting and singing. Though these were not big successes, she made producing connections that paid off when she pitched the idea for ANTM. Today, she is using her ANTM experience to venture back into combination acting/producing roles.
Be professional. When she first formed her production company, she called it "Ty Ty Baby", which was her childhood nickname. She since renamed it to the more professional sounding "Bankable Productions".
Educate yourself in new areas. When a businessman asked Banks budgetary questions about ANTM, and she could not answer, she decided to learn about finance.
To learn about talk shows, she did a 2 year apprenticeship on the Oprah Winfrey show.
Learn from failed investments. Banks lost $100,000 on an internet investment with rap mogul Russell Simmons. However, she said that "she would do it again", and is now working on creating an internet community with others.
Find good partners and stick with them. Banks' new talk show will be in partnership with the veteran reality producer who co-owns ANTM with her. She has used the same Merrill Lynch money manager since she was 19.
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