From Busy Philipps to your business: lessons in entrepreneurship
Photo from Busy Philipps
Busy Philipps isn’t just a familiar face from “Freaks and Geeks” and “Dawson’s Creek”—she’s also a trailblazer when it comes to personal branding and digital marketing.
Whether navigating the spotlight as a Hollywood star, securing brand deals, or connecting with fans through her lively Instagram presence, Busy has always been at the forefront of celebrity influencing. These days, she’s breathing new life into a classic retail format—the home shopping network—as the host of “Busy This Week” on QVC.
As both a media personality and entrepreneur, Busy’s success stems from her authenticity, candor, and willingness to take risks. Below, she shares five lessons that apply to businesses of all sizes, including insights on bouncing back from failure, winning over investors, and responding to critical feedback.
“Since I was a teenager, how I was portrayed in the media was always just very dependent on a reporter and the space they had allotted for a profile of a young actress like myself. It’s these people trying to capture your personality or your ethos or who you are in a 300-character blurb that accompanies a pretty photo of you. And I’d always felt very disappointed whenever I would do press and I would read the articles that would then be published in these magazines. It’s just missing the [mark] and doesn’t get who I am at my core and the complexity of me.
“I loved being able to have a direct line to people who are interested in me and also people who didn’t know who I was… in having my own voice and thoughts and feelings, and being able to put that directly out to the fans.”
The advent of Instagram Stories marked a crucial turning point in the Busy Philipps renaissance. After decades of press junkets, social media gave Busy the opportunity to speak directly to her fans and shape her own narrative. Business owners can do the same thing by telling their stories online, whether on social media or platforms like Yelp’s “From this business” section.
“Oh, honey, I dwell. In the immediate aftermath of [my first talk show] “Busy Tonight” being canceled, I was just deeply feeling the injustice of the thing, which is nothing new in this industry… Caissie St. Onge, my executive producer from “Busy Tonight,” [and I] started taking meetings with some new streamers. The more meetings we took, the more I was taken by [the fact] that this system isn’t really working for anyone.
“Why do these people get to determine what success looks like for me, based on their bottom line? And how do we get to take that power back a little bit as creators? Am I good with just taking a paycheck for this job that I’m pouring my heart and soul and everything into? Or do I wanna have more ownership in it?
“We had this big offer on the table, and I just remember [thinking], ‘It doesn’t feel right.’ It makes me feel itchy. My gut was like, this just isn’t it. I called Caissie and was like: ‘Just hear me out. I feel like we can go directly to advertisers and get them to fund our talk show, and then we can partner with—I don’t know, someone—and then get it out there.’”
Every entrepreneur fails, and it’s okay to dwell on that failure for a bit. The key is not to settle for the next best thing. Make sure what you’re pursuing feels right, even if it means waiting a little longer for another opportunity.
“I might be a f****** visionary, but I didn’t go to business school and I don’t know how to code, so I am beholden to other people in the industry to help guide us through these things. You’re only as good as the people that you’re working with or surrounded by and all trying to figure it out at the same time, you know? [QVC and HSN are] such incredible partners in that respect because QVC has been very amenable and open to all the ideas—really starting, I think, with clothing.
“That was the thing that I felt really strongly about: I wanted everything that we wear to be shoppable. There was a dress that Caissie wore that sold out immediately. Then when Tina Fey was on the show, we did this really fun Christmas in July episode because she loves decorating for Christmas, and I had her go through some of the decorations that are available on QVC’s website, and there was this sort of slightly terrifying Christmas squirrel that she really had a lot to say about… but that Christmas squirrel was sold out less than a week after that episode aired.
“I don’t know if the return [on retail sales] is fully paying for our show, but I certainly would argue that the marketing alone does pay for it. The amount of hits in media that we’ve been able to garner for QVC—getting the bullseye on Entertainment Weekly, those kinds of things—that’s a different space that they hadn’t been a part of until we came along.”
It’s as true for a late night talk show host as it does for a small business owner: Your team can make or break you. Surround yourself with people whose skills fill in the gaps in your own knowledge, whether it’s hiring a marketing professional to handle your social media or delegating tasks to a trusted employee. Dive into Yelp for Business’s full slate of resources for people management.
“[When I’m deciding whether or not to invest in a brand] a lot of times it comes down to: Is it doing something good in the world? Is that a goal of the founders? With Behave, I literally was just buying it. And then coincidentally—and this happens a lot, too, in my world—they had reached out to see if I was familiar with the brand. My agent brought it to me and I was like, familiar with the brand? I literally have it in my pantry. I buy it down the street.
“I think [the most important takeaway for business owners is] being clear about not just the product you have, but the why. We have a surplus of s**t in the world, so, why? Why should we care? Why do we want it? Why do we need it? And what good is it to the world? And what good are you gonna be to the world?”
Apply this to your business: Your “why” isn’t just your own internal motivation. If you want customers or investors to care about your business, you’ll need to show them why. Once Busy started investing in businesses herself, she gravitated toward brands with a clear mission, such as Behave and Period.
“I really do believe that… you have to be open to the fact that maybe this person has a point. And also you have to hold that there are haters and trolls in the world, so it’s a little bit tricky. You cannot have your first response be defensive or overly attacking back.
“I’ve been guilty of it myself occasionally—like you catch someone on a day when they’re PMSing and they say something mean to you, it’s hard not to spout off some back at them, but I do think it’s a bad look for almost everyone, especially if it’s not done with humor at all.
“Sometimes I see brands… being too defensive and too mean back to a person who has whatever [going] on. We don’t know what’s going on with this person. And sometimes I just think it’s better to let it lie or to have a great customer service response, which is like: “So sorry to hear about that. We’d love to contact you directly to hear more.”
With over 2.4 million followers on Instagram, Busy is no stranger to critical comments. And as much as it stings, experience has taught her to take the high road—and maybe even learn from the feedback. To do this in your business, get five tips for responding to reviews on Yelp.
These lessons come from an episode of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Watch below to hear more from Busy, or visit the show homepage to learn about the show and find more episodes.
