Steve Madden on putting his best foot forward
Through a lifetime full of ups and downs, a major innovator in the field of footwear has never stopped his soul searching. This morning he shares some of his experiences with our Faith Salie:
It was, Steve Madden said, the hardest job he ever had: working in a shoe store.
Why? "You know, trying to please women is difficult," he laughed.
If you're not sure who Steve Madden is, look down.
The footwear mogul whose shoes are sold in nearly 60 countries enjoys every part of the business, including weekly visits to his own New York stores.
He even knows the name of about all of his shoe styles, including the Robin, the Marco, and the Rawlings.
"How do you remember all of them?" asked Salie.
"Well, this is what I do."
And Madden does it well. Last year his company walked off with more than $1.3 billion in sales.
"I probably have 20 pairs of Steve Madden shoes," said one customer.
Another customer said, "They are comfortable, and they are really stylish, and the price is really good."
From boots to sandals to stilettos, Madden designs many of his top-selling shoes at his factory in the New York City borough of Queens, not far from the Long Island suburb where he grew up.
Visiting his old hometown, Madden told Salie, "It's a nice feeling -- people are much nicer to me than when I was growing up, that's for sure."
At age 16, he got his first job in a Cedarhurst shoe store.
"When you walk in, decades and decades later, and you see a whole display of your own shoes, are you used to that already?" asked Salie.
"No, I'm not used to it," Madden said. "It feels great."
So what is it about shoes that grabs him? "I suppose, the marriage of art and commerce is interesting."
Growing up on Long Island, did he feel any heat for being a guy who was interested in ladies' shoes?
"Absolutely," Madden replied. "Most of my friends would get on the train and go into the city. And I would go to the town that I lived in and worked in a shoe store with a shoe horn sticking out of my pocket. And they laughed at me.
"It seemed like my prospect was dim."
So in 1975, he enrolled at the University of Miami, but he wasn't interested in school work. He majored, he said, in sun tanning and drugs "I didn't last long there," he said. "My father wouldn't pay any more. He called me up and he said, 'Go get a job. You're not taking this seriously, and I'm not wasting my money.'"
So he ended up working at a shoe store.
And he put his best foot forward. With only $1,100 in the bank, he started selling a clog he named the Marilyn. The shoe was an instant hit. Within three years, Madden had opened his first store in New York's trendy Soho.
While making it big, Madden came often to the small Chateau Coffee Shop. ("Local legendary place. Grade A," he laughed.)
"So," Salie asked, "if we were sitting here with the Steve who grew up in Cedarhurst in the '70s, what are a couple things you would tell him?"
"Oh, God. I would tell him to be patient. Don't take shortcuts," he said.
Madden learned this the hard way.
In 1992, he went into business with Jordan Belfort, the crooked stockbroker played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's film, "The Wolf of Wall Street." Belfort's brokerage took Madden's company public -- and artificially inflated its stock price.
"He said to me, 'Steve, you got this great business. We can raise money for you,'" Madden said. "And I didn't really believe him, you know. But he said, 'No, we're like dream makers.' And I never had any money. You know, my business was, like, my bankroll in my pocket.
"And so it happened. They did raise money for me, more than I ever dreamed of."
"Did you know that anything you were involved with was wrong?" Salie asked.
"In the beginning, no," he said. "But while we were doing it, it sort of did not feel right, and that I was doing the wrong thing. And it was just, you know, just taking a shortcut. Just greed and stupidity."
"Did you feel like you were doing it for the sake of your company?"
"No, it's just greed on my part, just pure and simple," said Madden. "We were lying to ourselves saying we weren't doing anything wrong. And a lot of people got hurt as a result of what we did. And so, I deeply regret it. And, you know, I paid the price. It was pretty harsh, the price, too."
The price was 31 months in prison, a sentence Madden began serving in 2002 -- which may have been the best thing that ever happened to him.
While locked up, Madden grew close to one of his employees, Wendy Ballew.
"The romance started when I was in prison," Madden said, "and I looked forward to her visits. Because, you know, it's such a heart-breaking thing to be in prison. And she made it better for me."
"It was like an old-fashioned courtship," Ballew said. "We held hands. We were just able to kiss hello and goodbye. We talked, and we wrote love letters back and forth.
"I knew he loved me after I got his letter, after our first kiss, which was in prison: 'A couple of thoughts transpired in the visiting room. A. It was the most fun I've had in almost 2 years. B. Your heart was pounding more than mine ...'"
They married after his release, and now have three children.
Was it a concern of his, Salie asked, that his customers would forgive him following his release from prison?
"I knew that my customers don't really care," he laughed. "They just want great shoes. But I was hoping that I could contribute and not lose my talent.
"And also you're changed. I felt the need -- you want to give back, [that] maybe there's a great purpose for everything."
At age 56, Madden has certainly found his purpose. Whether being a busy dad, a celebrated designer, or a hands-on businessman, Steven Madden is kicking up his heels.
"Would you have done everything differently, considering the way your life turned out?" Salie asked.
"Of course I wish that I had never been so foolish to break the law," he replied. "But I would have never married my wife had I not gone to prison. And I would have never had my children.
"Everybody's got their own path. I love what I do. And, you know, I've been given a second chance. And so I'm going to make the most of it."
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