Sydney Biddle Barrows
Perhaps better known to millions as the “Mayflower Madam,” Sydney Biddle Barrows is a unique American success story. Beginning her business career as a retail executive at Abraham & Straus, at the time the jewel in the crown of Federated Department Stores, she moved on to May Company Corporate and then became the Divisional Merchandise Manager at a nationwide resident buying office.
Six years later she found herself moonlighting as a phone girl at an escort service to supplement her unemployment check after having been fired for refusing to participate in a kickback scheme. It may have been the World’s Oldest Profession but it certainly was not being run very professionally, and less than a year later she decided to open up her own agency. Relatively small but very upscale, Cachet prospered for five and a half years until New York’s Finest closed it down, only to later publicly concede that it was the most honest and professionally run business of its kind ever operated in New York City.
The tabloids were in media heaven! Beautiful women, sex, money, high-powered international businessmen, Arab sheiks, foreign diplomats, Wall Street multimillionaires, sports stars and musicians… the public couldn’t get enough. And the brains behind the operation was a blue blood from one of America’s oldest families, and a direct descendent on both sides from the original pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock on a ship called The Mayflower. The New York Post immediately dubbed her The Mayflower Madam, and featured her on the cover of every issue for weeks. The story also received intense worldwide media coverage.
Her first book, Mayflower Madam, went right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Fortune Magazine named it one of the Ten Best Business Books of the Year. This book was reprinted 28 times and translated into seven languages; business schools all across the country, including Harvard, included it in their curriculum. Mayflower Madam was also made into a TV movie starring Candice Bergen.
Sydney has been a guest on every network morning television show multiple times as well as dozens of morning shows in local markets and just about every talk show on the air in the 1980s and ‘90’s. Many of them, including Larry King, Phil Donohue and Oprah, had her as their main or only guest more than once. She was featured in her own one-hour A&E Biography, co-hosted Saturday Night Live with Candice Bergen, and has appeared on other shows too numerous to mention.
Her fourth book, co-authored by legendary marketing guru, Dan Kennedy, is titled Uncensored Sales Strategies, and was released in January of 2009. In addition, they produced an audio product together called XXX-Rated Sales Strategies.
Sydney has also had a very extensive speaking career, guest lecturing at colleges all over the United States, including some in the Ivy League such as Brown and Columbia. Speaking engagements have taken her all over North America and overseas; she was an extremely popular fixture at Young Presidents Organization and CEO Club events, among others, for years.
Her latest presentation topic is The Secrets to Creating a Unique and Compelling Customer Experience. Other presentations include Marketing a High Cost Service and a keynote entitled How Did a Nice Girl Like You…?
In addition, she writes articles on the Customer Experience and has a monthly column on the subject on entrepreneur.com (Entrepreneur magazine’s online site) as well as a newsletter that is published every two weeks called The Experience Factor.
Sydney also does business consulting, focusing on Experience Design; conducts on-site Fresh Eyes Analyses for businesses and professional practices; and also holds private coaching and consulting sessions over the phone. In addition, she runs a small, exclusive, one-on-one coaching program that includes a monthly group mastermind call.
As an adjunct to her coaching and consulting business, Sydney does Roadblock Removal work, eradicating those roadblocks that sabotage people with the best intentions from organizing and using their time productively; from accomplishing the things they genuinely want to do; and that prevent them from being the kind of person they truly want to be.
Sydney lives on the Upper West Side in New York City and has “no pets, no plants, no children, and no regrets.”
Email Sydney at sydney@sydneybarrows.com for more information on her products and services, and be sure to visit www.RoadblockRemoval.com to find out more about how you can get out of your own way and life the life as the person you’ve always wanted to be.
