Posted by Dave Lorenzo - Business Coach

Leona Helmsley passed away today at age 87.  She was listed in Forbes Magazine as one of the richest people in the world.  How will she be remembered?  What was her personal brand?

Just check out the newspaper articles announcing her death:

The Wall Street Journal –  “Leona Helmsley, the cutthroat hotel magnate whose title as the “queen of mean” was sealed during a tax evasion case in which she was quoted as snarling “only little people pay taxes,” died Monday at age 87.”

New York Daily News – “The Queen of Mean is dead. Leona Helmsley, the haughty hotel baroness who once famously declared “only little people pay taxes,” has died of heart failure at her summer house in Greenwich, Conn., her spokesman Howard Rubenstein said. She was 87.”

New York Post – “’Queen of Mean’ Leona Helmsley Dead at 87. Perhaps she will most be remembered for saying, “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.”

Sure she was rich.  Sure she gave a lot of money to charity.  But in the end, her personal brand was that of a spiteful, arrogant, nasty woman – whose own employees turned her in to the government for tax evasion. 

Keep this in mind as you get rich.  How you make your money is as important as the amount of money you make.

Filed under: Personal Branding
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