What can business students learn from Dolly Parton? According to faculty at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Gary W. Rollins College of Business, quite a lot.
Dolly Parton built a business and media empire worth well over $500 million, while giving much of it away through philanthropic efforts like the Imagination Library, which has distributed more than 330 million free books to children worldwide. Following her passing, six Rollins College of Business faculty members shared what her career can teach the next generation of business leaders.
What can Dolly Parton’s career teach students about building a business empire?
Dr. Hunter Holzhauer, Robert L. Maclellan & UC Foundation Associate Professor of Finance, Director of the SMILE Fund
It might surprise some folks to find out that Dolly Parton built a massive financial and media empire worth well over $500 million. She proved that creative artists — even those from modest means — can become savvy business leaders. Dolly said she never paid attention to the dumb blonde jokes because she knew she wasn’t dumb and she knew she wasn’t blonde. Dolly believed in herself, and she believed that everyone should be true to themselves. She had an incredible gift for connecting with people about what mattered most in their lives.
Dolly was also a very strategic businesswoman. She had a knack for securing important copyrights and protecting revenue-generating assets. She was very adaptive and leveraged her music brand equity into an array of diverse revenue streams including music publishing, hospitality, cosmetics and baking lines.
She was also a risk-taker with a penchant for understanding her target market. Defying many critics, Dolly invested heavily into a revamped theme park named Dollywood in the mid-80s. Dolly not only personally played an integral role in the park’s massive success, but she would go on to support her hometown and the East Tennessee region with a variety of business and charitable contributions over the years. Dollywood alone brings an estimated $1.8 billion annuallyto the region.
Dolly was never shy. She literally put her name behind many of her business ventures, which crafted products and experiences that still resonate with everyday people. Few, if any, celebrities have ever generated more trust and loyalty from their fans than Dolly. She always did the right thing and she inspired so many through her kindness, her character and her far-reaching philanthropy like the Imagination Library.
Yes, Dolly Parton made a ton of money, but her main business was helping others and spreading unconditional love. Imagine a world filled with business leaders like Dolly. What a wonderful world that would be.
What can Dolly Parton’s contract decisions teach students about protecting the value of their work?
Mike Bradshaw, Director, Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
One of the best stories is Dolly refusing to license “I Will Always Love You” to Elvis Presley. It would have been a bonanza for Dolly’s career. Colonel Tom Parker’s policy was that Elvis got 50% ownership. Dolly refused the deal, citing the future. It paid off when Whitney Houston recorded the song for The Bodyguard, and it is now and always will be iconic.
What can marketing students learn from how Dolly Parton built her brand?
Libby Fakier, Lecturer, Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship; Managing Director, the John “Art” Phillips Sales Institute
Most of the tributes this week are about the music, and they should be. But Tennessee also just lost one of the most disciplined brand builders this country has ever produced.
What I’d want students to take from Dolly isn’t the craft, though. It’s what marketing can do when someone like Dolly is the one calling the shots.
The obvious lesson has been written plenty of times this week: she was steadfast to her brand position even as her formats changed. Country to pop, film, Broadway, a theme park, a rock album in her late seventies — the formats moved constantly, butthe positioning never did.
The part worth more attention is what she aimed all that consistency at.
Her philanthropy was never a campaign. The Imagination Library started in 1995 in her home county because her own father couldn’t read. It’s now mailed more than 300 million books to children in five countries. Dollywood was built in 1986 to put jobs in the mountains she came from, and the state estimates it supports more than 23,000 of them across the region. None of that was a purpose statement drafted in a conference room and retrofitted onto a brand. It grew out of who she already was — which is exactly why it never read as marketing, and exactly why it worked as marketing anyway.
Here is the proof.
The Foundation for a Better Life runs a national public-service campaign called Pass It On. You’ve seen the billboards — one photograph, one value in block letters, one short line. Dolly has one, and I loved seeing it at the Atlanta airport when coming home after work trips. The value is KINDNESS, and the line reads: Find the good in everybody.
Sit with what that requires. She didn’t buy the space. She didn’t write the copy, or approve the message, or hire anyone to pitch it. Someone else looked at a list of human values, needed a face for kindness, and picked her — confident that a driver doing 70 on the interstate would glance up, see her and need no further explanation.
That’s the part most of us have backward. We think self-promotion means telling people who you are. It doesn’t. It means behaving consistently enough, for long enough, that other people say it for you without being asked. Your brand is not your headline. It’s the word somebody else reaches for when your name comes up in a room you’re not standing in.
Dolly spent sixty years earning one word. And she did it from East Tennessee, in heels and rhinestones, while giving most of it away.
What lesson should business students take from Dolly Parton’s example?
Amie Haun, Senior Lecturer, Accounting
Dolly Parton was a phenomenal Tennessean, not just a country music superstar. She was an awesome entrepreneur who created numerous jobs and spearheaded community and economic development. From founding such ventures as Dollywood, Splash Country, the Stampede and Pirates Voyage dinner shows, resorts and other business ventures, her entrepreneurial spirit will impact East Tennessee for years to come.
Additionally, her big heart encouraged her to give back, wherein she also has numerous efforts in nonprofits and foundations to her credit. She will be missed, but definitely never forgotten.
I recommend that all RCOB Mocs consider the impact of Dolly as one person; then imagine all of the things that they would like to accomplish in their careers and lives. They should build a list of knowledge and skillsets that they should acquire to empower them to reach those goals. Fly high, Mocs!
How did Dolly Parton prove that a business can “do well” and “do good” at the same time?
Dr. Tom Lyons, Clarence E. Harris Chair of Excellence in Entrepreneurship, Professor of Marketing & Entrepreneurship, Executive Director, Max Fuller Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Dolly Parton’s entrepreneurial career proved that it is possible to do well and do good at the same time. While she built an impressive business empire (doing well), she also contributed extensively to the well-being of others (doing good). Her Imagination Library, Dollywood Foundation and Dolly Parton Scholarship program are a few, among many, examples of the latter. She demonstrated that when businesspeople create both economic value and social value, they generate wealth for themselves and others. The outpouring of grief and gratitude upon her passing is testimony to how businesspeople can truly leave a legacy.
What can business students learn about ethics from Dolly Parton?
Dr. Harry Van Buren, Z. Lupton Patten Endowed Chair of Business Ethics, Department of Management
There’s so much that business students can learn about ethics from Dolly Parton, but I’ll focus on three things.
First, Dolly was authentic in her practice of virtues; she was kind as well as committed to equality and respect for every person. All of us felt like we knew her in some way because she was omnipresent, but what we all felt we knew most about her was how kind she was.
Second, and related to authenticity, Dolly focused on doing good much more than talking about doing good or getting credit for doing good things. Think about the Imagination Library, which donated more than 332 million books worldwide. But she never sought public acclaim or credit; for her, doing good was its own reward even as it made her more beloved around the world. In short, what she showed is talking less and doing more is way better than the opposite.
And third, she was always creating value for stakeholders. Dollywood, for example, isn’t just a good place for families — it was good for employees and the community as well. She understood that in business, creating value for everyone is the best way to succeed.
She wasn’t just a musical icon: she showed that there are ways of being in the world that make people better off. Business student leaders could learn a lot from her example, not just in music or as a person, but also in business.
What can Dollywood teach business students about taking care of employees?
Shelley Kay, Journey Health Research Center Operations Manager
There is just so much to learn from Dolly Parton — and I think that is especially true for business students. What she built with Dollywood is pretty remarkable, but one of the biggest lessons, in my opinion, is that she understood that the most important part of any business is the people who make it happen. Taking care of your people and investing in the community where they live isn’t separate from running a successful business — it’s part of how you run one.
I recently attended the United for Working Families Summit and heard from the CEO of Dollywood. He talked about some of the support they have put in place for employees — tuition assistance from day one, free meals for employees who may be experiencing food insecurity, an on-site health clinic and more. Those aren’t just “nice” things for a company to do. They show employees that the company cares about them as people, while also helping build a stronger and more stable workforce.
And there is a pretty compelling business case for that. I love some of the research from Gallup on employee well-being. Employees who strongly agree that their organization cares about their overall well-being are 54% less likely to be looking for another job, 3.2 times less likely to experience frequent burnout, and 4.6 times as likely to be engaged at work.
I think that’s such an important lesson for business students as they become the next generation of managers, entrepreneurs and business leaders. We spend a lot of time teaching students to think about the bottom line — and of course they should — but taking care of your people and paying attention to the bottom line don’t have to compete with one another. In fact, they are often directly connected. Healthcare costs, absenteeism, turnover, engagement and productivity all affect the bottom line. The question for future leaders isn’t whether to care about your people or run a successful business. It’s how you build a successful business by understanding and investing in the people who make it possible.
Dolly certainly knew how to take care of her people — and I think there is a lot our business students can learn from the way she did it.
The legacy Rollins College of Business students can carry forward
These reflections point to a common thread: Dolly Parton’s business success was never separate from her values — it was built on them. She protected her assets like a strategist, diversified like an entrepreneur, marketed with unmatched consistency, treated her employees as her greatest asset and gave away enormous wealth without ever seeking credit for it.
For students at the Rollins College of Business, her career is a reminder that financial success and genuine care for people are not competing priorities. They can, and perhaps should, be the same goal.
This piece features insights from Dr. Hunter Holzhauer, Libby Fakier, Amie Haun, Dr. Tom Lyons, Dr. Harry Van Buren and Shelley Kay, faculty and staff at the Gary W. Rollins College of Business at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.
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