0 (2s):
Boom Shake, the room Fire Nation. JLD, here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire.

HubSpot Podcast Network (7s):
Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination for business professionals with great shows like My First Million.

0 (14s):
Today we'll be breaking down how the founder of Reebok built a Global Brand To drop. these Value Bombs I have brought to Joe Foster into EOFire Studios. Joe is the founder of Reebok and is a renowned figure in the athletic footwear industry. With his innovative spirit. he established Reebok in 1958, pioneering athletic performance and style. His commitment to quality and design, reshaped the world of sports and fashion, leaving a lasting legacy. He's also the author of Shoe Maker, The Untold Story of the British, Family Firm that Became a Global Brand And Today. For our Nation, we will talk about how everything changed when it came to Reebok.

0 (55s):
We'll talk about going from 9 million to billions very fast. We're gonna talk about surviving and thriving and so much more. And A. big thank you for sponsoring.

The Sales Evangelist (1m 5s):
Today's episode goes to Joe and our sponsors, sales Evangelist Hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales Right. now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five, Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn, Listen to Sales evangelist. wherever you get your podcasts,

Hostinger (1m 34s):
Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world. See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10 percent discount. That's Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and the code ONFIR.

0 (1m 52s):
Joe, say, what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (2m 2s):
People do ask me, can I become an entrepreneur? Can anybody become an entrepreneur? And I disagree. They can't become an entrepreneur, and some people don't like that. I, I say you have to be born an optimist. If you're not an optimist, it will be difficult to become an entrepreneur. Can you make an entrepreneur outta an optimist? Yes, but not everybody will be an entrepreneur, not anybody. Everybody is available able to take that risk.

0 (2m 29s):
And Fire Nation. I can tell you, I've been talking with Joe for just a few minutes here, and this guy is an optimist and you're about to hear a lot more about why as we go through how the founder of Reebok built a Global Brand. And Joe, your founding story of starting Reebok is simply fantastic. I would love to hear more about that. Now,

1 (2m 52s):
Most people start up in order to build a business and to make a lot of money, but that didn't happen with Reebok. My grandfather started his company January Foster, in 1895, and he died in 1933. I wasn't born until 1935, but I was born on his birthday so high of his name. However, his sons took over the business, and that was okay for a while. But as Jeff and I, my brother, as we sort of grew up from being kids into teenagers, we had to do national service. And we came back from national service and we came back to a, a, a family business, which was failing. The, the business that my grandfather built was great.

1 (3m 33s):
He must have been one of the first entrepreneurs he knew all about influencing, but his sons just didn't, they just fell out. They just fault each other. Like Addie Dassler, Rudy Dassler, the Dassler company, Adida. Well, Rudy left the company because he couldn't get on with Addie and set up Puma with the Fosters. They just kept feuding and fighting. And Jeff and myself, we just took this up with my father and said, look, you know, either, either you get on with our uncle and we grow this business or you know, we're gonna have to leave. And eventually my father wouldn't do anything. So we left, we left the business.

1 (4m 13s):
And why do we leave? Well, we, we needed, we needed to earn money. We just, it was just simple as that in those early days, we just had to have something to go to. The business was going to fail and then we would be in a, a real position of what do you do next? So we took the step before we had to, and we set up Mercury Sports Footwear and Mercury Sports Footwear 18 months later became Reebok. And there's a whole story in my book Shoemaker, how that happened. But that could take us some while to tell that story. Yeah.

0 (4m 47s):
Well, I really love you sharing that part. 'cause I think a lot of people think that the beginning part of starting a successful business is just this smooth sailing, this great idea comes and you have, you know, no difficulty, no challenges. You just kind of jump into it and Boom, there you are. But it actually took you, Joe, 19 years to get to $9 million in sales, which is not a lot. Fire Nation, 9 million sounds like a lot, but that's not in 19 years in that business. But going back to what you talked about at the beginning of the episode, you are an optimistic man. You never gave up What happened in 1979 that changed everything

1 (5m 29s):
In our scale, our business, we either had to increase the categories that we were in, but unfortunately Adidas had taken over soccer. So going into soccer at that time would've been too expensive, too difficult for us. So it was a matter of increasing the territory. We were doing well in the uk, but running was a very small market, but in America, massive market, 350 million Americans. And they were just starting to, to do, to go out training, running. So training shoes or sneakers were becoming popular. So I, in 1968, I started off in, in America, going to the NSGA show in, in Chicago.

1 (6m 11s):
The guys loved my shoes, but they wouldn't import from the uk. That was too difficult. So we had to find distribution, and I had six failed attempts during those nine, well, during the 11 years I was going to America, I had six failed attempts at getting a distributor. However we went happened in 1979, runner's World was growing big with the running Boom. And at that point, the Bob Anderson, who was the, the editor of the, of the Magazine, he thought he could tell everybody, which was the best shoe to buy. So we told them, Nike, that's the best shoe to buy.

1 (6m 50s):
Unfortunately, Phil Knight is importing those shoes from Japan and Asia and the demand that being told this is the number one Shoe, the demand in America must have been millions. But could he, could he, could he grow his business that much? Could he scale up that? No. So 12 months later, it was a failure for the retail. It was a, a failure really for Nike. Bob Anderson, you changed that one. He said, oh no, not now. I think New Balance or somebody else who put his number one. Again, same problem, however, 1979, Bob Anderson has learned a lot. And instead of saying who's number one, he changed to star ratings, so a five star Shoe, those would be at the top and you could get three or four, maybe five, five star shoes.

1 (7m 34s):
Well, it's in 1979, I went to the NSGA show, and that was in February. The shoe edition doesn't come out until August. So a lot of people are anxious to say, will you get a five star shoe? Kmart thought we were a, a good bet. They wanted to buy 25,000 pairs off me. But I met up with a guy called Paul Fireman. And Paul Fireman who was in, he had a company called Boston Camping, a family business. But he, he was really fed up with that. And he said, Joe, you can get a Fivestar shoe, I'll be your distributor. Well, end of July, I phoned Paul Fireman, I'd been over to see him. We'd, we'd met and yep, would be good idea. But we needed, he needed a Fivestar Shoe.

1 (8m 16s):
So I asked him to go down to the kiosk and see it run's world. The shoe edition was out. He came back in later, he said, Joe Aztec, that was our, was our training Shoe Aztec, you got five stars. Oh, that was it. We had the breakthrough. Not only that, our spike track shoe and our racing shoe, they also got five stars. So we had three five star shoes to get us into, into America. And that was the beginning. We got into America and this is when our business started to grow nicely scale up to 9 million. But that's not what really made the difference to, to Reebok getting into there.

1 (8m 58s):
That was all right. There were other things that would take us to the top

0 (9m 2s):
Fire Nation. I think a lot of us have Reebok stories. And Joe, I wanna take a second and tell you my Reebok story. And it's, it's a fun one in my mind. Okay, it's 1991. I'm 11 years old at this point. I really, I'm not like that into shoes. Like a shoe is a shoe, a sneakers, a sneaker. Like I'm just wearing what I'm wearing. Then I'm living in Maine and our closest city to Maine is Boston. And I'm watching the Dunk contest 'cause I love basketball. And the Boston Celtic Guard D Brown, right, is wearing the Reebok Pump Omni Zone shoes. And this guy gets down, he likes, he's staying in half court, he, he bends over, he pumps up his shoe and then he goes and he takes off from the foul line and he blocks his eyes with his elbow and he dunks it.

0 (9m 56s):
And I looked at my dad and I said, buy me those shoes. I had never asked him to buy me a specific pair of shoes in my life. And here I'm at 11 years old, kneading those shoes with everything that every fiber in my body. And of course my dad relented because I was, I was relentless. And I remember putting those shoes on for the first time, Joe and I had this little eight foot hoop in the backyard. I could never even touch the rim on it. I pumped those shoes up. And not only did I jump and touch the rim, I grabbed the rim. Those shoes gave me the mental confidence to make me think that I could jump higher than I actually could.

0 (10m 37s):
And it was a magical moment for that 11-year-old. So I just wanna tell you, that was my Reebok story. D Brown, I still have such fond memories. I had that poster my bedroom forever of him dunking that ball. And those magical moments you've made millions and millions of times to people around the world. So you've done something very special. I wanted to personally thank you for that. I know a lot of people that are listening Right now are, are thinking of their Reebok story. 'cause we all have one that's cool like that. And Joe, before I pass it back over to you, I wanna say thank you and we have some really cool things to talk about. Fire Nation to include Jane Fonda. When we get back from thanking our sponsors,

Hubspot (11m 15s):
the new year is upon us. And that means new goals, more growth, and upgrading your day-to-Day workflow. While most sales folk are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data and tracking down leads, let me share with you a better way to win so you can crush your Q one. The new HubSpot Sales Hub is smart sales software for today's multitasking reps. It's built to help you manage every stage of your sales pipeline with ease. It's filled with easy to use and powerful tools that make closing deals and collaborating across departments A breeze. Sales Hub is an all in one platform for things like converting contacts into customers and accelerating sales with smarter sequences. Plus, you can supercharge your work with AI powered apps like ChatSpot. ChatSpot combines the power of chat GPT in your HubSpot smart CRM to give you a gen AI powered personal assistance. How's that for upgrading your workflow? Bottom line Sales Hub is focused on helping you work smarter, not harder, so you can get after all those other New Year's goals, close more deals and get on track for your best Q one yet. Explore the new HubSpot, Sales, Hub and AI tools like ChatSpot at HubSpot dot com slash sales.

Hostinger (12m 17s):
A website is something every business needs, but if you've ever gone through the process of getting a website up and running, then you know it's not easy. Lucky for us, Hostinger makes building a professional websites effortless Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world with a mission to empower entrepreneurs to create their own business website or e-commerce store. And they make it possible with their user friendly software. No coding skills or technical expertise required and website creation has never been easier. With Hostinger AI website builder that simplifies website creation, you can even create your logo and SEO friendly copy with the help of their ai. Best part is hosting your plans start at less than $3 per month and that includes a free domain name. I tried out Hostinger myself and their AI tools made building a website such a breeze. It took me just a few minutes to personalize and set everything up, all with the help breaking a sweat See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10 percent discount. That's Hostinger, H-O-S-T-I-N-G-E r.com/ ONFIRE and the code ONFIRE.

0 (13m 22s):
Alright, Joe, we're back and you went from 9 million to 900 million in four years, that's really fast. And I think somebody called Jane Fonda had a little something to do with that. So talk to us about that.

1 (13m 37s):
Love your story. You know, we know that story so well. Yes, and it's, it's one of the big moments in, in Reebok's existence and so, you know, so many tell me that story. So many love the pump. Yes he does love it, love it. However, what happened, right? We're a $9 million running company and we have a guy down in Los Angeles called Arnold Mountain is, and he's a tech rep. So he goes into the stores, meets up with the guys and tells 'em the good points of these shoes. This is what you do. That's great. Okay, okay, so Arnold, his wife, Frankie, she's coming home from doing these classes, exercise classes and she's full of it, love it with, with her friends. And Arnold says, what are you doing?

1 (14m 19s):
And he, she said, well, we're doing aerobics. And of course, who's did of aerobics? Nobody. So Arnold said, well Frankie, what's aerobics? And she said, well, we are exercising some music and it's absolutely fabulous. So Arnold said, look, can I come down to the next class? Of course, right? So Arnold went to the next class and all these girls, the instructors wearing a pair of sneakers, half the class are wearing sneakers. The other half they just bare feet nothing. This was his light bulb moment. Fantastic. Wow. Why don't we make a shoe specifically for aerobics and specifically for women in women's sizes and make it with glove leather uppers.

1 (15m 1s):
Wow. Yes, that's a good idea. He's in la my guy in America, Paul Fireman is in Boston. So off goes Arnold up to Boston and he starts confronting Paul, Paul, we've gotta get into this. It's gonna be fabulous. It's, and of course Paul says, Arnold, slow down, slow down. We're a running company. Why should we be making dancing shoes for girls? Oh, and the conversation went on a bit, but Arnold didn't come out satisfied. So he went round to the back door. He went to see a guy called Steve Liggett, who was in charge of production, persuaded Steve better. He persuaded Paul persuaded Steve to get 200 pairs of samples, which he did.

1 (15m 46s):
Eventually got these samples, gave them to the girls, gave them to the instructors, and all of a sudden the women had something just for women. They were on, on a woman's last in women's sizes. Fabulous. And it just took off. We had a problem. It was made of glove leather, and at the time I didn't know that, but it was made of glove leather. And of course I'm a shoemaker Arnold, brilliant man, brilliant marketeer. And I said, you can't make them, you know, you can rip, you can rip glove leather just like paper. However, having had conversations, they lined it with nylon to strengthen it. And I said, well, your problem with nylon is that it stops the leather from breathing and you know, that's why you leather.

1 (16m 32s):
So it's nice and cool and breeze. So what did they do? They punched holes in the front, a nice pattern of holes to, to allow it to breathe again. We did get over the problem and we used something more like a, a garment leather. And the sales started to come in. Then Jane Fonda went out and bought a pair of Reebok to use inner videos, our exercise videos on tv. And all of a sudden the whole thing went crazy. It went viral. We couldn't keep up with sales. And as just said, we went from that $9 million running company to a $900 million woman's company in four years.

1 (17m 16s):
And that causes a lot of problems to get there. But it, it was, it was different. We didn't have to go out and sell anything. Our biggest problem was how do we keep up with the demand? Because the demand was absolutely incredible. And of course, once the men started seeing women in these nice, soft, beautiful shoes, they wanted to get in, but we didn't have space. We were growing so fast, we just did not have space. And the the thing is, of course, you would say, well, when you, when you start to grow so quickly, how do you finance that? Fortunately, we'd had we'd answered that a little earlier in the running time to get into running.

1 (17m 58s):
So we're okay on financing, but our biggest problem, how do you get the production? You know, I, I referred to Runner's World and giving Nike a number one shoe and they couldn't get the production. Well, how do we get production? Well, we were lucky because it coincided And A time when Nike found themselves with too much inventory and they had to pull out of two or three factories and we moved straight in. And if we hadn't had that availability of production, we would've starved our market and probably lost the business. But now we've moved from being a running company to being a woman's company. And we overtook Adidas, we overtook Nike in sales and we became number one sports sport shoe company in the world.

0 (18m 46s):
Joe, you have countless amazing stories. And of course in our short conversations, Today, we can only scratch the surface of what's been happening. I mean, you are 88 years old, you are as busy as ever. I mean, we are talking in the pre chat, you're in Fort Lauderdale, you're going up to New York, you're going back over to UK, you listen, brother, you're, you're twice as old as me and you're also twice as active as me. Like, I'm so impressed by what you're doing. It's something for me to look up to. I wanna just say Fire Nation, there's so much more. And I know that you can get all this great content strategies, knowledge, experience that Joe has over the years in his book. Shoe Maker.

0 (19m 26s):
Now, Joe, as we end here, share with us why you decided to write this book and why Fire Nation. My audience needs to read it.

1 (19m 35s):
During most of my career with Reebok, we didn't have computers. We didn't have cell phones. Everything was done by traveling. But now I've stepped back, I've stepped back and I'm taking it much more easy. And I'm in tene enjoying the sunshine. And now we have computers, now we have cell phones, and now we have Google and we have Wikipedia. And they're telling me, they're telling me how Reebok started and if it, there's even a photograph of Joe Foster, founder of Reebok. He, he may have been called Joe Foster. It certainly wasn't me. And certainly all these stories they had about how Reebok started, they were wrong, if not fully wrong.

1 (20m 18s):
They were mostly wrong. So lying back there, I thought, why don't I write the book, put the story straight, then we don't get all these different variations. So that's, that's why I sat down and write, I wrote the book and it, it was just to put things straight. But what happened is, I'm, I'm getting calls from universities from different people all over and saying, this is a business book though. Look at all the lessons that you, you've got in this book. You had to change your name, you had to change your silhouette. You've got all these problems you had to overcome. This is what people want to hear about and read about. And so that is what's happening now with, with why, why we're traveling and Shoe Maker and we we're traveling around the world.

1 (21m 2s):
Even this year we've been to Australia, India, Dubai, Singapore, we've been to America twice or maybe even three times already. We've been into Canada. And so we, we've we've really traveled the world talking about Reebok and talking about the experiences and those experiences. Well you have to have one thing fun.

0 (21m 30s):
Well, Fire Nation. I can tell you I have had a lot of fun hanging out with Joe today. I hope that you've been having fun listening. Make sure that you pick up the book Shoe Maker at wherever books are sh are sold. This book is going over the life experience of Joe and it's been quite a life. So Joe, in just one sentence, maybe two, what's one key takeaway that you want to give my audience you wanna make sure that they understand from our conversation today?

1 (22m 2s):
Being an entrepreneur, you have to have patience. You have to have stamina, and you have to enjoy what you're doing. And people ask me one of the three most important things and I say, well first of all, you've gotta have fun. And secondly, you've gotta have a lot more fun. And thirdly, you've gotta be a hoot. You've really got to enjoy it. So those are the things. Enjoy what you're doing, know what you're doing, be involved in what you're doing, and you will be a success.

0 (22m 28s):
Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And hello, you're hanging out with the founder of Reebok and JLD today. So keep up the heat and for links to everything we talked about, visit EOFire.com type Joe in the search bar, the show notes page will pop right up. And Joe, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (22m 54s):
It's been a pleasure, John. An absolute pleasure.

0 (22m 57s):
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Joe for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Are you ready to rock your very own podcast? Check out our free podcasting course where I will teach you how to create and launch your podcast for free free podcast course.com. I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, sales Evangelist Hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales Right. now a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five. Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn, Listen to Sales Evangelist, wherever you get your podcasts, Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world.

0 (23m 46s):
See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10 percent discount. That's Hostinger.com/ONFIRE in the code ONFIRE.