The Blueprint Behind Reebok - Founder Joe Foster on Chasing Greatness

27:27Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99.9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier. so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. How was that, Joe, when you feel as if your business is losing and was there ever a time where you thought, I'm not going to carry on anymore because you've lost so many staff, you were losing money, you were getting products sent back.

28:12Others have just decided, okay, I need to work harder to get all the staff back and take it to another level. How hard is that for business, for people who's maybe want to be an entrepreneur or are involved in business? I think a lot of people quit faster instead of pushing through the obstacles or jumping over them to kick on. How hard is that to push on when you think, okay, maybe I've failed here?

28:33Joe Foster:Well, you know, there's a couple of days when you wonder what the hell happened? Why did that happen? How could that have happened? And then you think, no, no, we've come through a name change because we started off our business as Mercury. Mercury Sports Football. And that in itself is a story, but we've gone from that. We had four years into our business, we had a letter from Adidas lawyers saying that we had two stripes. Our silhouette was two stripes and a T-bar. and they thought, they told us that that infringed the three-strike mark. And again, five minutes, we're looking at this letter and thinking, oh my God, what do we do now?

29:13And then it dawned on us, just a minute, Adidas, no, we're here.

29:18Joe Foster:Adidas think it necessary to tell us that, you know, we shouldn't be doing what we're doing. Great, fantastic, yeah, we're here, so what do we do? Well, we change our silhouette. And we put on what is now the Vector, which is a side. In fact, we got the idea from the tail fin of the British Airways. British Airways, they called it Speedbird, which was sort of an arrow shape. And they had that. Now they have the Union Jack on the back. But it was called Speedbird. And we thought, well, yeah, we just adapt that a bit and put that on. Great. That's better. So we've been used to challenges. and I think that was sort of almost an upbringing for me.

29:59Joe Foster:I think that was the education maybe I'd missed when I was between four and ten years old and I got an education. Yeah, these challenges, you know, you're doing something wrong. Nobody would challenge it if you were doing something very right, really right. There's something that you need to change. Okay, so change it. And I think those experiences, and it's the same with the distributor. so I put a distributor on okay there was something wrong in that yeah because you've lost control of something and that's the selling you've lost control of that so you change and I think when they did go on we had to take our workforce down by 60 % it was like okay we've got more in control in the future and so you learn so many things and I think it's that challenge that doesn't say oh my god you know why is this happening to us?

30:56Joe Foster:No, there's a reason. You're meant to be challenged. And if you're going to succeed, you find a way. And for us, it was always, can we turn this problem into an advantage? And for the most part, all we did was to turn it into an advantage. You know, make people like you. It's like, you're selling your name, you're selling Reebok. And it was all about selling Reebok as a name, which you know over that period of time we did do and everybody looked as far as athletics were concerned we were the number one athletic company in the country they looked to us as the experts do you think that's the key to success then is just pushing through the challenges i think well i mean there must be a numerous ways of doing that but this is this is one i think i think pushing through the challenges help makes you stronger because it's surprising how many people come onto your side.

31:52Joe Foster:Enjoy the fact that you've done this and say, wow, great. They're with you. I think it's also selling that enthusiasm. You're not going to go around people and say, oh, I don't know what to do. Our distributors have gone bust and we could go bust with it. That was never the attitude. It was, wow, what do we do? How can we get around this? and I think that sort of challenge is that's the entrepreneur take the risks face the challenges and if you don't take a risk I don't think you actually can use the word entrepreneur it's what makes it Do you remember selling your first trainer? Your first shoe?

32:38Not really

32:39Joe Foster:I mean it's I guess when you start off in business, you're just glad you're selling anything. And Jeff was more of an athlete than I was. I was a badminton player, so I'm sort of a sprinter, quick mover. Jeff was sort of a plodder. He could run for 20, 30 miles and still come back. And he also liked his cycling, and he used to race cycling as well. So he used to have a lot of connections. and probably our early days were just all his friends who were in the athletics and cycling and I was more badminton we couldn't make badminton shoes that was a that was a Dunlop process in those days so you had to change your name from Mercury Sports Footwear to you come up with the name Reebok and the name Reebok is it from is that a gazelle?

33:34Joe Foster:it's a gazelle yeah I didn't know that I googled it a couple of days ago because I wanted to know yeah just because I knew you were coming on today it's not as if I'm knowledgeable I just remember it stuck. So what was the name behind Rebot? Why was it that one that you chose that's now a global name? Well, I mean, the funny thing is that we were Mercury and 18 months into our business, we were doing nicely. And our accountant is looking at the books and saying, look, guys, you're doing pretty well. This is okay. You better register your name. We're 23, 24, Jeff 20. And in those days, we were quite naive.

34:10Joe Foster:and, you know, we couldn't be Foster's because there was already a Foster's company. And we said, oh, why? And he said, well, you're doing pretty nicely and other people will look at this and say, well, we'll make some Mercury shoes as well. And if they do, you can't stop them because you've not registered the name. And that way you'll have a lot of costs going to court or doing whatever to stop them doing it. So register your name. Okay, how do I do that? So I said, well, you go and see a patent agent. You know, they look after all that sort of stuff and get it registered. So Wilson Gunn-Ellis in Manchester went to see Mr Ellis and said, look, we need to register Mercury.

34:58Joe Foster:He checked it out and said, well, somebody else's name, we'll see, but they're not using it. And it was Lotus and Delta, part of British Shoe Corporation. And they came back and said, no, we're not using it, but we'll sell it to you for a thousand pounds. And I said, we don't got a thousand pounds. What can we do? And he said, well, you can always take it in the court because you're not using it. And say, you know, because you're not using it, you can have it. How much will that cost us? He said, about a thousand pounds. Oh, right. I said, well, we can't do that. He said, well, if you can't do that, you're going to have to find a new name.

35:34Joe Foster:Okay. Right. New name. And he said, but don't bring me one name. bring me 10, 12 and I said what? you know, this is our business 10 or 12 names he said if you bring me one at a time and we take this through the register it's going to take about 2 months on each one to find if you can or you can't and if you bring me 5 names and we can't do it it's going to be almost a year you can't do that you've got to bring me enough and I can push them all through right, well I mean I don't know if you've sat down and thought what shall we call our business and we're sitting around the table and you get some stupid ideas that you do you know we were young so we got some silly names coming up but we got names like falcon wow falcon sports that pretty good cougar cougar sports yeah i'm going to take you back now to 1943 1943 during the middle of world war ii i'm eight years old and like with covid people couldn't go anywhere during the war nothing was going on so there's all these stay-at-home things.

36:37Joe Foster:And we had a stay-at-home athletics meeting, and I'm entered into a 60-yard race. And I'm eight, right? And I win the race. I had a bit of an advantage, though. I'm wearing Foster Spikes. Nobody else could afford Spikes in those days if they ever even heard about the idea. I win. Fantastic. And so I go up to the, you know, collect my prize, right? I'm ready for prize there what do I get? a dictionary you know and I'm saying I'm eight years old where's the football? you know a dictionary and at the time I didn't I didn't know it but it was a Webster's dictionary and a Webster's dictionary is an American dictionary and if you can you know there are many words which are different from an English Oxford dictionary at the time I didn't know But anyway, disgustedly, I take my prize.

37:38Joe Foster:But now we're sitting around the table in 1960 and we're thinking of names. And I have my dictionary here, luckily. And I like the letter R. Ah, yeah, R. I open my dictionary on the letter R and I'm thumbing through R. Very soon I come across R-W-E-B-O-K. I'm like, what's that? it's a small South African gazelle wow we're a running company gazelle that's it fantastic top of the list so I went back to Mr Ellis with our 10 names and I said look we've got to be in love with this yeah this is our business we're living this we want that one and of course you know being a sort of solicitor type well you know let's see it's up to you and all these other names anyway It took him about two weeks to come back And when he did He said, look, the only one that really comes clear of everything is Reebok Wow, just one caveat The registrar says If somebody comes along making shoes out of Reebok skin You can't stop them Well, I mean, I ask you Who would do that?

38:53Joe Foster:No, nobody would make shoes out of Reebok skin That's stupid Well, so would become Reebok So that's us. We're going to change our name. We can Reebok. Ten years after, oh, the register, I said, because of the fact that somebody can make it out of Reebok, we're going to put you in the B section of the register. Again, we had no idea what the B section is against any other section. But ten years later, he came back and said, we moved you to the A section. He said, because everybody now knows that Reebok is a sports shoe and the animal is sort of incidental. So that's how we're beginning.

39:59Shop now at palmolive.com Propel Fitness Water With Gatorade electrolytes Zero sugar and vitamins Propel hydrates better than water To help you get the most out of your workout And get back to your best self What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes And Reebok That's a mad story though So they thought potentially you could have been Skinning the Reeboks And putting them through that show That people would do with crocodiles and get letters and stuff like that. It'd be a weird sports show though if you had heard from it. So seeing you start moving through the ranks and start making a name that Reebok then becomes a global brand, does the work ethic become more or does it become less?

40:43How did you manage to keep pushing? Because with success comes true sacrifice. How did you manage to keep the workload or the balance and enjoy? Because we were speaking coming up on the left and we were talking about balance because I'm trying to work to create and it's non-stop but it's not as if I'm not enjoying the journey but you don't really seem to take notes of it because you're so caught up in trying to make something of your life so see when you're doing that how much sacrifice goes towards creating something so special?

41:16Joe Foster:I don't think you recognise the sacrifice certainly we didn't in those early days as I said, my wife used to say why don't you go and get a proper job? and I'm thinking well there must be something wrong with this one but you know it's still moving forward we're still doing it, there's still questions being asked and there's still places to go and running athletics in the UK in those days wasn't very big it was only a small we more or less owned it but we could see that Nike and people like that were coming in and they would take a good bite of it if we're not so we needed something else and i'd always thought about america because in america every college every uh university has a coach and coach is god in these places and you can go there on a sports scholarship so athletics in america was big fantastic i've got to get to america even fosters had managed to get a deal with yale university they were making 200 pairs of shoes a month.

42:24Joe Foster:And the guys at Yale, a guy called Frank Ryan and the other one, Bob Gianniak, they were head coaches. And they were selling those around the USA to other universities and whatever. So I wanted to go there. And there were protests. The family, well, you can't afford to go to America and start to dig around there. We don't have that sort of money. However, I'm reading a magazine. I think it was called Eurosport. And the magazine is an advertisement here from the government. We want you to export. Oh, wow. We'll pay for you a stand at the NSJA show. That's the National Sporting Goods of America.

43:03Joe Foster:We'll pay for that stand, and we'll also pay your return on our fare. And 50 % of your hotel bill and expenses whilst you're there. Wow. I mean, you know, it's cheaper going to America, isn't it, for a few days and whatever. So no more resistance to me going to America. And with a friend, I signed up for this, and we went to America. And the government were going to pay for the airfare, return airfare, but we decided we'd take a discounted airfare, but you've got to stay there for two weeks. I don't know why we did that. They used to do it in those days. If you stay for two weeks, it was cheaper than just going in and out with a return sort of ticket.

43:48Joe Foster:I don't know why we did that, but we did. And we went to New York, first of all, and my friend Bob Brigham, Brigham, they have outdoor shops all the way through UK these days. He was looking at the outdoor stores in New York. I looked at the sports stores. That was great, and we had a few days there. And then we went on to Chicago. Chicago, February. This is February. First week in February. And we went about three foot of snow. It was freezing, absolutely freezing. I'd never been in weather like that before. But anyway, the exhibition's on four days, and people are coming up and saying, well, light your shoes, where do we get them?

44:32Joe Foster:I'm saying England. And saying, is that New England? No, no, no, no, not New England. England, across the water, you know. Oh, that near London? Yeah, near London. And I did realize that I needed a distributor. Back to the problem. I got to get a distributor in the USA. This is 1968. When did I get into the USA? 1979. I got my distributor that worked. Why? I had six different distributors during that time. And in the book, Shulang, he's a guy from Philadelphia. and he tried hard for two or three years but somehow we couldn't we couldn't get in there and however luck was on our side during the 70s running in in america became a big category everybody goes out running training starting 10k events so from when we started in 1968 running is just really track and field like it was in the uk but running starts being on the road and people We've got training.

45:41Joe Foster:And this is growing, growing massively. And the magazine started off with a single page, A4, called Runner's World. By 1975, that was a 50 to 100 pages of glossy, colored magazine with all the information you could want if you were up there running. Where the next 10K races were, who won the last 10K races. So it was all the information. Anybody out there running would get the magazine. And you think, we've got 350 million Americans. 10 % are out there running. 35 million. Wow. A lot of people to buy the magazine. And Bob Anderson, who produced the magazine, decided because he was doing so well, he could tell everybody which was the number one shoe to buy.

46:24Joe Foster:He did. Nike. Oh, right. Phil Knight. I'm sure he's a nice guy. I've not met him yet. One of these days I hope to. Phil Knight. Yeah, number one shoe. Where's he getting his shoes from? He's getting his shoes from Japan. And all of a sudden, we'll say 10 % of the 35 million want that shoe, because the Americans do. So 3.5 million people probably wanted to buy Nike's shoe. How can he get them to turn up the wick and to get those products? He couldn't. By the time he's getting enough shoes in to satisfy demand, Bob Anderson of Runner's World said, ah, no, it's another number one shoe. And I think it was New Balance.

47:06Joe Foster:However, same story. They couldn't produce enough. So Bob Anderson, either somebody helped him change his mind because the retail business, they were absolutely head in hands saying, what's going on here? Because they couldn't get the shoe everybody wanted and when they could, Bob Anderson had changed to another shoe. So somebody, it changed. Changed to become a star rating and Bob Anderson said, right, top shoe will be five star rated. Now, you could get four or five of those, which meant there was a spread. That was much better. And I knew at that time, I knew we could make a five-star shoe.

47:43Joe Foster:You know, that was our business. We were in there. We knew what was required. Our number one shoe was a bit of a lottery. It was a question of, well, who did most advertising in Runners World and who was local. Well, Nike were always local to Runners World. Runners World, Los Altos, and it was quite near San Francisco. so anyway we knew we could do a five-star shoe which i did i designed a five-star shoe and by 1978 we tested this out in edmonton at the commonwealth games and actually we tested out the gold range and aztec which was our trainer which would be five stars and that was a training shoe we had a racing shoe called midas and a spike shoe called inca and we got a shed load of medals, gold and all sorts of them at the Commonwealth.

48:30Joe Foster:So by February, back in Chicago, I've got my Aztec would-be five-star shoe, and they're on display. And I get Kmart. Running was becoming so big that Kmart wanted to get into the scene, and they came along and said, look, we want 25 ,000 purse. Right. About six months worked out for our factory. Oh, okay, fine. But we want a better price. Well, the six-month work, my friend who'd gone to Barta, he'd said, because I said, look, if we get a five-star shoe, we cannot cope with our factory. We'll help. So Barta would help make that. And then I said, well, we want a better price. Oh, okay, that's South Korea.

49:18Joe Foster:Okay, so we'll get a better price in South Korea. Well, I'd already, again, had connected with an agent for a South Korean factory. So I thought, that's fair enough. Right. And I'm thinking, yeah, that's good. Kmart. Okay. But along came Paul Feynman. Paul Feynman, he was running Boston Camping, small outdoor outfit in Boston, of course. And they were doing tents, fishing rods and whatever. And I got on well with Paul. Kmart is something so big. Paul was just a small company. And so we got on one and he said, look, Joe, you get a five-star shoe and I'll be your distributor. Okay, I said, look at Aztec.

50:01Joe Foster:He said, yeah, I know. He said, it's a great shoe, but it's not got five stars yet, has it? No, not yet. Okay, we're in February. And the shoe magazine comes out in August. Well, I say it comes out last week in July, usually the August edition. so in between February and August I go across and I meet up with Kmart I go to the reception and I'm asking for Mr. Biasate who had seen us in Chicago and she said go across to that warehouse and he's number whatever it is number 7 and I went to this place and there must be 100, 150 buyers all at their desks so I figure out where my man is and go and sit with him.

50:49Joe Foster:And I'm looking around and thinking, this is a big organization. This might be my first order for 25 ,000 birds of shoes, but it also might be my last order for 25 ,000. So I think, okay. And I left there and I went to Boston and Paul picked me up at the airport, went to his small outfit. He was running that with his brother, Steve, and his brother-in-law. they were running this company but they'd been doing it for 10 years and you're going around the same thing for 10 years not going anywhere Paul obviously wanted to move on get something going so I thought well yeah it's great Paul, fantastic, I'm going to go with Paul nice of the outfit there they can sort of bolt this on and re-bot, get into America however we started to have a five star shoe so it's the last week in July and I pick up the phone to Paul and I said, Paul, can you go down to the local kiosk?

51:50Joe Foster:I'm sure Runners World will be out now and see how we did. An hour later, Paul came back. Joe, you got five stars, Aztec, five stars. Oh, brilliant. That was it. But also he said, you're Midas and Inca, the Spike and the Race Institute. They also got five stars. So we entered the market with three five-star shoes. That was Reebok. made it, would crack the market. What's that feeling like then, Joe, for over 10 years trying to crack a market to then take you to a global scale? Do you celebrate or is it straight back into the office to keep pushing to be a success? Oh, we did both. Do you think that's where you've got to find the balance?

52:36Because sometimes you've been caught up in work so much that you actually forget to live, even though you are living to create something special, but you know what I mean because life's about enjoying laughing like fucking hell like I love to laugh and joke but over the last three years I'm only creating a podcast but I feel as if I've kind of lost myself because I'm constantly working and I've kind of forgot the old me who never really just if I'm honest gave a fuck and just used to live life to the extreme but it's kind of went to it becomes an obsession in my mind like did you have that also that were you obsessed to create something special or was it just enjoyment that you've then planted a seed that was blossomed into something amazing?

53:18Joe Foster:I think you have to be obsessed. Yeah. To be successful, to penetrate through those barriers, those problems, the things that are there, to be able to, your glasses are always half full, it's never half, you've got to have that optimism. You've got to be that way in life. You can't worry about what you're missing because, you know, what are you missing? You really are obsessed by saying, Now we've got it. Now's our chance. Let's push it hard. And so you enjoy all the successes. And okay, up until that point, yeah, there are challenges with your family. You know, it's I'm traveling. I'm jumping on an airplane.

53:57Joe Foster:I'm going places like you. You spend four days a week down here, and the family's back up there in Scotland. And you're thinking, what am I missing? Well, one of these days, they'll come with you. And they'll enjoy four days here. and you'll enjoy it. There'll be different things. It will change. You'll still be obsessed. You'll still be making a success out of something because you can't accept anything less. Yeah. You know, you don't want to be second best. Yeah, definitely not. No. You don't want to be there. You know, in fact, there's no position there. You don't see that. You know, no, I'm the best.

54:32Joe Foster:And you're not looking at the other people who are doing whatever you're doing. You're looking at what you're doing. You know, you're the one that's doing this. and you're going places. That's what we were with Reebok. We weren't bothered about Nike. They were big. Adidas, they were big. But everybody's doing their thing. And we're not sort of saying, how can we challenge these? We weren't challenging people. We were challenging ourselves. The challenge was the market. The challenge was out there. And at first it was, how do we take Reebok to another step? And, you know, you get these strokes of luck.

55:05Joe Foster:Things happen. We were doing nicely as a running company. and that was okay. But we had a guy down in LA, Argel Martinez. He was a tech rep. Now, tech rep, as far as we were concerned, they used to go into the stores and talk to the salespeople. They weren't trying to sell the shoes. They were talking to the salespeople and saying, these are the good things about the shoe. It does this, it does this, this. This is all. So that when they're selling the shoe, people come in and say, which are the best shoes? Hopefully, and they call it spiffing as well. spiffing is where if you're a salesman and you sell a pair of Reebok, we'll give you a dollar.

55:44Joe Foster:Nothing to do with the company. We'll give you a dollar because you sold a pair of Reebok. I never heard of that before. Fantastic. Anyway, this is, you know, you sort of light up the salespeople. So, yeah, we're going to sell Reebok. Great stuff. Anyway, Arnold's wife, Frankie, she's going to aerobic classes. Arnold's saying, what's that, aerobic classes? Because she's loving it. She's coming in and saying, what are you doing? And she said, well, we're actually exercising the music. and we love it. Her and her friends were going every one of these. He said, can I come down and have a look at what's going on?

56:21Joe Foster:Next one of these classes going on. He went down there and the instructor's up there doing whatever and she's in a pair of sneakers. Half the class are wearing the same sneaker that she's wearing. The other half, they're not wearing any sneakers. That was it. This was a light bulb moment for our uncle. He thought, why don't we make a shoe specifically for these girls doing what they're doing on a woman's last, just in women's sizes. He's in L.A., and, of course, the company's up in Boston. So he took the red eye over the night up to a flight, up to Boston, see Paul Fireman. And he's in the poor fire.

56:58Joe Foster:He's full of this. And he's in the poor, Paul, look, these girls, it's going to be fantastic, really. It's called aerobics. Even Paul's saying aerobics, what the hell is that? You know, don't know that. Okay, and he's saying, look, it's going to be big. and Paul's saying, Arnold, slow down, slow down. We're a running company and we're doing it very nicely. Why do we want to be making dancing shoes? We're a running company. Arnold's saying, well, you know, this is going to be, he said, you keep your eye on it, you know, and if it does anything, we'll, you know, we'll see what we can do. Okay. Arnold wasn't satisfied.

57:35Joe Foster:Yeah, he went, he went to the back door and he saw a guy called, Steve Liggett my what's it my assistant that will tell when I forget my external memory Steve Liggett go and see Steve Liggett and and he persuaded Steve he said Steve we want a shoe tell him all about it made out of glove leather nice and cushioned and make it a woman's last which is narrower than the sort of what do we say the fitter lats everybody's like the unisex lats adjusting women's sizes right okay so he got 200 pairs of these shoes Steve actually made them got them made and that's it takes them down give them to the instructors and and some of the leading girls and they loved them absolutely loved them and then when Jane Fonda actually went out and bought a pair to use in her exercise videos that was it It just took off.

58:38Joe Foster:Because the girls weren't just wearing them for their aerobics. They were wearing them out and about. They went to work in them, put their heels in a bag, and changed when they got to wherever. They just loved the shoes. Absolutely loved them. It started to grow. One big problem, they were making them out of glove leather. Well, glove leather is just like a piece of paper. It's thin. You can rip it. It just rips. And, of course, these shoes are starting to come apart. After about four weeks, a month or whatever, they've fallen apart. Had this been in any other part of the world apart from Los Angeles in America, I'm sure that Reebok at that point would have gone out of business totally because somebody would have said, no, we're not doing it.

59:21Joe Foster:But the girls love them. They just wanted to bought another pair. And that was it. It took about a month, maybe a couple of months to cure that problem and use more garment leather than glove leather, which was much stronger and could do the job. How is that then? You get teething problems if you see a product that it's booming but then you see a lot of faults with it. Does it just change the faults straight away so you get the better product for next time and hopefully people buy back because if you get a product something goes wrong not necessarily a big percentage would come back and buy again.

59:54How do you rectify that? Do you just change it straight away?

59:57Joe Foster:Well you see as I've said this is Los Angeles this is America that's probably the only place in the world where they wouldn't say oh we're not going to buy those again. No, I love them. They love them that much. They just went out and bought another pair. They had the disposable income. They were able to do that. And other places don't. I didn't know anything about this. I'm back in the UK. And this is going on in America. And the first thing I hear about it is that we're making shoes out of glove leather. And I'm saying, glove leather? I'm a shoemaker. My book even says that. I'm a shoemaker.

1:00:32Joe Foster:Glove leather? I think you don't make shoes out of glove leather. I'm saying that, and yet we actually made World 10 out of glove leather, but we reversed it. So we were using the suede side, the aerobic shoe that we're using the skin side. So they had to take a bit of the skin off to get the adhesive to go in, which meant something which was probably about 0.7 of a millimeter when you start. You take it down to half a millimeter. Can you imagine half a millimeter so that you can get the adhesive in? And I'm saying you can't do that. Absolutely, you can't do that. That's ridiculous. Stop whatever you're doing.

1:01:08Joe Foster:They didn't. We're talking about marketing now and the difference. They lined it with nylon to give it the strength. Brilliant. Why have they lined it with nylon? Well, it's breaking apart. Yeah, but, you know, you line it with nylon and it stops breathing. Leather breathes. You know, that's the idea of leather breathing. Oh, it won't breathe. What do we do? Oh, we'll punch holes in it. So they punch holes in a nice design on the front, punch holes in so that we could get the breathing again. And I think that's when I realized that marketing beats manufacturing all the time.

1:02:02leaving your dishes sparkling clean. And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together. Shop now at palmolive.com. Propel Fitness Water. With Gatorade electrolytes, zero sugar, and vitamins, Propel hydrates better than water to help you get the most out of your workout and get back to your best self. What propels you? Propel with Gatorade electrolytes. So see, in the 80s then, when you've got the aerobic shoe, and then Reebok then really makes a stand to being the number one sports brand in the world but then after that did you bring up the Reebok pump which took it to another level, is this correct or is the most successful Reebok shoe out ever, the Reebok pump the Reebok pump

1:02:50Joe Foster:I think it's going to come back in a big big way now we're with the ABG but you know when we went down we started off with the Robbicks we were a 9 million dollar shoe went to$30 million,$60 million,$300 million, and almost$900 million in four years. That was the growth. And of course, during that time, the men were looking at this shoe, which only made in women's sizes on a woman's last, and they were hungry. But we couldn't satisfy anything else. It took all our time to satisfy the growing aerobic market. But when we got to a certain size, yes, we could take the technology, was, well, once technology, it was really an idea of using soft leather to make shoes, to make sports footwear, because normally footwear is made out of quite firm leather, so that when you make it and stand it there, it keeps its shape.

1:03:45Joe Foster:Whereas when you use soft leather, it tends to just drop a bit and lose its shape. But that became quite a feature. And so now we're moving to tennis, we're moving around to basketball and other sports because we're growing. And we're becoming the number one sports brand globally. We're overtaking Nike, overtaking Adidas. And then, of course, it is all a matter of saying, right, innovation. We must innovate. So the innovations come along, and as you say, pump. It was fantastic. I mean, when Dee Brownler is sort of, you know, dunking from the halfway in, in this competition from a halfway line, and just dunking, and then he bends down, and he pumps his shoes up.

1:04:27Joe Foster:I mean, those sort of images are permanent. Famous. Yeah, they just stick in people's minds. So, like I say, Pump becomes famous. And those sort of things, they have to continue. You have to continue innovating, whatever it is, in whatever way. And you need the right influencers as well. So, yes, Pump probably was the biggest. By that time, we were a$4 billion company. So that man came in with a billion dollar idea about the aerobics and that was going to get put to the side because nobody really seen the vision. Ain't it mad though that people can have? People have so many creative ideas and visions that probably speak about it all the time, but never really put it into existence.

1:05:16How happy were you when you realized that that was turning into a billion dollar product?

1:05:22Joe Foster:I thought, well, you know, once it starts to grow that way, you're so busy. Everybody's running around. Everybody's trying to get things happening. I put on America and Paul Feynman is there because I knew the American market. That was it. I wouldn't need to do an awful lot of work on the other markets once that started going. And once it started going, I'm traveling the world. I'm putting on 30 other distributions over four or five years all around the world. So I'm doing the global job. and of course everybody wants the aerobic shoe. It's amazing. The challenge then was to satisfy demand. And luckily we grew from$300 million to a$900 million in one year.

1:06:06Joe Foster:You've tripled your business. Financing wasn't the problem at that time because once you get things rolling, the financing works easy enough. But how do you get the production? Just in the same way that when Ronas World had said, this is the number one shoe, Phil Knight couldn't get the production. We had to try and get the production up from$300 million revenue to$900 million revenue. And we were very lucky because Nike, who really, they'd all stood back. No, no, no. Aerobics, not quite performance sports as we know it because Nike added us. They were male, sweaty. We had become the woman's company.

1:06:47Joe Foster:Our ladies glowed. They didn't sweat, you know, different approach. This nice white shoe with the Union Jack there, fantastic. I mean, the Union Jack, the story behind that, because we had the, and still have the Starcrest, which is on the tongue of everybody's shoe now. But we used to put that also on the side of the shoe, the Reebok name and this Starcrest. And I'm with Paul Feynman one day, and Paul is saying, Joe, can we use the Union Jack there instead of the Starcrest? and I'm saying, well, could cause us some problems in the UK, just because we're making the shoes in Korea. I said, but okay, yeah, we can do that.

1:07:29Joe Foster:I said, but why do you want that? He said, well, nobody knows the Starcrest. He said, but to me it looks a bit like the Union Jack. He said, but everybody in America knows the Union Jack. Right, everybody. and you know at that point we had very few point of sale material you know things you can stick in a window to advertise and what the retailers started doing because the shoes with a union jack on each side the box lid was a union jack so they're sticking all these boxes in the window up like a pyramid and putting the shoe shoes on so so many of the retailers and i used to go around I'm photographing these and I don't know where the photographs are going but it was all these Union Jack boxes with these shoes on so it was a great point of sales and these things just helped just helped build the brand all these and you know the bits of luck just things come out of thinking you know nobody thought if we put a Union Jack on they're going to stack them in the windows we didn't know it was just like we're going to use the Union Jack because it's recognisable Stephen you're moving through the ranks and becoming a big brand did any of the bigger brands ever try and buy you out offer you a big deal and say they could possibly take over us there's a lump sum that kind of just buy them out at that time i don't think anybody was that big that they they thought they needed to do that you know we at four billion dollars we were bigger than adidas and bigger than nike i mean now nike are in 25 billion i think it is and adidas are approaching 20 billion so now now money is different i money doesn't seem to be much of a problem these days there's always somebody with tons of money to do this because it's just generating more.

1:09:12Joe Foster:And the sports industry, we started off in 1958. And all the experiences I've had in the sports industry, we never went through a recession, never. And there must have been four or five recessions during that period. Sport has never gone through that because the more sort of life has grown, the more people want entertainment. and sport is the entertainment they're all going to in whatever way. And sport now influences everything. Fashion, you name it. It means everything is now influenced by sport. People want more comfortable shoes, softer shoes, and they're all buying sports-branded names or product that has been influenced by sport.

1:09:59Joe Foster:So it never happened to us. We never went through a recession. Only COVID has caused a sort of downturn because nobody got through COVID. How can people then starting off a brand now compete with the likes of Reebok, Nike, Adidas, even the New Balance are still around? Is there any chance for anybody else, do you think, to then get to those heights? Because it's took you, what, over 10, 20 years to kind of break into America. It is a long craft to push at, to then be at the cream of the crop. But because everybody's so far ahead, but it is difficult for other people to then set those targets. Well, you can never say never.

1:10:40Joe Foster:Of course. You can never say never that there won't be anybody. I think Under Armour has probably been one of the latest ones that are now quite successful. Gymshark as well, Boy Ben, I know Ben. Gymshark is just going to start off into footwear. He's just starting there. But Gymshark, yes, I mean, he's a billion-dollar brand. We were with Tommy Mallet yesterday, and he's approaching billion dollars. Not quite there yet. But Tommy Mallett's fashion, total fashion, influenced by sport. Whereas people like Under Armour or we're looking at Gymshark, they're actually involved in performance, involved in sport.

1:11:15Joe Foster:Their product is used in that way. So it's now got different areas where you can go and how you can get into it. We have, is it on, that Roger Federer now is backing? He's backing on. and in this combination now, we're finding that more top sportsmen, they paid so much money. They can ask it forward to get involved now in a brand and so we're seeing that. And I think that, yes, those influences are now coming in. The influences themselves, you know, Shaquille O 'Neal was part of ABG. You know, he has his own brand, but he's now, let's say, part of ABG, which just bought Reebok. yes I think we're going to get more opportunities whether they have the enthusiasm to take it on because they'll get to a point where it's you know we need more there's always a point you need more something else has to happen for it to really get to the top and stay there because it's the hunger and the drive like you see you're 50, 60 years still at it still hustling still doing your thing you've got a good life now I see your photos and you're travelling but it's the hunger to, was there never a cut-off point for you to say, okay, I've got a billion, I can sit back and relax or is it a case of kicking on, trying to find that next Reebok pump or trying to find the next aerobic shoe that's going to take it to another level?

1:12:41Was there ever a stop moment for you that I'm going to relax or was it just keep going?

1:12:47Joe Foster:No, no, there was a stop moment for me. It's when the challenge stopped because when you get to four billion, You're a corporate company. And corporate is a totally different company from what I did. We started two people and we grew it. Lots of challenges, lots of things you had to get through. By the time you become corporate, it's different. Lawyers look after everything. It's just a matter of facing the legal. It's just a matter of, this happens. And I remember that we went down to, it was in Trafalgar Square, there's the head office of the HMRC, the customs, whatever, revenue and customs.

1:13:32Joe Foster:And it was a time when they were thinking of taking the Reebok brand to America. It's still owned in the UK, believe it or not, still owned here in the UK. We're thinking of taking it to America. And so they arranged this meeting with... From athletic stuff like a full-court pickup game, swish, to athletic-ish stuff like a half-mile stroll. Get those steps in. Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling?

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1:14:23Joe Foster:discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state um with the revenue and customs and uh i remember going to that meeting i still have the cards of the guys at the head over the revenue and talking about you know can we take this brand to america and the guys said yeah you could take to America? Right. Okay. Because it's a revenue in the UK, how much is it going to cost us? Because revenue would have to allow it to happen. And the guy's saying, I don't know, really. If you want to do it, you do it. And also, what's it called? It's not internal revenue. The American one is internal They were now raising questions that there was so much sales going on in the USA.

1:15:18Joe Foster:How is it that these royalties are being paid to the UK? And, you know, we need to sort of get a piece of it. The Americans wanted a piece of it. The American Revenue wants a piece of it. And the guys are saying, well, if you've got a problem with America, he said, we don't win many of those arguments with America. They're so big. I mean it had gone to that big so we were talking about lawyers, we were talking about accountants, we were talking about things this has nothing to do with making the pump and so when it gets to that over 4 billion and I'd put on 30 different countries around the world with Grown and all I'm doing is I'm travelling now, great three times a year I'm going around the world I'm going to the best, I'm picked up at the airport by a limousine, I'm going to the best hotels we're having dining at the best places and we're talking shoes and what's going on but you know the business itself now was moved to that different level the business was you know we want to know what you're going to do next year and you've got to put the everybody's talking in different language time for me to go time for me to retire yeah so since there was no challenge that was it you know it was like what are you doing just riding the machine and it doesn't you know at that point no it didn't work I mean we had we had some great times because we're also doing the pro celebrity in Monte Carlo and this way we got loads and loads of celebrities from Hollywood they used to come in a lot of tennis players used to come in the top tennis players and I mean those days were great you know I've got a list here of people John Forsyth Linda Evans John Collins Frank Sinatra, Conrad, Sean Conrad, Roger Moore, Jane Seymour, Chuck Norris, Robert Nero, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston, all these people were there talking to them.

1:17:19Joe Foster:De Niro? What's De Niro like? You know, it's like thinking, well, this is great. I mean, you remember John Forsyth? Yeah. He was in dinner today. Only the second time I met him, we were in Monte Carlo, and he was a real trooper. He'd turn out any time for Reebok. and we were at this massive dinner and he came up to me and he said hi joe yeah and i'm looking at john and i'm saying hey i know your name that's right and i said john you know we've only met once before actually can you remember my name i don't know because i can't remember anybody in this room and he said well joey said you know he said that's my business that's my job remembering people and I was amazed at that.

1:18:05Joe Foster:But yeah, it was a real good... All these people were great to meet, but you realise I'm not an A-lister, I'm just a fraud here. I make shoes. Nothing to do with this, we're just putting events on. But you make some of those events happen. You've worked with some of the biggest names like the UFC. Reebok are still there, Shaq O 'Neal. Even some rappers. Did I hear like Jay-Z, 50 Cent have been involved in Reebok? was that another strategy to then break into another market of that do you come up with those strategies or is it now a team sitting at a round table no the Americans come up with those strategies because it's in America and I leave them to get I left them to get on you get on with whatever you're doing and I'll look after other things so the Americans are good at that yeah they're good at networking and publicity yeah they're really good at that you know and it's like when you you know people say oh you did this you did it no no probably the best thing I did was build a team.

1:19:03Joe Foster:Get the right people. And you can get the wrong people dead easy. You can get egos. And you don't want egos. You want people who are going to become part of that team. The excitement of being part of Reebok. The excitement of a winning culture. And we have that winning culture so that people felt they belonged to it. And that's what works. When you get egos, people looking after themselves. They want their name, theirs, against Reebok. For me, nobody knows who Joe Foster is. he just happens to be a guy that oh we're learning he wrote a book and did he he was the founder of Reebok but it was all about Reebok so it was all about you push one name you don't push two or three Did you ever try and go after names you look at Michael Jordan with the Air Jordans did you ever try and go for him before Knight went in could you imagine him with the Reebok pump do you think potentially then could have been a 25 billion dollar company Yeah.

1:19:58I think that... Do you ever think about things like that, Joel?

1:20:01Joe Foster:Well, I mean, yeah, you can think about whatever you want to think about. These things can be, you know, that I'd retired well before, you know, you worry about that. You know, we'd become number one. We'd overtake Adidas, we'd overtake Nike. We'd become number one. At that point, you're saying, well, we're number one. You know, what did we do wrong? Not a lot. And then you've got to think, yeah, you need younger people. You know, it's like, at my age, I have a challenge. What's my challenge? Shoemaker, the book. That's my challenge now. That's my, well, we're going to, yeah, let's get this to be a bestseller, my number one if we can.

1:20:40Joe Foster:Let's make the influences that we can get out of selling the book. Reebok now belongs to everybody. Reebok is big. And ABG, yes, I think they bought it, to use the name, and Shaq loves Reebok Shaq I mean yeah Shaq and yeah because that's where we met him Joe no never met him but you know I don't I forget I haven't met him and he's 7 foot tall he seems like a good man charitable man as well and does a lot of good in life I like his story I listen to a lot he's in conversations and he's in a place where he likes to help people and I like that I really do like that it's admirable for people trying to give back and help because he is a phenomenal superstar and he seems a really nice guy.

1:21:31Do you have any decision to make when they offer brands like the UFC and Reebok, there's massive guys like Conor McGregor, Khabib wearing the Reebok brand, global superstars, do you have the decision as well back then to say okay that's a good deal or did you just let the suits do it?

1:21:50Joe Foster:I think all this luck came from America and my decision was to say okay we get into america they know what to do they're the guys who can do these deals they they talk that language and and i think that really this is what you have to do you have to uh you have to go to a point where you bring other people in you know it's like i can i can put whatever i had into the brand and i still have the enthusiasm for the brand but you know you need people you need people with ideas you need people who can have different thoughts and than you can and you know people they ask me what would the young joe do today and i said well he'd have to be young you know and joe isn't young anymore but you know so and i say ask a young person what you would do today because it it's so so changed i mean now we have so much technology you know so many things that We didn't.

1:22:47Joe Foster:I was a very simple technology, whatever we had. Now you just look at everything that's moving. And in various places, they all start talking about NFTs, the metaverse. We're going, this is where life is going, into the technology. And I don't understand the metaverse because I know about it. I hear about it. I can take in what they're saying. But could I live in the metaverse? Well, you'll live forever in the metaverse. And people are saying, well, you create your other self in the metaverse and he doesn't need to sleep. He can do whatever. So it's going in the different levels of understanding as to what, you know, whatever I understood.

1:23:34Joe Foster:Julie, for me, she's our technician. I pick up my telephone and how do we do this? How do we do that? You know, younger brains. And now, yeah, now kids. I remember when it brought out these video recorders, and they were so complicated. And the only people that could use them were kids. They're the ones who could learn how to fiddle with all these things. It's the same now. The kids can go through this. They can do whatever, whether it's creating new ideas. I mean, NFTs, I think. There was only a young guy who made millions because he created an NFT. so you know the world is now as always it's always evolving I don't know if it's evolving or devolving because I think human beings are becoming more disconnected I think not too many people are sociable anymore back in the day from when I grew up everybody was out playing football they were getting dirty they were just being kids now I don't see much of that in the streets and I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing I don't know if human beings are becoming and technologies should be connecting the world, but it seems to be disconnecting it.

1:24:45I don't know if it's used in the right way. It could be a powerful tool, social media, but in your own opinion, do you think you would have succeeded faster in today's age or were you happy back 50, 60 years ago doing what you were doing, hustling and traveling?

1:25:00Joe Foster:Well, I mean, I went through that experience, so I'm happy to have gone through that experience. I think today is, yeah, you can make it quicker and you could probably lose it quicker too, but I think you can make it quicker today. I think you need to have the right personality because I think personalities rather than the name of brands, I think the personality comes out. It's like Tommy Mallet there. He's a great personality. Whatever he's doing is dependent upon his personality. But to really grow a brand, and if the brand is going to be something, other people have to come in and help you get from your level because whoever you are and however good you are, you've only got a certain level.

1:25:37Joe Foster:Sometimes if your level is just making money, that's fine. but Tom is making a brand. He's got to think of product. He's not just a man who works. We were in Dubai and this young guy, he was the son of a famous dentist over there. I said, what do you do? He said, oh, I trade cryptocurrencies. That's how he makes his living, trading cryptocurrencies. Right, okay. How do you do that? We know a bit about it. We're learning. Julie's learning more than I'm learning. But, you know, we're learning these changes. And, you know, this is what's happening. It's brands are becoming something else. And some, you know, quite a few names are now brands.

1:26:19Joe Foster:You know, it's – so it is different. But that's right. This is the world. But like you, I do think a lot of people are now – they're almost scared to answer the door. Yeah. You know, they spend so much time looking at the screens and playing with it in order to do it. to trade cryptocurrencies you've got to be looking at your screens and looking at all that Your book The Shoemaker Joe which we'll touch on I'll leave the link in the description for people to get it but how was that experience then putting your story into a book for people eventually Joe Foster the man behind Reebok Yeah well now I'm selling Joe Foster now I'm selling Reebok as well but Joe Foster the reason for that is that after I retired which was way way back in 1990 just the end of 1999 and I thought right okay it's corporate now I'll go to Tenerife and we'll spend some time now relaxing spend some time but of course by this time we're now getting

1:27:20Joe Foster:computers and other things and I'm looking at Wikipedia and Google and Wikipedia's telling me how Reebok started well you know it used to be a company called JW Foster and they changed the name to Reebok No, that didn't happen. That's not the story. And there were all sorts of stories. Even a photograph. This is Joseph William Foster, founder of Reebok. No, never seen him. Who was that? So I thought, you know, a number of people said, why don't you write your story, Joe? I said, no, nobody's interested in my story. Which I thought would be surprised. So, okay, I thought I'd better get this straight.

1:28:01Joe Foster:let's write it down and then people are not speculating and making inventing how Reebok started so I started writing the book and that was interesting because what is interesting is trying to get the chronology in order because you remember things and they're all over the place and so I had to work on this, I had to do a bit of sort of research to find out when did I do this, when did this happen and also I had to get some advice because I'm a shoemaker and I'm writing a book and I'm writing all these things and this guy said, no, no, those are anecdotes. You don't put anecdotes in because that's not the story because you drift off into, I remember when I was in Hollywood and I went to Ginger Rogers' house and did this and all this.

1:28:54Joe Foster:Well, yeah, just mention you went there but not all the stuff that goes with it. And so what I didn't expect is that everybody, a lot of people reading it said, God, there's so many lessons in here. What you've done, it's amazing. Even Tommy Mallet today was saying, you know, when I read your book, wow, yeah, I should try to do that. I should do this. I should stop doing that. And I think what it's become now, because we've done London Business School, we've done University College London, UCL, and it's all their MBA students they're in there and they're telling them what to do mainly they're telling them what's your exit plan they ask me what was your exit plan they go, didn't have one oh, we don't teach that I didn't have an exit plan we had a mission the mission wasn't an exit plan now it's all to do with how you create money how you create a business and how you get out of that business.

1:29:58Joe Foster:And so I think what was interesting for these students is that they're learning, you know, you don't need an exit plan. You need to enjoy life. Because if all you're doing is to wait for that day when you're going to get out, are you going to get there and enjoy it? Okay, a lot of people just go through that business and earn the money and get out. But for me, it was more of a vocation. This is what you do. We're enjoying Reebok. for any entrepreneurs watching Joe what's the main advice you would give for them maybe just starting off or going through the journey to try and succeed what's the best advice you have for them there's only one piece of advice have fun that's the best advice for all life mate is just to try and enjoy it but sometimes the obsession kicks in a bit of greediness as well that is crazy also before we finish up the Reebok Stadium Bolton is that because of your connection with Bolton what's the story behind that?

1:30:54Joe Foster:It was, yes. It was because

1:30:59Joe Foster:Bolton Wands was moving from a downtown sort of site to a new one and since we were Bolton based and whatever we did get involved and we took the naming rights. So that was okay. It was okay when, I mean, the thing is it's now called, it's really called Middlebrook which is a retail site, a big retail mall and site and everything. And the Reebok Stadium was part of it. And although Reebok have moved on now, it's now the University of Bolton Stadium. My mouthful, but that's what it is. But everybody, you talk to anybody, I'll see you at the Reebok. And they actually go into the Middlebrook place.

1:31:43Joe Foster:So I'll see you at the Reebok. But it's just so easy. Reebok, it is an easy word, which is one of the things when we, Mercury, we like the name Mercury. But you've got three syllables, I was Reebok too and it's immediately dead easy so it was a good name last question brother see when you before your dad passed did he get to see you spread your wings and achieve everything that you set out to do well he didn't he didn't get to see everything but he did see us succeeding and spreading our wings the most the saddest thing was my brother because I just managed to get into America I just got the company and got Paul Feynman, got our five-star shoe, and unfortunately he died.

1:32:28Joe Foster:He got cancer and he died. And he was the athlete, but he pushed himself. He wasn't a brilliant athlete. You know, if you're running with about 500, 600 other runners, there's 10 who are usually about the same level that you are, and you've got to beat all of them. And he was physically sick at the end of every race because he pushed himself too hard. whether he was cycling, whether he was running. And he got stomach cancer. I'm sure it was because of that. And he died in 1980, just as we got into America. So he didn't see the success. And I guess what it did, it's probably spurred me on to make sure that, you know, we're going to do it.

1:33:12Joe Foster:We're actually going to succeed here. We're going to be, I don't think you dream you're going to be number one. I think that's something that happened. but I think you want to be a success yeah but you clearly are Joe and everything you achieve you're clearly a fighter you never quit you created one the biggest sports brand on the planet like it's an unbelievable story for people watching they'll get tools and techniques to understand that quitting's not an option exit plans aren't an option if you want to succeed it's only you it can fail like for coming on today Joe I thoroughly enjoyed your story thank you James I'll leave you a link in the description but again you're an amazing man and people get a lot of inspiration from your story and God bless you for the future and keep enjoying life and keep smiling and same to you James enjoy life because that's what it's all about thank you God bless bye

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