Jamie Salter | with How He Built a $40B Brand Empire With Reebok, Champion & Forever 21

0:00The legend Jamie Salter. You have one of the most impressive portfolios of companies in the history of any entrepreneur. You own Champion, Reebok, Revert 21, Quicksilver. The list could go on. Building a brand is really hard.

0:11Jamie Salter: So we learned that you could buy these companies, you could dust them off, you could fix them by putting a lot of great marketing into them, but most importantly, focusing on ****. We've talked a lot about today about some of the biggest brands that you partnered with or purchased, but I'm sure there's some deals that may be passed on or walked away from. Now, you never want to lose a deal, right? Because I'm a deal guy. But we almost bought a... Wow. That's crazy. That's a... Yeah, that's a massive rant. That's a great story. What are some of those other things that you look for in brands before you're looking to acquire them?

0:39Jamie Salter: So what do we look at? Why Shaquille O 'Neal? Why David Beckham? Why Kevin Hart? Is that company... That's number one. Number two is the most important part. This has been phenomenal with all the knowledge of acquirement. Businesses that you built, that you bought. If you could leave one more message with the younger generation right here, what would that be? So look, the younger generation, right?

1:02What's going on, everyone? Welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James, and I'm here with Jack and Josh, and we're out in New York City with an incredible guest for you all today, the legend Jamie Salter. Jamie, you've had an incredible career. You founded and are now the chairman of Authentic Brands Groups, and I just think you have one of the most impressive portfolios of companies in the history of any entrepreneur. I mean, going down the line, you know, we're talking about you own Champion, Reebok, Forever 21, Quicksilver. You've partnered up with some of the biggest personal brands in the world like Shaq, David Beckham, Kevin Hart, you know, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe.

1:36I mean, the list could go on. You recently just acquired Care Bears, which is, I want to talk about that a little bit later on the podcast. But I want to get things started. First of all, thank you for being with us today.

1:46Jamie Salter: Well, thank you for having me. And, you know, I'm a fan, obviously, of yours. And what you've done is incredible. And creating this creator economy that you've done, you're just a trailblazer. So as much as I'm on your show, I got to tell you, I'm excited to actually do this with you because you're definitely a bit of a celebrity to me, too. Well, thank you. It means a lot to me. Jamie, I want to get right into it. I want to get started. Where does Jamie Salter come from? You know, obviously it's easy for people to see the companies today doing over$40 billion in revenue across all the brands in the portfolio.

2:19But it obviously could not have started out that way. What was your upbringing like? When did you decide to become an entrepreneur? Tell us the story.

2:26Jamie Salter: So look, it really started back when I was, I don't know, 10 years old, 12 years old, something like that. And I had a paper route. And it really gets back down to that where I got up at 4.45 in the morning and convinced my mother, okay, on the snowy days, obviously, to get in the car and pick up my papers and deliver them sort of door to door to door. And what I discovered was I can actually make a lot of money at this because the tips were really good. so what I did is I went to my brothers at the time and I said to my brothers I said guys I you know what the paper route's really good I'm you know making you know two dollars a week or three dollars a week whatever it was I said why don't you guys deliver all the papers for me and I'll just give you guys the money that I'm getting they go well why would you do that I said well you know I'm really busy doing some other things and you know you guys need the extra money so you guys should do that for me so they said okay and they did it a couple weeks and and and they came to me one day and they said, why are you letting us deliver your papers?

3:32Jamie Salter: I said, it's all good guys. I've been collecting the tips. And they said, well, how much money are you making the tips? I said, more money than you guys are making deliver the papers. And you know, that was sort of like a wake up call for me, you know, that, you know, you can make money other ways than just, you know, on delivering the papers. And that's how it sort of how it started. And then it went from there to peepholes. And people go like, what are peepholes? Those are those like little holes in the middle of your door, like to see who's on the other side of the door. That was before Ring, obviously.

4:07Jamie Salter: And I started going door to door and installing peepholes. And then one day I drilled a hole that was a little too big to put the peephole in. And the owner came to me and says, well, this is not really a good job. And I had to buy a whole new door. So that was not, you know, a great experience. And I went from there to selling cassettes. And then from cassettes, I actually went to selling videotapes. But, you know, I learned, you know, very early on that, you know, if you hustle every single day, you know, you can make pretty good money. So, I mean, to this day, and I'm 63 years old, I've really never gone to my parents ever and said, give me money or give me an allowance.

4:58Jamie Salter: I think there was, you know, there was a time for maybe a couple of years where I got 20 bucks a week. Okay. You can't even buy a coffee for$20, but truth be told I'm self-made, you know, right from the beginning. That's incredible. Do you know John Morgan? I don't. He's Morgan and Morgan. He's the the largest personal injury lawyer. And when I asked him, when I interviewed him, what's the common thread and common trait you see in the most successful people? And when he asked them, he'll ask them, did you have a paper route? And if they say yes, then he just knows that they automatically, so there's something to be said about that right there.

5:32Jamie Salter: Look, the interesting part about the paper route was the people that I met because we lived in a pretty good area. Thank you to my parents. and so I would knock on the doors, you know, and that's why I like that. Of course, it doesn't work that way anymore. They don't even deliver papers anymore. It's all online, but you would knock on the door and say, hello, Mr. XYZ. And one day I knocked on Mr. Bronfman's door and I said, Mr. Bronfman, you know, I deliver your papers. And he says, no, I know you deliver my papers and I know what time you get here every single morning and I'm up and I'm having my coffee.

6:12Jamie Salter: And, you know, some of those relationships I still have today. Now, I don't necessarily have the relationship with the older person because they're not with us anymore, but the kids, right? Edgar, you know, Bronfman. And it's funny because my kids are friends with, you know, some of their kids. And interesting enough, like that's a relationship that goes back sort of 50 years ago, which is kind of crazy, but that was all from delivering the papers, knocking on the door and saying, you owe me$6 for the papers this week. So I think that people, sometimes they hide behind that cell phone or they hide behind their computer.

7:00I think that getting out there,

7:04Jamie Salter: knocking on the door and having that physical sort of relationship, I think that's really, really important. I do think that we are sort of forgetting about that. And I truly would tell everybody that you shouldn't forget about that personal connection. Absolutely. And Jamie, one of your earlier companies was actually manufacturing snowboards. Is that correct? Yes. Yes, it is. What were some of those early lessons in developing that company that, you know, you started off with your journey? Like what were some of those early lessons that you learned from that company even so that you were looking to take it public so the snowboard business you know goes I go back to the Jake Burton days uh and Tom Sims uh both not with us anymore and you know Tom Sims came out of the skateboard business and Jake Burton came obviously out of the snowboard business but when I got into the snowboard business there was no edges on the snowboards so think about that like that right 1986 and i called jake and i said why is there no edges on these snowboards skis have edges on them so what i learned is they made snowboards out of cross-country presses and that's sort of how they made snowboards and cross-country presses if you you know go back to the old days they were wide and that's how you can make snowboards So if you remember cross-country skis back in the old days, they didn't have edges on them.

8:37Jamie Salter: So snowboards didn't have edges. And I said, well, that doesn't make any sense. We need edges on the snowboards. And I went to a ski factory in St. Stephen. It was in Austria. And they were the one sort of factory making snowboards where they knew how to put edges on the boards. And I went to them and I said, how many snowboards do you guys make? And they said, oh, we're going to make 15 ,000 snowboards. You know, and I go, 15 ,000, that seems like a lot. I'll take them all. And I bought the entire production. And I went and I set up a little tiny booth, you know, at the ski show, 10 by 10. It was as big as this table right here.

9:25Jamie Salter: And we started selling snowboards. And, you know, we would sell them to pretty much anybody that would come by the booth and buy them. So the people that came by were not those traditional ski shops, you know, too rad for mom and dad, not the little skateboard stores or not the little ski stores. What came by because I would talk to them were the big stores, Gart Brothers and Oshman's and MC Sporting Goods. and you guys don't know those stores and big five sporting goods, big five, I guess is still around. And I would talk to these guys and I said, you know, we'll sell you snowboards. They go, well, the other companies won't sell us, you know, Burton won't sell us.

10:08Jamie Salter: They're too cool for us. And Sims won't sell us. And there wasn't a lot of companies in the snowboard business back in the day. I said, well, I'm very happy to sell you. You're, you seem like, you know, a nice customer. And by the way, they were the better customers anyways, because they were paying their bills and The smaller stores, you know, they weren't exactly paying their bills on time. So that's how we sort of got into the snowboard business. And we sold 15 ,000 snowboards in three days. That's incredible. I think what's really interesting is before you actually started your first company, you were running this manufacturing company.

10:42And what are some of the lessons that you learn from running another company before you started your own? Because I feel like that's the first jump into trial and error is, hey, I get to try out and learn. through actually starting my own?

10:54Jamie Salter: Well, look, the first company that I was working for was windsurfing, you know, back in the day. And that was for a big windsurfing company, um, out of the Netherlands. And again, windsurfing, you, you boys are too young to remember that you guys call it kite surfing now. Um, but back in the day it was called whaler. And, um, what I learned very quickly in business. You better be careful because what happened was we sold all the product and we never got delivery. Why didn't we get delivery? Company went bankrupt. Oh no, we sold all this product. Company goes bankrupt. We're in trouble. What are we going to do?

11:41Jamie Salter: So that's when I really quickly said, I don't necessarily want to rely on somebody else. I want to rely on myself. And that's when I sort of took it upon myself to say, I want to set up a company and I want to get into, you know, doing something where I control everything and I control the production and I control the supply chain. And that's when I moved from windsurfers, which were big and bulky, to the snowboard business, which the first snowboard business that I got into was Kemper Snowboard. And after the snowboard business, one of the things that you're doing now on a regular basis, it seems like, is acquiring businesses.

12:23When did you kind of realize that acquiring businesses and buying businesses is sometimes maybe even better out than trying to start a business from scratch?

12:31Jamie Salter: So look, building a brand is really hard. Today, it's maybe a little bit easier because of social media and influencers and creators. But the truth of the matter is to build a brand takes a long time. It takes a lot of marketing, it takes a lot of advertising, it takes a lot of grit, and it takes time. and you know I sort of looked at sort of the landscape and I said there's some great brands out there they just need to be dusted off and they need to you know they need to be fixed and I sort of looked Steve Jobs is sort of someone that I think is kind of amazing because Apple really never invented the iPod, right?

13:19Jamie Salter: Sony did. Apple just made it better. And Jimmy Salter didn't invent really the licensing business that was invented by Neil Cole from Iconics. We just made it way better. So you don't necessarily have to invent something. You just got to do a better job at that type of business that you're going to get into. So we learned that you could buy these companies, you could dust them off, you could fix them by putting a lot of great marketing into them, but most importantly, focusing on product. Product is always the most important part because you can actually have the greatest marketing ever. If your product's no good, it doesn't matter how good your marketing is.

14:09Do you find that, because you mentioned that you buy the brands, you dust them off, you fix them. What do you see is the most common reason why those brands eventually, I think about when Damon John talks about the average life cycle. I know, Damon. He says that the average life cycle of a hot brand is like five to seven years. Do you think that those brands end up kind of acquiring a lot of that dust because they become so out of touch with their current consumer in today's world? Or what is it that you see is the reason why so many businesses are broken in today's world?

14:39Jamie Salter: look I think that there's two things that happen and why the licensing business I think is such a good business is people start a brand and they start a footwear brand or they start a clothing brand and they're really good at footwear and they do a really good job but then they say you know I'm going to get into the clothing business they're not so good at that and then unfortunately the clothing business takes down the entire business or they get in the clothing business and then they decide they want to be in the footwear business and the footwear business takes down the clothing business. And that's why the licensing business is such an interesting business because what you're doing is you're licensing your brand to best in class partners and best in class partners.

15:29Jamie Salter: You, you only want to give those best in class partners really what they're good at. So if you're really good at making underwear, you should be our partner in underwear. And if your brother, okay, is really good at socks, we should license socks to your brother and not to you. And people, unfortunately, think that they're gonna get good at everything. And it's just, it's kind of impossible to be great at everything. And that's why I think the licensing business has scaled as fast as it has to us because we are doing it all a la carte. Like, you know, if you're going to go to a restaurant, let's be honest, you want to go to a sushi restaurant, don't ask them to make you a hamburger.

16:15Jamie Salter: It's probably not going to be that good. So what you're saying is that you got to keep the main thing the main thing for that brand and anything else you need to go directly to somebody that's an expert that you You can license, hey, we have this amazing brand and you're really good at making this avenue. Before, this brand was terrible at making it, but now we can do a licensing deal with somebody who's actually phenomenal at making that product. 100%. If you're a great ice cream maker, focus. You know what? Stick to ice cream. And I truly believe that deep down because that's where I think brands, they get lost.

16:52Jamie Salter: and they start thinking they can make anything. Oh, I've got the greatest brand. I've got a swoosh. I'm going to just put it on whatever I want to put it on and it's going to work. It doesn't work that way because it always comes down to product. And if you make good product, you're going to be successful. Could you tell us the story of that first brand that you acquired? The first brand that we acquired at Authentic Brands or the first brand that I acquired like way back in the day? At Authentic Brands. At Authentic Brands, the first brand that we acquired was Tap Out. tap out that's a company yeah that's a massive we're a huge ufc fan right okay so tap out's a great story you know we acquire tap out why do we acquire tap out because all my kids thought they were going to be ufc fighters they're all in you know school and you know and they're explaining to me that this thing called the ufc is gonna be the biggest sport in the world i mean we're we're going way back okay like this is this is before conor mcgregor this is this is before conor mcgregor this is when uh jean saint pierre george saint pierre like this is gsp days anyways we go to montreal and you know a friend of mine is the marketing guy for the ufc and his name's brian johnson i know him from the old snowboard days and at the time did you know anything about the fight business nothing i knew nothing but i knew that you know my kids are telling me the ufc is going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread and i meet with dana and i meet with lorenzo and you know then you could like talk to those guys like no problem it was it was easy and they said you should buy tap out tap out you know the biggest brand in the UFC and it's it's on the cage and you know mask just died okay because you know the story about tap out where there was you know three founders okay punk ass scrape and and mask and mask passed away and you guys should buy tap out it's a great company anyway so we ended up buying tap out and we made it you know we made some mistakes right because the mistakes that we made when we bought tap out the first thing we did is we're going to sell tap out to all the big boys so we're going to sell all the big department stores and all the big retailers and we sort of forgot about the little independents and that was a mistake because when we licensed it to to the you know centric at the time i think they were called global brands actually when we licensed to global brands, which became Centric.

19:34Jamie Salter: They only wanted to deal with the big boys because they didn't deal with the little independents because little independents don't pay their bills. So we did that and we sort of lost the heartbeat of the brand. And then the other thing that happened was, and Tap Out's still around to this day and we're actually working on something that's kind of really big right now with Tap Out. But the interesting part was I got a phone call from Kohl's one day and I said hello and they said hi Jamie how are you I said I'm good how's tap out going and they said it's going really well but we're gonna stop selling it and I said what do you mean you're gonna stop selling it it's selling really well you guys are doing like 20 million dollars or whatever you're doing they said well a mother came into the store today and said that their son got into a fight at school and thought he was a UFC fighter because he's wearing his tap out uniform and we can't have that we're a family store and you're you're trading in a blood sport it.

20:45And I said, you sure?

20:49Jamie Salter: Like, you're sure about this decision? And they said, we're sure about the decision. Well, of course, they dropped it. Then JCPenney's dropped it. And then every retailer dropped it, all the big boys. So now, what are we going to do? We had to go back and we had to really start thinking this through. And we had to go back to all the little independents, which we sort of left behind. And to this day, Tap Out's still around, but those were the early mistakes that we made when we first got into this business. We're about to get right back to this podcast episode very shortly. But before we do that, guys, look, as a founder, I feel like I start every morning in five different places sometimes.

21:34My calendar, emails, tasks, notes. And before I've even started working, I'm already trying to figure out what actually needs my attention. So I wanted to see if I could build something that puts everything I need in one place. And I used Emergent to build my own daily briefing dashboard. With Emergent, I can describe what I want to build in plain English. I asked for my meetings, important emails, pending tasks, and top priorities to be brought together into one morning dashboard. And this is what I built. Now I can see what my day looks like, what needs a response, what I need to get done, and what I should prioritize all in one place.

22:05I didn't need to know how to code it. I knew the problem I wanted to solve, describe the tool I wanted, and turn that idea into something I can actually use. So stop asking and start building. Try Immersion through the link in the description and see what you can build. And a big thank you to Immersion for sponsoring this video. Now, with that being said, let's get back to the interview. Jamie, you mentioned that one of the things that you've done, and in particular, because you were talking about why you came up with the idea to buy Tapout was because your kids were kind of like raving about the fight business and this being the big thing.

22:33But one thing that I love that you do is all of your, how many kids do you have? I have four boys. And they're all involved in your company. which I think is fascinating because there's a lot of people in today's world that may advocate against doing business with friends and family, but you've embraced it fully and you let your kids come in and run some of the businesses with you. And in particular, we were interviewing Kevin Hart yesterday and Tyler was there and he's doing a lot of stuff with the Kevin Hart brand. So how important has that decision for you to have your sons come into your business and do business as a family?

23:03Jamie Salter: I mean, I'll be the first one to tell you there's good days and there's bad days. Most of the days are good days. And Corey, who started the business with me, he's 37 today, and he has actually three children. He's the CEO of the entertainment side of the business. And sort of when we got into the business, I said, you're going to figure out the entertainment side. I'm going to figure out the lifestyle side. And we sort of went our own directions, you know, under one roof, right? The back of the house was always the back of the house, but he focused on entertainment. And I focused on lifestyle.

23:37Jamie Salter: and through the years the other boys you know came into the business so all four of the boys now are in the business and all four of the boys work predominantly on the entertainment side of the business and they all do different things in the entertainment side of the business what I can tell you is your children are always going to give you an honest answer they're not going to say yes sir they're not going to say yes you made a great decision they're going to come and say dad what are you doing like no that's not going to work yes man yeah they're going to tell you like it is they're going to tell it like it is and there's no filter and um where that presents a problem sometimes right there's no filter necessarily in the boardroom either and there's no filter you know when we're doing you know a big town hall.

24:29Jamie Salter: There's no filter with your kids. Your kids call you out. And that sometimes becomes problematic. But, you know, that's part of running a family business. But I can honestly say that authentic would not be where it is today without the four boys because the boys tell the truth. like at the end of the day, we're going to buy Reebok. Really? Why? Well, let me tell you why. Okay. I think that's a really good decision or dad. We should get into the kids business. Why? Well, let me tell you why we should get into the kids business. I have three children okay Corey I know I'm the grandfather and then Matt says well I have three children too I Matt I get it okay we got a lot of grandkids we have eight grandkids and we have one more on the way so I'm blessed well let me tell you that the kids business is recession-proof and I say why is it recession-proof well let me explain you know I can't get enough Mickey Mouse and I can't get enough of these kids' character business.

25:46Jamie Salter: And I said, okay, I understand. But dad, you got to appreciate that the average age at ABG is 35 years old. And they're all having kids. So you've built this incredible company with incredible talent that has been with the company for 10 years, 12 years, 13 years, and they're all having children. So there's this huge expertise inside the company and the licensing business. Why wouldn't we turn to the kids business? Because they're just going to become experts at it really, really fast because they have kids at home and they really know the licensing business because they've been working for us for so long.

26:29Jamie Salter: So sure enough for the last, you know, sort of this is now been going on for a couple years now because you know, they're all having kids and we just bought Care Bears. Jamie, it's cool to kind of hear you talk through like these conversations that you've had with your kids or maybe other people at your company of like how you're thinking about making an acquisition and whether it's a certain sector or for a particular company. But is there anything else that you look for particularly with like a brand that maybe some people think is dying or on the way out? And you're just like, man, it just needs to get dusted off.

27:02What are some of those other things that you look for in brands before you're looking to acquire them?

27:07Jamie Salter: Well, first of all, is the brand global? Incredibly important, right? Is the brand global, right? Like even if I did something with you guys, okay, first thing I would say to you guys, are you global? Let me see your audience. Let me see where that audience is. But Jamie, we got some demographics for you because we're all over the place. Demographics are incredibly important. And because we're so good. You know, we have a billion social media followers, you know, today inside the company, we really understand we're in 150 countries. You know, we, we have offices all over the world, but we really look at, is that company global?

27:45Jamie Salter: That's number one. Number two, does it have a heartbeat? Now, Care Bears, let's be honest, has a really big heartbeat. Okay. Cause that's really what the company's all about, but does the company have a heartbeat? Why is the company for sale? Is it for sale because the owners want to take a lot of money off the table? Is it for sale because private equity is coming on five years and it's time to sell because they have to return capital to their partners, their LPs? Is the company for sale because it's in trouble? Is the company for sale because they have another problem somewhere else in their portfolio?

28:28Jamie Salter: So there's a lot of reasons why people sell things. Okay. I would say we don't buy things at the high generally, right? We are fixer upper as far as, you know, the type of companies that we buy. But what we really look for, the most important thing is, does the brand have a heartbeat? And if the brand doesn't have a heartbeat, we're out. And what do you mean by the heartbeat? Heartbeat means you try living without a heart. not so easy okay it's very very important that when you buy these brands that the heart is still beating and that it's still a good brand and when you go to the street you know university of hard knocks use your theory okay don't go hire some big consulting company okay that's a bunch of baloney okay go to the street talk to the people just go walk up and down the streets of new york and say, you ever heard of Care Bears?

29:28And if the answer is yes, then that's good.

29:33Jamie Salter: If the answer is no, you probably shouldn't buy it, right? And I always say that to people like, I don't want some big consulting firm to do this bullshit for me. I wanna go do it myself. I wanna ask people, what do you think? Oh, Care Bears, it's great, it's great, it's great, it's great, it did this. You know what, I love Care Bears. And the interesting thing about Care Bears is, you know, maybe the kids, some of the younger kids don't know it as well as the adults, but the adults really love it. And when you really look at the kids business, who's making that purchase? The purchase is being made by the adult.

30:11Jamie Salter: So we're pretty excited about this, but I can tell you, you know, it's new, right? It's a new pillar inside ABG, right? This is the first kids property that we've done in 16 years. One of my favorite answers I've ever gotten in an interview that I've done was the first time I interviewed you outside of your office in New York City. And I asked you, I said, Jamie, you've built, you've bought massive companies, you've helped scale them. What is your best branding and marketing advice to anybody in business? You paused, you looked at me and you said, global. That concept right there, like we instill in us.

30:44Like we were always thinking about what's that next country we could go tap into. You know, we filmed all over the Middle East. I just got back from Nigeria. We interviewed the richest man in all of Africa. And we went up 700 ,000 followers in the last 30 days on Instagram because we just tapped into that audience and demographic. When did you learn the importance of going global in business? Was there a time where you had bought a brand and you saw the real impact it has globally in another country? I'd love to just talk about your global mindset.

31:10Jamie Salter: So you just hit the nail on the head. Very early on, ride snowboards. 1993. Japan. and snowboard business is going through the roof. Things are going well. And I get a phone call. We would like to buy a ride. Snowboards. Japan. Get on a plane. And I go to Japan. And they give us the biggest order ever. And I said to them, well, we need a deposit. it we've got money like you need money to make snowboards oh how much do you need i said well you know they cost 150 you know this is what we sell them for and i can't remember i think they ordered 10 000 boards something like that maybe 20 000 it was a lot of boards right we were selling 250 000 snowboards back in the day and i said yeah you know this is their 150 bucks and you know So it's going to come to$30 million.

32:22Jamie Salter: And they said, well, we'll pay you for the mall. Today, will you give us a discount? I said, how much discount do you want? They said, oh, you know, interest rate here in Japan is 2%. Meanwhile, interest rates back home are like 10 or 12 or 15, right? I'm borrowing money from my friends, like to make snowboards. I said, okay, that's like, you know, $600 ,000. Let me talk to my partners. I come back 10 minutes later. Yeah, well, we'll do that deal. Of course they gave us the money. That's what put us into the snowboard business in a huge way. And like we are relying now every year on sort of Japan to give us that big upfront money.

33:10Jamie Salter: Okay. For this, for the snowboards. And the truth of the matter was that opened my eyes. There's all these different economies all over the world. And look, Japan is sort of famous for, you know, low interest rates, you know, practically zero. But I can tell you that that really opened my eyes that you can, you know, do business all over the world. And if there's one economy down in a certain country, another one on the other side of the world might be booming. or maybe it's snowing in Japan and it's not snowing in Europe this year. A hundred percent. No, it's very smart right there. And, you know, we were talking before the podcast even started that you asked us, the three of us, if we'd ever taken a trip to China because of just all the innovation that's going on out there.

33:56Are there any parts of the world that you think a young entrepreneur should go and brace themselves in right now?

34:01Jamie Salter: If I was your age and I'll trade you everything to be your age and be where you guys are at today. Um, why is that? Well, because the world you're living in today is incredible. You know, you can get information so fast. And if you're smart, you can create things so quickly. You know, when I was a kid, we didn't have calculators. When I was a kid, it was called an encyclopedia when you had to do your research. Today, you just use your phone. Oh, you know, how many people live in China? What's the economy like in China? You know, my little chat GBT friend is, you know, Charlie. Charlie, tell me this.

34:58Jamie Salter: Charlie, tell me that. I mean, you didn't have that. And then, you know, the funny thing is, and why I think that we're, we're growing up in a, in a different world is, you know, my, my granddaughter, Olivia, she's eight now. And when she turned eight years old, she was allowed to go onto the internet, not whenever she wants just certain times during the day. And she called me up on her little watch, not like an Apple watch. Like it's, she's only got restricted numbers and stuff like that on there. Zadie, that's my nickname for grandpa. You're famous. I said, why am I famous? And then she sends me 20 different pictures of me from Google of all my different interviews and she read them.

35:53Jamie Salter: Like, it's crazy that she could get all this information about her grandpa. Okay. I mean, in the old days I'd have to write a book and I'd have to, you know, do it way differently than it is today. So that's why I would trade you because I think, you know, with what's going on in the world and, and sort of with my hustle or your hustle, you know 24 years old yeah i i i think that you know i could get there way quicker than you know where i am today and i wanted to go back to the uh i know that i had put another question in there but the one about young person today they want to embrace themselves in other cultures from a business standpoint where are some countries or places that you think that they should really go So look, I love China, okay?

36:45Jamie Salter: I'm enamored with what they have done. I think they're just, they're really hard workers. They're no nonsense. They're honest, you know, for the most part. I mean, obviously you can find people that are not honest in every country in the world. and they they're really from a technology standpoint they're just so far ahead of us and and you really look at it right look at the cars the cars are amazing there now um just their robotics are are incredible their their live stream shopping is is really good uh the the only thing i haven't loved in china is the food i think they could do a better job on the food.

37:32Jamie Salter: I mean, some of the big cities have good restaurants, but I think that's where they're lacking. And I think they could correct that. They should get on that a little bit. Ask Josh about his experience in Hong Kong recently. I'll tell you what. We went out to Hong Kong and we were meeting a founder out there named Justin Sun. And the brand invited us to a dinner, which was so nice of them. And it was a private Michelin star table. The food was moving for sure on that plate. Yeah. I kid you not. I was like, this plate right here looks like it was just brought off the ocean. It was still like, it literally looked alive.

38:15And I was just not, I didn't eat very much that night.

38:17Jamie Salter: Okay. So let me give you a hot tip. So I have had that experience. So what I do is I have a lot of dietary restrictions. you know when you like you're like really famous you you tell people well you know i'm gonna go to you know the concert and i need you know this tequila and i need this coffee and i need this water so when i go travel i have my assistant tell them i'm allergic to everything because i agree with you i'm not eating things that are moving on my back i'm just not doing nothing to do with it. I don't eat fish. I don't eat meat. I don't eat salad. Jamie, one of the things that I, I, I have to ask you is when I was growing up and I would, you know, just be watching TV with my parents or I'd go to the store, you know, I'd, I'd be watching TV and I'd see a commercial from this company called the general insurance.

39:14And I'd see this Shaquille O 'Neal. I'd see this commercial from, you know, Buick cars or, you know, you go to Shaquille O 'Neal, or you go to Staples and you see the printers Shaquille O 'Neal and you see him everywhere.

39:26Jamie Salter: And, uh, he's a big, he's a big guy. He is. Oh, definitely. I got to ask, you know, we've talked a lot about like your philosophy when acquiring like old companies and brands, but what's fascinating to me is you've partnered with some of the biggest personal brands and IP in the world, bar none. What goes through your head, your philosophy, your company, when you guys are thinking about like, man, I've, I've just this person, this personal brand. Well, look, personal brands are way harder than, uh, you know, a Reebok or, you know, even a Marilyn Monroe or, or an Elvis Presley, which, you know, we own the estates of Elvis and Marilyn and Muhammad Ali.

40:06Jamie Salter: When you get into live celebrities or athletes like Shaquille O 'Neal, David Beckham, um, much harder, right? Because you're, you're, you're partnering with them for life. No different than by the way, getting married, but you got to make sure that it's going to last forever. So what do we look at? Why Shaquille O 'Neal? Why David Beckham? Why Kevin Hart? First thing, family, family values are incredibly important. And if you sort of look at Kevin and you look at David and you look at Jack, they all have the same attributes as far as family values go. Family is the most important thing to them.

40:53Jamie Salter: So you, you, you, you, you can't get away from that because if they're, they're, they're, they're running too hot, they're going to probably get into trouble. So family's really, really important. The second part is global. And this is no particular order. Are they global? Can they translate to go global? So you can figure that out with the social media and see where all their followers are. And are they willing? And we've made some mistakes along the way with others. Are they willing to travel? are they willing to really work right because you're gonna you're gonna write this big giant check we're now partners oh i don't want to go on tour uh i don't want to go to china i don't want to go to india because you got to appreciate that you you know as well as i know if you don't travel it's very hard to build your brand so we really sort of look at all these different aspects and it's a dating process, right?

42:09Jamie Salter: You don't jump into any of these deals in five minutes. They take sometimes years. Now, look, it takes sometimes years to buy brands too, right? Like, you know, we were on Reebok for five years, you know, Shaq and I, before we, you know, finally bought Reebok. But it does take a lot of, you know, I guess the word I'm thinking about is it's not like a relationship but it it takes a lot of time that you need to spend with these people and make sure it's good for them and it's good for you guys because it's forever and forever is a long time right we all know that right like i've been married for 39 years and i'd love to tell you everything is perfect it's not um you know you have your ups and downs and and you know know you and your brother okay you I mean you guys are great you're getting along just fine right now but my guess is you know there was times where you didn't get along of course so you you got to make sure that you can get through those tough times um in those relationships so really talking it through so it's a lot of personal sort of connection and um that does make me a little bit worried as the company gets bigger bigger bigger bigger and we get more corporate corporate corporate corporate you know can we keep those tight relationships and make those right decisions and i think that's why you know i feel so good because my my four boys are in the business and you know tyler manages the the the the kevin hart business and and you know matthew does all the collaborations and dylan manages the shack and and beckham business with with david gardner and Colin Smeaton, you know, and Corey oversees, you know, all this stuff.

44:05Jamie Salter: Well, if Corey's not there and Matt's not there and Tyler's not there and Dylan's not there, is it going to become more of a transactional relationship? And I don't think that's the way to run, you know, that type of business. I think that business is, it's very emotional and it's very personal. And we have to be really careful because they really do have a heartbeat and they really do have a heart. And you have to recognize that. And sometimes we forget, right? Sometimes we forget, oh my God, you know, like David Beckham has been working his butt off, right? Like he's done an unbelievable job at the World Cup.

44:57Jamie Salter: What people don't understand, he's in Atlanta. And he's in Miami and then he's in New York. I mean, and then he's got to fly back to England because that's where his wife and his kids are. Okay, and then he's back two days later. I mean, the man, in my opinion, has been the hardest worker in the World Cup. Like, it's incredible what he has done for the sport and for us at Authentic Brands as far as building the David Beckham brand, but that man has been working 24 hours a day for the last eight weeks on the World Cup. Every time you turn on the game, you know who they turn the screen over to is David Beckham.

45:42And we've talked a lot about today about some of the biggest brands and personalities that you partnered with or purchased, but I'm sure there's some deals that maybe you passed on or walked away from. Could you tell us about a story about a brand that maybe you walked away from and that you regret?

45:56Jamie Salter: There's definitely deals that we've walked away from. Some I can't mention right now because they're still there and we can go back to them. And some are gone. Some got sold. I can only say to you, you know, my mother always said to me, son, it happens for a reason. if it's not meant to be it's not meant to be now you never want to lose a deal right because i'm a deal guy but you know we almost bought mark jacobs and mark's good guy and i met mark and we were doing with lvmh and uh and we didn't buy the brand and uh the people that we were going to do the business with, which was G3. And, you know, in the end, G3 bought it with WHP, who's, you know, a small, a small competitor of ours.

47:04Jamie Salter: And, you know, G3 bought 50 % and, and, and WHP bought 50%. But that was not a deal that we were willing to do as far as the structure went. And, And, you know, should we have bought it? We could have. It was ours. But we didn't. And so my partner and I, we sort of, you know, we go back and forth. And we talk about it because you always talk about, you know, the deals you don't get. But you won't know the end of the story for another three, four years. I wish them success. I want them to be successful because if they're successful, that's good for all of us. But yeah, you know, maybe we should have been a little bit easier on ourselves.

48:00Jamie Salter: But we're very disciplined. And that's something that I've instilled in the company for the last 17 years, which is it's got to make financial sense. sense because the last thing I want to do is get into trouble financially, right? The company's incredibly low levered and we're really, really careful. And, you know, it's a family business. At the end of the day, sure, we got lots of private equity guys and sovereign funds that are my partners. But at the end of the day, you know, the family still owns, you know, a lot of this company and you know we're going to buy something for a billion dollars you know it's a lot of money from the family so that's always in the back of my mind right i'm not a corporate citizen right it's jamie salter money and i i want to make sure that you know we're we're doing the right thing not only for the company but you know for for for my family jamie you've talked about how going global is one of the most important aspects or components of a business in today's world.

49:10Another thing that I've heard you emphasize, I saw you speak at that event. I'm trying to think it was after the Milken conference and it was, you were preaching just the importance of content in today's world. And you mentioned that when you're dusting off a brand, one of the things that you're doing is you're injecting great marketing strategies into them. What have you seen in terms of advertising and content is the best mechanism in today's world to really help transform companies like a Sports Illustrated or like some of the other brands that you're working with?

49:37Jamie Salter: Well, for starters, content drives commerce. Now, we started out, we were a real big commerce company, let's be honest, and we're becoming a really big content company. Why is that? Because content drives commerce. And in today's world, you used to drive in a car, and you looked up and you saw a billboard or you went home, you turned on the TV. Okay. And you saw a commercial. That's not the way it all works anymore, right? You're watching all your shows on Netflix. You're streaming, you know, sometimes there's commercials on them. If you don't want to pay for the extra, you know, money, so there's no commercials, but if there is commercials, you're, you're, you're fast forwarding through them or like at the end of the day, let's be honest, traditional outdoor media does not work anymore.

50:33Jamie Salter: So there's people like yourself, creators, social media influencers. That is the new world that we're living in. And I believe that the companies that are winning right now are running these like mini entertainment companies because I truly believe that people are consuming their buying decisions through influence. Now, influence comes all different ways, right? Influence comes from your friends. influence comes from a celebrity you know buying something or wearing something and you want to look like them right everyone wants to look like david beckham okay or david beckham's in the greatest shape in the world so if i take im8 i'm gonna look just like david beckham i look pretty good right so it must be working but the the the truth of the matter is that's what's working in in the world that we live in today.

51:44Jamie Salter: So, you know, if I was getting started today, I would turn to people like yourselves to help build my brands. Jamie, over the years with all the brands that you've acquired, what's like the, what for you is the number one takeaway just for anybody building a brand out there from any, From brands that you've acquired and have turned around, anybody out there that's trying to build a brand right now, what's your biggest piece of advice for them? Well, the first thing is, I mean, Claude's really good, okay? But you got to have a plan. And, you know, Claude can write that plan for you. I know you all say, I've got one employee and I'm going to build a billion-dollar business, okay?

52:35Jamie Salter: You guys like you got a hundred employees. Okay. So at the end of the day, you got to make a real business plan, get out a piece of paper, get a pen out, get a whiteboard out, make a real plan. What is our plan when we're going to buy this brand? How much business do we want to try to do in China? What do we want to do in India? What do we want to do in Africa? Right? You know, I'll sit in a room with some people. How many countries are in Africa? Some people look at me and go, what do you mean how many countries are in Africa? Africa. No, that's not the right answer. How many countries do you think there are in Africa?

53:24Jamie Salter: And you get 20, you get 10, you get 15. No, there's really, there's 54 countries in Africa. How many countries in Africa of those 54 countries, how many can you do business in? And my guys all say to me, oh, don't even worry about it. It's my snuts. It doesn't add up to any dollars. Write them all down. I want to know of those 54 countries, what categories can we sell in those countries? Break it down for me. There's 220 million people in Nigeria alone. so you you get exactly what i'm saying so really sitting down and making that business plan and doing it the old way university of hard knocks that's why i just love where you guys come from because you got to still have the grind and yeah claude can do a lot of that for you the problem is when claude does it all for you that's not necessarily the right answer because you have to learn and, and you've got to get those ideas on a piece of paper.

54:30Jamie Salter: And you know, as well as I know, you create a habit by writing something down, you know, three times, like you need to take, drink your water every single day for 21 days. And then you'll start drinking water every single day. You really have to take the time to build it. And I think we got to be careful, right? Because I mean, I get resumes, I get business plans, I get, everything's being done by AI today. And we just, we have to be careful because you go into a meeting with someone and say, okay, that's the greatest business plan I've ever seen. Can you explain to me the business plan? Well, it's right there, Mr.

55:14Jamie Salter: Salter. No, no, explain to me. You obviously, you clearly wrote it and they sort of, they're looking at the ceiling. So we need to be a little careful, okay, you know, how we're sort of running business today because Claude is so good. Jamie, could you explain, would you consider ABG to be like a private equity company? I know that it's IP licensing. Like how would you differentiate the two of those two right there? Like what is exactly the business model behind ABG? Authentic is a platform, right? It's an ecosystem. It's a platform and and it plays in you know very different places right it's got an entertainment piece of the puzzle it's got a lifestyle piece of the puzzle and it's got services and and then in you break and then you break them all down inside sort of those those those three areas at the end of the day we are providing all these different services on the platform.

56:20Jamie Salter: It's an asset. You know, people say you're an asset light company. We are asset light in terms of how we run the business, but you're asset heavy in terms of IP. And I think that that's what's really, really important because when you do a deal with us and we license you, you know, Reebok for footwear, there's a lot of other things that we give you to make sure that you're incredibly successful you know in the country that you're playing in and in the category that you're playing in and i think that that's the difference between us and a lot of companies that are out there which is all the different services that we supply to you within the ecosystem at authentic brands let's say nike is going out of business and no chance they're they're coming for sale what are those things that authentic brand is looking for like what does it look like in terms of you're looking at a potential deal of okay i am interested in working with them of course it's a global brand are you looking at hey i'm going to change the business model are you looking at i'm going to license the ip what is what does that kind of look like for when you're approaching a new brand i mean And look, obviously Nike, one of the biggest brands in the entire world.

57:36Jamie Salter: I think they're$50 billion, you know,$45 to$50 billion. We're getting them. We're getting close. We're getting close. But what I would tell you is our business model is just completely different, right? They're an asset-heavy company with lots of structure and lots of overhead, right? That's not the business we're in. the business we're in is is taking a brand taking the ip and licensing it out to best in class partners all over the world so yes if we bought nike i'm sure people would line up from here to china to take a license for every single category like i always say um you could have nike water tomorrow and you know it's interesting you have fuji which is my favorite water on the table, but like if you had a water and it just had a swoosh on it, would you drink it?

58:33Yeah.

58:34Jamie Salter: Yes. So would I, and I would think it's the best water in the world. And then I would read the back of it and it would have something about all about hydrate and it would have like, you know, like little minerals in it and it'd have some special stuff because we're all in this health and wellness world today. So you say to yourself, okay, I'm the new CEO. My name is Elliot Hill. And one of the biggest water companies in the world just approached me and wants to do Nike water. And they're going to pay me a hundred million dollars a year in royalties. What is Elliot Hill going to do? I don't have the answer for you.

59:23But if I was Elliot Hill, I would take that deal.

59:29Jamie Salter: And the reason I would take that deal is because I think that that would embrace my brand. I think that that is a commodity, that you drink it, it's gone. and it would tell people that I have the best health and wellness water brand in the world and what do you do when you work out? You drink water. What do you do when you're at work? You drink water. What do you do when you're at dinner? You drink water. What do you do at breakfast? You drink water. So if everybody's drinking Nike water all the time, guess what? That brand is in front of you all the time. So he may not think it's a good idea, but I do take Under Armour, another incredible company.

1:00:24Jamie Salter: So back in the day, you know, and I know Kevin Plank fairly well. And, you know, in the early days I was registering trademarks, you know, this is 30 years ago. and I registered a trademark for Under Armour for deodorant. True story. And I always thought, Under Armour, what a great name. You know, you have Old Spice and you have Axe and that's when Axe was really big. And I said, oh my God, you know, Under Armour, it's one of the best athletic brands in the world. Why wouldn't they just make Under Armour deodorant? It makes sense, right? Good name and the whole thing. And he called me up one day and he says, I understand you have the Under Armour trademarks for deodorant.

1:01:11Jamie Salter: I said, not only do I have the trademarks for Under Armour deodorant, I actually have a company called Kik who makes deodorant and they want to take the license. So you should do the deal with them and we'll split the royalties. And he said, Mr. Salter, that's not how it's going to work. I am not interested in that category. I said, oh, well, that's not good. He said, I'd like to buy the trademarks from you. And I said, Kevin, one day you're going to remember this phone call. I will sell you those trademarks for$1. Just don't forget about me. so whenever i see kevin blank he always brings up that story from 30 years ago when i sold him the trademarks for a dollar okay or well it wasn't 30 years ago it was 20 years ago but i sold him the trademarks back for a dollar and the reason i did that is because of the relationship and you know who knows maybe one day we could buy under armor but the truth of the matter is he thought it was a bad idea.

1:02:30Jamie Salter: And maybe to this day, he still thinks it's a bad idea. And I can tell you to this day, I still think it's a good idea. Jamie, we like to end these podcasts off with two super quick questions for our guest. I'll start and Jack will finish this. By the way, this has been phenomenal. But Jamie, if you could leave one last message to the younger generation right here with all the knowledge you've acquired, the businesses that you built, that you bought, if you could leave one more message with the younger generation right here, what would that be? And before you even give the answer, I wanted to talk about the younger generation because one of the things that I think really separates you and sets you apart from a lot of other entrepreneurs is that you've spoken out about embracing the younger generation where a lot of people, I'm sure, that maybe you have peers that don't necessarily pour into or like to seek guidance, but you've embraced that concept of reverse mentorship to where you have younger people at your company now and you want to know what are their thoughts on this and that.

1:03:21And I've just always found that fascinating. So nonetheless, last message to the younger generation.

1:03:26Jamie Salter: So look, the younger generation, write down, make a list. I don't care if you make the list on your phone. I don't care if you carry a little book around like I do, okay, because I'm such old school and I write something down. Write your list every single solitary day, your task list of what you need to get done tomorrow. And when you wake up in the morning, you open up that task list and you look at it. And whatever you don't get done on that task list, because you'll find that, you know, things that you thought you would get to, you don't get to. Rewrite that list or retype that list for the very next day.

1:04:05And the reason that you're doing that is to make sure that you're incredibly organized. And I can tell you, I am a student of University of Hard Knocks.

1:04:20Jamie Salter: I'm not a Harvard MBA. And people always say to me, why have you done so well? And I always tell people because I'm really organized. And I think that if you are an organized person and you are giving yourself your tasks list and you're waking up in the morning and you're making your bed. and I always, every interview, I always say to people, do you make your bed in the morning? And they look at me like really funny. No. Interesting. I make my bed every morning or my wife makes the bed every morning or the nanny makes the bed every morning, but you better make sure that bed's made every morning because you need to stay organized.

1:05:11Jamie Salter: You need to make sure your closet is organized. You need to make sure your desk is organized. You need to make sure your kitchen is organized. An organized person will do better in life. It's just that simple. And Jamie, with the life, the career, everything that you've led, how do you want to be remembered? I want to be remembered as a great father. I want to be remembered as a great grandfather. for me family is the most important thing in the world people always say you're rich and I always say you're 100 % right I'm rich I've got eight grandchildren one on the way I got four amazing kids I got an incredible wife and I've got a lot of great friends and I've got the greatest employees and and associates around me and that's what I want to be known for I don't want to be known for the billionaire.

1:06:09Jamie Salter: That's not important. What's important to me is the people that are around me that love me and that I love. And I think that, you know, people forget about that sometimes. And sometimes I do too. But we can't forget about that. Because this is not a trial run, guys. You're only here once. and life is short. So look around you and make sure, you know, when you wake up that morning and you go, oh my God, I'm going to have the greatest day in the world. Now, I know that's easy for me to say all this because I've done well in life, but I'm telling you that is really, really important because, you know, I have friends.

1:07:01Jamie Salter: They can't do what I do in life, but guess what? They're just as rich as I am because they have grandchildren and they have a beautiful wife and they have a beautiful family and they have beautiful friends. So remember that. We're all equal. We all use the same washrooms and when we separate that, that's not good. I love it. Well, this was an excellent episode. For everybody watching right now, be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content. Amazing episodes coming every week to the Hard Knocks podcast with the most incredible business owners and entrepreneurs just like Jamie Salter right here.

1:07:37We're gonna put the links down in the description for you all to follow along with Jamie across his social media platforms and to check out all the amazing work that Jamie, his family, and Authentic Brands Group is doing on a regular basis. We're also gonna put a link down in the description to check out the number one entrepreneur community in the entire world, the School of Mentors, where we host live calls every week with the eight, nine, 10, and 11-figure entrepreneurs we interview on the School of Hard Knocks, where you can ask your questions directly to the people that we interview. So we can't wait to see you on the inside of the community.

1:08:03And with that being said, we'll see you in the next episode.