Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Reebok Co-Founder Joe Foster

I recently interviewed Reebok Co-Founder Joe Foster on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today co-founded one of the most successful sportswear companies of all time. Joe Foster is the co-founder of Reebok. Joe, thank you for joining us.

Joe: It's a pleasure, Adam.

Adam: Pleasure is mine. You grew up in Bolton, England, and were born on the same day as your grandfather, also named Joseph William Foster. And he passed away 18 months before you were born. You not only have the same name but also have a similar career trajectory, both highly successful entrepreneurs in the sneaker business. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Joe: I guess, being born in 1935, four years after being born, we had World War Two. So in World War Two, if you can think, no street lights. You can't have lights on. And so it was a fun sort of life, but different. And when you're kids, that's what you expect. There's nothing strange about having no lights on the streets, and no entertainment because you made your entertainment. So I think we grew up in a world without any information. So we had to make a lot of decisions ourselves doing what we did. I think it was a little more awkward than my brother had. I don't think I conformed, as much as my brother did, asking too many questions. And during that time, I think you realize if you want something, you've got to find it. So, you do these things. And nothing was given, you had to work for it. And I don’t say that it’s easy because we didn't know what hard was in those days. And I guess that after coming back from the forces, we grew up like normal children. The war was all in 95 to five when I was 10. And then the whole thing changed. Suddenly, the lights came on again. Suddenly, we had things like bananas. Sweet. You'd never seen until that time, you can't imagine life without a banana until you're 10 years old. I guess a lot of changes, a lot of new things come in. And of course, we hardly had radio. In those days, we've just about got radio, nothing on television. So if you wanted something, wherever you were, whatever you wanted to do, you had to work for it, you had to design it and become part of it. And as I look back on it from today, everything there is like anything you want, that was just arm's length. You learn that independence. And so I think from learning that independence, when it came to the point of deciding our future, Jeff and myself, we'd done national service. And we’d say to dad, "Dad, come on. We need to do something. This business is going down, we need to change it." He and his brother had inherited it from their father, my grandfather. They didn't have a spirit of adventure as entrepreneurs. We couldn't get my father to do anything. So we had to leave.

Adam: You referred to your brother Jeff. Jeff was not only your brother but the co-founder of Reebok. How did the idea for Reebok emerge? And how did you actualize it?

Joe: First of all, what made us leave J. W. Foster to set up our own company, is that all we could see as a failing company, and we would need a job. We would have done something to earn money rather than wait until the company went out of business, so we decided to take that step. We took that adventure. We were young. I think I was 25, Jeff was 27. And we decided if our father wouldn't join us and set up a separate company, we just have to do it ourselves. So I guess in those days, it didn't seem such a difficult job to us. We didn't have to make ultimate sneakers but we needed to make athletic shoes. We had to do monetary things. We had to go to college and learn a bit more about how to make shoes. Because we knew how to make the shoe, we were making it at Foster. But we needed to know more. So we went to college. The most important thing about going to college is that we met people in the industry that we were in, and they became friends. We wanted machinery, we knew where to go now. We asked these people and they were pointers. Now we've got our own sports footwear company. We started with cycling shoes. We didn't want to compete with the parent company, we wanted to do something different. We started with cycle shoes. But Jeff was a competitor. He loved running, and he loved cycling. In those days, most athletes belonged to a club. So all of a sudden, we were making shoes. Jeff as part of these clubs, all came to us for their running shoes. So that was the start of our business. Jeff loved the factory. The factory wasn't for me. He loved the factory. So he worked in the factory. And Jeff said to me, "Joe, you do everything else." So it was up to me to do the marketing. I did design sales. I learned an awful lot from it. But it was good because we could have a good relationship that way. Well, I think the most important thing, as far as I was concerned was whitespace, finding a space that nobody is in or making a difference in that space. Adidas had taken on the soccer business. To get into that, we could build a nice business. The problem that I found was whilst we built this business, and we built it in athletics, it was a question of whether the UK is so big. Do we expand our products? Do we go into different sports? Or do we expand the territory? What do we do? In the UK, we were number one in athletics, we were number one in cross country. But for me, it had to be America. People said, "Why don't you go to Europe?" Because you've got 400 million people. America has 350 million people. But in America, they spoke English. In Europe, we have 25 languages, which is always difficult to work with. So it was a question of the idea of building the business or scaling the business is how do we scale the business? What's the best way? Where's the least resistance? And least resistance was to try to go into other countries where we spoke the language. In the UK, of course, we had in those early days, the Empire. So we were selling products, because the advertising that we did in the UK, always went either to Africa, Australia, Canada, India, or those countries that spoke English. So that was good, but we had different studies. And we came up with America, we passed America as 100. The nearest to that as a market was Japan at 30 to 35 and Germany at 30. The UK came into something like 16. So if our market is only 16, and America is 100, there's nothing near to it that will pretty much go to America.

Adam: Instrumental to your success was the ability to penetrate international markets. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs, and leaders on how to go into different markets and how to conduct business internationally as effectively as possible?

Joe: To go international, the language of the business world is English, which is very good. And wherever we go, now, anybody in a business speaks English, which is great. So if you're an English speaker, you can say what is the market? We've gone into America because that's what we were in, we knew that every college and every university had a coach and the coach was a god. And if we could get in there, that's great. He should go to university in America on a sports scholarship, something very difficult in the rest of the world. So he's looking for the business. Where is the trade?

Adam: You mentioned that a large percentage of what you did was focused on sales and marketing. What are your best tips on marketing?

Joe: Best marketing tips and it's looking for the difference. Where can you make a difference to it? What can you do? How can you be different? We can look at many industries. Dyson for instance, with his vacuum cleaners, found a different way of doing something, and that created the market today. And wonderful thing they have today is online selling. There's social media, that has changed an awful lot of the way that you can influence the market. In doing marketing, you have to try and do something different. Right now, we look at marketing as an influence. Now you look around Shaquille O'Neal and Allen Iverson. And so these days, if you can get something which is a little bit different, get somebody into your product, get it seen. It makes a difference. Go monitor shoe companies. On is a new shoe company in Switzerland, and they work with Roger Federer, he is a good influence for them. But they have made some visible changes. The sole is a visible change because you can see the holes in there. They're using air differently, they just made a visible difference. And if you can make a visible difference, some people see. And when they see it and find it, it's just that little bit of effort. Sometimes it's small. With Reebok, eventually, we came out with a pump, and the pump had such a big impression. So there's always trying to find something which is just that bit of difference. And if you can find that, then the other thing is, to keep at it. Don't give up on something too soon. Because whilst you may have seen it, been working two or three years, a lot of people haven't even seen it yet. We've just gotten more opportunities to see. It’s one of those things. So making your product visible is so important.

Adam: So what were the keys to building the Reebok brand?

Joe: The key is built in the Reebok team, you have to build a good team, a team that believes in the brand. I didn't like egos. People had egos. Go set up your brand, and ego. you've worked with Reebok. that's what you work for, you become part of it. And you can take those people in, those people become part of it. Listen to them. And it's amazing what ideas people come up with. If you take people in, they become part of your company, they become part of that team. It's not bad. If you're a winning team, if you're a winning company, it's easier because people want to work for you. So the more successful you are, the easier it is to build a team. We had some good genius people who invented the pump, for instance, and that was excellent. And aerobics came from a guy Aho Martinez who lived in LA. It's recognized. And when they come with good ideas, it's working with all ideas, and making something different.

Adam: It speaks to the power of listening. Great leaders are great listeners. And as a leader, if you immerse yourself in your team, and you care about what the people you're leading have to say, that's gonna make all the difference.

Joe: Absolutely. They carry the message, they talk to the company all the time, and they become part of it. And that's why not many people knew that I was a founder of Reebok. Because I wasn't trying to sell Joe Foster, we were trying to sell Reebok. And even though the parent company was J.W. Foster and Sons, we were building Reebok. I think you need consistency, you need to be honest with people. And you need to give them the opportunities. People working with, you need to build their confidence and importance. Then they become true to the brand. The other most important part about being successful with me is you've got to have fun, you've got to enjoy it. Because if you're not having fun, it becomes tough. It's better to move on and do something else. So we always had fun in what took a long time. Because you need to immerse yourself in the company and bring people in with a similar mind. They're not gonna be frightened to talk to you. They've got to come and say, "I don't like that." I used to be at the point of, "Look, guys, if you have a problem, I don't want to hear your problem. Give me your answers. Give me what you'd like to do." And if we have two or three various answers that we don't quite know which of the answers to go, which one path to go down, then come up, we'll talk about that. But just to give me a problem? No. They're employed to work these things out. There are a few people that have the authority to work out the problem. Find the answer, and we'll discuss the answer. So, it's giving people ownership and I think it works so well. Because when you grow in four years from almost zero to a billion, it takes a lot of people. It takes a lot of writing, and doing the right things. You do make mistakes. They made a mistake with aerobics in the early days, because we made it as a club lead. I didn't even know that we're making that the club lead. So when they come up and say, "Look, we got a problem, the shoes are falling apart. So what's the answer?" We went through the answer. We got the tanneries to make the leather thicker, most substance to it was still soft. It was the softness of the leather. That was the marketing plan. The marketing plan was when these girls put his shoes on, they aren't gonna be stiff and hard like a lot of shoes are or were. I think most footwear now is quite soft. Reebok pioneered that, got that soft leather. So you didn't need to break as you move. When we went to tennis, the advertising was Reebok put the balls on the line. And the strapline was, if you don't think that Reebok tennis shoes are the best you've ever won, we'll give you your money back and the kind of balls. So it was great good promotional advertising using tennis balls as we put them on the line. And those shoes are so soft, people didn't have to break them in. So these small differences create the brand and also attract people to work to become part of the company.

Adam: As a leader is critical to be solutions-oriented. I love that it's very easy to identify problems. We can all identify problems, and we can all point to what's going wrong. Anyone can do that. But can you be a part of the solution? Can you take charge and help solve those problems? That's what leadership is all about. Empowerment, ownership. As a leader, your job is to empower those around you to become their best selves, and to be in a position where they can get things done as best as possible. Your job is to enable people to make things happen. And the key word is ownership.

Joe: Yes, they have to have that ownership. And that's good. I did that as long as I don't think they become too big, never become bigger than the company. Because it's the company that gives you the opportunity. And the company that will also treat you right. So you become part of it. We put people around the world, and somebody in that different country became Mr. Reebok. And it was great to meet up and see the enthusiasm that these people had. That works on me as well, so seeing that enthusiasm just makes me feel great and it did as we were growing a company. And you can imagine a successful company when we were growing in the 1980s, scaling Imaginators. It was such a fantastic time. People enjoyed it and it was so good.

Adam: And it speaks to a key point you shared earlier when I asked you what the key was to build the Reebok brand. And you said, our people. Your people are your brand ambassadors, your people create your brand, and your people are your brand. The more people out there who are the right people, who are the people who you want on your team, who reflect the Reebok ethos, who reflect the values, the mission, everything that you have created, everything that you believe that Reebok should stand for, the better it is for your company, the better it is for everyone.

Joe: Yeah, and I also think your company has to be willing to change direction. They call it pivoting now. We were in there as a running company, we pivoted into being an aerobics company as we grew the business. We were not afraid of pivoting, seeing that whitespace, moving into it, moving into it fast, and owning it.

Adam: As an entrepreneur and as a leader, how do you know when to pivot? And how can you pivot as smoothly as possible?

Joe: I think it's a bit of intuition. When you see something, you've got to say, how far can we take this? And we're willing to take that risk. Adidas and Nike at that time were not willing to take the risk to move into the women's market. But it was an opportunity for us, we were quite small by comparison to Adidas and Nike, so be willing to take a risk. You can always change direction, you can always pivot again. And the big thing is don't step back until the opportunity has gone past you. Because that's what will happen. If you wait or worry and think I'm not too sure, give it a shot. Try it. Because I think you always find that, okay, maybe half of the time, you get it wrong. If you don't try it, you'll never know.

Adam: As a leader, how do you create a culture that encourages people to take risks? Do you have any tips on how leaders can build winning cultures, successful cultures, and cultures that fuel innovation?

Joe: I think you need to set up a culture within your company, it needs to be a winning culture. It needs to be a habit. It has to be one where you're serious because you want to win, and progress. You want that company to scale. You want to be able to say, "I'm part of Reebok." Not, "I work for Reebok." I didn't like people saying they worked for Reebok. No, it should be "I have been part of Reebok." And I think you got to instill that into your company, and then work the way down to the guy handling the mail. I don't know if you know much about Reebok now, but the guy who handled the mail, at 18, joined Reebok, he was a mail boy. Right now, he is the CEO. That is the difference.

Adam: I love that. As a leader, you don't want your people to feel like they're working for your company. You want people to feel like they are your company. I love that.

Joe: Yeah. And we got to instill that. Egos? We don't need egos. We've built a company, we're all part of Reebok. And I think people feel they're part of it. It's good. they remain, they're loyal and they put everything, bring all the new ideas. When people would talk to me and say, "Don't you think you should still be running the company?" I say, "No, you've got to move on." Because I can only take it to such a level.

Adam: Great leaders understand when to stick around and when to walk away. Everyone is ultimately replaceable. As a leader, it's important to understand yourself intimately and understand when you're the right person for the role. And when there's someone else out there who's better suited to be the leader for the company, for the organization, for the assignment than you. And in your case, you recognized. In my mid-50s, maybe right now, I'm not the right person for this position. I don't have the energy, the passion, the desire, the commitment. And whatever level I do, it's not going to be the same as the person I can bring in to replace me. And that's essential to leadership, knowing who the right person is, and whether or not that right person is you. Having the intellectual honesty to acknowledge when to step in and when to step back.

Joe: I agree with that. And people can't stay too long. I'm not handing over responsibility. The company will grow. A company is not going to keep on scaling. We need to handle that responsibility because I spent my mid-20s up to 55, 35 years and I don't say that's enough. Because as far as I'm concerned, that's still my baby. You create something but you can't hold on to that baby forever. It's like having a child. That child will get away from it, will go somewhere, will get married, will do something else. You can't just keep them by your side all your lives. They have a life and your company has a life and it has to embrace so many different things. People don't allow that creativity to grow. They do the scaling of the business and take it in different directions. We started with a running company, we moved to being an aerobics company. And then we became an on-ramp sports company. But you can only achieve these step by step.

Adam: Joe, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Joe: They've got to have the desire to do that. They're going to want to succeed and they've got to figure out what they're going to succeed with. Then they've got to be able to accept the fact that they may come up with a couple of good ideas. But a company probably needs 1000 good ideas. And they will not produce 1000s of ideas, but they need people to produce those ideas. So, it's embracing those people. So anybody who wants to scale the company, these days, I give talks at various places and various universities in these courses. They say, "Well, what was your exit plan?" And I'm looking and saying, "We didn't have an exit plan. We had a desire to build a business. And then once we started that, we desired to build a brand. And that brand was on. The only reason I got out was time for new people. But the brand is still there. And I didn't have an exit plan. The exit plan came along, when you see you've got a lot of people, when you see them companies moving in a certain direction that looks good, then you're allowed to move in that direction.

Adam: There's no substitute for desire. You have to want it.

 Joe: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Not everybody will make it. They may if there's a bit of luck. But if you keep going long enough, that's good. And also, you have to seek those opportunities. When they come along, have a go. There's an opportunity. If you wait too long, it can go past you and you lose it. So it's keeping our eyes open for those opportunities or moments. Not always going to work. But you'll only regret it if you don't.

 Adam: Joe, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Joe: It's been an absolute pleasure.

Adam: Pleasure is mine.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

Follow Adam on Instagram and Twitter at @adammendler and on LinkedIn and listen and subscribe to Thirty Minute Mentors on your favorite podcasting app.