Founder's Story - How Reebok became a Billion Dollar Company | Ep. 58 with Reebok CoFounder Joe Foster

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

Joe Foster is the co-founder of Reebok, along with his brother, Jeff. The Reebok business developed with Jeff looking after production, Joe took charge of the sales and marketing side, as well as design which included the classic silhouette, outsole, and the Starcrest. In the early years, Joe traveled many miles introducing Reebok’s offering shoes to Sports Retailers up and down the country. Joe still welcomes the opportunity to travel and recount those early stories from start-up to making Reebok the World's No. 1 sports brand. To get a copy of the autographed book of Joe Foster, visit https://www.jwfosterheritage.com/ For more info on guests and future episodes visit KateHancock.com  Our Sponsors:* Check out PrizePicks and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: www.prizepicks.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: www.rosettastone.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Welcome to Inspired by Her, the podcast that will give you the inspiration, motivation, and tips for success from some of the top executives, CEOs, and influencers from around the globe. With your host, serial entrepreneur, and named one of the most influential Filipina in the world, Kate Hancock. We are super excited for Joe here. Joe Foster, founder of Reebok. Incredible individual. I'm going to read his bio while he's just getting situated. Joseph William Foster, or Joe Foster, was born in 1935 in Bolton, England,

with the same birthday, 18th of May, as his grandfather, also Joseph William Foster, who had died 18 months earlier i think joe's grandfather was the founder of jw fosters and sons athletic shoes limited and the inventor of the spiked running shoe and the trainer so it makes sense that joe did what he did he was destined joe and his late brother jeff were born born into the J.W. Foster family business. But on their return after two years away from home on national service, they asked questions. The year was 1955, and the brothers saw a business still rooted in the 1930s. Their father and uncle were now operating the business and very much like any other sports shoe company, spent more time feuding than collaborating the result was that in 1958 joe and jeff left the foster business to set up a new sports shoe company the brothers founded

mercury sports footwear which after 18 months they changed its name to the iconic brand Reebok. Joe had been advised to protect their company's name by registering it. By 1965, Joe was on his way to the National Sporting Goods of America show in Chicago, which was the start of many global adventures and experiences that after 15 years brought him together with Paul Fireman and later many stars of film and television. As the surviving founder of Reebok, Joe still welcomes the opportunity to travel and recount those early stories from startup to taking the company to a $4 billion business, overtaking Adidas and Nike to become the world's number one sports brand. He is also the author of Shoemaker, which you can purchase today.

I would highly suggest go check out the book, WMB.club. You can actually get a signed copy of Shoemaker. Welcome, Joe Foster. Hello. That was a very nice. Joe, we can't hear you. You can't hear me. Joe, I think you might be muted on the phone.

All right. I'm muted. Yeah. Yes, but let's open a mic to Joe. Hello. I'm open now. I'm here. That was a great introduction, Dan.

Hello. Technology, you know, it has its problems. But we're here. Thank you for the invitation. Yes, Joe. We're honored having you here. And Joe, I'd like to know, what was the city or town you grew up in like? Well, if we go back to 1935 when I was born, we're pre-war.

We still have glass lamps and gas lighting in the streets. And it was, well, we grew up then. In fact, we had no television. We had radio, just about, but really local communities, a community usually around the church where all your friends and people that you knew, the same age group, that was our town. And not very big. It's grown immensely since 1935, of course.

But, yeah, it was home. And I think mainly that's where it is. You know, you're just a youngster, and you know no difference. So it was home. I love it. And what moment from your childhood are you most proud of? What am I most proud of? What am I most proud of? I don't know if I'm proud of many things, really, but maybe I was a runner at that time.

Not that I like running, but being part of a running shoe family, I, of course, wore running shoes, spikes. And my proudest moment was probably during the war when I won my 60-yard race and I received a dictionary. Not a football. I received a dictionary, and it was an American dictionary. I didn't think very much of it at that time. In fact, I was fairly disappointed as an eight-year-old youngster to be given a dictionary, and I didn't think very much of it at that time. In fact, I was fairly disappointed as an eight-year-old youngster to be given a dictionary.

And I didn't know that it was an American dictionary. And that would have given me a lot of problems with some of the spellings because they are a little bit different than the Oxford English version. Wow. So who gave you that dictionary? Well, I won the race. And winning winning a race I went up for the presentation and as I say the presentation was a dictionary and not a football and you know when you're eight years old what do you do with the dictionary? You know you can't go on the field and kick it about and play with it but it was a dictionary which was to um i can say be immensely important

later in life well can you tell me more well why is that well we have to uh a little bit of the family history we go back to 1895 which we've heard of my grandfather and he was a great influencer he had uh olympic gold medalists and lots of world record people in in his shoes that was great he died though in 1935 sorry 1933. he didn't i wasn't born until 1935 on his birthday the 18th of may so my grandmother said oh he's brought his name with him so i am called joseph william he was called joseph william so okay i i come into the world four years after that we're in world war ii everything's blackout and for five years i've seen this more six years for six years you know we're running around streets with no lighting.

But again, we're just children. And as you accept it, it's normal. 1945, the lights come on, and we're back to school again because we didn't get much school during the war. It was a bit sort of in the teacher's front room of the house. We managed a few days a week but uh at the end then i went to college and by the age of 17 i joined the family business joining the family business was fine but one year later um as diana said we went off to do national

service both jeff and myself coming back we come back from national service and we we come off to do national service, both Jeff and myself. Coming back, we come back from national service and we come back to a failing company. And try as we could, try as we may, we couldn't get my father and uncle to work together. So our conclusion was to leave the company. And we left the company, and again, we set up the company as Mercury sports footwear and it was 18 months later when we were told to do the registering register our name and this is where

the dictionary came in because an agent said well if you can't buy because it was for sale for a thousand pounds if you can't buy the name you're gonna have to bring me ten names and then we can check them and I was in his office and his window was open it was a nice day in May and he pointed to a sign Kodak and I'm saying well what's with Kodak it's an invented name that's the best way to be able to register a name invent one so I went back we sit around the table and we're thinking 10 names how do you do this so i had cougar that's something good falcon another one and many others but by my side was my dictionary my dictionary had one when i was eight years old i knew by then it was an American dictionary. But I liked the letter R. So I thought, well, why not?

I opened up the dictionary, started to sum through the pages, and soon came upon Rebar, R-A-B-A-R-B-O-K, a small South African gazelle. Wow, gazelle, that's got to go top of the list. Now, if I had been looking at an English dictionary, an Oxford English dictionary, that would have been spelled R-H-E-B-O-K. And I don't think that would have been as interesting. In fact, I may well have passed that by. But fortunately, my American dictionary gave me R-W-B-O-K.

Wow. Now, Joe, are you happy with that name? Oh, at that time, that was like all of a sudden something happened. What was it? How did we find that name? How did somebody come to give me a dictionary when I was eight? It turned out to be a fantastic name. We like Mercury.

But, you know, three syllables is probably more difficult to say. Reebok came so, you could say it, you know, to pronounce Reebok. It's so easy. And it's so catchy. So, yes, we love the name. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. Joe, you mentioned your father and your uncle

in the same page in business. How did you handle that dynamic as a company working with family? Well, working with family seemed very natural and really no problems. But, of course, when we went away and we left the family, we came back. We found out that was a problem. When grandfather died, the sons, my uncle and father, took over the business. That was Jim and Bill. They took over the business.

And grandmother was there, Maria. And Maria was a person to be considered very much. And she kept them together. She kept the business going. But at a point, while Jeff and I were away doing national service, she died. And that was a problem. We then had a war both father and uncle they didn't speak and in fact we did Jeff and myself on more than one occasion had to pull them apart fighting you know and it it is a bit like uh I did this with um Adi Dasla and Rudy Dasler. They didn't get on either. But Rudy Dasler did leave the company and set up Puma. It didn't happen with the Foster family. There was no leaving the company. They just continued to fight until my uncle died. But he died about two years after we left the company and set up Reebokbok and it was a difficult moment telling my father that we were

leaving even though we knew we were very disturbed at the fact that the family company was failing but it was a difficult moment but uh and it probably took about three or four years really to heal that wound of us leaving the family but i guess it was our destiny we had to do something with a family with a business going down and I guess really was we needed a future and so we had to leave thank you for sharing that now Joe knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to anyone who's involved in a family business? What would you do? Families can work, but I think it starts off when you're very young, being introduced and being part of a working family, something that really does work.

The one thing that I found, I came out of doing national service when I was 20 years old. At 21, I was married. I had a wife. And the reason for that was that in those days, whoever you were, the boys went away from that social scene and did two years away from. You had friends, you had your people you were the girls the boy all the friends were together going to local dances doing things locally but these boys were going away for two years at different times and they come back and that uh that social group's no longer there there but you do meet one or two and so I came back to the girl that I'd known before going into the National Service and 12 months later we got married so I'm now a

family man and I didn't know at that time because it took another couple of years before we had to become entrepreneurs before we moved away from the family business and and that that to me the realization was it took some time i now had a new family reebok became a family and that in itself is a a difficult situation you have one family and you have children and then you've got your other family your your business which to be successful as an entrepreneur you have to be in love with it it has to have your passion it has to have that determination that the will to succeed and continue even during the bad times and that's very important that if you've got a family,

and then you bring in this other family, you have to try to make space. But when the demand comes in a business, you have to look at it and look after it. And that can be a big problem. Well, thank you for sharing that, Joe. Now, is there a time where you and your brother, Jeff, in a disagreement of whether it's direction or the vision of a company? How did you guys deal with it? You know, I don't think we thought about it. But when I look back, and I've done this for quite some time now, I mean, unfortunately, as you'll read in the book,

my brother died at a very, very difficult time. A brilliant time for the business, but it needed him at that point. And he was only young. He was only 47. And, you know, we never had an argument. Jeff loved the factory. He loved making shoes he just and the agreement was look Joe I'll make the shoes you do everything else which meant the sales the marketing well even to an

extent a lot of the designing meeting people that that was up to me and Jeff loved the fact and as I say we we never argued and I do reflect that father and uncle, I mean, they just were at war. And many people in family businesses are. But, you know, I probably did a lot of things pretty badly. But Jeff didn't worry about it. He probably thought, well, he'll get it right in the end. So, you know, and I think that was largely up to Jeff, that he was just so happy doing the factory, providing I kept bringing orders in and we kept moving. He was very happy to accept that situation. Wow. And, Joe, take me back to the very first year of Reebok.

Did you guys get funding or how does that look like? Bring me back to the first year. Well, we're talking about 1958 and when I look around today and funding now seems to be so easy. Back in 1958, no. Funding, in fact

I was very fortunate to be able to get the bank to to loan me 500 pounds and a family member we had we had a family member who also loaned 500 pounds eventually when we did get together with my father he he also loaned us i think that was a thousand pounds as we grew in those very early stages um but back the day one, no, we set up the whole factory for about £250, which is, well, mind you, in those days, that was probably somewhere like $750. So it's still a small amount of money. But it was sufficient. We managed to make sure one of the best

things that we did and probably this was one of the biggest assets is that before we actually set up our business we went to college in the evenings we went to football college and not only did we learn a little well a lot more about materials how you make shoes what we did do is we we made a lot of friends we picked we made acquainted people in the business and when we so when we did leave the business if we wanted some material or wanted some advice we could go to the college and they were there for us so that that was a tremendous advantage that we had. I thought it was a tremendous advantage to be able to turn to people. And we were in the north of England.

There is a region, a shoemaking region. The biggest shoemaking region in the United Kingdom is further south than where we are Northampton Leicester but there is a shoemaking industry very near to us and Bolton wasn't in it but we moved nearer when we moved to bay we moved near to it and I found so many good friends amongst those manufacturers who would help us and you know that to me was a big asset but money no we didn't have our fingers on being able to obtain money in those days wow now joe how did you end up from 750 euro and and using your friends and family's money when was the time when you realized you got something in there? You have a gold mine. What moment was that? Well, that didn't arrive until we arrived in America.

What year was that? It was 1979 by the time I arrived there. I'd been going. It was 1968, my first trip to America, which was the British government, they had decided they wanted companies to export. And I just picked up this advertisement that if you wanted to, we would provide you with a stand at the NSGA show in Chicago, which is the National Sporting Goods in Chicago.

They were doing that. They'd pay our return airfare, and they'd also pay half of our hotel bills. So going to America and starting that journey was good. And they supported us all the way through to 1979. But what made the difference is i was pushing to get knocking on the door how how do i get my shoes in into the american market and it wasn't easy jw fosters they had managed to do that at yale university yale university the head coach frank ryan and bob

jane jack they they obviously knew of f, and they were importing 200 pairs a month. So that was good. I thought I could do that as well. But finding that person, finding out how to get into the market, really wasn't that easy, and it came about through Runner's World. And if you're a runner, back in those days, you picked up on Runner's World. That was the Bible. People read it and bob anderson who was a publisher

he was doing so well he thought he could tell everybody which was the best shoe to wear well if 350 million americans probably 35 million were running then and 3.5 probably will say well I want that shoe so Phil Knight Nike yes I think his shoe was the first number one but he was imported he was imported from Japan and he could never meet the demand so that was a problem for the for the business for the shoe trade for the shoe trade, for the shops. And Bob Anderson would change it after one year. He changed. This was the new number one. Didn't go down well.

But somebody must have persuaded or he recognized that he needed star ratings instead of saying this is number one, this is number two. Star ratings, five-star shoe, that would be the top. Then four stars, three stars down i knew we could make a five star shoe you know we knew our business we knew we could make that and so that became the difference because we did get a five star shoe we did get our gatekeeper paul fireman who who had said joe would love to import your shoes, but we need a five-star shoe. We got it.

And that got us in because that was the hook. You'll know that, being an American. You know, you need that hook. And so instead of us pushing, pushing, pushing for all those 10 years, yeah, all those 10 years, we got onto the market. And we had a nice running business and and that started from boston and the only amazing thing about that with paul paul was um he had a small camping wholesale business it was the outdoor business and i thought that would be

nice to just okay rebook and bolt onto that business but nice to just, okay, Reebok can bolt onto that business. But when we did get the five stars and I did go across to see Paul, Boston Camping no longer existed. So Paul put 100% into it. And, you know, that's an awful lot. And that means an awful lot. No distractions. All the problems, just as we had when we started the company back in 1958

you had to answer them you had to take them and that was the big difference wow joe how did you run from that small amount of funding to now in america what are some of the complexities that you have to deal with your scaling and you're in this different market. We're in a different market. But, you know, I always recognize right from day one that once I got into America, we really needed an American to run that side of the business, the American market. And that was Paul Feynman. And Paul Feynman, Paul Feynman he had a five star in fact he had three five stars because

the five star rate is in 1979 Aztec was a training shoe a road shoe but the shoe that most people would buy but we also had Inca which was a spike track shoe and we also had Midas we called it the gold range and they all got five stars so paul has the five stars a lot of these shoes to start selling and he was doing very well but you know that business was growing nicely but that wasn't the secret to rebook success in america it was arnold martinez and arnold martinez he was a tech rep down in Los Angeles he was a good athlete I think he'd actually

trialled for the Olympics but beyond that he was a good athlete a tech rep and his wife Frankie she was coming home from aerobic classes and with her friends who were really full of it, excited and Arnold said, what's going on Frankie what are you doing and she said, we're going to aerobic classes classes and with her friends who are really full of it excited and I'll say

what's going on Frankie what are you doing she said we're going to a rugby class it and he said what what are those well we're exercising to music and it's fantastic it's absolutely fabulous I know sir I must come and see it he did he went down saw the instructors and sneakers, saw half of the class in sneakers, the other half barefoot. So he thought, why don't we make them a special shoe? But it wasn't just a special aerobic shoe. It was for women. The shoe was made for women with a woman's fittings,

the size was right, and that was the difference wasn't for men and the women loved it they loved it they you know we got Jim John Fonda buying a pair of shoes for videos and they didn't just wear them for the forobics. They wore them on the street. They went to work with them and put the heels on when they don't work. And it just exploded. And it went, at that point, we were about a $9 million business. In 12 months' time, we moved to $30 million. And then we moved up to $90 million.

And then $300 million. Then $900 million. In four or five years, we were a billion-dollar company. Wow. Now, Joe, did you have any mentor or advisor that was so impactful for you embracing that growth? At that time, no. We had a lot of friends.

And I think a lot of people joined. You know, we created a winning culture. And that winning culture was driving the brand on. And we didn't have to advertise to employ people. People saw a win. They want to join a winning culture. And inclusion, you know, as far as I'm concerned, it is inclusion. You're not the boss.

You may happen to have the shareholdings or whatever, and you brought the company into this world, but you've got to share that. And so sharing all that, you're bringing people who, like you, want success, feel success, and the company grew from that because you know when you grow up to be a billion dollar company you know a lot of jobs in there a lot of people you need a lot of people and you need a lot of clever people people who can do the job better than you can do it you know you've heard if you're if you're the brightest person in the room you're're in the wrong room. And that's absolutely so as far as I was concerned.

I needed bright people and we're very lucky. We got bright people and we got people who shared our excitement. So that's the challenge. The biggest challenge was that we didn't have to sell any product. It was keeping up with the demand that was the problem because the demand was such how do you pay for it well steven rubin came in he was a sorting company in the far east and that he gave it he gave the company a credit line once you've got a credit line you can just keep going and i think that was basically just keeping going was

was really our mantra at that time and we we needed then to consider production because you don't go from 300 million dollars up to almost a billion dollars and this happened within 12, 18 months, you don't do that very easily. And fortunately for us, at that time, Nike had hit a wall. They had to pull out of at least three factories in Korea, and we just took them on.

And so we would never have been able to find that sort of production had that not happened. So things happen in life, whether it's by fate or whatever, we would never have been able to find that sort of production had that not happened so you know things happen in life whether it's by fate or whatever uh to help you and these things helped us get to that first billion dollars wow it sounds like you're really tapping to your community to friends to help you get there now joe was that always been your exit plan to like exit a company? Did you have, was that originally your plan? Well, I know these days, and we were at London Business School last week and talking to the people who teach you how to be an entrepreneur and what to do. And they

were saying, look, look, Joe, you broke all the rules. That doesn't happen. You're not doing this to the plan. You're not doing this to the right system. And, no, we weren't. We just kept going. And I think that was the big secret to it. So, you know, when it got to a certain point, though, I got Paul Feynman as the distributor working on America and we had an arrangement said Paul please just look after America I'll do the rest so I

was then traveling the world and putting on different distributors and I put on another 30 distributors over the next few years which increased our volumes tremendously. But when we got to something just short of 4 billion, I was traveling the world probably three times every year I would do a global round trip. And eventually I'm sort of arriving at whatever city it would be, being picked up by a limousine, going to the best hotel, dining at the best restaurant, and talking to the company CEOs and whatever it is.

And I thought, well, maybe it's time that I backed out. This is now a corporate business. You know, it's no longer that nice little business that you could touch all corners. It was a corporate business. We did some wonderful things because I was also hosting our Monte Carlo pro-celebrity tennis. And the pro-celebrity tennis, we pro-celebrity tennis we had so many people in from hollywood from the

film frank sinatra even came across and there's so many and same from tennis so it was a it was a great time but i'm just you know the challenge had gone it was so many and so many people were so I decided that time for me to step back at the end of 1989 I I stepped back from my role and in the company and well I thought I'd retired but you know the phone kept ringing and yes and I think for me, I usually sort of say this is like the Eagles in Hotel California. You can check out, but

you can never leave. Wow. Do you think everybody can be an entrepreneur? Anybody can be an entrepreneur, but you have to have the right mindset. You have to be, but you have to have the right mindset. You have to be ambitious.

You have to be, I'm going to say, optimistic, totally optimistic. And you have to have that ability to just keep going, to just keep, because not every day is a good day. A lot of days you find problems.

But if you do, if you do sort of, you know, if your glass is half full all the time, you know, it's great. And you have the desire. You've got to have that. That winning desire has got to be there. And, yes, if you have maybe a little bit of stupidity, maybe a little bit of stubbornness, maybe a little bit of stubbornness, we can do it. We can, and we can keep going.

And also it's the power of positive thinking. If you think positive, it's surprising. Eventually these things happen. Wow. Thank you for that, Joe. Joe, you mentioned about brand wars how do you look at competitor competition well during this period and you know we've grown we we've taken nike we've overtaken adidas and we've become the number one global sports football company.

We weren't looking at the opposition. We were just trying to grow our business and keep up with our own business. In fact, we were our own competitors. Could we deal with all the orders? Could we take on this work? So we didn't look around. And when I left, we were number one. I think maybe the company had to change a little bit from 1990 to 2005 before it was sold to Adidas. And maybe we were not ready for that. Maybe the company wasn't ready. Maybe the company had grown on how do we manage the orders? How do we manage to satisfy the demand? And, of course, as with everything, it does slow down eventually.

And when it slows down, you've got to be in a position to say, where do we go next? And, you know, Reebok did really well. But I think I was very fortunate in finding Paul Feynman because he did a cracking job, tremendous job in America. But I don't think Paul managed to find his successor. By 2005, Paul wasn't too well. He was feeling a bit sick and he needed to hand it on.

And I don't know why or how or what happened at that point but he hadn't found the right person to drive the company and so it was sold to Adidas which didn't do Reebok any good and now we're in a position where Adidas have agreed to sale to abg and now i think there's a tremendous future for rebound we know a shacker neil who's a big part of abg and he loves the brand he's absolutely in love with it so just like i was hot i say it was i think just am. You know, somebody needs to be in love, have that energy, have that drive, and take it to the next level. So that, you know, that could well happen. We're all waiting to see what the plan is.

Wow. Well, as you guys were scaling, your issue is handling the demand and production. So what is it? What is it that works for Reebok? Is it the branding? Is it the culture of the company? Is it the influencer marketing?

What works? I think a lot of things worked for the company. All those came into line. It was like getting your ducks in a row, all the stars coming into line. They all lined up mainly by chance a Lot of accident we didn't plan a lot of these things, you know, we weren't planning We we were there so that when the opportunities came I think we were very capable

we just took the opportunities of both hands and we run with it and That was the just keeping going like i say it took me 11 years from my first trip into the usa to finding paul fireman and that becoming uh my entry into the usa and you know i can say that in a few seconds but i had six failures i had some but these people we tried hard and we tried to get in but it took the change in the running market for the running market to grow big as we were trying to get in for runners world it took a few things you look and say well maybe the only thing that uh we could say we planned was we knew how to make a five-star shoe. But the fact that a five-star shoe would be in demand, we didn't.

That was circumstance. That was the market. But we knew. We knew how to make a five-star shoe. Just as probably Arhill knew what he was doing when he said, let's make this shoe just for women because that that that sort of took the men out of the equation the women had a company Adidas Nike they were male sweaty all of a sudden this nice small British company with a little flag on the side. This is ours. It's owned by women. And I guess that was just so hypnotic.

It was just something that, wow, you know, we weren't known for anything big. We were just this nice company with this nice white shoe. So, yeah, you've got to add all these things together. And yes, we made some good decisions and the company grew so you know we didn't plan from day one that this is how we would make our future and i don't think it's possible to you know you you can plan a route but it's probably like climbing a mountain you have to go whichever route you can climb now it's not just a straight line yeah you've got it well i can go this way i can go and i think we were so willing to move and change and yes we were in the same

business that added us and nike and uh but we we didn't you know we were not looking around we were creating a business and aerobics was something that was created or was born there in Los Angeles. But I think we took it global, which I think was a big step. Thank you for that, Joe. I have one last question before I'm going to hand it out to our amazing moderators that's joining us today. Joe, how do you want to be remembered? Well, you know, I didn't want to be remembered. Probably, maybe only six months ago, nine months ago, you didn't know Joe Foster was the founder of Reebok. I can guarantee you didn't

know that. I was just so happy. Reebok, that was it it we didn't want confusion, I didn't want different names like, you know let's get Reebok, I was always pushing Reebok but after I'd retired a few years after I'd retired people start to invent where did Reebok come from

people write about this and I'm reading that this is what happened, this is what happened this so J.W. Foster's a British company just changed its name and I'm thinking no and there was a photograph this is Joseph William Foster founder of Reebok and I have no idea who it is they're the foot who was that in the photograph? No idea. So that probably inspired me to write the book, Shoemaker, just so people could understand the story, know where it came from. So I didn't step out there and want Joe Foster to be somebody

that everybody remembered. It just so happens that the book the book seems to have struck a chord it's a lot of people uh seem to think that uh there's a lot of messages in there and i guess there are a lot of messages but really there were experiences things that we did we experienced it i i had some fabulous experiences and a real fun time with the company. But not every day is fun. And that's when you've just got to keep going because there are some pretty grim moments. Wow.

Now, Joe, do you have any regrets for not building your personal brand or do you care at all? If you could take back time, would you and you probably more open that you're the founder of rework or you're okay with it oh i'm okay with where we are regrets no i think you know we became probably something bigger than our dreams you know jeff and i probably dreamed to be a top company known globally. We didn't dream, I'm sure, at that time to become number one. So we overtake Nike. We overtake Adidas. We are number one.

So what's to regret? The only thing, if you call it a regret, it is so sad that my brother died just when we got our five-star shoe. And he didn't see that growth. He didn't get to feel the fun, the real sort of excitement. He didn't get that. So you know, there are things that I'm sad about. Regret, I can't do anything about it and you know i think regrets can be a waste of time so yes i could have done things a million times different in different ways but you know to say when you become number one what's to regret wow thank you so much dan where can our audience buy the book uh joe what's the site for LinkedIn and Instagram Live and Facebook? Go ahead, Dan.

Yeah, so I'll share just so everybody has. And Joe, this is really incredible. Thank you. I know a lot of people have questions and we'll open it up here in a second. So just want to say thank you before that. We're honored that you're here. Joe Foster, founder of Reebok, the company that everybody in the world has at one time has had a pair of shoes of Reebok, if not many shoes. So if you go to wmb.club, it'll actually

forward you to their site. It's jwfosterheritage.com or just go to wmb.club. Shoemaker is the book. Not only do you get the book, though, you also get the book signed by Joe with a personal message, and there's some additional stuff that they're also giving, which is incredible. I mean, why would you go on Amazon to buy it? Just buy it from their site, wmb.club. We'll forward you to jwfosterheritage.com. Buy the book right now.

This is incredible. You get it signed by Joe himself with a personalized message. That is just incredible. No one's really doing that. So don't go to Amazon. You can, but go to WMB.club. It'll take you to JWFosterHeritage.com. Buy the book Shoemaker by Joe Foster here, founder of Reebok. I know we're going to open up to Q&A. Before we do, is there anywhere else, Joe, that you'd want people to check you out on? You said it all down. Thank you very much. That's incredible.

That is our website. And like you were saying, we push a couple of things. We actually put in there there it's a letterhead from jw fosters from the 1920s and they just say that we supplied all olympic athletes at the antwerp olympic games in 1920 plus lots of other stuff so it's quite an amazing piece of paper wow what an honor i think this is our very first iconic brand here. And Joe, we are so honored having you here. And if you have any friends that created iconic brand, bring them here.

We'd love to have them as well. We hope you enjoyed the show. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe. And visit katehancock.com so you don't miss out on the next episode.