If you don’t know what’s going to happen, the conventional wisdom of all the CEO colleagues I speak to and most private equity people I know, and most bankers, is to crouch down, slam the shutters and stuff. throw those overboard you don’t need. Saving costs, because it is primarily about survival, and not just about surviving, but also about protecting profits.
But we didn’t have a brand to protect. We were creating a brand, we were adding new customers. We are in an entrepreneurial mode, we have been for 20 years. So in April 2020, when everyone was firing people, my own board said, Jim, you know, you’re probably going to have to fire people.
But we had the idea that running in stressful times is useful. It’s cheap. People might run. So we paused, and once we saw runners running and digital demand picked up, we went back to our supply chain, and I think we probably did it at least eight weeks before anyone else did. It’s hard to describe how meaningful that was. We maintained our marketing spend. We didn’t lay off one person and we grew 31 percent last year. And this year, without our supply chain issues, we would have been up more than 30 percent.
When did you realize Brooks had the potential to compete with big companies like Nike in the running market?
When the Great Recession hit in 2008 and 2009 and the world ended, economically speaking, it just crushed clothes. At that point we resigned. But in February 2009, shoes began to sell.
Nike is one of the biggest brands ever built, and it’s all about competitive, athletic performance and breaking the band on stage. It’s just so powerful. But we saw running as the most unique sport in the world, and we had this “Run Happy” ethos, which was unique.
Running is arguably the original sport from a competitive standpoint, with cross country, track and field, the Olympics, road racing, trail running and ultramarathons. But it goes beyond sports, because it is an investment in yourself. One hundred and fifty million people have running as part of their fitness, health and wellness and meditation regimen. It is a tool to invest in oneself. That’s why we’ve positioned our brand at the heart of the running lifestyle. We’re doing something no one else has done before and creating this unique brand that’s all about running. And it is the largest category of sports equipment.
