I recently heard the CEO of Toms shoes speak. It was definitely the best business talk I have ever witnessed. Calling it a business talk doesn’t give Tom’s shoes enough credit. It will take companies like Toms to truly change the world in a positive way. Let me tell you their story…
Simply put, Toms shoes is a company with a great message: “One for One.” In other words, for every pair of shoes they sell, they give a pair away to a child in need.
Blake Mycoskie, the CEO and founder (or Chief Shoe Giver as he likes to call himself) of Toms Shoes, is a very interesting guy. He is a young charismatic guy who looks more like a “surfer dude” from Los Angeles then a CEO. Before Toms Shoes, Blake started a company in California that allowed you to pass your driver’s license exam online. After a year of working 80 or 90 hour weeks to build the company, Blake was burned out. He decided to take a month off and headed to Argentina for a vacation. One day Blake came across a group of American volunteers who were distributing donated shoes to poor children in a nearby village. They let Blake tag along and after he saw the look on the children’s faces from wearing shoes for the first time – well, the rest is history.
Blake traveled around to local designers and manufacturers to produce his first set of about 100 shoes. His goal was to give away one pair of shoes for every pair he sold until he could give away 250 pairs of shoes for all the kids in that one village. At this point, Blake thought of his idea still as a project and not a business. He traveled back to LA and tried to sell his shoes to local shoes stores when LA Magazine caught wind of his story. In the main section of the magazine there were two titles. The first was “The Davinci Code Opens This Weekend” and the second was “Toms Shoes.” That day Blake got something like two thousand orders for shoes. The funny thing was that he only had about 50 pairs of shoes in a duffel bag in his apartment. Blake then took the next natural step and hired a few interns and somehow convinced them to work out of his apartment for a shoe company that did not even have shoes.
Last year, Blake gave away 400,000 pairs of shoes and the company is only 3 years old.
Blake built his company to 72 employees, which include some of the top talent from Goldman Sachs, Patagonia, and Nike. These individuals love working for Toms shoes because they love working for a company that makes you feel good every day when they come to work.
Back to his speech Blake talked a lot about how Toms shoes model really represents the future of business. His advertising costs are extremely low because the word of mouth viral marketing from his customers is so strong. As you can tell from this post, people love telling his story. Another good point Blake made was that it is very easy for him to partner with other companies. ATT recently partnered with Toms Shoes to do a commercial. Watch it HERE. Blake estimates they were able to sell and give away somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 pairs of shoes from that commercial alone. Responsible companies like ATT love partnering with companies like Toms because otherwise they would have to do social or charitable work on their own. If they are not very successful with their social or philanthropic efforts their, competitors can call them out on it.
I had a chance to speak with Blake after his speech. I told him that I would come up with a proposal for him to make his company even more sustainable then it already is. I’ll let you know when I finish my work for Blake and see what you think about my ideas.
“If the world held 100 people 40 would be without shoes”
www.tomsshoes.com
