<ul><li>As Nike was a growing company, Knight made almost no profit, his business struggled, and faced bankruptcy many times.</li><li>He had an MBA from Stanford University and left a full-time career as an accountant to sell shoes.</li><li>He had to follow his passion – his calling. He felt it was important that the work he spent his life on needed to feel meaningful, purposeful, and creative.</li></ul>

Chase A Calling, Not A Career

<ul><li>In the early 1960s, the athletic shoe industry was dominated by German companies Adidas and Puma. </li><li>Knight’s “crazy idea” was that Japanese-made shoes could gain popularity in America as Japanese cars had been. He pursued his idea, and eventually found great success.</li></ul>

Pursue Your “Crazy Idea”

<ul><li>He openly acknowledged that starting a business was risky, and he was willing to face that risk. </li><li>He felt that failure would gain him wisdom, and wisdom is an intangible asset. </li><li>Failure is an opportunity to learn and do better next time.</li><li>He said in the past that if he had failed, he would have just tried again with more wisdom.</li></ul>

Failure Is An Opportunity

It is easy to feel unproductive when you view a task as a huge project. When you break that project down into small goals and success markers, it becomes a lot easier to manage, and the little amount you complete each day, adds up until the job is done.

A Massive Project Is Just Many Small Projects

<ul><li>Like all business owners, Knight understands the importance of knowing who Nike’s audience was. </li><li>Having this information, and fully understanding it gives you the tools you need to create products, marketing, and branding that resonate with those intended to experience it.</li></ul>

Know Your Audience

<ul><li>Nike and Adidas have a well-established brand rivalry. </li><li>Knight looked to Adidas as inspiration, but also as their main competitor.</li><li> He felt Adidas was arrogant and had a negative view of them, but that did not stop him from learning from them. </li></ul>

 Learn From Your Competition

<ul><li>He observed that none of the great leaders micromanaged their teams.</li><li>They did not tell people how to do things, they would tell them what to do, and trust them to get it done.</li><li>This resulted in Knight hiring people with passion and ability and allowing them to solve problems on their own.</li></ul>

Trust Your Team

<ul><li>A large focus is placed on the hard work, dedication, and perseverance that it took for Knight to grow Nike.</li><li>However, Knight also acknowledges that luck played a role in his success. Hard work, dedication, and perseverance play a role in providing more opportunities for luck.</li></ul>

Success Has An Element Of Luck

“Life is growth. You grow or you die.”

Phil Knight gives credit to the employees that supported Nike through its growth and recognizes them enormously for helping the company to grow and succeed.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

It is no secret that Nike shoes are manufactured offshore.Though the company receives criticism for using foreign labor, he details the changes and efforts he made to improve conditions for workers in his factories.

Improve Where Improvements Can Be Made

<ul><li>Brands must have a mission that the public can agree with and get behind.</li><li>Nike’s current mission is “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world. *If you have a body, you are an athlete.”</li><li>This statement aligns with Knight’s understanding of the need for a deeper purpose. </li></ul>

Your Brand Needs To Inspire

<ul><li>Knight demonstrates very well that storytelling is a powerful tool.</li><li>There is a history of Nike’s most effective and famous ad campaigns coming from a place of storytelling.</li><li>Engaging your audience will have a profound effect on your marketing and brand.</li></ul>

Understand The Importance Of Storytelling

<ul><li>He started his journey with the desire to import high-quality, low-cost shoes.</li><li>Nike consistently focused on the quality of their shoes and were constantly innovating ways to improve them.</li></ul>

There Is Value In Quality

<ul><li>Traditional advertising was not favored by Knight.</li><li>He valued publicity and focused on signing popular athletes to become brand representatives for Nike.</li><li>These iconic athletes increased public awareness of Nike and the plan was a huge victory for the brand.</li></ul>

 “Advertising” Takes Many Forms

<ul><li>In the early days of Blue Ribbon Sports, Knight gained success by projecting confidence and success. </li><li>He had to participate in many meetings and business deals with experienced and essential business people, and by acting successful, he eventually became successful.</li></ul>

Act Successful Until You Become Successful

<ul><li>Knight goes into great detail about how his world travels expanded his knowledge and viewpoints. </li><li>He values the wisdom that he gained from his travel as a young man and is a proponent of young people (with the means to do so) traveling as much as they can before they settle into careers.</li></ul>

Travel To Gain Experience And Wisdom

<ul><li>Blue Ribbon Sports (Nike), was on the verge of bankruptcy for almost two decades.</li><li>He faced challenges acquiring funding, landing orders on time, and difficulties with manufacturers throughout the early days and pushed through to find the accomplishment that Nike has today.</li></ul>

Success Does Not Come Easily

<ul><li>His life revolved around the concept that growth was the most important thing in his life.</li><li>He risked everything, on multiple occasions, to grow Nike into the company we know today, and took extraordinary measures to pursue personal growth through his study, reading, and travels.</li><li>Growth and life are one and the same for Knight.</li></ul>

Life Is About Growth

<ul><li>Knight acknowledges that “never give up” is an overstated piece of advice. </li><li>However, he recognizes many moments in Nike’s early years where it was exceedingly difficult to keep the company going, and it would have been easy to quit. </li><li>Pushing through those challenges has earned him the success that Nike has today.</li></ul>

Perseverance Pays Off

<ul><li>Knight’s focus was always on the quality and performance of his products, however, delivering his orders on time was more important to him. </li><li>In the early stages of importing his shoes, there were often times they struggled to receive their orders on schedule. </li><li>The quality of a product is irrelevant if your customers can not trust you to deliver it on time consistently.</li></ul>

Delivery Trumps Perfection

We bring you lessons from self-made billionaires to point you in the right direction

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Lessons From Self Made Billionaires

Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands.

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” (Booklist, starred review), illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of his five favorite books of 2016 and called it “an amazing tale, a refreshingly honest reminder of what the path to business success really looks like. It’s a messy, perilous, and chaotic journey, riddled with mistakes, endless struggles, and sacrifice. Phil Knight opens up in ways few CEOs are willing to do.” Fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost running shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car in 1963, Knight grossed eight thousand dollars that first year. Today, Nike’s annual sales top $30 billion. In this age of start-ups, Knight’s Nike is the gold standard, and its swoosh is one of the few icons instantly recognized in every corner of the world. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always been a mystery. In Shoe Dog, he tells his story at last. At twenty-four, Knight decides that rather than work for a big corporation, he will create something all his own, new, dynamic, different. He details the many risks he encountered, the crushing setbacks, the ruthless competitors and hostile bankers—as well as his many thrilling triumphs. Above all, he recalls the relationships that formed the heart and soul of Nike, with his former track coach, the irascible and charismatic Bill Bowerman, and with his first employees, a ragtag group of misfits and savants who quickly became a band of swoosh-crazed brothers. Together, harnessing the electrifying power of a bold vision and a shared belief in the transformative power of sports, they created a brand—and a culture—that changed everything.

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In this candid and riveting memoir, for the first time ever, Nike founder and CEO Phil Knight shares the inside story of the company's early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world's most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. In 1962, fresh out of business school, Phil Knight borrowed 50 from his father and created a company with a simple mission: import high-quality, low-cost athletic shoes from Japan. Selling the shoes from the trunk of his lime green Plymouth Valiant, Knight grossed 8,000 his first year. Today, Nike's annual sales top 30 billion. In an age of startups, Nike is the ne plus ultra of all startups, and the swoosh has become a revolutionary, globe-spanning icon, one of the most ubiquitous and recognizable symbols in the world today. But Knight, the man behind the swoosh, has always remained a mystery. Now, for the first time, in a memoir that is candid, humble, gutsy, and wry, he tells his story, beginning with his crossroads moment. At 24, after backpacking around the world, he decided to take the unconventional path, to start his own business--a business that would be dynamic, different. Knight details the many risks and daunting setbacks that stood between him and his dream--along with his early triumphs. Above all, he recalls the formative relationships with his first partners and employees, a ragtag group of misfits and seekers who became a tight-knit band of brothers. Together, harnessing the transcendent power of a shared mission, and a deep belief in the spirit of sport, they built a brand that changed everything.

Philip Hampson Knight, whose nickname is "Buck", is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and current chairman emeritus of Nike, Inc., and previously served as chairman and CEO of the company.