Nike’s Phil Knight: How to sell without selling

**Reid Hoffman** (0:00)
Hi, listeners, it's Reid. As we head into the busiest retail season of the year, entrepreneurs and business leaders are thinking about how to market their brand and sprint ahead of the competition. That's why we're re-airing our episode with Nike's co-founder, Phil Knight. It covers Phil's astounding scale journey, from hand crafting running shoes with Hall of Fame track coach Bill Bowerman to Nike becoming one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
Along the way, there are lessons on how to sell without selling and how to tap into your customer's sense of identity. I hope you enjoy it.

**Eddy Lu** (0:38)
I grew up in the eighties and that was when Michael Jordan was in his prime.
All the commercials and the visual imagery of Michael Jordan dunking, shattering backboards, and crisscrossing over people, that was my impression, of course. What shoes was he wearing? He was wearing his Jordans and his Nikes.

**Reid Hoffman** (1:12)
That's Eddy Lu, co-founder of GOAT, the online marketplace for premium sneakers that every sneaker had knows. As a child of the 80s and a basketball fan, Eddy has vivid memories of Jordan and his Nikes.
Jordan played his first NBA game for the Chicago Bulls in 1984 and signed his Nike endorsement deal the same year. Right away, he started making news, making plays, and Nike started making Air Jordans.

**Eddy Lu** (1:39)
I still remember the price tag. They were $130 at Foot Locker, and I couldn't afford them. Like any kid, you want something, but your parents will buy you something that's comparable. So instead of the Jordans, they maybe would get me the Penny Hardaways or even the Charles Barclays. You know, another shoe that was worn by an iconic player, but they just couldn't justify buying the premium Jordans, and I think that really helped fuel my passion and my nostalgia for sneakers and even Jordan's right to this day.
GOAT stands for Greatest of All Time. We love sneakers. Michael Jordan was our idol and he was the GOAT.

**Reid Hoffman** (2:26)
GOAT now sells 100,000 unique styles of shoes of all kinds, not just Nike, and that passion that Eddy and his co-founder felt for Nike is still very real. It also didn't just happen. That kind of lifelong brand loyalty is the product of a magical combination of aspiration, authenticity, true value, and brand. It only works if buyer and seller feel totally aligned in what they value and what those values say about them.
That's why I believe you need to sell without selling. Great branding is about identity and matchmaking.

**Chris Renner** (3:06)
You got to have incredible talent at every position.

**Reid Hoffman** (3:36)
This is Masters of Scale. We'll start the show in a moment after a word from our premier brand partner, Capital One Business.

**Chris Renner** (3:49)
I was sitting at the dinner table with my wife Shannon, and I said, honey, we're going to start a construction company. And she said, sweetie, you don't swing a hammer.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:00)
That's Chris Renner, founder of Pinnacle Companies, the largest builder of vacation homes in Breckenridge, Colorado, a destination for skiers worldwide. At the time, he was a management consultant, advising a local construction company, and it occurred to him that a hammer might not be the most essential tool.

**Chris Renner** (4:16)
In my conversations with the owner, I said, does everybody do it like this? And he said, my tools haven't changed in 40 years. And I'm looking at him thinking, oh man, they should.
I was thinking laptops in the field, and webcams, and real-time communication. And what I was watching was the shuffling of papers in the front seat of a pickup truck. And I just thought, there is such a better way to do this.

**SPEAKER_5** (4:48)
Chris had a spark of inspiration that he couldn't ignore. And even though he had no construction experience, he set out to upend the way the industry operated. What he didn't realize was that the business he was setting out to create would be much more than a construction company. We'll hear how he did it later in the show. It's all part of Capital One Business' Spotlight on Entrepreneurs following Reid's Refocus Playbook at all levels of scale.
Today's playbook insight, focus on the business behind your business.

**Reid Hoffman** (5:20)
Thank I'm Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, partner of Greylock, and your host. And I believe you need to sell without selling. Great branding is about identity and matchmaking.
There's a little word game that one can play called, they could sell a blank to a blank. It goes like this.

**SPEAKER_5** (5:41)
He could sell a glass of water to a drowning man.