Toms Shoes – Business That Inspires

It was my daughter's birthday last week and she wanted a pair of shoes; not just any shoes, a pair of Toms shoes'.

If you've never heard of Toms, they not only have cool shoes, the company was founded on an idea that would provide shoes for needy children around the world.  

So I placed my daughter's shoe order at Toms and shortly afterward I happened to check my mailbox which had the latest Costco magazine in it. I had to chuckle because whose picture was on the front cover but Blake Mycoskie, the owner and founder of Toms Shoes!

Costco was featuring an interview they did with Blake about his extremely successful Toms shoe store. I was already fairly familiar with Blake, his business and his cause, but as I read the interview, I learned even more about Blake, his business and his lifestyle -  it was inspiring.

If you're not familiar with Blake Mycoskie, he's this young, sort of free spirited guy who started his own shoe company in Santa Monica, California. His claim to fame is that for every pair of shoes sold at Toms, he will donate a pair to a child in need, specifically to children in extremely needy countries like Argentina and Ethiopia. 

While visiting Argentina back in 2006 and encountering the thousands of children with no shoes, Blake came up with his shoe store idea. When he arrived home, Blake sold his online driver education company and began work on his shoe company.

The idea took off like wildfire. During its first year Toms Shoes made enough sales that they were able to donate over 10,000 pairs of shoes to children in Argentina, and just this year Toms Shoes celebrated giving 1 million pairs of shoes to needy children in 25 countries.

A business that inspires

As I read the interview, I got a sense of how Toms was so much more than just a business for Blake.  As an internet business owner myself, his approach and ideas resonated with me. 

For example, starting a business, for many, is often merely about making money, sure money is part of why we are in business, but for a lot of successful business owners it's really more than that, and that was particularly true for Blake. 

During the interview when Blake touched on starting a business, he said:

"My advice to budding entrepreneurs is don't try to be an entrepreneur, try to identify the problems in the world that you want to solve.That often will lead to a great business idea.  If you just go out and try to make money by starting a business, you're going to come up with something that's just like what everyone else has done.  But if you look at the world and see opportunities that can be taken more seriously then you come up with a great idea"

That's so true, having a successful business is really about identifying problems and delivering solutions. That's also how you set yourself apart from everyone else.  If you're just in business to make money, you'll simply be going through the motions, buying yourself a job, if you will.  If that's all it becomes for you then you may as well work for someone else. 

Finding your passion and extending it to help others is what creates excitement and helps you find fulfillment, and as a business owner that's important for your success.      

Has Blake encountered challenges?  Sure, anyone starting a business will.  Blake mentioned for instance, that production was his biggest obstacle, that's because he had no experience in the shoe business, he knew nothing about making shoes.

The interesting thing for Blake was that having no experience in making shoes actually worked to his advantage.  Blake needed to find a way to make cheap shoes that people would love and find comfortable.  The only way he could see to do that cost effectively was to put a seam in the front of the shoe.  Most shoe manufacturers told Blake that's not a recommended way to make a shoe, but he did it anyway and today that front seam has become their signature design.

That shoe design never would have happened if Blake were in the shoe business.  The moral of the story is that you don't always need experience, and Blake's not the first successful business owner to say that.

I remember Rosalind Gardner, author of the Super Affiliate Handbook, saying the very same thing. Here's a woman who started a modest dating website with no experience except how to use a computer, and today she makes over a half a million dollars a year. 

I heard someone say one time that his success was really about 10% talent and 90% hard work.  I think that's true.  Sure, there are folks that have oodles of talent and lots of experience but none of that matters if you don't have the passion and the drive to do the work to achieve success. 

Blake tells us that by simply throwing yourself into your business, investing and believing in yourself, you'll learn quickly.  Your experiences come from doing.  You may fail at some things, but that's how you learn and become experienced. 

Read the article, I think you'll be inspired

[tags]toms shoes[/tags] 

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