You Can't Run Before You Can Walk.

Nike have sold more shoelaces than any other company in the world.

They come free with the trainers.

Nike earned their stripes - or swoosh, if you like - by serving one group so well, so intensively, for so long that they couldn’t help but sell to more people more of the time.

Too many companies want to sell to too many people. But try to sell to everyone and you’ll sell to nobody.

Nike didn’t arrive on the world selling trainers to everyone. They started making the most amazing product they could for runners. They sweated it. They went to running meets. They were runners working for runners.

They did this for so long with so much passion and belief that they couldn’t help but bust out of their niche.

The energy stoked into their system, the demand for the shoes, had to relieve itself…

This law of marketing physics describes the point when energy built up in a system - demand and interest - can’t help but explode and seek out new markets, new people, new believers.

But they didn’t start selling everything to everyone. They started with a product invested with excellence for the few. Get it right and the few might become the many. Or not, of course. And that’s fine too.

But don’t run before you can walk.

Build a foundation.

Earn your stripes.

Be excellent for a few.

(and this is true whatever the prevailing mood, whatever the prevailing distraction…. like the latest flu and cold bug).