Got the Boot

With the economy in shambles, and the election coming soon, everyone in business land is just trying to stay on their feet, and the shoe company Johnston and Murphy, just might have the answer to help them stay on theirs.  We sat down with the CEO Bill Johnston and asked him what the sole of his plan was. 

“It came to me in a flash while I was on a hike,” Johnston regularly incorporates hikes in custom Johnston and Murphy boots into his daily schedule as a CEO, he says it keeps him focused to handle what the day throws at him.  “And then it just sort of hit me, while I was thinking of my grandfather.  He was a man of the Depression and he had only one pair of boots, so he really had to claw his way up from the bottom, and quite literally pull himself up by his bootstraps, and BAM! The idea was born.” 

There it is, the idea that is ripping through the shoe fashion industry right now is, quite literally, bootstraps. 

This innovation is already producing a flurry of actions from other shoe giants like DSW and Zappos, bootstraps from a functional perspective as well as a fashion standpoint are popping up all over the industry, and even the US government has gotten involved with grants and funding for small shoe makers, realizing that more people hauled up by their own bootstraps is exactly what they say they’ve been advocating for years, and as the Department of Interior Footwear said in a recent press release, “Let’s hope the other shoe isn’t about to drop.” 

Hopefully Johnson and his wild ideas are brought to heel before it's too late, and we can still tie this economy up in a bow before inflation treads on everyone.