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Big Business with Big
George By Amy Anderson
 George
Foreman has three fundamentals of business success: selling,
integrity, and "the shotgun tactic." Over a lifetime, Foreman has
created the kind of well-rounded success that most people dream of.
He is a profitable businessman, a community leader, a husband and a
father. His life is full, but more importantly to Foreman, his life
is meaningful.
With nearly 100 million George Foreman Grills sold since 1995,
Foreman has had enormous influence in the wellness industry. He is
also one of the highest-paid and most recognized celebrity endorsers
in the world.
In 1999, Foreman signed a $137.5 million deal with Salton Inc.
(recently merged with Applica Incorporated), entitling the grill
manufacturer to global, unrestricted use of Foreman’s name in
marketing the Lean, Mean, Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine and related
products. The deal made Michael Jordan’s $40 million deal with Nike
look small by comparison.
Before his endorsement of the grills, Foreman made business deals
based primarily on a desire for income. “I was so successful,” he
says. “All the ads I had done for sausages, you name it, [I was]
mainly thinking about money. But then I went into the grill
business.” He took the grills all over the country, making personal
appearances and boosting sales. “I was meeting people who would say,
‘The doctor told me to get a George!’ I’m like, what are they
talking about? Get a George?” He realized his product was making a
difference in people’s health, and his perspective changed. “From
that point on, you know, I can never go back to what I used to do
where I just sell and sell,” he says. “Now everything I do has to be
connected to something healthy.”
The Importance of Selling
Of course, Foreman’s business success started with his success as an
athlete. Born in 1949 in Marshall, Texas, Foreman, nicknamed “Big
George,” was one of seven children in a struggling home. By the time
he was 15, he was a street thug and mugger in Houston’s dangerous
5th Ward. His life changed when he left for California to join the
Job Corps and was introduced to the discipline of boxing. In 1968,
Foreman won the Olympic Gold medal in Mexico City, in only his 25th
amateur fight. A world champion was born.
Within a few years of turning professional, Foreman’s record was 37
wins—most by knockout—and no losses. In 1973, he defeated Joe
Frazier to become heavyweight champion of the world. Despite his
fame, he maintained a cold distance from the public, and his surly
demeanor earned him occasional boos in the ring. He defended his
title twice before losing it to Muhammad Ali in the “Rumble in the
Jungle” in 1974.
A few years later, Foreman announced what he thought was his
retirement. A religious awakening led him to pursue a life in the
church. He didn’t know at the time that the seeds of his business
success lay in these days of personal transformation.
“It started because I left boxing in 1977 and worked in evangelism
at a church in Marshall,” he says. Foreman had made a fortune in
boxing, but now turned his attention fully to his faith. “I spent
all my time preaching with lots of money. Lots of money.” But he
didn’t preach like a rich man. He spent countless nights out on the
streets of Houston, in all weather. Just as in his boxing career, he
was relentless.
He also made good on a personal pledge to help at-risk youth, just
as he had been helped during his early days as a teenage thug. After
he joined the Job Corps, a counselor saw young George’s potential
and got him involved in boxing, possibly saving him from a life of
crime or jail or worse. Foreman wanted to provide the same kind of
opportunities for young people and in 1984 founded The George
Foreman Youth & Community Center, which offers scholastic and
athletic activities including, of course, boxing.
But 10 years after he left boxing, he says he looked up and was on
the verge of bankruptcy. “I had to go back into boxing for our
survival, to feed my family.” Fortunately, his years spent preaching
on the streets of Houston had taught him valuable lessons that would
carry him into a second career as a businessman. “What I found was
the 10 years I was out of boxing, I was preaching on the street
corner and I’d make people stop. They didn’t know me,” he says, “the
old George with an afro and all that. So I realized I could stop
these people, who are always headed somewhere, for a second and sell
my message. That’s what I learned to do on the street corner.”
He tried applying his newfound skills in the boxing world. “So I
went back to boxing trying to sell the old George Foreman
heavyweight champion of the world,” he says. “Nobody wanted to buy
it, though.” Foreman was 38 when he returned to the ring, a tough
sell for any athletic comeback. But the man in front of the camera
this time wasn’t cool or removed. He had a gentleness about him that
contrasted his toughness in the ring, and that appealed to the
public.
“In time, I learned the importance of selling,” he says. Foreman
realized he had power outside the ring to influence how people
viewed him. In 1994, at the age of 44, Foreman reclaimed the
heavyweight title. “That’s when people started to say, ‘This guy can
sell himself. Let’s let him sell Doritos or Kentucky Fried or
McDonald’s.’ ” And sell, he did. In addition to promoting these
companies, Foreman became the spokesman for Meineke Car Care
Centers. The boxer and preacher was now an advertiser’s dream come
true.
But he says his athletic ability was less a factor in his business
success than his selling skills. “If you learn to sell, it’s worth
more than a degree,” he says.” It’s worth more than the heavyweight
championship of the world. It’s even more important than having a
million dollars in the bank. Learn to sell and you’ll never starve.”
Integrity: His Greatest Asset
“The greatest asset, even in this country, is not oil and gas,”
Foreman says. “It’s integrity. Everyone is searching for it, asking,
‘Who can I do business with that I can trust?’ ”
By 1994, Foreman’s life was again on the upswing. When he took the
opportunity to endorse what is now the George Foreman Lean, Mean,
Fat-Reducing Grilling Machine, he found a new drive to help people
improve their lives by improving their health. Now he won’t settle
for anything less when it comes to endorsements. “One of the biggest
things is to fight,” he says. “Just don’t go absolutely for the
buck.”
Foreman learned after his fi rst retirement that to go back into
boxing he had to protect the brand of George Foreman. “So now I
understand you must preserve the quality of your name, your
integrity,” he says. “You don’t want to lie about anything. And it’s
something that people will be happy about once they get to know you.
Because people count on you. You know, a contract you can easily
break. I’ve found in business, everyone signs a contract to make a
business deal, and they always leave a loophole so they can break
them.
Foreman says people with integrity are in high demand. “There are a
lot of guys who are successful, they make a lot of big money, I mean
millions overnight with a contract, and they don’t understand the
evaporation. It evaporates. You’re always back to square one. I
found that out, so integrity is how I do business. That’s my main
asset.”
This attitude is one he intends to impart to his kids. He has 10
children—five with his current wife, Mary “Joan” Martelly. George
III, nicknamed “Monk,” is Foreman’s business manager. “Your children
are looking at exactly what you do,” he says. “You’ve got to believe
in something. And you’ve got a line that you can’t cross. I point
this out.
“I’ll give you an example. I had the opportunity to go into the
restaurant business. A chain of restaurants, the George Foreman
restaurants. And it was an opportunity right out to make lots of
money.” But Foreman is opposed to selling liquor in his
establishments, in accordance with his religious beliefs. “And they
said, ‘Well, this is what will make more profi ts. You can just
donate them to charity.’ I said, ‘No, I can’t do that.’ And my sons,
who were in business with me, watching me put this deal together,
they could not understand it. They just couldn’t understand. Not to
say that they have to have the same feelings I have about things.
But at least have something you believe in and you cannot be talked
out of by dollars and cents. And that’s what I try to pass on.”
The Old Shotgun Tactic
Foreman is approached by hundreds of potential business partners
every year. He reviews offers daily with George III, and asks for
input from his wife and children before he signs a deal. So how does
he choose from all the opportunities he sees? “I call it the old
shotgun tactic,” he says. “My grandfather used to go out hunting
during the days of the Depression. The good shooters, the marksmen,
shot with one shell.” But during the Great Depression, you couldn’t
put all your bets on one bullet because those bullets were
expensive. “If you missed the squirrel, so to speak, you don’t have
anything but an excuse on the table,” Foreman says. “But if you buy
these cheap shots, which are buckshots, they scatter. You come back
in with a squirrel. Although you got a lot of buckshot in it, you
got a decent meal on the table.
“So now I use the same thing, although you’ve got to be selective
because you have a name to protect.” Foreman believes that one of
the many opportunities he investigates will hit it big. “You know
you put out a lot of buckshot, you’re going to strike one,” he says.
“You’ve got to start out early in the morning and look at hundreds,
literally hundreds of things, looking for that quality. And it may
take a year, it may take three or four years, but you’re going to
hit something so you have something to put on the table for your
family.”
Foreman’s company, George Foreman Enterprises, consistently strikes
new deals for products and services that meet Foreman’s requirements
of being high-quality and beneficial to the consumer. He has lent
his name to a line of clothing for big and t a l l men sold by
Casual Male and endorsed a new brand of shoes for diabetics by
InStride as well as a health-food restaurant chain called UFood
Grill.
“And then we have the green cleaning products, which I’ve been
working on for a couple years,” he says. “We finally got it
absolutely, totally biodegradable.” He hopes that using
biodegradable products, like George Foreman’s Knock-Out Household
Cleaning System, will help preserve the land for his grandchildren.
His other hope is that the established cleaning-product
manufacturers will follow suit. “This is going to be so good it’s
going to make the big companies jealous, and they’re going to outdo
me. And I still win,” he says. “I still win. Because it makes the
planet much better.”
But it doesn’t end there. Through Foreman’s Web site, visitors can
purchase cookbooks, memoirs and autographed boxing gloves. His 10
books, three of which were published by Thomas Nelson in the last
two years, offer inspirational insights into life, comebacks and
fatherhood. And then there are the grills. The newest version, the
360 Grill, is selling well and is one of several George Foreman
brand small kitchen appliances, including the Lean Mean Fryer for
reduced-fat frying and the Grill & Roast for convection cooking.
He’s also become a star of the small screen; his reality series
Family Foreman starring him and his family debuted in 2008 on the
cable channel TV Land, and an ABC sitcom starring Foreman ran for
nine episodes in 1993-94.
Foreman has succeeded in creating more than a brand. He has created
a relationship with consumers based on integrity and a gift for
making the sale. This relationship allows him to transfer his brand
to a wide range of products and succeed in staying diversified. “The
bottom line is, you make a decision you’ll be able to sleep with,
wake up the next day, look in the mirror and feel good about
yourself,” Foreman says.
“You want to leave something, you really do,” he says. “I mean, in
the end, statues and all those things, that doesn’t mean anything.
Leave something that we’re all going to benefit from. I think that’s
what I’d like to do.
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