“Don’t be like a blind dog in a meat house”.  (John Barry)

Does the name John Barry sound familiar?

No?

What about WD40?

It’s hard not to recognise the lubricant WD40 with its distinctive blue and yellow aerosol can. It is sold in over 160 countries and is found in as many as 80% of American homes. It has at least 2,000 uses, most discovered by the users themselves.

John Barry didn’t invent WD40. But he was President of the company from 1970 to 1990 and then Chairman to 2000. During his time as company President annual sales increased from $2m to $91m. In 2008, sales were $317m. The company did not expand its product range during that time – it only ever sold WD40.

How did Barry and his small San Diego-based company achieve this remarkable performance? Perhaps Barry’s own words describe it best – “don’t be like a blind dog in a meat house.” Barry’s message was to focus on one product that you could dominate the market with. WD40’s current CEO, Garry Ridge, said this – “that saying is a direct reflection of John’s real value about focusing on what you want to do, making sure your strategies and goals are aligned and don’t scatter. John was a rifle shot guy. He was not a shotgun guy.”

Barry was a Harvard graduate but he was fond of saying that he “broke all the rules at Harvard” for how to market a product. Traditional marketing methods say that you must position your product in the market, but WD40 was never positioned in the usual sense. It existed to solve people’s problems – hence the 2,000+ uses, many of which the company had never even considered. The WD40 aerosol can contained phrases like “stops squeaks” but didn’t specify whether the product was intended for home or vehicle use. This avoided the product becoming pigeon-holed.

Barry also did other things differently. He declined to patent the product, knowing that the patent would expire in 17 years and the recipe would become public information. He always said – “if you don’t give people a target, how can they shoot at you?” Competitors produced similar products but they could never replicate the success of WD40 because they didn’t have its name or reputation.

He also never produced a private-label version of WD40, despite many offers to do so, arguing that if it has WD40 in the can, it has to have WD40 on the label. In his view, this preserved the brand’s exclusivity. In much the same way as Xerox has become a pseudonym for photo-copiers and Kleenex has for tissues, so has WD40 for household lubricants. It is the clear “go-to” brand in its sector and has been nearly impossible to displace in the last 40 years.

John Barry set his own rules. He understood that it is better to be great at one thing than mediocre at a lot of things. He lived and breathed this ethos. It worked for him and WD40 remarkably well.

Whatever you do make sure you do it well and focus on what you can be great at. Discard everything else. If you don’t you’ll be constantly looking in your rear vision mirror second-guessing what your competitors are doing. Who cares? Get out in front of them and stay there. Let them worry about you.

Have a great week!
The Bull