How They Turn Vision into Victory

Colonel Harland Sanders

More than 2 billion “finger lickin’ good” chicken dinners are served every year in over 80 countries around the world. It all began when an entrepreneur in his sixties, living on social security, had faith in his idea. Born 9 September 1890, Harland Sanders learned how to cook when he was six. His father had just died, his mother was forced to work, and it fell to Harland to put meals on the table. He started working at 12, first on a farm, then as a streetcar conductor, a 16 year-old soldier in Cuba, and a railroad fireman. He studied law by correspondence, sold insurance and tyres, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, and ran gas stations.

When he was 40, Sanders began cooking for hungry travelers at his gas station in Corbin, Kentucky, serving their meals at the dining table in his own living quarters. Soon people came just for the food and he opened a 142-seat restaurant across the road. Over the nine years, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique that is still used today. His fame grew. He was made a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 for his contribution to the State’s cuisine. But when a new interstate highway bypassed Corbin in the early 1950s, Colonel Sanders was forced to sell up. After paying off his depts, he was reduced to living on his $105 social security cheques.

But the Colonel had a vision: confident of his fried chicken formula, he started franchising his recipe in 1952. The 65 year-old drove across America, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners. If they liked what they tasted, he did a handshake agreement that he would be paid a nickel for each chicken they cooked and sold. By 1964 the sprightly Colonel had more than 600 franchised outlets in the US and Canada, and sold his interest for $2 million to a group of investors. He stayed on as public spokesman and by 1976 he was ranked the world’s second most recognizable celebrity.

Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation went public in 1966. In 1971 it was acquired by Heublein, Inc. for
$285 million, which in turn was acquired by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds. The Colonel still travelled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC empire he founded until his death at the age of 90 in 1980. In October 1986 PepsiCo, Inc. acquired KFC for $840 million.

Levi Strauss

Levi Strauss came to fame when he decided to sell clothing and supplies to prospectors in the Californian Gold Rush. He headed west to San Francisco in 1850 with a load of “dry goods”. He soon sold out of pants, and with business booming decided to make work trousers out of the canvas he’d brought to sell for tents and covered wagons. Canvas, he figured, could survive the rough conditions of the California Rockies. His first pants were cut from sailcloth, but while they wore superbly they abraded his customer’s skin.

And that is when opportunity knocked. Strauss switched to a tough blue yarn cross-woven with white called denim, softer and more comfortable than canvas but almost as tough. He then nailed copper rivets at the seam junctions to guarantee they wouldn’t come apart under stress.

While most prospectors went home empty-handed, Levi Strauss had struck gold. His blue jeans soon traveled all over America and on to Europe. By the turn of the century, Levi Strauss was the largest producer of branded clothing in the world. First worn by working men and cowboys, American culture took Levi’s to its heart in the 1950s and 1960s.

Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker

They proved how the power of a great idea could change an entrepreneur’s fortunes. They started off manufacturing some rather unusual pieces of machinery in Baltimore. Machines that put caps on milk bottles were one line; currency cutters for the US Mint were another. Then they made history. In 1916, they invented the world’s first portable electric hand drill. Black and Decker revolutionized life for builders and home handymen, Their finest achievement came on the Apollo 15 space mission: a Black and Decker Drill dug out the first samples from the surface of the moon.

King C. Gillette

King C. Gillette was born in 1855 in Chicago, and named after a prominent judge who was a family friend. The young man became a traveling salesman. In 1891 he went to work for William Painter, the man who had invented the cork-lined bottle cap. Painter suggested that Gillette should invent “something that once used is thrown away, so the customer comes back for more.” Inspired, young Gillette looked for an opportunity.

In those days, most American men went to barbers for a shave. Long, “cut-throat” razors were used which lasted indefinitely and were stropped on leather straps to keep their cutting edges sharp. Gillette, who spent a lot of time travelling and shaving on swaying trains, concluded that all he had to do was perfect the cutting edge of a razor in a smaller, safer form. By 1899 he had designed a compact razor blade holder with disposable blades. He found a partner, engineer William Nickerson, who perfected a blade from ribbon steel.

In 1903 the Gillette razor was launched. (Nickerson decline publicity because he felt that his name was inappropriate for a safety razor!) They charged $5 for the ‘handle’ and $1.20 for twenty blades. It sold so well they reduced the number of blades in a pack to 12 and sold them for $1, effectively increasing their profit margin by 40%.

Most of this profit went into advertising. Gillette’s face appeared on the packaging and in the ads which he wrote himself. In 1903 he had sold 51 razors and 168 blades. By 1917, he was selling 120 million blades a year. By 1920s, Gillette had perfected its mass marketing technique: the “handles” were basically sold at cost, thus encouraging every man to shave himself daily, and the company lived off the sales and profits of its famous blue blades.