JKR

Will King

Will King shared his story at January's Platform.

Platform kicked off 2011 on Tuesday evening. It’s the monthly event where a group of us get together to hear first-hand from some of the business world’s leading innovators. This week our speaker was Will King, founder of King of Shaves.

One of the things Will said that chimed most strongly with us was that being distinctive will only get you so far. Distinctiveness needs to be directly coupled with product relevance. In our digital age ‘average’ products will be exposed in no time at all.

Will believes that, broadly speaking, products fall into one of two camps: ‘great’ products that are championed by consumers; and ‘cheap’ products that in today’s deal-led environment thrive on 2 for 1 promotions. The issue with the latter is that the manufacturer obviously has to pay for the deals and that doesn’t make for sustainable success.

 One of Will’s observations relates to last Thursday’s Gazette about Steve Jobs and recognising the power of anonymity. The fact that nobody knew that Will King was the man behind the brand enabled him to step out of the business for 5 years to focus on the next phase of growth for the business: delivering a better razor than Gillette. Have a look at the King of Shaves Azor.

The development of Azor also reminded us of the importance of spotting the opportunity. Gillette have approximately 20,000 patents, filing between 10 and 30 a month. The result is a hugely, powerful barrier to competition. However, in 2004 the technology behind Sensor, Mach 3 and Fusion came off patent. Whilst others seemed oblivious, Will recognised and capitalised on it.

Will summarised his approach to business and life in general as follows:
- enjoy the satisfaction of success (life’s tough so make the most of the highs)
- be passionate and persistent (this can often make the difference)
- have an attitude of action (meetings can be a menace – just get on with it)
- combine confidence with common sense (don’t be unrealistic)
- enthuse, exceed and enjoy (work hard to be the best you can be and then enjoy it)

The next Platform is on 15th February 2011 when our speaker is Anthony Thomson, Chairman of Metro Bank. Places are in high demand but if you’d like to come along e-mail amymaw@jkr.co.uk and she’ll do her damndest to get you onto the list.