Some times your product is so good and so popular that it becomes a victim of its own success. It does its job perfectly, everyone has one and, hey, they last for ever so why would they buy another? So your company has become as big as it can do and your profits don’t seem as great as they did the year before.

This is the problem facing Stanley, the makers of the Stanley Knife.

It’s a problem they’ve faced before. That time they decided to make other tools and it must have worked out pretty well for them because they’re still around. But none of their other tools are as ubiquitous as their knife. Ever heard anyone say “Stanley Saw” or “Stanley Chisel”?

As a side note, they did actually start making prizes for ancient Olympic event winners. Yeah, they were called Stanley Laurels. Sadly for Stanley, they don’t run the ancient Olympics any more. That’s another fine mess they’ve gotten themselves into…

No, if they want to make more money and they want to make it big they need to sell more knives. But, as I said, everyone has the original one. So they have to innovate. But, as I said, it already does its job perfectly. So they have to think of a problem with the existing knife that they can improve.

“Hhmmm, how about it takes too long to change the blade?”
“Don’t be an idiot. It only takes 30 seconds to change a blade. That’s one of the features.”
“But what if that were 25 seconds too long?”
“Bingo!”

So they’ve made a new knife that only takes 5 seconds to change the blade. Magical. I, for one, am really going to appreciate those extra 25 seconds of life Stanley have given me back. At least I would do, if I wasn’t spending them seething over the fact I’ve had to buy a new Stanley Knife, and that I’m betting the replacement blades are more expensive.

What’s more, I’ve got indigestion from having to eat my tea and cake too quickly. Damn you, Stanley!

Judge for yourself (It’s called Coffee Break on the Stanley Web site, because they don’t drink tea like wot we Brits does).

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