3 Timeless Takeaways from Barbie's Rise to Global Success.

Breasts on a children’s toy?

Who would do such a monstrous thing?

When Ruth Handler launched the Barbie doll at the New York toy fair in 1959 with its beauty queen flair, no one suspected that this $3.00 doll would go on to sell 351,000 units in its first year.

To date, more than 1 billion barbies have been sold globally.

Now with her own feature film, Barbie is undoubtedly the world’s most famous doll.

Despite her success, Barbie (named after Ruth’s daughter Barbara) has been through some not-so-fabulous times.

Ruth has certainly suffered cash flow issues, a factory fire in 1968, a 2,500-hour community service penalty for stock manipulation, a $57,000 fine and a serious bout with breast cancer.

Despite it all, one vision prevented Ruth from falling apart.

That vision was creating an experience for little girls where they can live out their fantasies through Barbie.

Barbie was to be the future of every young girl.

Through Barbie, girls could become doctors, astronauts, models and so much more.

Barbie became more than a toy. She became every young girl’s role model and a global sensation.

If we can take a page from Ruth Handler’s very colourful book, the journey of Barbie to global sensation teaches us to:

1.?Weather the storm, one step at a time.

There will always be doubters, haters and naysayers. Despite that, can your vision survive and sail through the thunderstorms of criticism?

You don’t have to know all the answers.

Ruth Handler, before she discovered Barbie, ran an industrial design business selling picture frames, plastic homewares, and doll furniture.

It was one trip to the New York toy Fair that opened her eyes to an untapped market for new toys.

One trip, one event, one step at a time is what it takes to get things to happen.

Barbie's success therefore, wasn’t overnight.

Overnight successes aren’t real. Instead, take one important step at a time to build the empire inside of you.

2. Partner with great people.

No business or person is an island.

To grow Barbie into phenomenal success required brilliant manufacturers, marketers and distributers.

Partnering with Mattel and the Mickey Mouse Club – a popular children’s show at the time was instrumental in making this risky doll with breasts that was expensive to manufacture into a breakthrough.

Who are you partnering with to get your ideas off the ground? Ideally it should be people who are smarter than you or have the skills and experience you do not have.

Your business will only be as good as the people you recruit to help build it.

3.?Never allow your customers to get bored.

Everyone hates being bored.

It’s why Ruth Handler introduced Barbie’s dream house, Barbie’s vacation house, astronaut Barbie, President Barbie and Ken dolls.

It’s why companies such as Coca Cola continue to advertise new flavours.

It’s why pizza companies introduced cheese-filled crust pizzas.

And why horror movie sequels get bloodier and gorier.

Never, allow your customers to get bored.

If you sense your customers growing tired of your product, you’ve flung open the door for a new competitor to enter and sweep your bored customers off their feet.

Keep improving and experimenting with new ideas to prevent customers from growing bored.

Barbie is a worldwide phenomenon.

Why?

Well, evidenced by the success of the recent Barbie movie, for Ruth Handler in particular, it shows that taking one step at a time, building great partnerships without being boring leads the world to accept that breasts on a doll isn’t a bad thing.?