At the same time he established his highly successful eponymous bat-manufacturing company, during the early years Fearnley got many of his ex-playing colleagues and opponents to use his products. Introducing new forms of sponsorship, he built the brand around these friends. John Snow was the first to use the Duncan Fearnley bat in an international, with the likes of Basil D'Oliveira and Dennis Amiss close behind.
By the early 1980s, Fearnley had become the dominant brand within the market throughout the world. At the time it seemed everyone was using or wearing the 3 wicket symbol. Leading players such as Sunil Gavaskar, Clive Lloyd, Kepler Wessels, Ian Botham, Graham Gooch, Allan Lamb, Viv Richards, Graeme Pollock, Wasim Akram, Ravi Shastri, Allan Border, Martin Crowe and many more were putting their trust in the product.
In 1986 he became Worcestershire's high-profile chairman. He attracted some big names - notably Ian Botham - and the county won two County Championships, two Sunday League titles, one Benson & Hedges Cup and one NatWest Trophy title in his 12 years as chairman, as well as more than doubling the membership.
During the 90s the marketplace changed, with lots of smaller brands developing, and cricket bat production started to move overseas to India and Pakistan. Fearnley firmly resisted this trend and cut production accordingly, still concentrating on totally hand-crafted bats at its factory in Worcester.