This article originates from the dialogue and sharing between Jingwei Zhang Ying and Jiang Nanchun, founder and chairman of Focus Media, at the Jingwei Billions Entrepreneurship Camp. The theme of this dialogue revolves around the upgrading of brands, not only for new consumer brands, but also for toB, medical, hard technology and other tracks to give practical advice and case reference on brand building. Hopefully, this article has given you an understanding of:
1. The key point for the brand to get rid of the traffic dilemma.
2. Three ways to create brand differentiation.
3. How do founders build personal brands?
4. How to stabilize the mentality and continue to do things correctly?
How to get rid of the growth dilemma of traffic dependence?
Jingwei Zhang Ying: First of all, let me ask a question that many new consumer companies are concerned about, that is, many new brands are now facing the dilemma of growing in the amount of purchases, and not growing without buying, so the quality of such growth is not high, so how can we break through the traffic dilemma? Companies with toB or technology attributes can also think about this problem together and should also learn from it.
Focus Jiang Nanchun: Now facing two current situations, the first is to enter the era of stock game, the characteristics of this era is the volume and price of killing, that is, we say the inner volume, which has become a norm, and this feature and you are toB or toC does not have much to do with it.
Second, because everyone is doing promotions, its benefits will decline, slowly become not to promote no sale, to promote not to sell, and finally not only sales have not risen, the traffic has become more and more expensive, the more it grows, the more it loses.
Finding increments and relying on traffic doesn't work because neither is the essence of consumer goods.
The essence of consumer goods growth is the consumer's named purchase, he needs a reason to choose you instead of choosing others, if you do not do the named purchase, then it is only a matter of time to fall into the price war, promotion war, traffic war. These promotional measures may help you complete next month's sales tasks, but they cannot help you win the brand competition, and as the traffic price rises, it will eventually exhaust the profits.
The road to new consumption lies in eight words: deep distribution and preemptive thinking. Feedback in the indicator is the channel penetration rate and mental penetration rate. The birth of the explosive product is based on the differentiated value it created, "saturation attack" in a time window, and the strong correlation between a characteristic and the brand itself: a brand = a characteristic, so as to solidify the brand perception in the minds of consumers, form a brand moat, and to a certain extent, have the right to establish a premium and reject the inner volume.
Jingwei Zhang Ying: How to let customers choose you, this is a core problem. Many peers and friends also asked me why I spend so much time in the hundreds of millions, in the public number and video number of Jingwei. The significance of this matter is that I want the entrepreneur group to know that we are more attentive to everything than others, and finally when financing, entrepreneurs will be willing to take the initiative to chat with us, thereby increasing the probability of choosing Jingwei.
So branding is very important for any company, for toB and technology companies, for what reason customers choose you, this is a very systematic problem that needs to be thought forward. If you can plan in advance, promote and iterate from the perspective of the founder, and provide good products and services, you can amplify the effect of the brand.
Then back to Mr. Jiang, you have met a lot of excellent founders in all walks of life, they talk to you about advertising, marketing strategies, business discounts, so in the process of brand building in these companies, what common misunderstandings and mistakes have you found?
Focus Jiangnan Chun: There are several common misunderstandings:
The first misunderstanding, ROI orientation, can not calculate the ROI will not vote, or do it immediately to see the ROI. The misunderstanding here is that the platforms that can calculate ROI have already calculated the profit margins, and the more they invest, the more they may lose. Brand is the tao, traffic is the art, traffic is not the essence of building a brand. The problem solved by traffic is "buy it, buy it, buy it", that is, preferential and purchase, and the problem solved by the brand is "love it, love it, love it", that is, repurchase. Without solving the brand problem, it has been running traffic ads, which is likely to lead to dependence on promotional platforms, and finally profits are inverted.
The second misunderstanding is that the experience and perception of the product affects the consumer's mind. On the contrary, the perception of the consumer's mind affects the experience and perception of the product. Taking Yuanqi Forest as an example, it does saturation publicity on the concept of "0 sugar, 0 fat, 0 calorie", creates differentiated value in the market gap period, and consolidates the strong connection between this concept and the brand. Finally, when this concept is mentioned, consumers are the first to think of Yuanqi Forest. This mind and cognition will strengthen the experience and perception of yuanqi forest in the consumption process.
The third misunderstanding is that brand advertising is slow to work. The reason for this myth is that its brand advertising does not find reasons why customers choose you over others. To give some familiar examples, the boss in the industry is usually a banned category, such as "Tmall is enough", buy things do not have to go to other places; the second characteristic is called occupation characteristics, such as "how fast to save Jingdong", buy in the morning and can arrive in the afternoon; the third do vertical focus, such as "a website that specializes in selling vipshop"; the old four open new categories, such as "Pinduoduo, fight more, save more", the three of you do online, I do social group.
So you can find that the boss is fighting a defensive war, guarding his own hill, looking at his own industry status, the second is an offensive war, attacking the boss hill, the third is called guerrilla warfare, guarding the small hill that he can defend, the old four is called flanking war, landing in no man's land, creating his own new category, almost China's commercial wars have these four characteristics, find their own position in the industry, you can find the point that hits the consumer's mind.
Jingwei Zhang Ying: These points of thinking apply not only to toC companies, but also to toB and technology companies. Because every company must have a reason to choose you and not choose others, whether you emphasize the advanced nature of technical indicators, the ease of use of compatibility capabilities, or the ability to serve customer success, these qualities should be systematically reflected in your brand thinking and layout, with long-term, continuous, attentive investment to create and establish. In the end, these investments will be reflected in your brand potential, once this potential energy rises, many problems will be solved, there will be cooperation to take the initiative to find you, and then feed back the brand volume, more and more.
How does toB find its own brand differentiation?
Focus Jiang Nanchun: Whether it is toB, toC or now hard technology startups, in fact, you can use the syllogism of brand building, first, you must be clear about your product advantages, second, you must clarify the main differences between you and your competitors, and third, you must figure out the pain points of consumers, you must combine three points.
After finding this point, how to verify it? Three evaluation criteria, do customers recognize? Is it for sale? Do opponents hate? Take Wang Laoji as an example, afraid of going on fire to drink Wang Laoji, this advertising slogan, customers recognize? Recognize. Is it for sale? With. Then for competitors, the points of this road have been exhausted, and it is difficult to do it again. This is a very good example of three-point integration.
Among them, it is more difficult to say clearly that the difference point, many times the difference you describe may not be so different. Here, in the case I did with Volvo at that time, I will talk about how to implement the method of finding differences.
Automobiles are a kind of large-scale consumption, and the consumption decisions are complex, and there are similarities with tob sales. At that time, the biggest challenge of the Volvo brand was that everyone felt that Volvo was a second-tier car, although the main focus was safety, but customers thought that with a little money, they could buy the same safe BBA, so sales encountered difficulties.
To solve a problem, you must first clarify the problem. First, how do you name what makes Volvo safe? What is the difference with the BBA? Second, consumers currently buy a good car to value luxury over safety, how to change this perception? If 10% of consumers can be made to think that safety is more important than luxury, this 10% of the business will be won.
First, "forced to die" boss, only say a word of recommendation, the boss usually introduces the company are three major advantages, seven major selling points, too many points Consumers can not remember, if only say a word of the reason for choosing Volvo, what will the boss say? At this point, all the entrepreneurs here can also try to see if they can recommend and understand their own products in one sentence.
Second, look for ten sales champion interviews, he can become a sales champion, must be because of what is right. I kept consulting volvo's sales champions, and one of the answers they finally gave me was that "Volvo's cheapest S40 million, and the most advanced XC90, the 700,000, are exactly the same, and safety may be a standard in the eyes of other brands, and in Volvo's view, safety is a belief and a value." ”
Third, interview loyal customers, what will they say when they recommend it to the outside world? After reaching out to these loyal customers in large numbers, you will find that what drives them is the worry and anxiety about the safety of their families. At this point, this point has basically been found.
Zhang Ying: When Mr. Jiang was talking about how to find the difference points just now, I would like to say that these difference points are not only your advantage points, but also the advantage battlefield of your competition with your opponents. In fact, if you observe, you will find that many of our practices of Jingwei will often pull competitors into the field we are good at, and they will also want to do some of the things we are doing, and they will also build a team, spend time, and expect to achieve the same effect, but often the effect is average, and then anxiety, exhaustion. At the same time, the founders themselves will also have a sense of body, there is a comparison, this kind of experience difference, but will further amplify our differences with others.
I think every company can refine it according to the three points just mentioned, and really find out the differentiation in positioning and the way to play on the brand, which is very meaningful. All along, how to play on the brand, how to play the strengths, how to play the noodles, our colleagues in the investment team do not know, but they know that the business card in their hands is getting higher and higher. They knock on the door to meet other entrepreneurs, even if the pace is a little slower, others are still willing to meet, willing to spend a lot of time to talk. That's because we spend a lot of energy and time, very logically, building our own brand and spreading the word.
The current Jingwei brand can have a certain recognition, not because we are a veteran institution for more than ten years, but because we have been thinking and doing it since the first day and then accumulating it continuously. Jingwei has been talking about "investment ecology, post-investment scenario, brand strategy" recently, this last sentence is related to every founder, how to elevate the brand to the height of strategy, as a founder needs to keep thinking about this matter, this matter should be implemented in every link of operating the company, developing products, and providing services.
How do founders build their personal brands?
Focus Jiangnanchun: A company's product data, market share, and revenue scale can only represent the hard power of the enterprise, but it is not flesh and blood. To a large extent, the founder is the embodiment of a company and a very important spokesperson. Many times only the founder can express the true values, entrepreneurial spirit and culture of the company. Especially in the toB and technology-oriented industries, if the founder of the company can create a personal brand and become an industry expert, it is easier to build trust in external communication and people-to-people communication.
Jingwei Zhang Ying: To create personal IP, it is very important to become an industry expert. First, you have to know very well the nature of what you're doing. Second, you can use the simplest words to directly extract the essence and output it to the other party. What you say to others, the suggestions you make, the insights you give, accumulate over time, and if others judge that they are valuable and useful, then your personal IP will continue to be strengthened in their feedback.
Focus Jiangnanchun: When the founder builds a personal brand, part of the output is the hard power of the enterprise, part of the soft power of the company's culture, values, etc., and a very important part is to bring you as the founder based on the insight of the industry, for the judgment of the industry trend, you are not only selling the company's products, but also through your output, to your customers to provide solutions.
For the founders of toB and technology, the creation of personal branding is more important. If you are very good at explaining your own values and ideas in the technical circle, you can make technical things easy to understand, which is very beneficial for personal branding. Be good at using forums, exhibitions, searches and other accurate brand promotion channels, at the same time, if you publish a lot of effective articles in industry journals and forums, it will further establish the professional status of the industry, and these are things that can be done at the beginning of entrepreneurship. After someone else remembers your name, you're the biggest spokesperson for the company.
Further, if you can maintain your own strong exposure, deeply plan open content, in order to maintain the height of structural theory, summarize the experience that others cannot give, and form a consensus with the industry, the deafening view will also make people continue to deepen their impression of you and have professional trust in you.
Jingwei Zhang Ying: So I seriously feel that in companies in industries such as toB, technology attributes, and medical care, it is very necessary for founders to build personal brands. Now we may consider more depth, rather than its breadth, you don't need to let everyone in the society know you, but you need to find a differentiated style and way to insist on doing in this industry, enhance your own brand attributes, it can become an extension of the business, so that your recruitment, financing and everything else are magnified. It's a long, systematic project that not only has to work hard yourself, but also cheekily keeps creating opportunities.
How to build an efficient sales team?
Jingwei Zhang Ying: In addition to personal brand building, in industries such as toB, sales team building and management is also a key issue. There may be benign and vicious competition in the sales team. Focus is a very typical toB company, how to do it at this point, what experience can we share with you?
Focus JiangnanChun: What is the most common way to sell toB? The Beijing region finds a general manager, and then goes to build the following team, each branch has a general manager, and then they go to recruit people. The question like this is, a team leader, will he find someone stronger than him to put underneath? Impossible to find. The person who is the general manager is here, then the person of the same level as the general manager will not come, because he will not be willing to be below it. In the end, there will be a 90 points, a bunch of 80 points, and then 70 points, the more levels, the faster you will die.
My basic idea is flattening, there are ten teams in Beijing region report directly to me, I do not let Beijing region have a general manager, until today, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, less than three or four groups, more than ten groups of teams, parallel reporting. This horizontally accommodated plan was a lot of work and very tiring for me, and about seventy or eighty people reported directly to me. So why do you do that?
On the one hand, this way I can have a higher degree of understanding of the front line, in fact, among my customers, Zong Qinghou (chairman of Wahaha Group) and Zhong Shuishui (chairman of Nongfu Shanquan) are doing this, without listening to the content of layers of relays and summaries at the level, you can know the situation on the front line very well. Then compared with those opponents with long reporting processes, my front-end decision-making chain is shorter and the decision-making speed is faster.
On the other hand, it can also accommodate more excellent people to fight in a city, and can attract 10 people with 90 points. Inside the organization, there must be a strong sense of urgency and hunger, if they can become the winner in the internal competition and bloody battle, then it will be very easy to go out and fight with competitors, and others will not have a chance to win. This is the experience of focus sales teams, don't be afraid of internal competition. Now Focus sells 17-18 billion advertising a year, a thousand sales can be completed, and per capita can complete 17-18 million sales, and the human efficiency is very high.
So this is my sales team management syllogism, the first is internal competition, the second is the sea of people tactics, and the third is not to have regional leaders. Parallel distribution, space decision-making chain is short enough, a large number of people in a region is certainly useful, everyone's territory is small, fighting will also be played outside, but also can produce spillover effects, in order to survive in space constantly compete.
Jingwei Zhang Ying: For startups, if you want to remain competitive, then healthy competition within the team is very necessary. At the same time, this competition will naturally screen out some people with glass hearts and poor pressure resistance. We want to win, we keep trying to win, we create such an environment, and then those who have the desire and ability can slowly stand up, and the organization will be full of vitality.
How to maintain mental stability and do things correctly in the midst of market volatility?
Jingwei Zhang Ying: From the establishment of Focus to today, it has almost experienced various states and stages of a startup company, us stock listing, delisting, A-share listing, ups and downs. As an old friend, please also talk about the change in your mentality between these ups and downs, the iteration of non-cognition, and the judgment and persistence of doing things correctly.
Focus Jiang Nanchun: We started a business in 2003, all the success of the first attribution to the discovery of a good business model, I thought that the elevator is a city infrastructure, the elevator will be more and more, the business will be bigger and bigger, second, although no one wants to see the advertisement, but waiting for the elevator, taking the elevator is a very small number of scenes where consumers will pass by and watch the advertisement every day.
I am also very grateful to Zhang Ying and several other companies and investors for recognizing us at that time, choosing to invest and help us after our own money was quickly burned out, seeing our value and affirming our efforts without much income. The back was very fast, two years and seven months, Focus was listed. If no one had invested in us at the time, a good business model would have died.
After the listing, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised, and there were several competitors in the industry at this time, and I and the three most important directors of the company, Zhang Ying, Shen Nanpeng and Cao Guowei, decided to carry out mergers and acquisitions after discussion, and this decision also allowed Focus to achieve a dominant position in the industry.
Zhang Ying: Like everyone else, Mr. Jiang did not have any experience in the capital market. But he has three characteristics – the first is that after thinking clearly about the bigger cake, he is resolutely in. Second, he doesn't mind losing shares, because he judges that the cake is big enough to make up for it, and he can figure it out. Third, he believes in communicating with professionals and acting immediately after he has figured it out.
Be clear enough about your own company, be clear enough about what you can do, and have super execution, and you can achieve amazing results for others. For example, when Focus pre-IPO round of financing, an investment institution asked him to sign a VAM agreement, and finally historical data showed that he was one of the few startups that met and exceeded the amount of the bet, and it was a bet on the amount of profit. Needless to say that at that time, even if a hundred startups and others bet on financial forecasts, at the end of the year, they could achieve 100 percent, ten of them were not in a hundred, and more than 20% and 30% were even rarer, but he did it at the beginning, which made me stunned.
Focus Jiang Nanchun: Speaking of the change of mentality, the successful mergers and acquisitions at that time brought about an increase in stock prices, but it also brought me a bad cognition, that is, the valuation of mergers and acquisitions rose faster than doing business, so let's do more mergers and acquisitions.
You will once find that China's leading Internet advertising company is Focus, leading mobile advertising is Focus, leading digital outdoor advertising is also Focus, we have become China's leading digital media group, I went out to tell a new story, our price-earnings ratio rose from 25 times to 40 times, our EPS increased significantly, more and more. In 2007, the company's market value rushed from $2 billion to $3 billion to $8.6 billion.
However, all nightmares come from some bad thoughts in your heart. Mergers and acquisitions have led to an increase in stock prices, and after the rise we want to sell some cash. However, in the year after that, in 2008, we experienced the 315, Wenchuan earthquake, and financial crisis, and our market value fell from 8.6 billion US dollars all the way to only about 600 million US dollars.
No matter how others interpret it, I think all these results stem from the fact that something went wrong with our original intention. It turns out that we are studying every day how to do the business, how to make the customer's advertising better, how to make this business better. But when our idea becomes how to pull up the stock price, how to reduce the number of shipments, and let yourself have a more loose life, I think the final result will not be good, this is a causal relationship, this is a lesson.
After experiencing such a big ups and downs, my mentality is very calm, no matter whether the market is good or bad, I am not too anxious, because I found a truth, right and wrong is success or failure, doing what is right is success, doing wrong things is failure, its reason is so simple. Why do we have anxiety, because there are two words in the middle called gain and loss, doing what is right is not necessarily immediately available, doing wrong things is not necessarily necessarily lost, often short-term is the opposite. But your heart is wrong, and the money you earn in the end will not go with you.
Why am I determined now, because I am not affected by short-term gains and losses. If you can judge all things by right and wrong instead of short-term gains and losses, and do not do what is right and wrong, then your decision-making will become very simple.
Today, Zhang Ying and I talked about how to do a good job in branding. When you continue to do branding, repeat it, do it repeatedly, invest resources in core values, invest in the core competitiveness that can be established for a long time, and accumulate to the end, like investment, it will eventually be a compound interest of time.
Thank you.
Source: Matrix Partners