Is there a magic weapon to win in this market?
The answer is obvious: no.
The real business society is very complex, it is a system composed of many complex structures, and this business system is composed of different large and small systems and influences each other. As small as an employee's salary system, the production process of a dish, to the country's politics, economy, culture and technology, and so on.
If I had to sum up the essence of the existence of brands and enterprises in one sentence, I think it would be a cycle of discovering problems (needs) and solving problems, and then constantly discovering and encountering new problems, and constantly solving problems; until you are replaced by better brands and enterprises, referred to as "bankruptcy".
The case I share today is also a practical case of us from insight to core needs, and then use more efficient solutions than others to solve core needs - Zhao Dashuai beef skewer hot pot.
(This case I have shared in my previous article: under the competition of the Red Sea, how catering brands have grown more than 3 times against the trend (practical case analysis), today is a more comprehensive review of the overall strategy.) So next you'll see a lot of the food and beverage branding methods that I've summarized. And I used the case of Zhao Dashuai, whom we have practiced, to better let you understand the logic of building a brand).
Zhao Dashuai is a brand of skewer hot pot in Chengdu, and the skewer incense category is uncomfortable for Chengdu people not to eat every few days. From April 2020, when the epidemic just broke out, Mr. Deng found us, until now, Zhao Dashuai has reached a maximum loss of more than 20,000 yuan from the initial average daily loss of two or three thousand stores in a store, plus the executive ability of the boss Deng Zong and the team itself, in less than a year, from one store to the current six stores; and in addition to the special situation of epidemic isolation, every store has basically been profitable so far, and it is common to queue up frequently.
Although there are not many stores at present, in less than a year, the brand has become a well-known skewer hot pot brand in Chengdu's Wenjiang District, and when asked which skewers the local convenience store owners and taxi drivers eat, many people will first mention Zhao Dashuai.
In the course of these two years, Zhao Dashuai has encountered what problems, and how to solve them, and then what he has done right, and what new problems he will face, today I will share with you. It is also through this case that I also share with you the thinking logic of a restaurant brand from 0 to 1, and from 1 to 10.
First, the strategic breakthrough stage: insight into the core needs, to create brand differentiation
If you have read my previous articles, you should know that at that time, after we decided to cooperate with Zhao Dashuai, we went to Chengdu to investigate and circle down, and found that there were many problems in this store - the sense of product value was not strong, the operation system was not perfect, the location was not good enough, the pricing was high, the competition at the surrounding low prices was fierce, etc., but the biggest problem in front of us was that the store was still losing money, and the boss had borrowed a lot of money (later the boss and we said that even our cooperation consulting fee at that time was borrowed).
So the first goal is to make money for the store, and then it's about what brand image work to do.
But many times, we also do not have the ability to turn a store into a profit, because whether a store or a brand can make money and make a profit is a multi-faceted result. What we can do is to help the brand find a breaking point, get out of the predicament, and achieve growth.
Zhao Dashuai made a skewer hot pot (sichuan and Chongqing area called skewer incense), this category in Chengdu is very competitive, a business circle on more than a dozen skewer shops. The brand breaking point we helped Zhao Dashuai find at that time was to use "beef skewers" as the differentiated positioning of the brand, and then convey the value of good beef, fresh and clean through "beef on-site wear", and achieved a breakthrough in the fierce skewer hot pot category market.
After a series of operational improvement work, it slowly turned a loss into a profit, and finally became the regional queuing king.
(Screenshot of the queue at the door sent by Mr. Deng)
Of course, there are all kinds of twists and turns and details in the process. But I'm mainly going to talk about how we looked at the core needs and found the brand breaking point.
The origin of the brand is the demand, and insight into the demand is the most important part of the brand.
If you open a shop, the main thing is to understand the needs of the nearby three-kilometer customer group. If you want to open a regional chain brand, then study the customer demand of this area. If you open a national chain of brands, you need to study the consumer demand of the whole of China.
These different ranges of needs and different factors have formed large and small "demand sets", and we are choosing the appropriate "demand sets" according to the goals and actual conditions of our own brands.
(That's right, a word I coined.) Because I currently think the name can be a good summary of what I want to say)
When you choose different sets of needs, your brand delivers different solutions to customers. The bigger the demand set you choose, the bigger the business.
For example, if you do Cantonese sausage powder business, and do hot pot categories, the ceiling of the business is completely different. For example, if you face the market of small-town youth and petty bourgeois white-collar customers, the demand set will be different, and the natural brand play will be different.
Therefore, clarifying and figuring out your own demand set is the most important step for brand building.
Some people may say that demand set is not the meaning of doing business with customers. Yes and no, not exactly. The demand set I am talking about here has three main constituent factors: customer base, scenario and category.
1. Customer demand: What are your target customers?
For example, whether you are family-oriented, white-collar colleagues, or the elderly, etc., different customer groups, the needs are also different.
2. Scene requirements: In what scenarios will these customers want to choose you?
For example, where to go after dinner with family, where to eat with colleagues and friends, where to eat with your lover, and where to eat by yourself. The same customer group in different scenarios, the needs are different. Including sauerkraut fish fast food, one-person hot pot, etc., are the needs of different scenarios.
3. Category demand: The selection of categories is to choose different tracks, because the purchase base, purchase frequency, etc. of different categories are different, so the scale of market demand is also different.
In addition, different categories will also have different cognitive attributes, such as braised noodles, many people outside Henan have not heard of this category, and there will be obstacles to category cognition when entering other areas.
(I simply drew a sketch to illustrate it)
(Of course, the composition of the demand set is more than this, I will not talk about it here, but today I will analyze these three core factors)
Therefore, the demand set is the collection of the needs of different customer groups in different scenarios, and the category is a knife that cuts this demand set. Stores and brands are demand-set solutions.
The stronger your "demand set", the stronger the customer's willingness to choose you; the larger your corresponding "demand set", the higher the upper limit of your business size.
Including what we often call the reason for buying, it is a way to attract demand sets. Which reason for the brand to choose to buy, in addition to looking at the characteristics of the brand itself, but also depending on which demand point is the strongest in the "demand set" selected.
For example, the Honey Snow Ice City we are familiar with, corresponding to the student group, the recent graduates and the customer group with relatively low consumption power, in the shopping or eating hot pot and other leisure scenes in the milk tea demand choice. This demand set is summarized as: a collection of various demand points for leisure to relieve hunger, taste fresh and quench thirst, cheap (bought below 10 yuan), and high cost performance. This demand set is very large (milk tea is now a popular category in China), which is enough to support the scale of 10,000 or 20,000 stores in Michelle Ice City.
In addition, in the corresponding demand set of Michelle Ice City, the strongest is the "cheap, cost-effective" demand point, so we see that the store of Michelle Ice City is particularly large and obvious in price. Heytea does not need to do this, because the corresponding demand set is different.
In addition, the demand set will also change, and you need to find the demand set that suits you again. Because the needs of customer groups will also be affected by different factors such as policy, culture, and economy; and with the development of technology, different scenarios will be born. In particular, this epidemic has changed a lot of consumer behavior and demand.
Well, back to the case of Zhao Dashuai.
Zhao Dashuai's first store at that time was in a small area in Wenjiang, Chengdu, and the occupancy rate was not particularly high. Just one kilometer nearby, there are more than a dozen skewer hot pot restaurants. When we analyze the surrounding chain stores, they are basically around the younger customers with a unit price of less than 60 customers: those who are not yet married or have recently married but have not yet had children.
This kind of customer group in the party with friends to choose to eat skewers, the demand set includes "grounded, cost-effective, atmosphere, heavy taste" and other core demand points, the corresponding solution of the store is that the skewers are cheaper (6 cents a string), the cost of the pot bottom is relatively low (the taste is heavy on the line), and the environment is not very good. Then everyone's publicity strategy is to discount promotions, and constantly compete viciously in this demand set.
And Zhao Dashuai also fought in this demand set before looking for us, but Zhao Dashuai's product pricing is 8 cents a string, the price is higher; the location is not very good, next to a vegetable market in the community, there are no restaurants nearby, and everyone rarely comes here specifically to find food. So even if the discount is not advantageous, and then the company does not make money. It's like not earning anything.
Therefore, it is necessary to jump out of the original demand set and choose the demand set that can match the existing situation of Zhao Dashuai.
At that time, we ran to the investment center of the nearby community and learned that we found that after a few years of marriage, children accounted for a large proportion of the customers who had just attended kindergarten and primary school. Analyzing the needs of these customers, they are more concerned about "clean and hygienic, safe and healthy" when they go out to eat, after all, consider the health of their children. So I'm not very sensitive to price and willing to pay a little more to enjoy a better dining experience.
Coupled with our analysis of the skewers of this category, although it is very common in Sichuan and Chongqing, most of the stores are basically the kind of meat skewers with old oil and not too fresh (frozen finished products are sent to the store), and the environment is not good, resulting in some customers with certain consumption capacity and pay attention to cleanliness and hygiene when they want to eat skewers, they can only be forced to choose hot pot brands such as Haidilao.
(Here to say more, skewer incense is a form of hot pot subdivision, the field is generally called skewer hot pot, and Haidilao hot pot this is not the same)
Therefore, in the face of small family groups and customers with certain spending power in the nearby business circles, there is an imbalance between supply and demand. At the same time, Zhao Dashuai's skewers are relatively fresh (the cost is slightly higher, so the pricing is also high), and the environment can also be characterized, which just matches this new demand set of "social, clean, hygienic, safe, healthy, quality and good experience".
This is why we proposed the "fresh, delicious, clean" brand strategy, in order to better meet this new demand set.
Then find the strongest demand point in this demand set: freshness. Then according to this demand point, the value is refined and brand positioning is carried out, so the brand slogan of "fresh and good ingredients, beef wear on the spot" is put forward and hit the door to obtain customers.
When this brand reaches a certain stage, the strongest demand point will also change, so the foreign brand slogan will also change, and there is no strategy and slogan that has remained unchanged for a hundred years.
Not only is the beef worn on the spot, but also the introduction of disposable pot bottoms, one-time signatures, 14-hour fresh dishes, enhanced service experience, pot bottoms at different price points and other measures, all in order to better match this demand set.
Therefore, whether your brand is at a loss or making money or encountering a growth bottleneck, if you want to break the game, first find and clarify the "demand set" of your brand, and then in this "demand set" to brand positioning and develop a series of measures to better meet the demand set, not only let more consumers choose to buy you, the company can also achieve profitability - this is what I want to say next: according to the "demand set" and brand positioning to build a matching single store profit model.
Second, optimize the single-store profit model from 0 to 1: look for certainty from uncertainty
Whether it is 10,000 stores or a store, catering brands must return to the element of single stores. Because a store needs 20 employees, 100 stores have 2,000 employees, and there may be more people (there are regional operations managers, brand directors, etc.).
This is also one of the differences between catering and industries such as the Internet and FMCG – it is difficult to have a marginal effect. The main things that catering brands can achieve a certain scale effect are that the supply chain reduces product costs, and the brand value reduces the customer's choice cost (brand value can also increase the bargaining power of site selection, investment attraction and investment).
Therefore, the single-store profit model is the basis for catering brands to make profits, and it is also the basis for whether they can be bigger. Otherwise, if you open more stores, you won't make money (except for IPOs and quick moves through the number of stores).
And from 0 to 1 to create a single store profit model that matches your brand's strategic goals, it is actually to find certainty from uncertainty.
For example, Wallace has now broken through 20,000 stores, from the product structure of fried chicken burger drinks, the channel strategy of the third and fourth lines to surround the city, the lower pricing than McDonald's KFC, the supply chain micro-profit, the store partnership system and the 30 square store model, etc., the single-store profit model is very perfect.
But back in the early days of Wallace, I believe wallace founders don't know if Wallace can be bigger, and what the single-store profit model is. In the actual operation, we continue to summarize and optimize to find the right model, and then continue to optimize, and finally achieve what we see now.
Therefore, the topic of the single-store profit model is too complicated, and the situation of one store and 10 stores, as well as 100 stores, is also different, and it is difficult to explain it at once. I mainly do an optimization on the single-store profit model shared by the catering veteran Shou Wenbin teacher .
The core of the creation of a single-store profit model starts from four dimensions:
1. Business circle point
2. Product structure
3. Pricing system
Let's take a look:
1. Business circle point
The location of the business district is actually the location of the store. Choosing different business districts, the essence is to choose different customer group structures, in fact, it is also to choose different demand sets.
For the tea and snack fast food category, it is not only a good business district, but also a good point that determines the life and death of the store. Even on the same street, locations in different directions, traffic and demand sets are all very different. This is why many people say that "the life and death of the store depends on the location", although it is a bit exaggerated, but it says the importance of the location of the business circle.
The business district analyzes different business district types according to the density and liquidity of the crowd.
For example, core shopping malls, stations and airports, tourist areas, etc., all belong to the business district with high traffic density and large liquidity, and the customer demand of this business circle is mainly one-time consumption, and the corresponding product structure cannot be too complicated.
The community, industrial park, school, etc. belong to the high-density but low liquidity of the business circle, mainly based on repurchase, product development should also try to meet the diverse needs, in order to cover the cost of the store.
For those old communities and new communities with low occupancy rates, they are all business districts with low traffic density and poor liquidity, and such business circles should be carefully considered.
For example, the product structure of the store where Zhengxin Chicken row is opened at the station and the store in the community is different. Maybe the only chicken steak you see at the station is chicken cutlets and drinks, while the community store may also have products such as fried skewers in addition to chicken steaks and drinks. This is different types of business districts, the demand is not the same, the community traffic liquidity is poor, and more product lines are needed to stimulate the repurchase of old customers and achieve profit goals.
Therefore, different types of business districts correspond to different demand sets. The product structure is the specific solution of the demand set, so the product structure is different.
2. Product structure
The product structure I am referring to here mainly includes two aspects:
One is what we generally call dishes. For example, the hot pot restaurant's hairy belly, beef, snowflake fat cow, drinks, spices, pot bottom and so on.
The different menu structures in the store are product solutions designed by a single store to meet the different needs of the same business circle customer group.
For example, why the hot pot restaurant launched the Mandarin duck pot is to allow several people to eat here together, and the needs of spicy and not spicy can be met.
The second is a wider range of products – the entire store. Because customers eat at a store, the demand points are diverse, and it may not only be enough to eat, but also to socialize. And to meet the demand set is not only the dish on the line, but also the service, environment, brand awareness and so on. That is, the demand set needs to be met by the entire store.
The different models of the store are the "product structure" designed by the brand to match the format of different business districts.
For example, the flagship store, standard store and GO small store launched by Heytea Club are all different store models that match the structural design of different business districts. In some business districts where the cost of rent is high and there is no need for dine-in, such as airport high-speed rail, it is possible to open a small GO shop (stall shop).
3. Pricing system
Pricing is the customer base, and pricing is a direct means of dividing the level of demand. The price bands are different, and the size and type of the required set are also different.
For example, Xicha and Mixue Ice City are brands with completely different price bands, and the natural customer groups are different, and the demand set size is also different. The demand set of the pricing division of Michelle Ice City is far greater than that of Xicha, and from the perspective of the ceiling of business scale, it is difficult for Xicha to compare with Mixue Ice City. Because the higher the pricing, the smaller the corresponding customer base and the more restrictions on the location of the business circle.
You see that Xicha has opened more than 800 stores now, and there is a weak growth, and it is difficult to continue to open. Because of The pricing system and its model, it can only open stores in the main business districts of first- and second-tier cities. And The Honey Snow Ice City can be opened in various business district points, and a business circle can open several stores to survive (in Zhengzhou, there are several Honey Snow Ice City stores within a hundred meters or so!). ）
Well, after talking about the three core dimensions of the single-store profit model, let's take a look at how Zhao Dashuai's single-store profitability model is optimized.
At that time, Zhao Dashuai's first store had been open for a period of time, and he also paid a lot of costs, and it was impossible to say that he chose other business districts, unless he opened a new store. Therefore, the location of the store's business circle cannot be changed, but the product structure and pricing system can be adjusted.
The characteristics of the business district structure have also been mentioned earlier, and it is said that we have optimized the new product structure according to the structure of the community business circle and the demand set, and the later growth has also verified the correctness of these product strategies.
1. Increase the number and quality of beef skewers
Because the main beef skewers, it must be better than other stores to meet customer expectations. At the same time, it is also to achieve the scale effect of the supply chain.
2. Add a "beef spotting area" at the door to visualize the fresh value
Catering is an experience-driven industry, so that customers can really see and experience it, better than you advertise a hundred times. Customers pass by the door and walk into the store, and see that some of us are really wearing beef in the Ming Stall, they will think", "Yo, it is really dressed, it is so fresh."
3. Strengthen the self-verification value of "disposable pot bottom" and "one-time signature" and "good pot bottom, bad dipping sauce is delicious"
Strengthen the value of fresh and healthy, and match the strong demand point of "health, hygiene and cleanliness" of the target customer group.
4. Redesign the product cabinet to make it look more atmospheric and valuable
Before the renovation:
(The separate placement is not atmospheric enough, nor does it conform to the order of the customer's food line)
After the renovation:
(Centralized placement to form a visual shock, improve the experience of taking vegetables, similar to the menu to design the customer's consumption line)
5. Improve the cleanliness of the store environment and make it look cleaner and more hygienic
The main dining touchpoints of the skewer hot pot restaurant are the product freezer, small material table, table top and toilet, and we let customers exceed expectations with the four core touchpoints. At least it should not be lower than the customer's expectations, such as the toilet should be cleaned regularly every once in a while, and some deodorant should be put in place to improve cleanliness.
6. Increase peak experience, enhance customer experience and sense of value
One of the biggest value-added experiences is that we've added free fruit. Because the nearby skewer shops rarely offer free fruit, even if they do, they also provide some cheap mass fruit. We are not the same, will often provide high-value fruits such as cherries, and some seasonal fruits, specially placed in the obvious place, written on the "fruit free", customer experience, compared to other competitors will have a sense of value, increase the frequency of customer repurchase.
7. Improve the salary system and increase the enthusiasm of employees
If we want the "good experience" of our demand set to be better met, in addition to the design of the above products, there is also a very important service experience. Most of the reasons for the loss of customers in a store are not because the products are not delicious, but mainly because the service experience is not good enough.
In order to enhance the service enthusiasm of employees, Deng's team designed a new salary system and system, so that employees know that serving customers well is linked to their own wages. Add some cultural training to strengthen this sense of service.
In the later period, Mr. Deng and I discussed snacks and other products, and we were constantly improving the product structure of Zhao Dashuai.
After talking about product structure optimization, there is also the optimization of the pricing system. Zhao Dashuai's customer unit price is 65-70 yuan, jumping out of all the demand sets of low-price competition and matching the new demand sets. At the same time, Zhao Dashuai launched a better butter pot bottom, designed different price points, but also in order to meet the customer base with a certain consumption ability, expand the demand set of the store.
After building the store's single-store profit model, and then doing brand marketing promotion (including opening marketing, membership marketing, festival marketing, online promotion, etc.), it will be more effective with half the effort.
Here are some of the marketing campaigns shown, here is not to expand the strategy behind these activities, let's take a look:
(The bottom of this pot is equivalent to a membership strategy, convenient for locking customers, and we have calculated that it is basically equivalent to more than 90% off, increasing repurchase.) But the product experience is the foundation, it's just an aid)
(To be the first in public reviews, put it on the front of the door as a trust endorsement to improve the rate of entering the store)
(Because it is a community business district, a promotional poster was made for the community customer group)
(Attract people from farther away to come and eat, expand the range of customers)
In short, the stage from 0 to 1 is to find certainty from uncertainty, mainly to build and optimize the single-store profit model, and find a single-store profit model that can match the brand chain goal and make money - this is the more efficient solution mentioned at the beginning of the article. However, through professional methods in the early stage, we helped Zhao Dashuai improve the probability of finding this deterministic model.
Third, from 1 to 10 brand chain growth stage: summarize certainty, copy certainty
Why is it that you open a shop that is very popular, but when you get to the second and third stores, there is no business?
Why do you know that the first few stores can make money, but when you break through 10 stores, you don't make money?
Why is it that business is good in first-tier cities, but it can't survive when you come to third- and fourth-tier cities?
……
The causes of these problems are complex. But the core boils down to the fact that your single-store profit model is not well built, and you have not adjusted and optimized the single-store profit model in time as the market changes.
When the brand is established from the early demand set (selection, customer group, scene) to the construction of the single store profit model, it has basically completed the stage of 0 to 1.
That is to say, you already know which business circles your brand should be opened in, who to sell, what is the product structure, how much area to open, how many employees are used, how to price, how to allocate resources, how to design the spatial structure, etc.; and the business is good to know why, the business is poor and also know why - this dares to say that you are familiar with the single-store profit model of your own brand.
Then you can summarize the certainty, copy the certainty - from 1 to 10, from 10 to 1000 to copy the store.
After zhao Dashuai achieved profitability in the first store, he opened four new stores of different model sizes in other community business districts in a short period of time, and also tested and optimized the situation of different models in other business districts.
We found that stores opened in the community, in addition to the quarantine of the epidemic, each store can basically achieve profitability. A store of about 120 square meters, chengdu last month also had an epidemic, but the turnover can still be about 450,000, which is one of the best local string brands.
(Screenshot of background data)
Therefore, if the model is built well and the site selection is not bad, the next main thing is to look at the operation capabilities of different stores. This is also what Zhao Dashuai needs to do next, polishing and standardizing the operation system.
If you test and refine the model from 1 to 10, you can quickly copy and open a store.
(The fourth store is actually photographed.) Frequently lined up to the side of the road, only tables can be added at the door)
A few days ago, Zhao Dashuai opened a flagship store of more than 300 square meters near Xintiandi Commercial Plaza in Wenjiang District, which is also the sixth store of Zhao Dashuai. In fact, it is also optimizing and testing the single-store profit model of new business districts, accumulating experience for the expansion of other business district types.
For the new store model, in order to ensure the customer's first experience and brand reputation, before the soft opening, I also deliberately sent a voice to let Mr. Deng do a "limit the number of customers received every day" action.
On the day of the soft opening of the flagship store. Before we did much publicity, we broke through the turnover of 30,000, which exceeded our expectations.
Friends in Chengdu, welcome to experience.
The optimization of the single-store profit model is not the best, only better. With the development of the brand, the number of stores increases, and the problems faced are different. After all, the problems encountered by 10 stores, 100 stores, and 10,000 stores are different, and it is necessary to continuously optimize the brand strategic direction and single-store profit model according to different stages.
Chairman Mao has said that everything has a major contradiction and many secondary contradictions at different stages. So we have to grasp the main contradiction at this stage.
Just like a person, the problems encountered before the age of eighteen and the problems encountered at the age of 25, as well as the problems encountered after marriage and children, are not the same, and we cannot generalize. We only have to anticipate in advance, and then we have problems and solve them.
For example, after Zhao Dashuai arrives at twenty or thirty stores, he must consider whether to build his own factory and other supply chain issues, whether to go out of Chengdu to open a store, whether to adjust the new brand direction and operation system, whether to develop a new product structure, etc., and whether the current team ability can support twenty or thirty stores, etc., which are the challenges that Zhao Dashuai will face next.
Finally, a brief summary
1. The reason why brands and businesses exist is that others need you, and the stronger and more people who need you, the bigger your business and brand can grow.
If you want to build a brand from 0 to 1, you must first understand what problems (needs) you are solving, and different social problems will form different business opportunities, which is why I said today to clarify my own demand set (selection, customer group, scene) and positioning.
2. After determining the demand set, whether you can make money depends on whether you can provide more efficient solutions than others - for catering, the main thing is to create a single-store profit model. The process is all about finding certainty from uncertainty.
3. If you want to achieve chain growth, you are actually copying certainty. When growth encounters new problems, look for new demand sets and single-store profit models to achieve new growth and cycle back and forth. Until one day you can no longer provide value to others or others have a better alternative than you, then you will only be forced to withdraw from this market.
Finally, the epidemic is changeable, and many industries such as catering, hotels, and tourism are not easy, and I hope that everyone can think more about the solutions to the problems instead of complaining. Share.
It's hard to fully express a lot of my current thoughts in an article, and today I can only do so first, I hope it inspires you! I will continue to summarize and share in the future. You are also welcome to share your thoughts in the message area below.