Who is Li Houlin

Who is Li Houlin

Li Houlin refused to disclose his juvenile experience to the author. Circulating sources say, "Li Houlin, whose original name was Li Weilin, was a native of Jixian County, Tianjin, and did not graduate from junior high school."

What is certain is that when he was young, Li Houlin quickly accumulated his first bucket of gold. One detail is that Li Houlin claimed that he had opened the Lingzhi 400 9 years ago, that is, in 1996, when he was 23 years old. Li Houlin declined to disclose the specific details of his start,but said he had five years of experience before entering the diamond industry in 1999, and that he had previously been in the gold business, going through a process from "operating gold, making money by selling raw materials, to selling diamonds with emotion."

In 1999, Li Houlin, who made money, began to consider investment, "at that time, there was also a certain amount of original accumulation, and that amount could be done very well if it was real estate." But Li Houlin eventually chose to enter the jewelry industry, and his explanation was that he hoped to "make a brand out."

According to Li Houlin's description, in the past few years, he has also successfully replaced the shares of a diamond mine in South Africa, joined the World Diamond Association and became an important member of it, and made the chairman of the World Diamond Association a shareholder of Hengxin, but he declined to give more details. He stressed that the success of a luxury brand until now, "there is nothing real that cannot be done, some things are very subtle, such as the Ambassador of South Africa is a good buddy of mine, and I have a good relationship with the President of South Africa".

"Hengxin" is the way to make a fortune

In 1999, when Li Houlin ventured into the diamond industry, he was confronted with two decades-old brands, Chow Tai Fook and Xie Ruilin. What is more difficult is that in the diamond industry, there is a long process of brand establishment and breaking, and it takes time and capital. But at this time, Li Houlin only has 50 million, and if he wants to rise rapidly, he can only find a shortcut.

At that time, Chow Tai Fook and Xie Ruilin's business strategy was to open many branches in Beijing and send diamonds to the nearest places to customers, believing that every time they opened a new store, they would always bring about an increase in sales. But Li Houlin does not agree with this model.

"This is not in line with the sales characteristics of luxury goods. How many times can you buy a diamond in your lifetime? When buying a diamond, do you care about the distance? Would you say to your beloved that we're going to buy diamonds downstairs that symbolize our eternal love? When you buy this kind of high-end luxury goods, do you tend to buy more quality assurance in large stores, or do you covet cheaper in a branch? ”

After some reasoning, Li Houlin decided that the distance was not a necessary condition for diamond sales, "this is the first breakthrough point." What is more realistic is that Li Houlin also does not have the financial resources to open branches everywhere.

The second breakthrough point was the size of the storefront, when Chow Tai Fook and Xie Ruilin were both thirty or fifty square meters of storefronts, "Selling diamonds is selling emotions, and I don't know what emotions a thirty-square-meter storefront can set off." "I want to create a very large space, with a large part of the store to fully express the culture and emotion of diamonds, and provide a large number of styles and luxury services that meet the requirements of top luxury goods." ”

After consideration, Li Houlin rented a 1200 square meter place in Beijing's Oriental Plaza to make the "Hengxin Diamond Palace", using 2/3 of the storefront to make diamond culture, and the remaining 1/3 provided a wide range of diamond goods. The final result was that the "Diamond Palace", which advertised luxury, "caused a sensation" as soon as it opened.

According to Li Houlin, with the idea of this "diamond palace", he quickly gained the recognition of international diamond dealers (Beijing Youth Daily once reported that the works of his "European Works Exhibition" were borrowed from several workshops on the southeast coast, and Hengxin hired several international students studying in China as designers to strengthen the façade in order to cooperate with the publicity! It is said that the follow-up report was "done" by them at a high price! ), and is supported by a number of international consortiums. Lee also relied on these resources to build a broader international background, "using the appreciation of the President of the World Diamond Association to develop himself and to operate international capital." Subsequently, Li Houlin purchased mines in South Africa and set up a diamond processing plant (it was confirmed that the South African mine was nothing), and "Hengxin" began to expand rapidly, opening four branches in China (at present, the Shanghai branch is suspected of false publicity and the sale of fake and shoddy products and is investigated by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Industry and Commerce!). Shenyang branches are poorly managed and are also mortgaged and sold), each of which is a large store of 1200 square meters.