On May 9, Zeng Li, general manager of Changsha Baiyun Refrigeration Equipment Co., Ltd., was invited by CCTV Agricultural Channel (CCTV17 Channel) to come to Beijing, walked into the CCTV studio hall, and was interviewed by CCTV reporters.
Zeng Li is a very energetic post-80s woman, and when she first came into contact, she left a distinct impression on the author: optimistic and hearty, positive, high execution, and altruism. Her entrepreneurial career is exactly what she summed up: the road is tortuous and winding, but she never limits herself, always one step forward, and creates infinite possibilities in difficult situations.
Fledgling, constantly exploring career paths
Zeng Li has been a very strong child since she was a child, and her mind is independent, which is probably related to her life experience of being adopted since she was a child, and the pain of being abandoned is buried deep in her heart, but her adoptive parents and neighbors in the same village are very good to her, teaching her to be independent and grateful, she works harder than her peers, and hopes to succeed more.
When she was in college, Zeng Li began to make some small attempts at entrepreneurship. At that time, the market for small goods was not yet developed, and she keenly identified business opportunities through her observation of the needs of girls. So Zeng Li took the earliest train to the local distribution market early in the morning on the weekend to purchase goods, including some small gifts, jewelry, and school supplies, and went to the dormitories in the evening to promote goods, and the overall response was good. But Zeng Li thinks that she should face a bigger market and contact more people to exercise her eloquence and marketing skills, rather than stop at the small commodity trade on campus, so during the school holidays, she took the initiative to go to the local Tsingtao Beer Trading Company as a salesman, and often went to the major supper stalls at night to promote beer, in order to sell more beer, she often worked until 4 o'clock in the morning.
With the attempt and accumulation during the university, Zeng Li first chose to start her own business when she graduated, and set up a stall in an alley near the school to sell Malatang, which is not an easy industry, many customers who eat Malatang will only visit at night, in order to obtain more customers, it is the norm to open until the early hours of the morning, in order to get more high-quality and low-cost ingredients, go to the wholesale market to purchase raw materials before dawn in the morning. The booth has been open for more than half a year, during which Zeng Li has been confused, self-denial, and constantly regaining confidence. After careful consideration, Zeng Li felt that she should go to a bigger platform to exercise her comprehensive ability while she was young. After several rounds of interviews, she applied for a sales position at the alcoholic liquor company in early 2001. During her tenure in the alcoholic liquor company, she quickly became famous in the industry because of her outstanding performance, so in 2003, she was hired by Wuliangye Company to Chengdu as the director of brand operations with a high salary. Zeng Li's husband was also working with her in Chengdu to run the Wuliangye brand, and in 2007, she became pregnant, so she returned to Changsha and founded a custom liquor company, Zijie Liquor. Due to work reasons, her husband often needs to travel to Chengdu, 9 months pregnant, the company received a large order, the purchase demand is 3000 pieces of Wuliangye, due to the lack of manpower at the freight station at that time can not help to order, she is worried that the number of shipments is wrong to affect the company's reputation and reputation, although it is already the third trimester of pregnancy that has been unable to see the tiptoes, she still insisted on climbing the stairs to count the quantity, and the mother who accompanied her to the freight station saw this scene and burst into tears. When I heard this, I couldn't help but ask, weren't you scared when you climbed the stairs to order? She grinned widely: she was a little scared afterwards, but at that time, she was so focused on completing the order that she didn't care about it at all.
There is always a new turn for the better
Zeng Li thought that she could continue to do well in the custom wine industry, but the rapidly changing market will always give people new challenges. The sales of customized wine have been greatly impacted due to policy adjustments, and the drastic changes that have left Zeng Li in a crisis circle, but she has been hesitant to move forward because there is no better new way out. At this moment, a noble man appeared, he was the elder brother of the founder of Baiyun Refrigeration, Mr. Lao Pu, Zeng Li and Mr. Lao Pu's acquaintance originated from the Hunan Photography Association. Photography is Zeng Li's hobby after work, and after she joined the Hunan Photography Association, she and her team members went to many places to participate in activities, such as Niqier, Ulan Butong Grassland, etc. Due to the heavy photographic equipment, Zeng Li was worried that the elderly in the team would have difficulty walking with the equipment, so she took turns to help them carry the equipment, she always smiled in front of people, and told them jokes to liven up the atmosphere, but she never let people see when she broke the blisters on the soles of her feet at night and secretly put painkiller plasters on her shoulders so painful that she shed tears. Mr. Pu's equipment Zeng Li also helped him carry, when she joined the photography association just because she liked it, she didn't know what resources the members in it had, and she never thought of asking for anything other than hobbies from here, she liked the association This group of like-minded old friends, and she would often invite them to parties after returning to Changsha. At a gathering in 2013, Mr. Lao Pu asked Zeng Li: Now that the custom wine business is becoming more and more difficult, have you considered changing careers? My brother has a refrigeration shop that has been in business for 26 years, and he can transfer it to you for free, as long as you pay him for the current inventory. Zeng Li was very excited at the time, and it was difficult for her to imagine how much trust and helping spirit it would take to make such a decision.
At the beginning of 2014, shouldering this trust and full of gratitude, Zeng Li and her husband invested all their savings and borrowed working capital from relatives and friends, and took over the inheritance of Baiyun Refrigeration from the founder Mr. Hu Yunjian, when the company was only a 70 square store in Sanxiang Market, and the warehouse was in Changsha County. From customized liquor to HVAC accessories, Zeng Li started from scratch, but she has a tenacity that does not admit defeat and a determination to keep learning. When she first took over, she arrived at the store on time at 8 o'clock in the morning every day to learn all kinds of business knowledge, from knowing all kinds of auxiliary materials, to understanding refrigeration expertise, to being familiar with customer groups, industry dynamics, and being so tired that she could fall asleep sitting on the sofa at home every day. Seeing that the business has improved, in November 2014, the Sanxiang market was caused by a fire caused by the mismanagement of a merchant, and the store of Baiyun Refrigeration was unfortunately affected, destroying 1.8 million goods, and could not operate normally for 3 months. Zeng Li secretly wiped away her tears in the raging fire, while renovating the façade, while actively contacting customers to ship directly from the warehouse, three months later, normal business, the company is gradually back on track. In July 2015, due to the government's planning needs, the company needed to move all 6,000 square meters of warehouses within 15 days under the coordination of relevant staff. Zeng Li was stunned, the company's manpower is usually enough to deliver goods, and such a huge project of warehouse relocation, coupled with the need to find a suitable new warehouse site, cannot complete the task after half a month of breaking. There was not enough manpower, Zeng Li went to the warehouse in person, overcoming all difficulties, and when the last batch of goods was sorted out in the second half of the night, the warehouse had already cut off water and electricity. Zeng Li turned on the flashlight of her mobile phone and glanced at the former warehouse, sat on the last batch of goods to be transported away, and fell asleep unconsciously. When she opened her eyes again, she found that she had just fallen asleep, and her husband could not bear to wake her up and carry her to the van to continue resting. The morning light was slightly dewed, Zeng Li thought, now everything will develop steadily for the better. Three months later, the Xingsha liaison line needed to be rerouted, and the newly settled warehouse had to be demolished by 1,000 square meters, which was followed by heavy warehouse relocation and finishing work. Zeng Li smiled bitterly, people can't choose the arrangement of fate independently, suffering comes, you can only face and accept, when one problem is solved one after another, it will eventually usher in another village. After Zeng Li took over the inheritance of Baiyun Refrigeration, she was determined to build it into a leading enterprise in the field of HVAC auxiliary materials in Hunan. In 2016, Baiyun Refrigeration integrated the original brand resources and successively obtained the agency rights of many large brands in Hunan Province. In 2018, Baiyun Refrigeration successfully established the first one-stop procurement center for HVAC installation auxiliary materials in Hunan. In 2020, Baiyun Refrigeration will develop a subsidiary and franchisee system, and lay out the marketing network of prefecture-level cities and counties in Hunan Province. In 2021, Baiyun Refrigeration will comply with the tide of cold chain logistics and rural revitalization, and begin to vigorously develop the cold storage sector, independently designing and installing many food warehouses and medical warehouses. In 2022, in order to better expand the business chain of the company's development, Baiyun Refrigeration began to develop HVAC after-sales maintenance business, and has now cooperated with Daikin Air Conditioning and Hisense York Hitachi Air Conditioning, and has successively carried out business on the basis of undertaking the business of cooperative stores and undertaking community business by itself. In the next 5-year plan, this business will be carried out as the main business module of the company's subsequent development, extending the industrial chain to the downstream, directly connecting with the C-end, improving service quality and creating higher revenues.
As the company grows, it expands and engages in more business segments, and faces more challenges. Zeng Li said that at present, she has encountered unprecedented problems in management, team, capital and other aspects, but she will lead the team members to constantly overcome difficulties, and everyone can take a step forward, so that the team can go further. While running the company, Zeng Li joined the Communist Party of China in 2021, was elected as a member of the CPPCC of Furong District, Changsha City in 2022, and established the Baiyun Refrigeration Party Branch in 2023. She continues to innovate the business philosophy, grasp the new trends of industry development, actively explore and effectively activate the traditional consumer demand and investment demand and the huge domestic demand potential it contains, and at the same time through the innovation of products, management and markets, etc., to further discover, develop and activate a higher level and higher quality supply, and enhance a higher level and higher level of consumer demand and investment demand. Break out of the price war dilemma that the enterprise is currently in, and embark on a path of sustainable development that suits itself, and inject a steady stream of vitality into the socialist economic entity.
Be grateful and never forget the sense of social responsibility
In the rainstorm, I am willing to hold an umbrella for others and walk through the dark road, so I want to light a lamp for others. This is true for customers, suppliers, employees, and even more so for the left-behind elderly and children in poor areas and special disabled people.
In 2018, due to the flood, most of the goods in the warehouse and store of a customer in Ningxiang, Changsha were flooded, and the loss was not small. In 2021, the company's supplier Qixing brazing factory in Xinxiang City, Henan Province was flooded due to the catastrophic floods in Henan, and Zeng Li donated 20,000 yuan in cash and 50,000 yuan in disinfectant solution to help the factory rebuild after the disaster.
In the company, she cared about the employees and found that some employees were inconvenient to take care of their children, so she opened a parent-child corner in the office and bought some books and small toys so that the children could write homework and play games here. At the beginning of 2022, an employee's home was unfortunately burned down due to a fire, and after learning the news, Zeng Li organized the company's party members to go to the victimized employee's home with private donations for post-disaster reconstruction and donations from the company's colleagues. In 2024, the company's employee was hospitalized urgently due to pancreatitis, and the employee depended on his old father, who was from a rural area and could not speak Mandarin, let alone understand the instructions and various operating procedures of the hospital. She is not only the boss, but also the strong backing of the employees.
Because she came out of the countryside, Zeng Li is very clear about the situation of the lonely elderly and left-behind children in the countryside, she spontaneously organized entrepreneurs around her, together to go to the remote mountainous areas to give materials and love, the winding mountain road did not twist her kind heart, due to the long distance, often set off from Changsha in the early morning, after sending the materials to look up is already full of stars, her love, every star remembers. Zeng Li hopes that the old people can see a more distant world, a broader world, she has organized a trip to the village for several summers at her own expense, to Shaoshan, to Orange Island, to visit and travel.
As a female entrepreneur, she knows the difficulties of starting a business and the bitterness of being a mother, especially the parents of children with special disabilities. There is a slow angel love house in Xingsha, Changsha, where most of the mothers are still doing rehabilitation training with disabilities, and in their spare time, these mothers will do handicrafts together and open a supermarket to earn some daily expenses. Zeng Li learned about this by chance and was moved by the difficulty of these mothers. Every year after that, on Women's Day, she will bring the company's employees to send love materials to these special children and strong mothers, accompany these children who can laugh and make trouble, and encourage mothers to be stronger.
The customer who had made an appointment before arrived at the company on time, Zeng Li immediately got up warmly to greet her, she stretched out her hand to shake hands with the customer sincerely and greeted her, sat at the tea table and skillfully brewed tea, and started a new round of business negotiations. (Zhou Qiaoyue)