The year 1984 was a year of spring tide, a year that could not be forgotten in Chinese history. That year, Deng Gong came to Shenzhen to inspect, which strengthened the confidence in the development of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, which was only opened a year ago, and also left a famous sentence: "Time is money, efficiency is life." ”
It was also in that year that many entrepreneurs boldly innovated and forged ahead, and what they thought and did showed the pioneering spirit that an entrepreneur should have.
Among them, Ma Shengli's life, just like his name, began a revolution in the spring of that year.
Ma Shengli was born in 1939 in a small mountain village in Baoding, Hebei Province, and his family was relatively poor from an early age. Ma Shengli's name comes from the victory of the 1945 War of Resistance, and the family officially gave their children this name to celebrate this event.
Ma Shengli's mother made money by doing some small business and selling small things, and Ma Shengli also followed his mother to various parts of the township since he was a child, walking the streets and alleys to sell things, such an experience also made Ma Shengli edification about business and doing business.
When Ma Shengli grew up, he met the reform and opening up in 1978, and the spring breeze of reform blew throughout the entire Chinese mainland. At that time, the rural areas had already taken the lead in implementing the household contract responsibility system, and every household had the enthusiasm to work.
However, in the cities, the reform of state-owned enterprises is difficult, and it is difficult to break the situation. Because because the nature of state-owned enterprises lies in state-owned, under the system at that time, workers only needed to produce, enterprises did not need to consider costs, nor did they need to consider sales, everything was handled by the state.
Although the work of such a "big pot of rice and iron rice bowl" is stable and stress-free, this is bound to stimulate the enthusiasm of workers and affect the efficiency of enterprises. So the reform was carried out, and after the reform of the state-owned enterprises, the state-owned enterprises needed the factory directors to bear their own profits and losses, which was a challenge for all the enterprises at that time.
The paper mill where Ma Shengli worked encountered such a dilemma, there was no sales channel, and the things that were made could not be sold. So Ma Shengli took the initiative to apply to the director of the factory to be responsible for the sales of the paper mill, and Ma Shengli, who had a business philosophy since childhood, sold the hundreds of tons of inventory in the factory after a few months.
After this successful experience, Ma Shengli was deeply encouraged, so on March 28, 1984, the door of the paper mill was posted with a "big character newspaper", and the content of the paper was that he asked to contract the paper mill, doubling the profit and doubling the wages of the workers. To this end, Ma Shengli also put forward sales policies such as "Thirty-six Plans" and "Seventy-Two Changes".
However, in the eyes of the factory director at the time, Ma Shengli's behavior was to "seize power" or "expose his ambitions", and he was immediately dismissed from his post in the factory.
The turning point came to the city leaders at the time, and they discussed the matter. The leader hoped that the profit of the paper mill that year would reach 170,000, but the director did not dare to promise, saying that the factory could not be profitable. However, Ma Shengli volunteered to promise to turn the paper mill into a profit of 700,000.
In this contrast, Ma Shengli contracted the paper mill through the decision of the city leaders. After the contract, Ma Shengli innovatively divided the toilet paper produced by the paper mill into several different specifications to cope with a variety of needs, and also changed the color of a single toilet paper, changed the fragrance, and carried out diversified marketing.
In addition, Ma Shengli also recycled unwanted old quilt covers and old clothes from the people, further reducing the cost of papermaking in paper mills.
After working on both cost and sales, the first year of contracting, the paper mill's profit reached 1.4 million, far exceeding the 700,000 promised at the time.
In just four years, the profit of the paper mill has doubled 21 times, and Ma Shengli has been called "horse contracting", and the reputation of "the first person to contract under state-owned ownership" has also become increasingly famous. In 1985, Xinhua News Agency also wrote a report on this issue, called "Ma Shengli, a good factory director who always thinks about the interests of the country and the people."
The sudden victory did not make Ma Shengli's mind clearer, and from 1987 onwards, Ma Shengli began to contract a number of paper mills across the country. In 1988, the paper mill was grouped and the "China MashengLi Papermaking Enterprise Group" was established, but this was not another brilliant starting point, but his turning point.
Blind expansion brought many problems, different factories adopted the same way of operating and selling, coupled with the rapid market changes at that time, the sales method before Ma Shengli was not fully applicable, so the paper mill began to lose money year after year.
In 1991, the group was dissolved, and in 1995, the director of Ma Shengli was dismissed and retired.
The times create heroes, under the big waves, it takes not only courage, but also the spirit of innovation, more importantly, a pair of keen eyes and a clear mind, not to indulge in the glory of the past, in order to better see the direction.
Use media thinking to cover the whole network, so that product sales come to visit!
In the future, all commercial competition will focus on media communication. A company or a boss, if there is a shortage of media thinking, is doomed to lose early.
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