More than 50 years ago, Mr. Trout founded the "positioning theory". Around 2000, the theory entered China, and it has been more than 20 years, and countless Chinese enterprises have benefited from this. However, there are also countless enterprises that have fallen because of unclear positioning and confusing positioning.
With the intensification of competition in the future and the continuous derivation of "positioning theory", how should entrepreneurs better use "positioning theory" to counterattack in the big competitive pattern?
Today, we visited Mr. Yu Lei, Dean of Houde Strategic Positioning College.
As the first person to create positioning education with Trout, the father of positioning, Mr. Yu Lei has assisted OPPO to rise rapidly - china's market share reached 19.8% in 2018, and the Southeast Asian market won the first place; helped the business stagnation of the double easy "portable massager" to grow by 39% in the three years from 2018 to 2020; helped Love Space redefine the track, create standardized home decoration, and use the Internet to subvert traditional home decoration to achieve 10 times growth in 3 years.
Teacher Yu Lei shared the dry goods this time. Recommended favorites.
Author: Sun Yunguang
Oral description: Yu LeiHoude, dean of the Strategic Positioning College, joined hands with Trout, the father of positioning, to create positioning education
Source: Zhenghe Island
01, the reason for the decline of many enterprises, the boss did not realize it at all
The 1970s were both a golden age for American businesses and an era of silence.
In this era, countless American companies are shining stars — Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, IBM, General Motors, HP, Compaq — competing for global dominance. At this time, the United States has also entered an era of great competition, product homogenization is very serious, and countless enterprises have declined in competition. Behind the brilliant star-studded brand, the fallen enterprises are also "white bones".
To live is the Golden Age; to fall is to be silent.
What determines the fate of countless enterprises is a magical theory called "positioning".
"Positioning theory" originated in the 1970s, the American Aris and Jack Trout jointly found that the core value is that your product must have a positioning in the customer's mind, in order to form a competitive segment, in order to truly occupy the market.
The introduction of this theory to China is 30 years later.
Around 2000, the business environment in China became more and more similar to that of the United States in the 1970s, and product competition became more and more homogeneous.
At this time, just in time to catch up with the wave of informatization, the information explosion has brought about information overload, and most enterprises and brands cannot enter the hearts of consumers. This is undoubtedly worse for Chinese enterprises that have entered the "era of small profits" since 2000.
In 2001, Wu Xiaobo's sensational "The Great Defeat" was published, which was a hot book in his hand, and one after another famous domestic enterprises suddenly disappeared in their "fancy years" days, and fell silently one after another. Like a living life, the sudden withering shock to people.
In fact, in the years since, countless companies have fallen in China. 97% of enterprises do not live for more than 2 years. The vast majority of companies are struggling with the price war.
The price war is also known as the "plague of business", and the enterprises caught in the price war are like "drinking and quenching thirst", because without profits, they cannot innovate, they cannot control quality, let alone make products that represent "Chinese brands".
A set of survey data says that the average life expectancy of small and medium-sized enterprises in China is only 3.7 years, and large enterprises are no more than 9 years, compared with 8.5 years and 40 years in the United States and 13 and 58 years in Japan. This shows the hardships of Chinese enterprises to survive.
Even so far, the biggest problem of Chinese enterprises is that they cannot find their own positioning, and can only compete excessively homogeneously.
In 2009, Yu Lei (1st from left), Dean of Houde Institute of Strategic Positioning, Deng Delong (rear), then General Manager of Trout China, and Mr. Jack Trout, "Father of Positioning" (1st from right), discussed the "Trout Strategic Positioning Course"
In 2002, Trout, the "father of positioning", visited China for the first time. At that time, there were only positioning consulting institutions in China, and there were no positioning training and educational institutions. Yu Lei thought that too many people need positioning knowledge, and learning this method can make enterprises make fewer mistakes. Since 2008, Yu Lei has devoted himself to the field of positioning education.
In 2014, Mr. Yu Lei (right), Dean of Houde Institute of Strategic Positioning, and Mr. Jack Trout, the "Father of Positioning" (left), discussed the localization development of Positioning in China at Mr. Trout's U.S. office
In the past few years, some entrepreneurs have learned the "positioning theory" and practiced it in the enterprise, but they have not received the desired effect, and once began to doubt the effectiveness of the "positioning theory". Some people joked: "This is a theory that can be learned once and used as soon as it is used." "What's the problem?
In Ray's view, it mainly lies in 3 places:
First, positioning is a very systematic body of knowledge. Mr. Trout has written 15 positioning books, which is a very holistic set of processes, tools and methods, and it is difficult for entrepreneurs to grasp all the mysteries quickly through one or two books.
Second, positioning requires adequate practice. Entrepreneurs have to rely on their own groping for many steps and methods, unconsciously, they will attach great importance to their own careers, and often fall into the "internal perspective", and it is difficult to objectively look at opportunities from the "customer perspective".
Third, in the past, the landing system of "positioning theory" in China was not formed, and there were not many consulting cases, and only some basic principles and methods could be talked about, which were relatively simple and basic, and were out of practice.
This is why many businesses fail to position themselves.
02, the real positioning success, at least 3 elements are needed
So, how to make good use of the artifact of "positioning theory"?
Yu Lei believes that if an enterprise wants to truly achieve strategic positioning success, it must meet at least 3 elements.
1. Consensus of all employees
Positioning as a new set of knowledge system, entrepreneurs are easy to agree with, but executives and middle and senior management are difficult to accept.
Executives will be apprehensive and say, "How can an outside consultant know the industry better than we do, and why should the direction given be inconsistent with our judgment, and I will listen to you?" "They can't understand the direction of positioning at once, and their thinking has not yet changed."
This is why many enterprises choose one or two months of short-term positioning consulting is difficult to work: the core middle and senior management do not understand the principles and methods, know it but do not know why, how can the strategy be landed? There will definitely be a lot of obstacles.
In addition, some entrepreneurs are too anxious, just learning or finding a position is like finding a "martial arts cheat", hoping to achieve results in the enterprise as soon as possible. In fact, the original successful experience of the business management team and the overly internal way of thinking will also cause strong resistance. After all, moving to positional management is a systematic and arduous task.
This is also the reason why Houde does internal training positioning consulting. 14 years of practical experience told Yu Lei that it is necessary to cooperate with the company to reach a consensus of all employees in order to truly promote the strategic positioning transformation of the enterprise.
2. To give the tool
In Yu Lei's view, after positioning, we must give the tools for specific landing implementation to form a strategic landing matching system.
Around 2015-2017, Houde gave OPPO 10 rounds of internal training, including landing training for overseas employees for the middle and high level of its Chinese headquarters, the middle and high level of the global especially Southeast Asian market, and even india in South Asia.
After a whole round, OPPO's methodology basically formed a middle-level consensus and grass-roots grasp.
Later, the execution effect was particularly good, OPPO has grown rapidly in the Southeast Asian market in recent years, and became the first place in the Southeast Asian market in 2020. Indonesia has a population of 250 million, Vietnam has a population of nearly 100 million, and there are markets such as Malaysia and Thailand. In the big market of Southeast Asia, OPPO has surpassed the global hegemon Samsung and become the pride of Chinese mobile phone companies in overseas markets.
In Houde's "Internal Training Positioning Consulting", Yu Lei divides the entire strategic positioning consulting service into 6 dimensions:
First, evaluate the competitive landscape and corporate advantages, and establish the differentiated value of positioning and customers;
Second, form a strategic landing matching chart based on positioning;
Third, use the coaching method to form a consensus with the boss and the executive, and this consensus is to give both the report and the methodology;
Fourth, work with the enterprise to formulate strategic positioning goals for a certain stage, especially the annual primary strategic tasks;
Fifth, let the executives and middle and senior management master the system method, to play a dozen, practice;
Sixth, regular strategic review, timely adjustment and optimization according to the internal and external environment.
Therefore, strategic positioning is a systematic project, which requires a professional team to escort forward and form a strategic play method on the basis of the consensus of all employees. This is not just a slogan, a slogan, but a process of "unity of knowledge and action".
3. Entrepreneur's vision and pattern
The third and most important point: the vision and pattern of entrepreneurs.
Yu Lei took the OPPO mobile phone as an example to illustrate this point to us. Through a new strategic positioning, OPPO has created a counterattack miracle - hardcore international giants, including Huawei and Xiaomi, from the industry's eighth counterattack to the top two.
After 2010, the smartphone industry dominated. In addition to the two major international brands of iPhone and Samsung, HTC also has a strong momentum, Xiaomi adopts the mode of Internet direct sales, and stands out in the competition, becoming the number one brand in China.
When this industry war developed into 2014, China's mobile phone rankings were: Xiaomi first, Huawei fifth, OPPO eighth, and HTC fell like a meteor in the highlight moment.
At that time, OPPO, ranked eighth, was a "little brother" role, a second-tier brand.
Yu Lei's analysis at that time was: by 2015, the industry competition will intensify, the future two major brands will occupy 60% or even 70% of the share, the boss, the second will gradually form a pattern of industry double dragon hegemony.
He told OPPO a lot of similar cases, such as McDonald's and KFC in the fast food sector; Boeing and Airbus in the aviation sector; Coca-Cola and Pepsi in the Coke market. Yu Lei said that either to become the top two or to be alternatives, is dispensable in this industry.
At the beginning, OPPO executives did not pay special attention, and at that time, with the advertising slogan of "charging for 5 minutes, talking for 2 hours", OPPO developed well and has been in the process of growth. At that time, Huawei was only the fifth in the industry.
After repeated analysis, Yu Lei believes that in the future, Huawei will be OPPO's most powerful competitor in China, that is, the first opponent.
Why did you come to this conclusion? In the industry structure at that time, OPPO had two types of opponents: one was international giants such as Apple and Samsung; the other was local brands such as Xiaomi and Huawei.
Although Huawei's market share was not high at that time, it was "technologically leading" in people's cognition. In 2015, Huawei had about 64,000 patents in the field of global communications, and with the continuous dissemination of Chinese people, a strong understanding will be formed. The concept of "technological leadership" is bound to make mobile phones follow the "light".
"At that time, we observed that after Huawei launched the Mate series in 2014, many government and enterprise people agreed that the Mate7 and later Mate series were becoming the preferred mobile phones for governments and businesses. Samsung was in pain and was squeezed out. ”
In other words, although Huawei's market share is not high, its "mental share" is very high. The consumer's "mental share" will eventually be translated into a real market share.
Later, Yu Lei and OPPO founder Mr. Chen Mingyong discussed, agreed that Huawei will become the boss of business mobile phones in the future, users are naturally older, if their advantage is "uncle's mobile phone", then OPPO will do the opposite, become the "first choice of young people".
What do young people focus on? Young people pay attention to taking pictures - love beauty, love to take pictures, love to share.
From the original music mobile phone and fast charging mobile phone to the "camera mobile phone", this is a strategic transformation and upgrading.
OPPO was not in a hurry at the beginning, until 2016, Yu Lei called Mr. Chen Mingyong and said, "Now the situation is very good, when morale is like a rainbow, it is the best opportunity for strategic upgrading, if the sales growth rate declines or stagnates in the future, it will be difficult to transform a lot." ”
Finally, in 2016, OPPO made up its mind to turn!
In 2016, OPPO switched across the board and positioned itself as a photo phone for young people. In the same year, Xiaomi's sales dropped from the former first to the fifth, and OPPO grew to the first in China.
According to the statistics of IDC, an international authoritative data agency, the market share of OPPO mobile phones in 2014 was 6.28%, reaching 19.8% in 2018, second only to Huawei. Since 2017, Huawei Plus Glory has ranked first in Shipments in China's mobile phone industry, and OPPO has ranked second in the industry.
Reviewing the process of this positioning strategy, Yu Lei believes that the entrepreneur's vision, pattern, and determination are the most important, and whether he can let go of his past obsessions, rethink from the user's point of view, and have enough determination to continue to move forward, which is related to the future success or failure of the entire enterprise.
03. In the future, the brand path of Chinese enterprises
Since positioning is so important, how can Chinese companies draw more nutrients from it?
Before answering this question, it is necessary to understand the current competitive landscape. In Yu Lei's view, the current era has reached the era of "global borderless competition".
In the era of borderless competition in the world, only precise positioning can create customers.
Drucker said there are only two basic skills for all businesses: marketing and innovation. Only marketing and innovation can truly produce economic results, while everything else is a "cost".
When Mr. Trout came to China to speak, he mentioned the evolution of Chinese enterprises many times: the first step is to become the world's factory, but the world's factory will bring high pollution, low profit costs, with the rising cost of labor will be stressful, so he suggested that the second step is to build a brand for the manufactured products, and mentioned the core challenge, that is, to improve marketing capabilities, to learn how to compete.
And these new business ideas are subverting traditional understanding:
"Cognition is greater than facts, and the result of the enterprise is customer cognition."
"Differences > needs, and customer needs are created."
"We must be good at leveraging China's traditional advantageous industries and even building national competitiveness."
"Learn to make trade-offs, small and beautiful is better than large and complete."
"The subjective desire of the boss should not be an excuse for diversification."
In the 14 years of positioning education, One of the rules that Yu Lei often mentioned was that "the customer's choice time is only 4 seconds."
I summarize it as the "4-second theory" - a business is very important to the entrepreneur himself, you have invested in hard work, research and development, and so many employees to support, but for an ordinary customer, your brand is only one of the choices of the 4 seconds in his life, and having you without you will not affect his life.
It's a cruel, but realistic law. To this day, nearly 97% of companies in China still do not enter the 4-second customer choice.
"Of course, there's no need to be too discouraged." Yu Lei said that because of "global borderless competition", it also represents a "global borderless market". Even in terms of the Chinese market alone, it is a huge market with a population of 1.4 billion. Among them, any small trend, small field, multiplied by 1.4 billion will get a huge sales scale.
Take Love Space, for example. At the beginning, Love Space emphasized "Internet home improvement" (Remarks: Love Space went to the positioning of Internet home improvement because of Lei Junshun's investment for capital), which is in line with Xiaomi's "Internet mobile phone". In the special time of Internet + rapid fermentation, Love Space has won the high attention of the whole network media with the novel concept of "Internet home improvement". However, behind the lively network spread, Love Space is facing severe survival pressure.
In 2016, Aispace and Houde reached a strategic positioning cooperation. Through in-depth analysis, Yu Lei proposed that love space should be positioned as "standardized home improvement", rather than "Internet home improvement".
Internet mobile phone is essentially through the Internet direct sales of mobile phones, the original 5,000 yuan mobile phone, there may be 30% or even 40% of the cost to the channel provider, online direct sales can save the money directly into customer interests. Xiaomi priced the phone at 1999, which is very cost-effective, so it can succeed.
But internet home improvement does not have this opportunity, because the home improvement company itself is a direct sales model, customers will not go to find a "middleman", so the proposition of eliminating channel costs in the Internet revolution does not hold.
Yu Lei said that the key to the core of the strategy is to find the right positioning, give customers a reason to be different, let the brand become a representative of a certain category or characteristic in the customer's mind, and when the customer thinks of the category, the first time will think of you.
The traditional home improvement industry mainly has 7 pain points, commonly known as "7 deadly sins": 1. 2. Spend money on the unknown; 2. The total price is uncontrollable; 4. Construction cats are more than greasy;4. 5. Design to eat rebates; 6. Opaque everywhere; 7. Poor customer experience; The total delay of the project.
Yu Lei identified the mental characteristics of decoration customers and put forward the suggestion of "standardized home decoration" for Love Space: standardized home decoration = worry-free and labor-saving = standard products + standard processes + standard construction.
After insight into the pain points of the industry, Love Space began to deepen the standardized home improvement service: launched 699 yuan / 1 ㎡, 1399 yuan / 1 ㎡ and other standard packages, "a world war to get done, worry-free and labor-saving", promised to complete the decoration in 33 days. This standardized product quickly attracted the busy 996s, and Love Space also ushered in a period of rapid growth.
Since then, in the minds of consumers, "love space = standardized home improvement". In 2016, the sales of Love Space exceeded 1 billion. In 2017, Love Space became the designated construction partner of CCTV-2 "Secret Overhaul".
What are some industry-common experiences in these examples? Yu Lei believes that there are basically 4 paths for Chinese companies to build local brands: 1. 2. Preempt the category; 3. Subdivision categories; 4. Occupy category characteristics; Regionally dominant.
In Yu Lei's view, Chinese companies compete with global giants, often in view of their large and complete characteristics, and actively focus on a certain industry or even a certain product to obtain expert advantages. First find a "small and specialized" field, dare to choose and fully focus on becoming a "refined and specialized" enterprise, become a leading brand in this field, and then become a "multi-brand and specialized" multi-brand enterprise.
Sometimes, the more entrepreneurs think and the deeper they use their feelings, the more difficult it is to jump out from the perspective of the company and look at their brands calmly and objectively. Therefore, we must dare to let go of ourselves and cultivate the heart of "no self". Even, with the help of professional external perspectives, to re-examine the customer's heart. This is the power of strategic positioning: linking the company with external markets and creating customers.
04. Let "positioning" help more Chinese enterprises
I asked Yu Lei, what is the biggest gain and motivation in 14 years of positioning education?
He said that it is to work with enterprises to clarify the way to the future:
In 2018, Yu Lei helped The ease of business stagnation for 3 years to achieve positioning landing, and in the following 3 years, Double Easy grew by 39% per year;
In 2016, Yu Lei helped Love Space Home Decoration redefine the track, create standardized home decoration, use the Internet to subvert traditional home decoration, achieve 10 times growth in 3 years, and the core market performance in 2020 still increased by more than 30%;
There is also Fangtai, Yu Lei helped Fangtai face the competition with Siemens, Haier and Midea, and still increased by 10% under the epidemic in 2020.
……
There are many more such examples.
Steven Zweig wrote in "When the Stars Of Mankind Shine": "The greatest fortune in a man's life is that he discovered the mission of his life in the middle of his life, that is, when he was rich and powerful. ”
Yu Lei said: "Positioning education is my mission. It is my vision to integrate Chinese enterprises and Chinese brands into the world and win respect. ”
With rich practical experience, systematic positioning theory knowledge system, and internal training strategic positioning consulting, to help enterprises build a positioning path and establish a long-term brand growth space, it is the positioning development path that Yu Lei and Houde Strategic Positioning College have been practicing.
I hope that more entrepreneurs in the future, in the era of boundless competition, based on the external competition pattern and the customer's mental value, clear positioning and their own mission, mobilize the mental strength inside and outside to complete this mission, become a linker between the internal and external minds, so that the customer's heart, the entrepreneur's heart, and the employee's heart are integrated into one, and the excellent social value is completed.
Inner Saints, Inner Kings, Inner Kings!