Click to read the original text for details Source: Notesman (ID: Notesman) Content source: On September 27, 2018, at the Spoon Open Class held by Spoon Classroom at Yikong Space, Mr. Li Guangyu shared on the theme "The Growth Logic Behind Dark Horse Catering Brands." Notesman, as a partner, published this with authorization from the organizer, Spoon Classroom. For reprints, please contact Notesman for authorization. How to make your product more viral? Why do many people love to drink Wang Laoji? How to make customers trust you more? Positioning theory has been widely discussed in China in recent years, but few truly understand it. Strategic positioning is not just a single point as we might understand it, but a whole system. 1. Tactics Drive Strategy The first word in this system is strategy. What is strategy?

In the 17th century, the French Webster's Dictionary stated a viewpoint: in large-scale military wars, based on the enemy's position, establish your advantageous war position and drive the army to arrive early. That is, in the same red ocean, the same opportunity, can you organize your resources in advance? Organize management, arrive at that position, and wait for the wind to come. The world's richest family, the Rothschilds, have a family motto: even the wind, you must smell its scent. This is what we as entrepreneurs need: a high sensitivity to strategy. What is tactics? In the past, when we attended lectures in China, strategy is what to do, tactics is how to do it well. But here I want to make a distinction: in the narrow discipline of positioning, we talk about tactics driving strategy, thereby reaching your goal. When Mr. Walton founded Walmart, he couldn't compete with large American supermarkets, so he came up with a promotion called discounting. Discounting was originally a tactic; there was nothing novel about it. But Mr. Walton, through global satellite logistics and advanced logistics systems, could use large warehouse chain stores to reduce the profit margin given to consumers by 3% to 12%. Walmart persisted in discounting for 365 days, elevating the tactic to a strategy. So Walmart's strategy is everyday low prices. This is how we understand from the tactical level: it is tactics driving strategy, not strategy planning tactics. Why can't many companies use positioning to win in the market? Because your planning is too grand. 2. Strategy and Resources Must Match Let's look at another two levels. The so-called strategy we talk about must be operational; you cannot understand positioning as just an advertising slogan. Positioning can allow a soaring eagle to spread its wings wider and fly farther. Positioning will never turn a small bird into a roc; that is not the role of positioning. So, what is tactics? It is a concept that must fulfill three roles.

  1. Connect with existing perceptions China's most famous is "afraid of getting heated." Why is it famous? It's not Wang Laoji's credit; it's because a phrase has been planted in the brains of Chinese ancestors: "all diseases start with heat, the source of all ailments." Since childhood, our families told us not to eat too much, be careful of getting heated. This is an existing perception. So when you start a project, you should leverage existing cognition.
  2. The tactic you create has not been mentioned by peers Everyone does tripe, but only Ba Nuo was the first to use product doctrine to claim the tripe mountain.

Hangzhou Xiaolongbao is everywhere, but who is the leader? Unknown.

Shaxian snacks are all over the streets, but who is the leader? Unknown.

Lanzhou pulled noodles are known everywhere, but who is the leading brand? Unknown. No one has used this existing asset, so it lacks a concept.

  1. Find an empty position in the customer's mind not occupied by a leading brand For example, if you open a restaurant tomorrow and also focus on service, sorry, the service position belongs to Haidilao. After your concept meets these three dimensions, you need resources. Why can many catering brands rise quickly? Because they have leveraged capital. Now with the birth of standardized catering chains, capital has become a driving force for new catering. You need sufficient resources. If you see a mountain and want to climb it, but lack resources, it's empty talk. At this point, a watershed appears. Most teachers talk about positioning on the left side, which is concept and cognition. The right side is operations and resources. Sun Tzu said: "All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near." Only by combining the virtual and the real can your strategy be realized. 3. What Does an Effective Positioning Solve? First, it creates a distinctive cognition in the customer's mind for your brand or product, and this cognition activates the customer's mental model. Like a radio wave, if you broadcast at 103.9 MHz, the customer receives traffic radio. In most cases, your communication with customers is ineffective, on the wrong channel. So positioning must be effective. It's not that with the positioning slogan, tomorrow's performance will change. You need to continuously push this strategy. For example, Volvo was the first company in the world to invent the three-point seatbelt in 1903, but it wasn't the seatbelt that occupied the "safety concept." Instead, Volvo invested heavily in R&D each year, successively inventing rain-sensing wipers, Bluetooth hands-free phones, airbags, anti-collision steel plates, and reversing cameras, gradually making customers feel that Volvo equals safety. So we need a very long time to push a positioning.
  2. How to Find Effective Positioning First, from the company side to the customer side. In all our research, we don't survey entrepreneurs or management teams; we always go to the store to ask frontline employees and customers about their perceptions and impressions of the brand. Positioning is found from the bottom up. If you ask your guests their impression of you, that is your positioning, and it cannot be changed. Once you have such positioning, how do you execute it? It's the opposite: execute positioning from the top down. If you assign a senior executive or waiter to manage the positioning project, it will definitely fail. Everyone talks about Jobs. Jobs' technical skills were inferior to Wozniak's, but Jobs had another talent: he was a marketing officer. Every product from manufacturing, R&D to sales, he managed from start to finish.
  3. Diversity vs. Singularity In my consulting, the biggest contradiction I face is: for an 800-square-meter store, should we sell one roast duck or duck necks? Should the menu have 200 dishes or 100 dishes? I tell you a term: the choice between diversity and singularity. In communication, you must be singular. Our brain capacity is extremely limited. If you tell consumers about 200 dishes like a Xinhua Dictionary, they will never remember them in their lifetime. So in communication, you must be singular because customers like simple models. I have never seen a guest who can recite seven or eight dish names from a restaurant like a treasure. They can't remember; they can only share, "That restaurant has a dish I really like; let me take you there today." Please note it's one, not two. So in communication, we choose one dish. But in operations, you can choose the number of dishes based on your cuisine, operating area, and utilization. We call the singular one the strategic product, and the diverse ones the profit products. McDonald's hamburger is its strategic product, so since its founding, McDonald's has continuously promoted its burgers—chicken, beef, cod, three-layer, five-layer—these are its strategic products. But its profit products are Coca-Cola and real estate. At this point, everyone can see a boundary: what you say and what you sell are not the same thing.
  4. Cognitive Radius Should Be Singular, Operational Radius Can Be Diverse In Beijing, there is a famous catering brand called Quanjude. You'll notice Quanjude promotes only roast duck, but when you walk into Quanjude, it sells more than just roast duck. So we call this technique the operational radius and cognitive radius. That is, the cognitive radius must be singular, and the operational radius can be appropriately diverse. Please note the keyword: appropriately diverse. How much exactly? It depends on your past operational performance, your efficiency, profit margin, cuisine pairing, and importantly, the number of seats and area. This needs detailed consideration. Here's a principle: the cognitive radius must be greater than the operational radius. China's catering landscape is modular. For example, spicy must come from Chongqing and Chengdu; rice noodles must come from south of the Yangtze River, like Guilin, Liuzhou, and Changsha. If you sell knife-cut noodles in a rice noodle shop, your product exceeds the customer's cognitive radius. They'll think your rice noodles aren't authentic, and the knife-cut noodles aren't good either. Every product you add must conform to the customer's cognition of you. This is the area the customer grants you for your cognitive radius. Once you exceed it, customers won't trust you. So what ultimate problem does a brand solve? It solves the promise and trust to customers. 4. Aim the Nail at the Customer's Mind, Then Strategy Is the Hammer That Swings the Momentum If we compare the concept of aiming at the customer's mind to a nail, then using operations and management resources to drive tactical success is the hammer. That is, if a company wants to use the discipline of positioning to greatly enhance brand productivity, you must find a concept that can enter the customer's mind—we call it the nail—and also drive company resources and management to wield the operational hammer. China has a fast-food chain called Zhen Gongfu. It defined Western fast food as its competitor and leveraged the customer's perception that fried food is not healthy. Its slogan, "Nutrition is better steamed," is the nail that can enter the customer's mind. You'll agree it makes sense. Next, what to do? First, the kitchen cannot have fried food; it must be all steamers. Second, it must continuously promote the "steaming" cooking method, and that made Zhen Gongfu a successful catering brand. So these two work together; neither can be missing. Now let's see how the hammer and nail in an organization can greatly enhance brand productivity. What is mind? Take wine as an example, and you'll see how important mind is. When you say sake, it's Japan; vodka, Russia; red wine, Bordeaux, France; ice wine, Toronto; baijiu, China. So China gave birth to the world's first leading baijiu brand—Moutai. This is mind resource. Tactics is the concept that cuts into the mind. Find the precious, fertile wealth in the customer's brain. If you find that sentence, you become tomorrow's Haidilao. You need to find that sentence. If you don't have much money, you need to find enough money to push that sentence, thereby leading your brand to rise in China's catering industry and even globally. In practice, we find that once a company finds this positioning, all company meetings are halved. You don't need to have so many meetings because employees understand, management understands, and the boss understands. Why do you always have meetings? Because you're always solving problems. Let me say one thing today: a leader's important task is to discover opportunities, not solve problems. Because Coca-Cola also has problems now. If you stop to solve problems, you'll be entangled by problems for life. Another saying: if you solve problems where they occur, you'll only create more problems. The most important thing is strategy. 5. Think in Categories, Express in Brands We have served Fengmao Skewers for four years. In the first year, Fengmao's revenue was around 100 million yuan, and it had been in the skewer business for over 20 years. When we took this consulting case, in the first communication with the boss, we told him: it's not scale, not the number of stores, not the number of products, but the limited capacity of the customer's brain. The unit you compete in the entire catering industry is the brand.
  5. Brand Expression So the first thing we did was change the brand name. Originally called Fengmaosheng, we spent two years at the Trademark Office, submitting applications for the two characters "Fengmao." Any commercial success originates from a good name. Next, let's look at categories. We believe category is the truly key marketing force. When you're hungry and decide what to eat, you don't think about which brand, but whether to have fast food, takeout, hotpot, Chinese food, or stir-fry. These are all categories. So we think if the brand isn't strong enough, you must add the category name.

When you want ramen, who comes to mind? Ajisen.

When you want hotpot, it's Haidilao.

When you want a burger, it's McDonald's.

When you want pizza, your brain automatically reacts: Pizza Hut.

When you want roast duck, it's Quanjude. So behind every successful brand, there is a hidden business rule. We summarize this rule in eight characters: Think in categories, express in brands. What do you represent? You represent guokui, you represent jianbing guozi. You must represent something for the brand to have actual value; otherwise, it's just a symbol, a name. After explaining this, the first big problem I faced with Fengmao was that they came from Yanji in Northeast China. Yanji, as everyone knows, is Korean-Chinese. The Korean-Chinese have a natural attribute: cleanliness. But have you noticed that when customers communicate, they don't say, "Today for skewers, are we having Inner Mongolian, Xinjiang, Han, Korean-Chinese, or Uyghur?" There's no such conversation. In the customer's mind, skewers are just skewers. So the second problem we faced was to remove the Korean-Chinese label. After our first sorting, it became four characters: Fengmao Skewers. You must think from the customer's perspective to reconstruct the business.

  1. Product Upgrade The second thing was to upgrade the manufacturing method to a strategy. In the past, skewers were grilled on the roadside, with smoke, streetlights, dust flying, and you didn't know what meat was being grilled. Or they would skewer the meat during the day and ride an electric tricycle to grill at night. How were these skewers preserved? They were all chilled. As everyone knows, if meat is frozen and thawed twice, moisture is lost, and it tastes dry. So for Fengmao, we solved a problem: "Lamb skewers taste better when freshly skewered." When people see fresh skewering, what feeling does it give? It's freshness, but we didn't dare say fresh. Think about it: when your store reaches 500 or 1000 locations, can you guarantee every store slaughters a sheep daily? You can't guarantee it, so the strategy isn't solid. What is strategy? Only when "competitors can't imitate" can it be called strategy. So look at fresh skewering again; it's artistic. We just talked about finding a concept that cuts into new cognition. This concept must activate all emotions and existing cognition. Fengmao's "freshly skewered tastes better." How to support it? Zhen Gongfu filmed steaming scenes. We required all Fengmao lamb skewer preparation kitchens to be open kitchens with text output. So now you see every Fengmao store has skewering in the open.

First, I let you see I'm skewering lamb.

Second, it's truly fresh skewering; this freshness has technical content. What does this feeling solve? Trust.

  1. Strengthen Positioning

What is strengthening positioning?

It is adjusting your company based on changes in competitors. In the skewer industry, a competitor started advertising the origin of lamb. I immediately found that in 1271 AD, Kublai Khan established the Yuan Dynasty in Dadu. From that year, nomadic peoples brought Inner Mongolian lamb to Beijing. So the first to use this lamb in Beijing was Donglaishun, called Sunit Left Banner sheep. What characteristics do Sunit sheep have? First, they are listed as a national protected product. Second, Sunit sheep were a royal tribute in the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. Fengmao found a processing base in Inner Mongolia, signed a contract, and leased a very large pasture. Only this way can Fengmao guarantee its annual supply.

  1. Prosper the Category To strengthen the brand, prosper the entire category. For example, Haidilao hotpot: everyone sees hotpot is so popular, so a big brand like Haidilao was born. Few people eat jianbing guozi, so Huang Taiji isn't doing well. Category is very key. How to prosper the category? Fengmao led the entire industry to create the 818 Skewer Festival. Look at the numbers 818; they look like skewers. So we set this day, and Fengmao has persisted for two consecutive years. Our task is to have a Skewer Festival at least once a year for ten years. The best effect is to unite all Chinese skewer companies. On this day, all skewer companies come out with activities. So in 2017, the top search term online was hotpot, and the second was barbecue. 6. Conclusion Strategic positioning is easy to learn, but when using it, pay special attention to three points.
  2. Don't talk about cognition detached from reality Because those who have learned positioning or read positioning books often talk about cognition, which is scary. For example, you understand positioning and open one store; I don't understand positioning and open 500 stores. Which is stronger? So conversely, without cognition, there is no reality; without reality, cognition cannot be established. You still have to do it.
  3. Don't talk about strategy detached from resources I'm especially afraid of people who come to me with a business plan and say they want to defeat Haidilao. Everyone must understand that resources and strategy must match; it's not something out of thin air.
  4. Don't talk about positioning detached from product You must find a partner who understands the product. Product is the foundation of the catering brand building; the soul is taste. Without product, there is no medium to contact the customer. Customers go to satisfy hunger, eat well, and eat deliciously; they don't leave because of your concept. So product is a medium, a tool, and the foundation. You cannot talk about cognition detached from product. Source: Official account @Notesman. China's new business knowledge note-sharing community, top four in WeChat value rankings. Exclusive notes support top business schools like Hupan University, Chaos University, Qingteng University, Gaoshan University, CEIBS Entrepreneurship Camp, JD Business School, and PKU NSD, as well as well-known companies like BAT, TMD, Xiaomi, Huawei, NetEase, and famous individuals like Ding Lei, Fu Sheng, and Li Shanyou. 700,000 business decision-makers and managers are reading. October 23-24, during the Autumn Sugar and Wine Fair, New Distribution will host the "2018 FMCG City Distribution Logistics Conference." We will invite industry experts, FMCG warehousing and distribution specialists, and distributors transforming to unified warehousing and distribution platforms to discuss and answer questions about future trends in FMCG city distribution logistics and practical cases of distributor transformation, hoping to bring you different inspiration and thinking! The specific agenda is as follows: List of Participating Companies In no particular order Hunan Zonglan Dian Dan Network Technology Co., Ltd. Jingbang (Wuhan) International Freight Forwarding Co., Ltd. Mengniu Dairy Qinghai Hanxiang E-commerce Co., Ltd. Unilever Services (Hefei) Co., Ltd. Shanghai Branch Huicong Hunan Xuanang Food Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Tongdaoren Information Technology Co., Ltd. Qingdao 888 Trading Co., Ltd. Uni-President Enterprises (China) Investment Co., Ltd. Hunan Zhongxiang Gongpei Logistics Co., Ltd. Shenglong Ingredients COSCO Shipping Logistics Warehousing and Distribution Co., Ltd. Guangxi Yongpai Liquor Industry Co., Ltd. Shangqiu Kangrong Trading Co., Ltd. Jinan Dingzhong Economic and Trade Co., Ltd. Liaoning Bimai Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. Kunming Xiongjia Trading Co., Ltd. Shaanxi Houheng Trading Co., Ltd. Guangzhou Dingwo Enterprise Information Consulting Co., Ltd. Shaodong Jiajiale Commercial Firm Boda Trading Industrial Bank Changsha Branch Wuhan Muchen Convenience Store Chain Co., Ltd. Fujian Fuxing Yuncang Logistics Co., Ltd. Guizhou Yilimi E-commerce Co., Ltd. Jiangxi Xiao Laoer E-commerce Co., Ltd. Jinshan Koufu Shanxi Taihang Yuanjing Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Shanxi Dezhun Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Shaoyang Tongdeli Trading (Xiangbang Logistics) Huanfu Tongda Express City Distribution Beijing Xinjingxiang Food Co., Ltd. Wuhan Huizhong Tianhong Liquor Co., Ltd. Changsha Paide Biotechnology Co., Ltd. Chao'an Tuqiang Guizhou Yihe Bopin Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Jiangxi Kang'en Industrial Development Co., Ltd. Xiangtan County Yisuhe Town Yuhua Paper Store Luoyang Yuanlang Trading Co., Ltd. Tongchuan Yaozhou District Huayuan Supermarket Co., Ltd. Hunan Yongfu Jiujiu Trading Co., Ltd. Zhejiang Chengchengtong Logistics Co., Ltd. Chongqing Kaiguo Materials Trading Co., Ltd. Beijing Xianmaixianmai Data Technology Co., Ltd. Hanchuan Qixing Trading Co., Ltd. Tongxin Jiuzhi Trading Co., Ltd. Guizhou Meiguo Guoguo Network Technology Co., Ltd. ...... Representatives of Distributor Transformation (Tentative) In no particular order Jiangsu Huashang City Distribution Network Co., Ltd. Chairman, Rong Jun Hubei Yijiaren Logistics Co., Ltd. Chairman, Wang Bo Sichuan Chengdu Xingrenxing Trading Co., Ltd. General Manager, Jiang Shuming Shandong Yunbang Warehousing and Logistics Co., Ltd. Chairman, Liu Jichen Chongqing Lingyu Consumer Goods Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Chairman, Tu Mingyu Guangzhou Zhongshan Wanrong Marketing Co., Ltd. Chairman, Yang Su Sichuan Bajie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Chairman, Yuan Xia Hubei Pengdun Meiyitian Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Co-founder, Li Qiangyun Henan Xuchang Jiulegou E-commerce Co., Ltd. Chairman, Zhang Jianyong Hebei Changyi Logistics Co., Ltd. Founder, Ma Haichao Hebei (Chengde) Wulian Yuncang Co., Ltd. General Manager, Meng Yucun Xinjiang Urumqi Su'an Jinchi Logistics Co., Ltd. Chairman, Zhang Xun Jilin Sansheng Lianggou Chairman, Zhang Hailing Hebei Dunjie Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. Founder, Qiang Huitao Hunan Damei Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd. General Manager, Liao Lei ...... -END-