Introduction: Adapting to winter and turning it into a spring that changes one's destiny is what truly makes a new distributor.
How was this Spring Festival peak season? Will we usher in a market spring after this Spring Festival? On January 26, the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, the "New Beer" community conducted a group survey: Please summarize how this year's Spring Festival market was. The six options were: 1. Normal; 2. Better than previous years; 3. Worse than previous years; 4. The worst in history; 5. The best since the pandemic; 6. Don't know. Among 67 valid responses, 25.3% (17 people) chose option 2, 67.2% (45 people) chose option 5, only 4.5% chose option 3, 3% chose option 1, totaling 5 people, and options 4 and 6 were both zero. The results show that over 92% of people believe this Spring Festival's business was "better than previous years" or "although not as good as early years, the best since the pandemic." But just over a month ago, in a survey asking "What do you think this year's Spring Festival market will be like?", over 70% of people thought this Spring Festival would be "not optimistic." Before the Spring Festival, Teacher Li Feng emphasized in a live broadcast on New Distribution that this Spring Festival would definitely be a peak season not to be missed. Some distributors listened, stocked up fully, did not take early leave, carried out pre-festival market building, and reaped a peak season. But many distributors, and even manufacturers, lacked confidence in this Spring Festival and did not organize or launch decent market offensives. According to New Distribution's research, many manufacturers and distributors even believed that making big moves during the Spring Festival was "futile" and "might as well take an early vacation." These types of manufacturers and distributors ended their Spring Festival marketing hastily, almost completely missing this peak season. Dear readers, which category do you belong to? Why did some people make a fortune this Spring Festival while others missed the opportunity? Why did some dare to launch aggressive attacks when most were pessimistic two months ago? Was it their strong gambling nature or their unique insight? What is opportunity, and what is difficulty? Some see difficulties, while others see opportunities. Our environment is an objective reality, but whether you see opportunities or difficulties is often a subjective perception. On January 28, the seventh day of the first lunar month—Human Day—is also the day all enterprises reopen in the Lunar New Year. After the Spring Festival peak season, how should we view 2023? What opportunities or challenges might we face? How can we find hope and confidence?
What We Are Facing and What Is Coming In 2023 and the coming years, will we welcome spring or continue to face winter? If we do not have an overall and correct understanding, it will be very dangerous. In the past few years, New Distribution has seen many very experienced distributors fail and exit the market because they did not understand how to survive under economic recession and increasing competition. No matter how long spring lasts, winter will inevitably come. We can say with certainty, and we have said it before: The era of high growth for the entire society is gone forever, and most industries must learn how to survive, compete, and develop in an era of low growth. Next, we will experience a stage of actual low consumption growth or even zero growth. In other words, winter has already arrived for most industries and will last for a period until true recovery comes. But the vast majority of brand owners and distributors grew up in spring, accustomed to operating companies in a high-growth environment, and generally lack deep understanding and coping experience for the low-growth era. Among them, a major problem is the lack of deep understanding and comprehension of economic recession. Many people attribute economic recession to specific major events or policy failures, thinking that once the influencing factors disappear, the economy will resume growth or even high growth. This clearly shows a lack of deep understanding of economic cycles. For example, many experts attribute the current global economic recession to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the economic decoupling between China and the US, which seems logically plausible. In fact, it is precisely because the global economy has entered a major recession cycle that geopolitical conflicts and contradictions between the two major economies have been triggered. The experts' explanation actually reverses cause and effect. Another example: many people believe that the decline in birth rate, negative population growth, and insufficient consumption have led our economy into a low-growth era. In fact, it is the opposite: it is precisely when economic prosperity reaches a certain level, and asset prices, education costs, debt ratios, and Engel coefficients are all high enough, that birth rates decline significantly, population growth turns negative, and consumption momentum weakens. Only by correctly recognizing the above causal relationships can we clearly understand the inevitability of the low-growth era, calmly accept the reality of "low growth," and truly begin to seriously think about and learn "how to run a company well in a low-growth era." In a complex and changing future, simple pessimism and blind optimism alike can lead our careers into the abyss. At this time, only calm judgment, scientific analysis, and correct action can help us find the way to survive in the new era.
Learning to Thrive in Winter Chen Siting, CEO of New Distribution, senior FMCG media professional, and consulting advisor. Former editor-in-chief of "Sales and Marketing" magazine, marketing consultant for Tanmu Crafts, and founder of the internet supply chain project "Wanchaobang." He has studied the Chinese market with a professional perspective and hands-on approach, with in-depth research and practice in consumer brand planning and communication, distributor model transformation and upgrading, and supply chain innovation and reform.