Big Companies Make You Grow There is a saying in the workplace: entering a big company makes you grow and learn. Big companies have standardized systems, standard operating procedures (SOPs), experienced and professional leaders and seniors, regular training or job rotation, management trainee programs, career planning consultations, etc. In such big companies, newcomers can learn the operational skills needed for their careers within 2-3 years, transforming from naive newcomers into professional managers. When you reach the level of department supervisor or manager, or mid-to-senior director or deputy general manager, where is the charm of big companies? As you wade deeper into the workplace, does your room for advancement grow, or do you hit the career ceiling? When recalling my time at the brewery and the events with Jinjuan Company, I said a sentence: A client who respects the vendor is a smart person. Through my experiences on both the client and vendor sides over the past decade or more, I have concluded that one important source of growth in big companies comes from the various vendors you can contact while working as a client. The brewery I worked for ranked 14th in domestic beer production in 1998. During the three years of Jinjuan's service, it promoted the transformation of the enterprise from a production-oriented to a marketing-oriented company. The marketing operations moved from the county seat to the provincial capital; talent recruitment changed from quota allocation in the production site (county) to open recruitment in the provincial capital; marketing management shifted from being led by the sales department to being led by a professionally trained marketing department. These changes were completed during 1998-1999. Jinjuan was the enlightenment teacher of the new marketing department. After Jinjuan, the marketing department contacted and cooperated with well-known domestic planning companies, advertising companies, design companies, and market research companies. We learned many new ideas and methods from these vendors' services. Although we did not blindly follow these external brains, this rich external knowledge broadened our thinking and vision. With the expansion of the external brain service supply market, by 2004 when I was at another snack food company, I found that the client's attitude towards vendors had changed significantly. First, a large number of advertising sales calls made the marketing department very annoyed, and their attitude became increasingly impatient and disrespectful. Second, the professional height of external brain institutions in 1998 was hardly visible in many vendors. I remember that the company cooperated with a well-known planning company that advocated "Mao-style advertising." At a proposal meeting, the project director of that company reported three new product development plans. After the 2-hour proposal ended, I found that the core conclusion of this 200-page PPT (planning report), which claimed to have conducted consumer research and taken 3 months, was only one: these three new products can be launched, and they should be launched quickly. At that time, I was going through the "return to the front line" from the marketing department to sales. I was notified to catch a flight back to the company specifically to listen to this proposal. Hearing this conclusion and looking at the opinions of colleagues around me, I also felt like Louis, "not in the same trade." So I said: I think the question of whether to develop these three products was already decided half a year ago. What we need is not for you to tell us whether to launch quickly or slowly, but to tell us specifically how to do it and how to launch it. The meeting ended that day, and the boss required the marketing department and the partner to propose again within 2 weeks on the specific approach. What I want to say is that being a client (usually the marketing department is the first link) is not easy. If the client is intoxicated with a sense of power, only chooses and manages vendors based on business, and lacks professional discernment, judgment, and guidance, then not only is the risk of project failure high, but the client's learning benefits will also be minimal. Big companies give employees many opportunities to contact vendors, but only by knowing how to be a "good customer" can you help the enterprise reduce the risk of purchasing external brains and truly benefit your own growth. Now big companies are getting more and more powerful, and the number of external brain suppliers is increasing, but enterprises are finding it harder to judge who is a "good agency," and the risk of project failure due to misjudgment has increased. In reality, "more leads to confusion" applies to purchasing any product. When choosing external brains, seeing more does not necessarily mean seeing clearly. For example: A beverage company wanted systematic planning for its plant protein beverage product, aiming to enter the national market. The company conducted a nationwide search among planning consulting companies and invited 10 companies. On that day, due to a flight delay, we arrived 2 hours later than scheduled, being the last one of the day. The clients in the meeting room seemed very impatient. In the middle of the presentation, the atmosphere became noticeably lively. After the 40-minute demonstration, the board secretary of the parent group, the brand director, and even the regional manager of the packaging partner Tetra Pak came over to exchange business cards, saying that our research was professional and the market insights were very inspiring. In the end, we did not cooperate with this client because their project evaluation meeting was very controversial. Bonnerui Cheng was the least famous among the 7 companies that went, but half of the people who heard my presentation strongly supported us, while the other half suggested choosing a more famous big company for safety. The director responsible for this beverage project made a strange combination: let the well-known company handle the project work, and let me serve as their "strategic consultant" to help them push the project together. Hearing this suggestion, I intuitively felt there was a problem and refused their absurd combination. Later, I learned that the project supervisor had already favored a certain well-known company (which is understandable). Except for us, all the other companies that went were smoothly eliminated. It was just that I, as a "troublemaker," was a bit tough, making the participants who knew nothing about Bonnerui Cheng insist that Bonnerui Cheng was more professional. The company chose a certain company and held a press conference. The ending was not new: find a celebrity spokesperson, shoot an advertisement, and broadcast on CCTV. A year later, it was said that they spent 30 million yuan, but the increase in sales was less than the advertising cost, the sales area was still the old market, and the project leader left. This case is not to say that choosing Bonnerui Cheng would definitely be correct. But one thing is certain: if you choose wrongly, the result will definitely be wrong. Why? Because the planning company that used the so-called "Ye's Three Axes" (celebrity, CCTV, investment promotion) is not Ye Maozhong. Those who think they can cut out a market with Ye's Three Axes are more dangerous than Ye Maozhong: Ye Maozhong's projects have already been half successful and half failed. Those who learn "Ye Maozhong's experience of quickly improving brand and sales" will not have a one-in-ten chance of success. If creativity, strategy, and other truly valuable things can be obtained for free, why do these vendor companies exist? One important source of growth opportunities in big companies is cooperation with external brains, but professional managers must understand that only by knowing how to be a "good customer" can you help the enterprise reduce the risk of purchasing external brains and truly benefit your own growth. The second situation is that some business owners and professional managers say they want to find a planning consulting company, but after initial talks, they feel very conflicted inside. They want to find external brains but do not believe in them. So I said to him: If you really think you need to find external brains, you must believe in him; if you find external brains but do not believe in him, you might as well do it yourself. After hearing this, the business owner was stunned. But his expression told me that these words truly touched him. That company has now quietly disappeared. The third situation is that a very few enterprises, thinking they are smart, try to "synthesize" the conclusions they need from the project negotiations or materials of various external brains. To this, I can only remain silent, because we have time to see that these enterprises fail even more miserably, without exception. The fact is that if an enterprise wants to find external brains, it should find a good agency and cooperate well. The biggest risks are exactly the three situations listed above. Or rely on yourself, maybe slower, but as long as you are on the right path, it is not a big problem. If you want to take shortcuts, no matter where, in the end, you will be caught by your own cleverness. So, whether you like it or not, this is a fact: business owners who respect vendors are definitely smart people. Managers who know how to cooperate with vendors will definitely benefit greatly. A certain enterprise we once consulted had its project liaison leave. He organized the methodology of our service project and applied it to thinking about another enterprise, which was recognized by that enterprise, and he smoothly obtained a director-level position. That friend said to me: "Teacher Shi, I castrated your methodology." I looked at it; it was a simplified version of our consulting methodology. I said: "You adapted to local conditions, which shows you have entered the path." This is one of the joys of cooperation between client and vendor. Cherish your opportunities in big companies, where you can come into contact with so many excellent people and things. Learn and transform, and new knowledge becomes your weapon.
Small Companies Make You Mature Today's small enterprises can be described as "small temple, big Buddha; small sign, big airs": many small enterprises fall into a state of self-closure and rigidity. With small size, big talk, high ambition, and high vision, how many people in such small enterprises can treat hardships as cultivation and finally achieve success? How many people work in big companies all their lives? Think of successful professional managers: Tang Jun, Zhang Yaqin, Sun Zhenyao, Wei Zhe, Yang Yuanqing, etc. Although it is not yet time for "final judgment," their career paths have mostly been in big companies. What we mean by working in a big company is that when a person joins, the enterprise has already reached the "big company" standard. As long as big companies do not go bankrupt, they will become even bigger, such as Yang Yuanqing and Wei Zhe at Lenovo and Alibaba. Those who joined when they were small or medium-sized and have now become big companies are not in this category. They are the cream of the crop among professional managers in big companies. These people have all held positions in strategic business units (SBUs) or lower-level positions in big companies. This shows that always holding a middle-level position in a big company may not be a wonderful thing: the survival rule in big companies is that if you do not get promoted, you are eliminated, just a matter of time. Those managers who are promoted to head of an SBU in a big company are actually entering the "semi-entrepreneurial" stage. Their main problem is no longer growth, but proving their value with performance. For example, Yang Yuanqing demonstrated outstanding execution when Lenovo was popularizing PCs and sprinting to become the number one brand in China's consumer computer market, which made Liu Chuanzhi recognize him as Lenovo's successor, even going so far as to split Lenovo to let Guo Wei, who preferred "comprehensiveness," set up his own business to avoid two tigers fighting. Big companies make you grow, which is important for those new to the workplace. For those who truly want to reach career peaks or start a business, this workplace experience is also worth thinking about: small companies make you mature. According to current standards, small enterprises refer to those with total assets below 50 million yuan, and medium-sized enterprises refer to those with total assets above 50 million yuan and below 500 million yuan. In my career, I have mostly been in medium-sized enterprises, but I have also had experiences in several small enterprises and startups. Looking back at the experiences in small and medium-sized enterprises, I find that they have many common characteristics. The most prominent common feature is "unstable business." Due to unstable business, the management of enterprises is generally anxious and restless: anxious about business downturns, and restless about not being able to quickly escape downturns. This "SME syndrome" is the main factor causing the management style of small and medium-sized enterprises, and thus becomes the main characteristic of professionals entering small and medium-sized enterprises: professional managers in SMEs have a stronger sense of crisis. Due to reasons such as establishment time, brand awareness, product quality, channel breadth, talent bottlenecks, and resource bottlenecks, small enterprises face pressure from market occupiers. There is a lot of living space, but every step forward is difficult. Many people join small enterprises because the threshold is low, but few truly regard the experience in small enterprises as a "resource or qualification." To this day, I consider my experience at a small brewery as one of the important turning points in my life. Because although the sparrow is small, it has all the organs; although it is a small bird, it must compete with the phoenix and peacock for spring. In 1999, I was the marketing director of a small brewery in Guangdong. Under the severe siege of major beer brands in Guangdong (Zhujiang, Kingway, Tsingtao), the living space of a local small brand was greatly suppressed. Jiadan Company introduced imported brands in 1998 to upgrade the product grade, and relying on a direct distribution system with deep joint promotion that the beer industry had not yet implemented, it carved out a share of the market in the eastern Guangdong region. Channel push, terminal promotions, and "open the cap and win" became the killer moves for the enterprise to tear open a gap. When Jiadan Company invested a large number of salespeople, purchased vehicles, and promoted salesgirls to divide areas and develop terminal markets, the big brands still relied on brand influence and used a rough management model of large distributors + regional sales managers. The popular FMCG methods of regional segmentation, channel sinking, terminal cultivation, and flattening management after 2000 were the basic sales system that Jiadan Company had been practicing for 3 years. Nevertheless, by 2000, due to Tsingtao Beer's massive entry into the Guangdong market, major brands also began to accelerate marketing innovation, such as faster new product launches, increasing sales staff, and "open the cap and win," making the competitive situation even worse. As the marketing director, the pressure was enormous: externally, high-quality distributors in the market were constantly being poached by competitors; internally, there was a somewhat lazy sales team, as well as the so-called Chaoshan culture and Hakka culture. To solve these problems, I first carried out training on the mental model of the sales team. At the end of 1999, the company used 2 weeks to conduct a full-time, closed internal training for more than 60 people from the entire management team, including marketing, production, and technology, focusing on studying Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" (specially purchased 20 Hong Kong editions for circulation). Through this reading + discussion + criticism and self-criticism, everyone generally reported that they learned useful knowledge that truly changed their thinking and behavioral habits. Second, to strengthen the execution of the sales team, I drafted and formulated a detailed "Marketing System Job Description" and "Sales Personnel Standard Operating Manual," and conducted hierarchical sales personnel training and promotion. Eighteen years later, the content of these two documents is called the "Sales Operations Optimization Manual" (SOE) in the Carlsberg system. At that time, there were few reference materials. We learned war from war and basically completed the drafting of these two documents originally. Third, we launched new products, introducing "refreshing" low-alcohol beer into the "high-alcohol regional market," not hesitating to be a market disruptor; in terms of brand, we developed localized beer brands for specific regional markets. As soon as the two measures were launched, they immediately received a warm response from the market. While the products were still in production, salespeople brought back a month's orders from the market with just a faxed bottle label design. As the manager of a weak brand, the internal pressure I faced was actually much greater than the external pressure: various disgruntled and passive workers in the company actively spread a centrifugal and lax mentality and thoughts. Even if the enterprise knew of this centrifugal force, it could not use simple administrative means; it had to grasp, adjust, and even "coax" this force. It was this experience that gave me very profound experience and insights into Chinese regional culture. Chaoshan is arguably the most complex regional culture in China. They respect power and talent, embrace new things, but are also stubborn and self-enclosed; they are good at finding opportunities, but also value the rules of the jianghu; they have constant internal strife, but through various secret relationships (blood, village, etc.), they quickly form alliances when "resisting foreign aggression." The essence of Chaoshan culture is all in "Kung Fu Tea": in the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, they quickly form a judgment about a stranger and understand the various strategies for dealing with them: eyes can kill, ears can read, dancing in the quilt. This cup of tea: "Oath of the Peach Garden" - one gaiwan, three cups, brotherhood is all in it; "Guan Gong patrols the city" - the tea is poured evenly, reflecting the unity of brothers; "Han Xin orders troops" - it has the meaning of the tea maker reflecting on shortcomings, and also the pursuit of the drinkers' final "equality (great harmony)". The first three infusions of tea contain the great way of life! This experience as a "chicken head" (leader of a small group) was very different from learning and growing in a big company, but what I learned was more about maturity at the life level, which can be considered as having some experience. The experience of a small enterprise can be viewed as Kung Fu Tea: every infusion feels different, and every infusion's ritual (process) contains a special flavor: where there are people, there is jianghu. The jianghu of small enterprises is more thrilling than the workplace of big companies. After the storms, these experiences settle into a resource, becoming a stepping stone for the maturity of thinking and character.
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