Editor's Note On January 18, Yanghe announced that Vice President Zhu Wei resigned from his position, and the news immediately sparked heated discussion among industry insiders: where would Zhu Wei's next stop be? Let's briefly introduce Mr. Zhu Wei's resume: during his time at Yanghe, he served as Director of Human Resources, Director of Marketing, Marketing Director, and Director of Strategic Research, among other positions. He became Vice President in 2015 and concurrently served as General Manager of the Sales Company from July 2016 to June 2019. From his resume, it's easy to see why Zhu Wei's next move became the focus of attention across the industry. In mid-February, according to relevant media reports, Zhu Wei had taken up the positions of Chairman and General Manager of Guizhou Chun Liquor Co., Ltd. Shortly after, Zhu Wei released three open letters to the industry, proposing the grand goal of creating a brand-new 2,000 billion yuan market value liquor group in ten years. As a "veteran" who has been rooted in the baijiu industry for over twenty years, how does he plan to achieve this as he starts anew? The following content consists of Mr. Zhu Wei's three open letters to the industry, hoping that through these contents, industry insiders can see the belief of a "veteran" in starting a new business and his understanding of industry development. First Letter -01- Origin In 2000, a college student full of ideals just walked out of school and stumbled into the baijiu industry. It has been twenty years since then. I thank all the leaders and colleagues during these twenty years, and also thank all the experiences and accumulations during this period. From young to older, and even to old age, because it is a very slow gradual process, not easy to notice, so psychologically, I always feel that I am still young, and even think that the distance from the college stage is not far. But occasionally when I face reality and calculate my age, I am suddenly shocked. One day, while getting a haircut at the barbershop, I habitually asked, "Make my hair thinner." "Your hair isn't thick!" said the barber. How could it not be thick? I always used to have it thinned. I thought for a long time before I understood: Oh, I see. It was at that moment that I asked myself: "Young man, are your ideals still there?" It's time to change the course of life. △Zhu Wei **-02- Entrepreneurship A few years ago, the concept of "mass innovation and entrepreneurship" was very popular, but at that time, I never thought I would take this path myself. After all, the same company I had been with for twenty years was very large, very strong, and very excellent, with good products and brands, good leaders and colleagues, so I thought I would continue working in a routine manner; after all, there were only about ten years left before retirement. But things change every day. So, adapting to such changes, I eventually resigned at the "advanced age" of 43 to start my own business. During the summer vacation of my junior year, I read a collection of Nan Huai-Chin's Zen lectures. Eight characters deeply moved me: "Though dazzling to worldly eyes, ultimately not far-reaching." Whether at that time or during the twenty years of work that followed, I have perhaps achieved the first four characters? But will the last four characters become a prophecy? Could the eight characters I used to warn myself back then be exactly a prediction for myself? Twenty-two years ago, a chance encounter, an article in a book, eight characters in an article, across the vast distance of time, mysteriously gave strength to "changing the course of life." **-03- Goal In this new stage of life, I plan to do two things: First, cooperate with Jiangsu Variety Group and other enterprises, starting from scratch, to build a brand-new 2,000 billion yuan market value liquor group in about ten years, and then, based on this, further participate in and promote industry consolidation; Second, through the serialized written form of "Guizhou Chun Development Notes," to truthfully record the entire process and provide a "live broadcast" to the baijiu industry and the public. It will include thoughts, practices, summaries, reflections, industry observations, analyses, as well as human warmth and life insights—it will be an entrepreneur's true confession. Looking back after ten or twenty years, this could be a record of a success, or of course, a record of a failure. But even if it is the latter, I think it has its value. **-04- The Starting Point of the Story Let me start with Guizhou Chun, because this will be my starting point. Earlier I said "starting from scratch," which is not entirely fair. Guizhou Chun, in the mid-1990s when money was still very valuable, had annual sales of about 300 million yuan, with profits and taxes exceeding 100 million, and production capacity of over 10,000 tons, leading the industry by a wide margin. The following passage is excerpted from "Selected Works of Yan Wensong" (a compilation of the then factory director's internal speeches, published by Legal Press in 1997):
"According to the 1992 National Bureau of Statistics figures, our factory has been ranked among the top 31 of the 500 best profit-tax rate enterprises in the country, ranking first in Guizhou Province, 11th in the national beverage industry, and second in the national baijiu industry after Wuliangye. Up to now, in terms of product quality and market share, we have squeezed into the ranks of the few major distilleries in the country." —Such scale and profits, second only to Wuliangye in industry ranking, with over 7,000 employees in the late 1990s—imagine how glorious that must have been. But it must also be admitted that over the past twenty years, Guizhou Chun has indeed missed opportunities. It has considerable brewing capacity and large stocks of aged base liquor, but unfortunately its marketing capabilities have not kept pace. This is exactly the saying: "Good wine also fears deep alleys." For such enterprises, Zhang Ruimin once compared them to "shocked fish." I have a more personal experience: there is a rose bush in my courtyard. Although it has been rooted for many years, it has been disturbed by weeds and has remained very short. The year before last, I weeded, loosened the soil, fertilized, and watered it. In one year, it grew to four or five meters tall. Last spring, it was even full of flowers like a tree. Plants with deep roots should not be underestimated, and enterprises with deep roots should not be underestimated—this is Guizhou Chun. **-05- Development Plan Since I have already boasted about the 2,000 billion market value, let me make this "boast" more specific. The plan is as follows:
Sales Plan: Three-year sales target of 4 billion, fifth-year sales target of 8 billion, tenth-year sales target of 30 billion.
Financial Plan: Increase capital and expand shares once a year for the first three years to provide financial support for rapid development. Series A financing will be implemented in the second half of 2020.
Listing Plan: Prepare for listing in the third year, aiming to complete within five years.
M&A Plan: Use one year to initially complete internal talent training and reserves, complete the construction of external distributor and sales network systems, complete the preparation of business model output capabilities and corporate culture output capabilities. From the second year, acquire at least one provincial leading enterprise each year, then fully empower, quickly activate, and gradually deepen, penetrate, and become the number one in that province.
Brand Plan: Use about ten years to build 2-3 national brands including "Guizhou Chun," create about 10 provincial famous liquor brands, and form a liquor group model with unified capital and relatively independent brand and business operations.
Market Value Plan: Five-year target of about 80 billion, ten-year target of over 200 billion.
Industry Consolidation: After completing the first ten-year goal, we will use Guizhou Chun as the basic platform to participate in and promote industry consolidation on a broader scale, deeper level, and larger scale, creating a Chinese liquor group similar to Diageo (the world's largest spirits group, currently with a market value of about 100 billion USD). **-06- Be a Firm Productist Extreme corporate development goals require extreme products, and explosive corporate growth requires explosive product power. Looking back at all the barbaric growth companies at home and abroad over the past few decades, product development that is so strong that consumers can't resist is the only way to win in the market. Google, Apple, Tesla, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb abroad, and Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, Toutiao, Meituan at home—all are like this. As long as the product has an overwhelming advantage, then the word "marketing" can be retired; a good product itself is the most powerful source of growth! Therefore, in an era when various marketing concepts and models are emerging one after another and making a lot of noise, Guizhou Chun should be a firm "productist," firmly believing that the product is the root and soul of the corporate edifice. The development of Guizhou Chun first requires creating disruptive, enthusiast-level products, such as "aged liquor"—6-year, 12-year, and 21-year aged "vintage liquor." In the Chinese baijiu consumption culture, "aged liquor" is a strong demand. "Liquor is fragrant when aged" is a social consensus passed down for thousands of years. But such a strong traditional liquor culture and strong consumer demand, due to the grain shortage during the planned economy period, all distilleries at that time had limited production capacity and output, with supply falling short of demand, making it difficult to have surplus. This led to: Almost all international spirits markets attach great importance to genuine "aged liquor," but in the current huge Chinese baijiu industry, it is hard to find a bottle. On the contrary, various fake, mixed, and evasive counterfeit versions of aged liquor flood the market. This is the so-called bad money driving out good money. Looking at Guizhou Chun itself, it had already formed huge brewing capacity in the mid-1990s, and over the past twenty-plus years, production has almost always exceeded sales, resulting in large stocks of aged liquor. Therefore, in response to the above industry status, we will break industry conventions and provide consumers with genuine aged liquor, 100% aged liquor, authentic aged liquor, offering consumers an extreme and ultimate old liquor experience. Sixty-plus degree premium quality grain base liquor, after ten, twenty, or thirty years of pottery jar storage and aging, with thousands of trace components interacting, merging, and evolving over time, the resulting pure aged liquor has an extremely rich, mellow, and sweet taste. A single cup contains the three thousand worlds; it can be called liquid gold, the rose of time. **-07- Be an Alliance of Excellent Talents People are equal in personality, but in ability, we can only admit that they are unequal. Marx said: People are the most active factor among all productive forces. Even today, this remains a "golden sentence" in corporate management. For example, when two competing companies compete in a certain regional market, it looks like a contest between two companies, but in fact, it is fundamentally a contest between two branch managers (unless one side's headquarters' strategy, tactics, brand, logistics, etc., are too poor, which is another matter). In my career, I have had five years of human resources work experience, and I firmly believe in the value of "people." To achieve a good career, you must have a good organization, and a good organization can only be composed of the best people; there is no other way. Different enterprises have different development drivers: some are product-driven, some are technology-driven, some are marketing-driven, some are investment-driven. I hope that Guizhou Chun's development in the next ten years will be talent-driven. With what kind of people, you can achieve what kind of career. With what kind of people, you will certainly be able to achieve what kind of career. Huawei selects the best talent from fresh graduates every year with the highest salaries, persisting for decades, and only then achieves today's greatness. Guizhou Chun will also use imaginative compensation incentive mechanisms and broad development platforms to widely gather various excellent talents from inside and outside the industry and build a great management team. An excellent enterprise is actually an alliance of excellent talents. **-08- Be a Firm Strategic Ally of Distributors Matching the 2,000 billion market value target, we will develop our business nationwide. In every county and district market, we need business partners; distributors are our partners. We will indirectly achieve the growth and strengthening of Guizhou Chun Liquor Group locally by supporting, empowering, and boosting distributors to grow and strengthen in the local liquor circle. We want to be a firm strategic ally of distributors. We believe that baijiu manufacturers and distributors are not a simple buying and selling relationship, nor a superior-subordinate relationship, but rather a division of labor and cooperation, complementary advantages, working hand in hand in each regional market, uniting hearts and minds to jointly achieve a career. Because of this value, therefore: We will try to lower the distributor's initial payment; We will strictly control distributor inventory; We will provide necessary financing support to distributors; We will help distributors quickly open up the sales situation with comprehensive innovative business models; We will strictly implement the quota management concept of controlled distribution and profit sharing; We will ensure distributors obtain sales profit margins that exceed expectations; We will respect and help distributors grow together with the mentality of strategic partners; We will let distributors fully share in the long-term development achievements of Guizhou Chun Liquor Group. On the contrary, there is only one requirement for distributors: they must have a strong career ambition. Ambition is a seed; only a sufficiently strong ambition can have a sufficiently strong development driving force. Distributors must first have a sufficiently strong ambition, and ultimately they can achieve a towering tree in their career. In order to ensure that our future marketing system is strong enough, all prospective distributors in every market across the country must have an interview with me before signing. We only choose distributors with matching values and career aspirations, far-sightedness, and ambition to move forward together. **-09- Be a Highly Open Liquor Platform "Openness" is the core spirit of the Internet era, and "openness" will also be a permanent keyword in Guizhou Chun's corporate culture. To achieve a 2,000 billion yuan market value listed company in ten years, if we only rely on one person's or one company's strength, how could we dare to set such a goal? But in the Internet era, everything is different. As long as we have enough broad-mindedness, as long as we have enough wisdom, as long as we adopt an open spirit, fully absorb various valuable social resources from inside and outside the industry to form innovative cooperation models, embracing all rivers and being inclusive, we can completely achieve exponential growth. With this open spirit as our value: We are willing to cooperate with all business platforms; We are willing to cooperate with all business models; We are willing to cooperate with all sales networks; We are willing to cooperate with all major liquor merchants; We are willing to cooperate with all media inside and outside the industry; We are willing to cooperate with all think tanks; We are willing to cooperate with all design companies; We are willing to cooperate with all brand companies; We are willing to cooperate with all associations and chambers of commerce; We are willing to cooperate with all capital; We are willing to cooperate with all enterprises; We are also willing to cooperate with all outstanding individuals. A popular word in the Internet era is "platform." Guizhou Chun is to be such a highly open liquor platform. **-10- Strong Shareholder Team Rapid growth requires strong support. Behind the enterprise are shareholders. A strong shareholder team and shareholder support are the strong backing for the rapid development of the enterprise. Guizhou Chun has a very strong shareholder structure. Among them, the major shareholder Jiangsu Variety Group not only has a huge business scale and the ability to gather social resources, but also entered the baijiu industry with large investments more than ten years ago and achieved very successful investment returns. Among Guizhou Chun's other shareholders are Fortune 500 companies with hundreds of billions in scale, as well as domestic business leaders, and strong investment funds and capital groups. The strong shareholder team will be introduced in a separate article in the future. All shareholders will be important financial and resource guarantees for Guizhou Chun's long-term development. Postscript: Today is February 14. As a Valentine's Day gift to the industry, and as the first "Guizhou Chun Development Note," this open letter to the baijiu industry is also a declaration of Guizhou Chun's ideals and philosophy. It puts forward our development goals, as well as product concepts, talent concepts, distributor concepts, cooperation concepts, and business concepts closely related to these goals. Due to space limitations, many issues can only be briefly mentioned above. Specific talent recruitment plans, product plans, investment promotion plans, marketing plans, and comprehensive industry thinking will be launched in the next few notes (in addition to being published in mainstream industry media, they will also be simultaneously published on Guizhou Chun's and my personal Toutiao accounts). Let's return to our goal. In the current increasingly competitive industry environment, when many liquor companies have deeply felt the pressure of growth, is it difficult to achieve a 2,000 billion yuan market value liquor group against the trend within ten years? I am not a blind optimist, nor am I a young person who doesn't know the difficulties of the world. Based on my personal 20 years of frontline management experience in enterprises, I know it is difficult! Of course it's difficult! How could it not be difficult!? Not only difficult, but almost impossible. But "Wei Xue" says: "Are there difficult and easy things in the world? If you do it, then the difficult becomes easy." All roads are made by people, and all careers are made by people. Tsinghua University's former president Mei Yiqi had a famous saying: "A university is not defined by its buildings, but by its masters." So, for the size of an enterprise, can we also say: "A big enterprise is not defined by its large factories, but by its big dreams." In this sense, all small enterprises should not belittle themselves. As long as they have big dreams, we can all be big enterprises and achieve big enterprises—2020 is the first year of Guizhou Chun's revival. Use this to encourage ourselves and share with all Guizhou Chun people! Also share with all entrepreneurs who have big dreams! Build a nest, above the clouds, so that even in dreams, you are flying—dedicate this poem to all those whose dreams never die. Second Letter In the form of a Valentine's Day gift, I published an "Open Letter to the Baijiu Industry," which attracted great attention in the industry. A few days ago, I participated in the "Yunjiu Night Talk" live broadcast program, further elaborating on the story and thinking behind Guizhou Chun's development plan, with more than 40,000 peers watching and interacting online. Today, I got up early, ran, took a shower, meditated for twenty minutes, and after breakfast began writing this second article. If nothing unexpected happens, it will be published on February 17. After the open letter was published, I saw a lot of encouragement and support in the comments, and I felt very warm—baijiu is a product with affection and righteousness, the baijiu industry is an industry with affection and righteousness, and baijiu people are all people with affection and righteousness. I am glad to be in such an industry. But among all the comments, the one that impressed me the most was left by netizen "Jiangnan Feng Decoration": "Bragging is tax-free. If you don't go bankrupt within 10 years, it's a miracle. In today's baijiu industry, the strong get stronger, and mid-tier enterprises will be further squeezed by large enterprises." I have recorded this comment separately to warn myself and to encourage all Guizhou Chun people! Thank you, "Jiangnan Feng Decoration." In fact, I very much agree with the view that the strong will get stronger and mid-tier enterprises will be further squeezed by large enterprises. In the "Yunjiu Night Talk" live broadcast, I also expressed a similar view on the development of "provincial liquor": "Provincial liquor has no future, because there will be no provincial liquor in the future." The core argument logic is: The industry moves from fragmentation to concentration and then to oligopoly. This is the basic law of the market economy, and the baijiu industry is no exception. In the end, a few large liquor companies will dominate the market. The so-called "mid-tier enterprises" are only temporary existences, transitional existences in the evolution of the baijiu industry, and there is no place for them in the future. Just like beer, beverages, instant noodles, washing products, bicycles, televisions, and other industries once had many provincial enterprises that flourished for a time, but now they have all withdrawn from the historical stage, and the industry has become unified. But I also disagree with part of the view in the above comment: I think it is too early to assert who is a big enterprise in the baijiu industry, especially to assert who will be the final few monopolistic large enterprises in the baijiu industry. The current industry leaders certainly have many advantages and are certainly the most qualified to become the final winners, but even so, I still say: not necessarily! Because as Wang Xifeng said in "Dream of the Red Chamber": The big also have their difficulties. On the contrary, my view is: The baijiu industry is still in its infancy. The bullet is still flying, and the dust has not settled. In the next 10-20 years of industry consolidation, all today's liquor companies, including so-called provincial liquors, and even ambitious distributors, have the opportunity to become the winners of the future. All small liquor companies and small liquor merchants should not belittle themselves. Of course, we must also see the hardships and great difficulties behind this "opportunity": the baijiu industry itself is at a bottleneck stage of development, market competition continues to intensify, and advantageous resources continue to concentrate in leading enterprises—under such multiple difficulties, how can "dust-sealed" brands like Guizhou Chun and similar ones that missed the industry development opportunity period of the past twenty years shine again and stand out? This is a very big topic, and it is also a very meaningful topic for all small and medium-sized enterprises: how can we grow from small to large, from weak to strong? This is also one of the purposes of my plan to communicate with everyone through the serialized development notes: I hope that through the development thinking and practical summary of Guizhou Chun, I can provide reference and inspiration for all small enterprises. I believe that Guizhou Chun's future development exploration will have sample significance for all enterprises in the industry that are not yet large, and even for the entire baijiu industry, whether the result is success or failure. Based on this consideration, combined with the needs of Guizhou Chun's business development, in the next few "Development Notes," I will talk about my thoughts and work arrangements on the industry, products, distributors, marketing, etc. (each note will be updated simultaneously on my personal Toutiao account and Guizhou Chun's corporate account). These are the fundamental supporting factors for whether Guizhou Chun can achieve the 2,000 billion yuan market value development goal in ten years. But before all these factors, I want to first talk about employees, recruitment, and my understanding of talent—this order of arrangement actually expresses my value orientation: yes, employees are the most important. Of course, this will be a controversial value orientation, because the common correct answer is that consumers are the most important, and consumers are God. But at the risk of offending all consumers in the world, I still want to emphasize again: in my view, employees are the most important! Because, without satisfied employees, how can there be satisfied consumers? Without excellent employees, how can there be excellent products and services? How can consumers be God? A sufficiently strong employee team creates great, disruptive innovative products and services, providing consumers with market value beyond imagination. This is the greatest responsibility to consumers. Therefore, I also hope that all peers in the baijiu industry can realize: employees are the most important! **-01- Our Talent Philosophy In the previous note, I said: An excellent enterprise is an alliance of excellent talents. I also said: With what kind of people, you can achieve what kind of career. With what kind of people, you will certainly be able to achieve what kind of career. To achieve a 100 billion yuan market value liquor building, we must have hundreds and thousands of pillars who can take charge independently as support. This is basic logic. Therefore, in the next ten years, we will continuously, massively, and the more the better, introduce and cultivate excellent talents for various positions—we want to be a talent-driven, rapidly growing enterprise. As Guizhou Chun's talent philosophy, whether it is the major shareholder Jiangsu Variety Group Chairman Zan Shengda or myself, we both firmly believe:
People are the true creators of enterprise value. Although employees are outside the balance sheet, they are the most valuable asset of the enterprise;
Competition between enterprises is fundamentally competition between their talent teams. Enterprises with sufficiently excellent teams will be invincible;
Excellent talents first need talent, but also need nurturing, guidance, and an excellent growth environment and platform;
In business operations, people are both the starting point and the destination, both the means and the end. Business operations must rely on people and ultimately be for people;
Finally, talents must not only participate in the creation of enterprise value, but also participate in the distribution of enterprise value. According to the above talent philosophy, Guizhou Chun's core development strategy is: gather excellent talents, provide a broad platform, and through strong development support and incentive mechanisms, achieve rapid growth and expansion of both employees and the enterprise. **-02- Million-Yuan Annual Salary Guizhou Chun sold well in all provinces across the country in the 1990s. To restore this historical glory, the first thing needed is a large number of sales cadres, because "good wine also fears deep alleys." Our sales system will be very streamlined and efficient: The organizational structure only has two levels: provincial large regions and county/district branches. Assessment and compensation will also adopt the simplest "base salary + commission" model, where the base salary guarantees basic living, and the commission part will realize personal entrepreneurial and wealth-creating dreams. Specifics are as follows: Branch Manager Regional General Manager According to the above standards, if a branch manager achieves sales of 5 million, they can achieve an annual salary of 550,000; if sales reach 10 million, they can achieve an annual salary of 850,000 (150,000 + 5 million * 8% + 5 million * 6%). If a regional general manager achieves sales of 100 million, they can achieve an annual salary of 2.05 million; if sales reach 1 billion, they can achieve an annual salary of 11.05 million. We hope to cultivate a group of provincial managers with an annual salary of 5 million and county managers with an annual salary of 1.5 million in about three years, and hope to cultivate a group of provincial managers with an annual salary of 10 million and county managers with an annual salary of 3 million in about five years. Under such a compensation mechanism, provincial managers and county managers can be called employees, but in essence, they are already regional partners, and in essence, they are already provincial distributors and county distributors. Under such a compensation mechanism, provincial managers and county managers can be said to be working for the enterprise, but in essence, they are already starting their own businesses, and without any financial risk caused by entrepreneurship. In addition to the above two levels of ground sales cadres, focusing on Guizhou Chun's future development, we also need to recruit online sales supervisors, new media supervisors, marketing supervisors, HR and administrative supervisors, product supervisors, and other important positions. These will be important components of the future core team. It should also be noted here: in order to ensure that Guizhou Chun's future development does not become rigid, the positions, conditions, and treatment of each recruitment will be flexibly adjusted according to actual needs. The above conditions are only valid for this first batch of recruits. **-03- Development Space In the coming year or so, provincial and county sales cadres will focus on promoting Guizhou Chun products and brands. As the company's industrial mergers and acquisitions unfold, more brand series will be gradually introduced, and according to the unified "regional market development template," systematic and continuous business promotion will be carried out, providing consumers with richer product choices with different characteristics and positioning. In this process, Guizhou Chun will widely gather resources from major merchants, terminal networks, group purchase resources, brand promotion resources, core opinion leaders, and core consumers. After 5-10 years of operation, we hope that each county branch can become the largest local comprehensive liquor business entity with sales exceeding 100 million. County managers should become the largest liquor circle leaders in the local area. On this basis, we will carry out joint-stock reform of county branches, giving about 30% of county company equity to the local marketing team, so that all business backbones can share in the enterprise's development dividends, and better stimulate the team members' sense of ownership and the ambition to further grow and strengthen each county company. In the longer term, according to Guizhou Chun's established strategy, we will in the future through capital mergers and acquisitions become a liquor group composed of more than a dozen or dozens of liquor companies, similar to the Diageo model. In this process, we will need a large number of enterprise leaders with independent management capabilities. Most of these positions will be cultivated internally and promoted from within. **-04- Seeking Talents Without Restriction Recruitment conditions are as follows: Gender: Not limited. Age: Provincial general managers under 45; county managers under 40; other positions under 35. Particularly excellent candidates can be admitted exceptionally. Education: College degree or above. Experience: Not limited. Work location: Sales cadres can choose their work city; marketing headquarters personnel work in the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center area; Guizhou Chun Liquor headquarters is in Xingyi City, Guizhou Province. Working hours: Arrange by yourself, no clocking in. Special conditions: Must have sufficiently strong entrepreneurial spirit. **-05- Division of Labor, but More of a Strong Collective The word "entrepreneurship" is easy to say, but not easy to do. Fortunately, we are not alone. For all provincial and county managers, the headquarters will provide the following sales support:
Highly competitive products (100% content, authentic 6-year, 12-year, 21-year aged strong-flavor "true vintage" old liquor, plus a sauce-flavor liquor single product);
Comprehensive investment promotion strategies and resource support;
Comprehensive guidance on sales promotion models;
Strong brand promotion;
Practical and down-to-earth internal training system;
The marketing concept of controlled distribution and profit sharing, and firm quota management, price management, order management, distributor inventory management, and distributor profit management measures. The homogenization of baijiu marketing is becoming increasingly serious, and the existing model is already a red ocean. For Guizhou Chun to quickly stand out and grow against the trend in such an environment, with strong product power as a guarantee, there must be fundamental innovation and breakthrough in marketing models. We will completely break away from existing industry models in all key marketing links such as product positioning, channel cooperation, brand promotion, consumer cultivation, and group purchase unit development, and take a differentiated path with the height of dimensionality reduction. To this end, we will summarize and develop standardized, highly innovative, down-to-earth regional market development templates, and continuously iterate and improve them in practice, ultimately forming our strong competitive advantage in various markets. The regional market development template will be the greatest empowerment support we provide to every marketing backbone. **-06- If You Don't Start a Business Now, You'll Be Old We want to create a big enterprise, but it is still small now, and all important positions are waiting for the right people. We want to create a rapidly growing enterprise, and we need energetic young people to join continuously. We want to create a liquor group that acquires and merges many liquor companies, and we need to cultivate a large number of high-potential talents with independent management capabilities. We want to create a highly open entrepreneurial platform that will gradually connect employees, distributors, and shareholders. Among this recruitment, the top ten county branch managers will each be given 50,000 shares of original stock (if the 2,000 billion market value goal in ten years is achieved, the corresponding stock value will be about 10 million yuan), and the top three provincial general managers will each be given 100,000 shares of original stock. In the future, following the Huawei model, there will be continuous option incentive plans for backbone employees. Guizhou Chun is willing to be the starting point for all entrepreneurial dreamers in the baijiu industry. With this starting point, we also hope to cultivate a large number of sufficiently excellent independent entrepreneurs in the future (if any cadre has the ability and wants to resign to start a business, the company will actively support, even provide start-up funds). We are willing to be an open "Whampoa Military Academy" for talent cultivation in the baijiu industry. Sam Walton was 44 when he opened the first small Walmart store, and Ren Zhengfei was 43 when he founded Huawei with only 20,000 yuan—no one is destined to succeed, and no one is destined to be mediocre. Now, the post-00s generation is also twenty years old. It's time to light the lamp of your heart and re-plan your life. Stand up, change yourself, create new imagination for the future, and create another possibility for life. If you don't start a business now, you'll be old. Third Letter At the beginning, let me make a note: in order to reduce impact, the serialization of "Guizhou Chun Development Notes" in industry media will be paused for a while after this article. Thank you for your attention in the past period. If you need to communicate, you can contact us through Toutiao accounts "Guizhou Chun" or "Guizhou Chun Zhu Wei." The previous article talked about Guizhou Chun's talent philosophy and released a recruitment announcement mainly for provincial managers and branch managers. In one week, five to six hundred people contacted and registered, most of whom were industry veterans with deep marketing experience. We express our sincere thanks and respect to these hundreds of people who dared to choose to apply when Guizhou Chun is still in its infancy—because when "ideals" are discussed abstractly, everyone can be passionate, but when specific entrepreneurial opportunities are placed in front of them, not everyone has the courage and foresight to take this step. Career breakthroughs and new realms are achieved by walking, doing, and practicing, not by sitting and discussing or imagining. Afterwards, we will select about 100 of them as Guizhou Chun's first batch of marketing cadres, and in the future, we plan to organize a centralized recruitment every quarter, with about 100 people each time. By the end of this year, we plan to establish 400-500 branch organizations and 400-500 county-level base markets. In 2021, we will further expand to about 2,000 county-level markets, completing market coverage of most key baijiu regions nationwide. In each county-level market, we will select about 20 key terminals as cooperation partners to establish a core terminal alliance. Through the above arrangements, we will ultimately form a marketing highway system for Guizhou Chun with about 30 provincial large regions, 2,000 county-level branches, 2,000 distributors, and about 50,000 core terminal alliances. This will also be the main marketing network for the future development of Guizhou Chun Liquor Group, and will also be the basic marketing network shared and used by acquired liquor companies after capital mergers and acquisitions. There are only two investment promotion conditions: First, the concept must be consistent with Guizhou Chun's positioning as a liquor industry integrator; second, the resource conditions must be consistent with Guizhou Chun's "true vintage" high-end liquor positioning. There are no other conditions, but every prospective distributor must have an interview with me before signing. What we value most is still people. As for the sales model after investment promotion, we will completely jump out of the current industry red ocean and take a simple and efficient market construction path. We have such confidence. The marketing of the baijiu industry also needs a revolution. We will work with the final 2,000 or so distributors to promote and witness this marketing revolution—this is the future of the baijiu industry. Now let's return to the theme of this note. After solving the talent issues and marketing organization construction issues mentioned in the second note last week, it's time to talk about products—because just like marketing work, we also need to promote a product revolution in the baijiu industry. Although this may cause industry controversy or even conflict, whether from the perspective of consumer interests or the long-term healthy development of the industry, this is something that must be done by someone. Yes, this note discusses a rather sensitive topic: "aged liquor." **-01- Product Is Everything for an Enterprise Product is the core, the foundation, the one of all, the all of one for an enterprise. I have seen some enterprises where good products speak for themselves, without much marketing effort, good reputation spreads quickly, and market share continues to expand. I have also seen some small enterprises where product quality is not up to standard, and a lot of resources are only piled up in marketing. They may be lively for a while, but in the end, they are inevitably a flash in the pan. As for me personally, although I have been engaged in baijiu marketing for the past ten-plus years, I still believe that what determines the development of an enterprise is not marketing, but only the product, and only the product—I am a firm productist. The basic marketing theory 4P refers to product, price, place, and promotion, but in the Internet era, consumer sovereignty is rapidly returning to consumers. In this context, the 4P theory should be changed to: product, product, product, product. Product is the starting point of marketing, and product is the foundation and source of strength for all marketing actions. Moreover, what we are doing is "food" in a broad sense, which ultimately must be tasted and inspected by consumers one sip at a time. Perhaps every individual consumer does not necessarily have good baijiu discrimination ability, but when thousands and tens of thousands of consumers' tasting evaluations are aggregated, the quality will be immediately clear, and the brand's quality will also be immediately clear—the so-called "peaches and plums do not speak, but the world makes a path beneath them." Product is everything for an enterprise—this is our product value, and this is the product value of Guizhou Chun Liquor. All our future product upgrades, development, and design will be guided by this value. **-02- Guizhou Chun's Product Positioning: "True Vintage" Guizhou Chun's product positioning is "true vintage." Guizhou Chun vintage liquor will be true vintage liquor, 100% content vintage liquor. If we label "six years," it means 100% six years or more vintage liquor; if we label "twelve years" or "twenty-one years," it means 100% twelve years or twenty-one years or more vintage liquor. Because the enterprise's product positioning is "true vintage," from now on, Guizhou Chun will only produce vintage liquor (including the upcoming "Xingyi Jiao" brand, which will only be sold locally in the Qianxinan Prefecture where the factory is located, and will also be changed to "true vintage" grain liquor). Other products will gradually be phased out. To ensure the true vintage and sufficient vintage of every bottle, we will invite baijiu industry associations to participate in supervision, invite notary offices to participate in notarization, and if necessary, invite insurance companies to participate in underwriting. Guizhou Chun vintage liquor promises consumers a hundred-fold compensation for fakes. We will take the three characters "true vintage" as Guizhou Chun's faith, symbol, totem, and the entirety of the enterprise. We want to take "true vintage" to the extreme, so that Guizhou Chun is "true vintage" liquor, and "true vintage" liquor is Guizhou Chun. At the same time, we also want to use this to promote industry change and progress. Therefore, if more liquor companies participate in jointly growing and strengthening the "true vintage" liquor market, we are also willing to actively cooperate and cooperate sincerely. "True vintage" liquor will be a major trend and new direction for the development of the baijiu industry. The rise of the old liquor craze in recent years is a response from the commercial end closer to consumers to this strong market demand. It is time for all baijiu manufacturers to conform to this trend, participate in and promote this trend. **-03- Why "True Vintage" Will Become a Trend 1. "Liquor is fragrant when aged" is a consensus in traditional Chinese society. Chinese liquor culture is broad, profound, and long-standing. In terms of its history, it was almost born at the same time as Chinese civilization. Because the verifiable history of Chinese civilization begins with the Shang Dynasty 3,700 years ago, and it is precisely in the excavated Shang Dynasty relics that we found a large number of different types of liquor vessels (some used for sacrifices). And in this long-standing traditional liquor culture, "liquor is fragrant when aged" has become a basic consensus passed down from generation to generation. 2. Modern science has fully proven why liquor is fragrant and good when aged.
According to chromatographic analysis, newly distilled base liquor contains more sulfur-containing compounds and aldehydes. Among them, sulfides are prone to produce off-odors (such as hydrogen sulfide, which has a sulfur and rotten egg smell), and aldehydes, especially acetaldehyde and acrolein, are characterized by a "pungent and spicy" feeling. During storage, sulfides will volatilize in large quantities, and aldehydes will not only volatilize but also undergo oxidation and condensation reactions, greatly reducing free aldehydes, thus significantly reducing the pungent and spicy feeling. 2) Another main reason for the pungency of new liquor is that a large number of free ethanol molecules strongly stimulate human taste and smell. During storage, free ethanol molecules will undergo hydrogen bond association reactions with water molecules, forming large molecular groups, thereby binding ethanol molecules, reducing their activity, and making them stable, significantly enhancing the mellow feeling of the liquor body (compared to ordinary liquor of fifty-plus degrees, sixty-plus degree aged liquor may actually be easier to drink, and this is also the main reason). 3) During the storage of new liquor, in addition to the association and condensation reactions mentioned above, chemical reactions such as oxidation and esterification will also occur, thereby reducing off-flavor substances, increasing aroma substances and sweet substances, further enriching the taste of the liquor body, balancing acids and esters, and gradually enhancing the aged and mature feeling. 3. Aged liquor is healthier. The scientific explanation for why aged liquor is healthier is actually very simple. Mainly, during the storage of new liquor, through volatilization and chemical reactions such as association, condensation, oxidation, and esterification, harmful substances such as methanol, formaldehyde, hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans, diethyl sulfide, acrolein, ammonia, and fusel oil are greatly reduced. The activity and irritation of ethanol molecules are greatly reduced, and the acid-ester balance is further enhanced, thereby significantly improving the stability, friendliness, and healthiness of the liquor body. 4. "True vintage" is an international convention. Among the six major international spirits, except for vodka, which is pure alcohol and does not need aging, brandy, whiskey, rum, and gin all have oak barrel aging process requirements and drinking culture. Among them, Scotch whisky is even legally required not to be sold within three years, and the common ones in the market are mostly aged for ten or twenty years. For example, Chivas 12 years, Johnnie Walker 21 years, Macallan 40 years, etc. (contrary to China, whisky regulations require: if a liquor is blended from base liquors of different ages, when labeling the age, only the lowest age can be labeled). Therefore, 100% content "true vintage" liquor is an international common practice (of course, you can also not label the storage age, but good liquor, in order to maintain its value, generally emphasizes the age). Based on the above analysis, it can be said that whether it is traditional Chinese culture or modern international rules, whether it is taste experience or health level, "true vintage" liquor is bound to be the inevitable trend, inevitable choice, and inevitable trend of Chinese baijiu. At the same time, we see that the China Alcoholic Drinks Association is also actively promoting the certification of "true vintage" liquor. But although the trend is so, looking at the current situation of "aged liquor" in the baijiu industry, it is regrettable: on the one hand, there are many, many, many products in various markets that are explicitly or implicitly labeled as "aged liquor"; on the other hand, there are very, very, very few "aged liquor" products that are truly vintage in the real sense. Behind this serious imbalance is the huge contradiction between the massive consumer demand for "aged liquor" and the almost zero supply in the baijiu industry. Contradiction is the driving force for the development of things, and huge contradiction is the huge driving force for the development of things. With such huge driving force, I believe it will inevitably give birth to a huge product revolution in the baijiu industry regarding "true vintage" liquor. In this process, the pattern of the baijiu industry will also be reshaped. **-04- Why Guizhou Chun Can Make "True Vintage" Liquor At the "advanced age" of 43, I gave up a stable life and chose to start a new business. I made this decision after very careful consideration, including the selection of the liquor enterprise. Several liquor companies came into view at the same time as Guizhou Chun. Some had bigger names, some had larger sales scale, but after on-site inspections, I finally chose Guizhou Chun. The most important reason behind the choice is only one: Guizhou Chun has a large amount of aged liquor storage, and making "true vintage" liquor is the most important original intention of this entrepreneurship and also the most important personal positioning. Guizhou Chun best fits my positioning. Why does Guizhou Chun have so much old liquor storage? Let's return to the first note, where I introduced:
"According to the 1992 National Bureau of Statistics figures, our factory has been ranked among the top 31 of the 500 best profit-tax rate enterprises in the country, ranking first in Guizhou Province, 11th in the national beverage industry, and second in the national baijiu industry after Wuliangye. Up to now, in terms of product quality and market share, we have squeezed into the ranks of the few major distilleries in the country." But in the past 20 years or so, Guizhou Chun's marketing has not advanced but retreated. The huge contrast between production and sales has led to a year-on-year increase in base liquor storage (of course, it must be said truthfully that due to inventory pressure, the brewing production in the past few years has not been running at full capacity). Good and bad things are dialectically intertwined. It is precisely because of the shortcomings in marketing over the past twenty years that Guizhou Chun's greatest advantage today has been created. When I first walked into Guizhou Chun and saw so many wine cellars of various sizes, and saw the pottery jars and tanks in each cellar, densely packed, stained with age, and even covered with cobwebs and dust, I was indeed shocked. When I followed Guizhou Chun's chief engineer Feng Jiawen to open jars of aged liquor of different years in the cellar and taste them on the spot, the rich, mellow, and robust taste made me, a person who has been making and drinking liquor for twenty years, unable to resist tasting again and again. At the dinner table that night, the sixty-degree or so opened jar old liquor was so mellow and soft that it could be drunk freely like fifty-degree liquor, or even "drunk by the pot." Everyone truly saw the charm of "true vintage" liquor. **-05- Guizhou Chun's "True Vintage" Product Plan Guizhou Chun's product line will be very simple. Guizhou Chun has both strong-flavor and sauce-flavor processes, production capacity, and old liquor storage. We will select high-quality old liquor from these and focus on launching a strong-flavor vintage series, namely three products: 6-year, 12-year, and 21-year, with market retail prices corresponding to different price bands between about 600 yuan and 3,600 yuan per bottle. In addition, for sauce-flavor products, we will temporarily only launch one single product with a retail price of about 1,600 yuan. Regarding the alcohol content setting of the products, the sauce-flavor product will still refer to Moutai's mainstream degree, set at 53 degrees, while the strong-flavor series is planned to be directly opened from the jar and bottled, maintaining the original flavor of the aged liquor without any reduction in degree. According to the measurement of some old liquor already opened, after ten to twenty years of aging and volatilization, the alcohol content is mostly around sixty degrees. We will provide consumers with such extreme, ultimate, and unique products in this very extreme way. The reason for saying "extreme" is that few people in the industry do this, because in all liquor companies, aged liquor is very scarce and generally only used in very small amounts for flavoring. Directly selling aged liquor to the market is itself too luxurious (this is also the reason why our 21-year-old single product is priced at over 3,600 yuan per bottle). Of course, such an alcohol content is not suitable for all consumers, and it is only suitable for a few high-end and senior baijiu consumers (based on my past reception experience, high-end VIPs visiting the distillery often consider it a great pleasure to drink this kind of aged base liquor at the dinner table that day). Therefore, for younger consumers or those who prefer a lighter taste, we will provide some different options in the future by appropriately reducing the degree, such as 52 degrees or 40.9 degrees, but apart from the degree reduction measure, we will still not do any other blending or addition, and still provide consumers with the most authentic 100% aged liquor to taste. In addition, considering the drinking habits and consumption levels of ordinary consumers in the location of the enterprise (Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province), the "Xingyi Jiao" sub-brand, which has been quite popular in the local area for many years, is not subject to the above restrictions, but the quality will be comprehensively upgraded, all replaced with high-quality grain liquor with at least one year of storage, so that local consumers can also taste the excellent craftsmanship and quality of the real Guizhou Chun. **-06- Guizhou Chun's Product Extension Enterprise management must first determine strategy. Strategy is the flag, strategy is the direction, strategy is the lighthouse. Determining strategy first requires making choices: choosing values, choosing the industry, choosing the market segment, choosing the business model, or choosing the product positioning. On the other side of "choice" is "abandonment," because if you choose "this," you cannot choose "that"; if you choose "these," you cannot choose "those"; if you choose poetry and the distance, you must sacrifice and give up the comfort and enjoyment of the present to a certain extent. Guizhou Chun's strategic choice also faces the same problem. Since we have chosen the strategic positioning of "vintage liquor," we must inevitably face all the constraints of "vintage liquor," such as cost issues, price issues, output issues, and sales scale bottleneck issues. Although from now on, we have already begun to continuously increase brewing capacity, all this capacity will not go to market until at least six or seven years, or even ten or twenty years later. This means: at least for the next six or seven years, Guizhou Chun can only sell the existing old liquor. How long can the existing old liquor last? What if it sells out in three years? To be honest, this is indeed a problem. In this regard, we will reasonably arrange the annual production plan and appropriately limit the scale of the annual market release, so as to achieve planned production and planned sales, ensure the stability and soundness of market supply, and ensure the sustainable development of the enterprise. Of course, as an aside, this is also one of the important reasons why our development strategy clearly proposes to acquire a provincial leading liquor enterprise every year. This is Guizhou Chun's product extension. Otherwise, the ten-year sales target of 30 billion cannot be achieved at all with Guizhou Chun's old liquor reserves and annual brewing capacity. **-07- True Vintage, True Vintage! If the business world is like a battlefield, some people fight but do not win, some people seek victory in battle. We hope to "seek battle in victory." The so-called "seeking battle in victory" means having victory in hand, winning before the battle. And the fundamental confidence of this "seeking battle in victory" comes from the strong product power of the truly "true vintage." Because: Good products speak for themselves.
Good products spread themselves.
Good products grow themselves.
Good products become popular themselves. Conforming to traditional liquor culture, conforming to consumer demand, conforming to international industry standards, and also conforming to health concepts, Guizhou Chun, with its large amount of aged storage as confidence, decides to provide the market with authentic, 100% content "true vintage" old liquor, and hopes to use this modest effort to promote an industry-wide product revolution—it is time to clarify the origin of "aged liquor" and let consumers consume with clear understanding. Finally, I want to quote a passage from the first note again as today's conclusion: Sixty-plus degree premium base liquor, after years of pottery jar storage and aging, with thousands of trace components interacting, merging, and evolving over time, the resulting pure "true vintage" liquor has an extremely rich, mellow, and sweet taste. A single cup contains the three thousand worlds; it can be called liquid gold, the rose of time. Contact email: zhaopin@gzcjiuye.com Welcome to scan the QR code to enter Guizhou Chun's Tmall official flagship store If a tip is adopted, a payment of 400-2000 yuan will be made.