Introduction: A Decade of a 'Four-in-One' Witness Author | Feng Yao Interviewee | Li Ziming [pseudonym]

The decade from 2013 to 2023 was a transformative period for Li Ziming, evolving from a young novice into a hands-on boss, and also for Jinmailang, growing from around 8 billion to over 20 billion yuan in revenue. In 2013, when Jinmailang's Four-in-One project was rolled out nationwide, Li Ziming was still a salesperson. By 2023, a decade later, Li Ziming had grown into a Jinmailang dealer boss, still in the city where he had worked as a salesperson. During these ten years, Li Ziming started as a frontline salesperson, deeply involved in the execution of Jinmailang's Four-in-One project; later, he was transferred to another market as a business department head, responsible for regional business management; then he returned to where he first started, becoming a Jinmailang agent. Along the way, he witnessed the development and changes of Four-in-One and personally experienced the ups and downs that the invisible hand of the times brought to enterprises and individuals. This article, from Li Ziming's perspective, records his different understandings and feelings about Jinmailang's Four-in-One during his time as a salesperson and as a dealer, aiming to inspire readers on how Four-in-One drove Jinmailang's development over the past decade.

As a Salesperson: High Spirits, Full of Fight In 2013, Li Ziming was a salesperson at Jinmailang (internally also called a customer supervisor). His task was to collaborate with the company and dealers to promote the company's "Four-in-One" project in a county-level market. The Four-in-One was designed to help enterprises and dealers gain market growth. How to grow? First, four things needed to be in place: One person, one car, one device, one area—this is the Four-in-One. A person is given a car, assigned an area, and provided with a work phone. Then, driving the car and using the phone, they visit and maintain terminal stores along a route within the area every day. This is the daily work of a "Four-in-One little boss." The first step in launching Four-in-One was equipping vehicles. The allocation was one vehicle per 100,000 population; for a county-level city with a million people, 10 vehicles were needed. At that time, Jinmailang shared the cost with dealers; for example, if 10 vehicles were needed, the manufacturer subsidized 5. After vehicles, the next step was recruiting. Similarly, the manufacturer covered part of the basic attendance salary. This person was called a "Four-in-One little boss." Nominally, the "Four-in-One little boss" belonged to the dealer, but the manufacturer paid the basic salary, so attendance was managed by the manufacturer. How did Jinmailang manage attendance? This brings us to Jinmailang's early digital practices. The mobile work system was a custom app developed by a tech service company for Jinmailang. All market personnel's attendance was tracked through this phone system, also known as the "terminal device." For example, when a "Four-in-One little boss" ran their route, the app would ask them to select the route for the day, and at each store, they would open the app to take photos and upload, guiding them to photograph the storefront, shelf display, stack, poster, freezer, etc. That covers one person, one car, one device. What about the area? After planning people, cars, and devices, the overall market was divided into different areas, with each person responsible for one area. This was like contracting an area to the "Four-in-One little boss," who then divided it into several routes, running one route daily, ensuring regular visits daily, weekly, and monthly. With all these in place, the Four-in-One had its foundation, and it was time to start working. At that time, Li Ziming had "significant responsibilities": if a dealer had 10 cars and 10 little bosses, he had to track and comment on the work scores of these 10 little bosses daily. After everyone finished their day's work, they returned to the "Four-in-One War Room" (dealer's office) to submit their work reports. Li Ziming recalled that back then, AI automatic scoring wasn't available for photo uploads; salespeople had to manually score each one against the company's scoring standards. After scoring, he would give individual feedback and summarize the day's issues, often working until late at night, which was very tough initially. However, now as a dealer, Li Ziming lamented that those actions played a crucial role. Although AI technology now automatically scores, after the upgrade, some problems are not easily detected, and timely reviews are no longer possible. While it saves time, the tracking effect is far inferior to before. Soon, Li Ziming's excellent performance helped his market achieve outstanding results, and the entire team was promoted to management positions and transferred to other regions to help implement "Four-in-One" in other markets. Later, Li Ziming was transferred to Market B as a department head until the end of 2017, when a regional director of Jinmailang approached him to discuss becoming an agent in Market A. Li Ziming was from City A, and the company valued Market A and recognized Li Ziming's abilities. Although his performance in Market B was also good, after careful consideration, Li Ziming chose to return to his hometown, to the land where he had once fought. After officially taking over in 2018, it took him a year to clear the previous dealer's stock and gradually settle market debts, filling the gaps left by his predecessor. By the end of 2019, sales had increased, but then the pandemic hit.

As a Dealer: Times Have Changed, a Bit of Giving Up For Li Ziming, the pandemic wasn't necessarily a bad thing. From the start of the pandemic to the end of 2022, his performance kept growing. 2020 grew 30%-40% over 2019, 2021 grew 20%-30% over 2020, and 2022 grew 28% over 2021. Overall turnover and business scale doubled. However, starting this year, sales have clearly declined, and at a very fast pace, causing him significant psychological落差. The three years of growth were more of a pandemic dividend, and now performance is returning to previous averages, which is very distressing for him. "At the beginning of Four-in-One, there were many young people in rural areas, but in just a few years, almost everyone in rural areas is over 60, with almost no young people. Really, this puts us in a big dilemma," Li Ziming said. In my view, Li Ziming now could be described with a term young people often use: "a bit of giving up." It turns out that during the years he was away, in the rural market of City A, the existing consumer base for instant noodles has been shrinking. Additionally, during the pandemic, market disruption allowed competitors to sneak in and take over shares that originally belonged to Jinmailang. "Now Jinmailang focuses more on product structure adjustment, and Four-in-One is rarely mentioned, except occasionally by the boss (Jinmailang Chairman Fan Xianguo)." Both internally and externally, there are voices about Jinmailang going public, and the company's direction is indeed shifting toward that. Listed companies need profits and growth, so Jinmailang has been adjusting its product structure in recent years, upgrading and raising prices on some products, and launching new products, moving toward the high end. Despite the difficulties, Li Ziming is also trying to find solutions. When making the 2023 plan, he did a profit analysis for 2022 and saw that profits were too low. What to do? The profit on regular instant noodles is too low, all built on volume. Li Ziming knows there's no chance to "increase volume" in Market A, so he has to focus on high-profit products according to the company's direction. After thinking it over, he found that the new product "Dan Dan Noodles" could boost his profit points. This product was a star product for Jinmailang many years ago, and the advertisement with Dicky Cheung back then is still memorable. Now, Jinmailang has revived Dan Dan Noodles and invested in TV ads. Li Ziming tried promoting it and found the results quite good. He believes TV ads still work for rural elderly and children.

Image: Jinmailang x Dicky Cheung 2002 Dan Dan Noodles ad So since January this year, he goes to the company every morning to remind his salespeople of key points and strictly ensure the display of Dan Dan Noodles. He plans to keep promoting it, as a box of Dan Dan Noodles brings over ten yuan in profit, much better than other products. However, this is only a temporary measure. Li Ziming admits he can see the end for instant noodles and wants to find other profit growth points. "Now my view on brands is simple: no need for transfers, high profit, and I don't care about volume." Li Ziming thinks first-tier brands have volume but no profit, so he'd rather not do them. He's now planning to get into baijiu (white liquor) and is currently evaluating a baijiu brand; once confirmed, he'll go for it. He also plans to rebuild his team, not mixing it with the instant noodle team. Li Ziming believes his current team is deeply rooted in Jinmailang, using the system daily, and after running routes, they're done, like clocking in and out. The old team members only know how to sell Jinmailang products; they can't do anything else. First-tier brand products might be manageable with the old team, but for high-profit, low-brand-awareness products, he must build a new team. In fact, over the past few years, Li Ziming has thought about giving up the agency several times to do something else, feeling it would be more profitable than being a dealer. But he never took that step. He laments being constrained; having worked at Jinmailang since graduating from university, he's afraid to go out and leave the industry. Also, his children are growing up and need his attention and investment; a few million in hand could easily disappear if invested. But being a dealer in a small county, while not making much money, is comfortable. Li Ziming's situation actually reveals the survival state of many dealers in the industry; many dealers like him are in a dilemma, so they just give up. On one hand, they don't expect to grow big and strong; there's no foundation. On the other hand, they avoid the hassle and continue for now; being their own boss is still better than working for someone else.

Reviewing Four-in-One: Process Items That Cannot Be Ignored From salesperson to dealer, Li Ziming reflects on the decade and says that from 2013 to 2018 was the peak of Jinmailang's Four-in-One, but after 2018, few people tracked it. Especially after 2020, when the pandemic broke out, no one mentioned it anymore. Since then, even Li Ziming himself doesn't want to bring up Four-in-One. "Back then, just as we were about to chase vehicle and store networks, a wave of pandemic would cause instant noodles to be snatched up, and the whole market was chaotic; when others had stock and you didn't, some unknown brands could easily enter stores, and competitors came to grab business. You see, Jinmailang worked hard for ten years on Four-in-One, but it's not as effective as a competitor's Douyin post, right?" Li Ziming said. Clearly, Li Ziming is a bit discouraged. Whether due to helplessness about the environment or disappointment with business, he never denies the value of Four-in-One; it indeed played a crucial role in Jinmailang's development over the past decade. Through communication with Li Ziming, I also discovered and summarized some key actions of Four-in-One, which might be exactly what Jinmailang internally calls "process items" that played a significant role. This may be why later companies tried to imitate Four-in-One but found it difficult to replicate.

1. Standardized Operations Product sell-through cannot be achieved without a set of standardized operating procedures, which is often overlooked by many manufacturers in market promotion. This is especially true for high-frequency consumption categories like instant noodles and beverages. Instant noodles and beverages are considered low-involvement and homogeneous products. Their sell-through logic, referencing Coca-Cola's sales principles, is to be "visible everywhere" and "available at hand." But what if the brand isn't as well-known as Coca-Cola? The key still lies in store networks and displays. Jinmailang standardized display requirements and embedded its marketing logic, using a mobile work management system to incentivize and manage these operations. Can an app standardize the actions of frontline salespeople? Believe it or not, many companies have apps, but the tool isn't the core; the core is understanding frontline salespeople (the key people executing displays). The "Four-in-One little boss" starts their day by opening the app, selecting their work content based on interface prompts, and then begins their work process. The app's opening screen first shows 4-6 company policy promotional posters, which are updated irregularly and placed in a must-see position daily. The purpose is to remind frontline salespeople before starting work what they should do to earn money. The posters clearly tell them the standard actions to earn rewards; do them and get rewards, don't and get nothing. If posting posters is a key assessment item recently, frontline salespeople will see it and bring plenty of poster materials when loading the car, putting them up at every store. If a certain display requirement is key, then only by following the company's requirements will they get rewards; otherwise, none. Frontline salespeople have a series of actions daily: loading goods, selecting routes, entering stores, stocking shelves, arranging displays, building stacks, posting posters, price tags, etc. Each step requires photo uploads to the system, and each photo has a corresponding "score," which translates to money, called "Jin coins" by Jinmailang. As long as they complete actions according to standards, they get rewards; the more they do, the more they earn. Standardized operating procedures provide a good tool and clear instructions, making people more motivated and making Four-in-One implementation more effective.

2. Effective Incentives What kind of incentive is effective? The most direct is money, but Jinmailang's way of giving money is different. At the time, the recruitment poster for "Four-in-One little boss" had a slogan: "Earning 20,000 a month is not a dream." This wasn't just a slogan but a mental implant of attainability. Salespeople only needed to complete daily work according to standards to earn this money, and it was achievable with diligence. Additionally, Li Ziming repeatedly mentioned the need to "mobilize emotions." If emotions aren't mobilized, they remain indifferent to rewards. How to mobilize emotions? Some very down-to-earth operations in the Four-in-One process were effective. First, "full of ceremony." The dealer's office was turned into a "Four-in-One War Room," with banners hung, and everyone held morning and evening meetings before and after market visits. That was Li Ziming's time of high morale. At the morning meeting, everyone lined up, sang a special Jinmailang distribution battle song, and assigned key tasks for the day; in the evening, they reviewed the day's main work. Second, "full of honor." "Four-in-One little boss"—what do you feel when you hear this title? Each person contracts an area and is called "boss," meaning you work for yourself, so wouldn't you work with enthusiasm? Third, "full wallet." Jinmailang encouraged doing more to earn more. All "Jin coin" rewards from the day's distribution work in the system could be redeemed immediately, and some cash was distributed at the evening meeting. Seeing the day's hard-earned income after work made them more motivated the next day.

3. Secondary Verification The verification action is very important; on one hand, it helps the scoring supervisor understand the market, and on the other, it ensures the authenticity of scoring incentives. Li Ziming's role was the first-level verifier. Every day after salespeople finished work, he personally scored and commented, which allowed him to discover many problems in market operations. For example, some salespeople didn't follow company standards, visited too few stores, didn't meet work hours, scored below the baseline, or failed to open new stores; there were also fraud issues, like staging photos for scores, only arranging the front row, uploading fake photos to get scores, etc. Problems could be communicated and solved with salespeople immediately, and this process also helped him better understand the frontline market. This is why later, when AI scoring replaced manual, Li Ziming lamented that the tracking effect was far inferior. Sometimes AI is a plus, sometimes it's a minus. The second checkpoint was spot checks. At that time, Jinmailang had a dedicated audit department and functional platforms at various levels. Typically, the scoring process was self-scoring, supervisor scoring, director/manager scoring, and platform scoring. The platform would conduct daily spot checks, and if problems were found, they would issue correction notices and report nationwide. Once fraud was discovered, immediate penalties were given, and they were top-down, with managers penalized more. Secondary verification ensured the authenticity and fairness of scoring incentives and the effectiveness of standardized operations. Chairman Fan Xianguo personally pushed Four-in-One, reviewing data daily, weekly, and monthly, with strong tracking, so no one in the company dared to slack off. There are many more details, but they are embedded in management and daily execution. At that time, Jinmailang proposed a concept called "process management," which involved looking at data during these operations, finding reasons, strengthening process item management, and improving execution efficiency. In summary, behind Jinmailang's Four-in-One is a comprehensive, systematic thinking around market marketing.

How Much Longer Does Four-in-One Have? Why can't other companies learn Four-in-One? Not only is the management behind the model hard to understand, but the success of Four-in-One is also impossible to replicate. In my view, Jinmailang's Four-in-One model is essentially an upgrade of deep distribution, relying on a human-wave tactic and dense store coverage to push products into every street and alley. Its secret weapon lies in: an effective marketing strategy coupled with management methods that deeply understand human nature and strong coupling with digital tools. However, without the soil of the times (development of lower-tier markets), without being in a high-frequency category, without seizing the efficiency switch of salespeople, and without Boss Fan's determination for survival, Four-in-One would not have succeeded. It can be said that Four-in-One and Jinmailang are highly intertwined. Starting from a small village in Longyao County, Hebei Province, Jinmailang gradually entered the first tier of the national instant noodle and beverage industry. According to the "2020 China Top 500 Private Enterprises" data, Jinmailang's 2019 revenue was 21.8488 billion yuan, marking the first time annual revenue exceeded 20 billion yuan. At the 20th China Instant Noodle Conference, Chairman Fan Xianguo stated: The past thirty years were competition between Master Kong and Uni-President; 2020 would open the era of competition between Master Kong and Jinmailang. Just last month, Chairman Fan publicly declared again: Jinmailang has the best chance to become a rival to Nongfu Spring in the Chinese market. Behind Jinmailang's achievements, Four-in-One played an indispensable role. Today, Jinmailang has the confidence to challenge the industry leader. However, the only constant in the business world is change. Four-in-One's decade has arguably fulfilled its historical mission excellently. In the next decade, can Four-in-One continue as before? Enterprises need different strategies at different stages of development. To compete with Master Kong and Nongfu Spring, Jinmailang's front is not just in rural areas but must advance to cities. Urban warfare is not Jinmailang's strength. Competing on unfamiliar turf, Jinmailang's Four-in-One faces many challenges. First, environmental challenges. Four-in-One's main battlefield targets lower-tier markets. Jinmailang's previous strategy was to surround cities from rural areas, with affordable prices and high cost-performance, giving it a natural advantage. Now, with accelerating urbanization, as Li Ziming mentioned, rural populations are shrinking. Jinmailang's strategy to enter cities is correct, but it also faces corresponding upgrades in brand, product, and channels. Second, labor costs are rising. Four-in-One's human-wave tactic involves adding vehicles, people, and stores; "people" are the core, but they are getting more expensive. Back then, someone would work for 5,000 yuan a month, but now it might take 10,000, otherwise young people would rather deliver packages or food. Four-in-One's profit distribution model is now difficult to implement; dealer profits are thinning, and little bosses are harder to retain. How to upgrade incentives and management for "people" is a major challenge for Four-in-One. In 2013, the "deep distribution failure theory" sparked industry debate, and "Four-in-One" emerged and succeeded; now, "Four-in-One" may also face a new round of "upgrading." Last year, renowned marketing expert Liu Chunxiong proposed: It's not that deep distribution has failed, but that the FMCG industry calls for "high-level deep distribution." Liu pointed out that high-level deep distribution should shift from "coverage" to "promotion" as the core; "sales teams" should transform into "promotion teams"; "one-person" operations should become "team" operations; and the SFA sales system should be upgraded, requiring comprehensive data such as consumer profiles, behavioral data, and terminal panoramic data. Looking back at Jinmailang's Four-in-One, why did Li Ziming say that years of Four-in-One were not as effective as a competitor's Douyin post? Although this statement isn't objective, it indirectly highlights the importance of "promotion." Moreover, can Four-in-One's "one person, one car, one device, one area" still adapt to the current environment? Can "one person" beat "a team"? Perhaps it's time for Four-in-One to re-center on the company's strategic products and upgrade the four points of "people, cars, devices, and areas." Knowledge from books is shallow; true understanding comes from practice. Next, whether it's Four-in-One, Five-in-One, or Six-in-One, I wish Jinmailang can seize the opportunity of the next decade and create another miracle. I also hope that dealers like Li Ziming, who are trapped by the industry and still struggling, can find their position and mission.

Feng Yao, head of advertising at New Distribution; focuses on FMCG brands, marketing, and channels.

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