---
title: "Questioning Annual Performance"
description: "This article urges readers to evaluate annual performance within a five-year framework, questioning whether growth is sustainable and contributes to market position, marketing models, and long-term survival. It emphasizes that performance should change destiny, not merely delay death."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
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published: "2018-02-07"
language: "en"
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# Questioning Annual Performance

> This article urges readers to evaluate annual performance within a five-year framework, questioning whether growth is sustainable and contributes to market position, marketing models, and long-term survival. It emphasizes that performance should change destiny, not merely delay death.

◎ Text | Liu Chunxiong
Some people consider December 31 as the end of the year, while others consider the Spring Festival as the end. One is the fiscal year, the other is the psychological year. In any case, it's time to take stock.
Annual performance is out. Some have met their targets, others haven't. Some are happy, some are frustrated.
At this moment, I particularly want to emphasize: how about reviewing annual performance within a five-year framework?
This question is to determine the value of annual performance.
A person's work is valuable not only this year but also in the future. If so, the value of performance will appreciate.
1.
I have written over a dozen books, and "Let Growth Change Destiny" is one of the three I am most satisfied with. The other two are "Chinese-style Marketing" and "Let Ordinary People Achieve Extraordinary Results."
The perspective of "Let Growth Change Destiny" is to examine all growth within a longer time frame.
It may grow year after year, but die within a few years.
It didn't die at millions, didn't die at tens of millions, but died at hundreds of millions.
Many enterprises die during continuous growth because the threshold for elimination rises faster than growth, and because competitors grow faster than you.
Sometimes, goals are achieved, but the industry has no place for you. For example, the goal was to enter the top three in the industry, but the result of competition was that only the top two survived.
**Performance should be examined not only from the enterprise's perspective but also from the industry's perspective and over a longer time dimension.**
2.
Being happy for a few years, only to end in a big cry. This kind of thing is not unheard of.
25 years ago, a wine company saw sales surge for several consecutive years, but within a few years, it went bankrupt. Because when wine transitioned from the original "ladies' fruit wine" to the era of dry red and dry white, others gave up sales, but this company picked them up.
A few years ago, a instant noodle company's sales surged. I learned that a major brand gave up low-end products, and this company cherished them. Now, this company is struggling.
Performance growth was not in the right direction.
**If the route is wrong, the better the performance, the further it deviates from the goal.**
**So, we must examine: is your annual performance "toxic" performance?**
3.
There was a beer company that no longer exists now.
For a few years, sales growth was good.
I asked: In how many markets are you number one in sales? Answer: None.
I asked again: In how many markets are you in the top three? Still none.
I finally asked: In how many markets are you in the top eight? Answer: A few.
Finally, my conclusion was: What is the meaning of such performance growth?
If performance growth does not strengthen market position, it is meaningless.
Because ultimately, what determines a company's fate is not performance growth but market position, even if it's a local market position.
If performance helps improve market position, then quantitative changes in performance bring about qualitative changes.
**So, we must examine: does your performance help improve market position? Can quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes?**
4.
In the herbal tea industry, people often talk about positioning and the battle between the two giants, but I pay more attention to how this industry established itself.
JDB's herbal tea went from a regional product to a national one, with the famous three major campaigns.
∙ **Wenzhou Campaign:** Crossing the river by feeling the stones. Started in hotpot restaurants, expanded in household consumption.
∙ **Jiangxi Campaign:** Fostering a mature system. Established product positioning, advocated consumption scenarios, and determined the 4M strategic development model [referring to Marketing (market opportunities), Management, Model (resource model), and Money (money-related systems)].
∙ **Beijing Campaign:** Creating national momentum. Created national topics, matured media PR, and from then on went national.
If there is performance more important than sales, I think JDB's three major campaigns are the most important performance because they laid the foundation for future development.
A model that brings rapid sales growth is more important performance than sales itself. Once the model is established, sales are no longer a worry.
**So, we must examine: does your performance help form a marketing model? If not, it's just isolated performance.**
5.
A provincial manager asked me why, despite good performance, the boss removed him.
The boss sent him to a new province with two salespeople.
As soon as he arrived, he worked hard on sales, and indeed, performance was good.
I asked: What was the purpose of the boss sending you there? He said he didn't know.
I said, people often complain that despite good performance, others get promoted.
You think sales are performance, but in the boss's eyes, there is performance more important than sales.
I guess the boss wanted to develop a second base market. The purpose of sending you was, first, to **explore the model for the new market**; second, to **make arrangements**. Instead, you found a bunch of customers and worked hard on sales.
6.
Performance is important; we absolutely cannot say it's not.
Marketing is a competitive field; it's an elimination game, and comparison is necessary.
We must ask: What is the accumulation of performance? We can examine performance from several dimensions:
First, can the accumulation of sales lead from quantitative to qualitative change?
Second, in a longer time dimension, how much value does sales have?
Third, in a larger layout, how much value does sales have?
Fourth, compared with competitors, how much has the performance changed in a seesaw manner?
Fifth, with the rising threshold for industry elimination, how much has the distance to the elimination threshold changed?
Sixth, in the industry landscape, how far is it from the ultimate pattern?
**Performance growth ultimately aims to change destiny, not to delay death.**
Source: Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964)


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