Niu Gensheng, founder of Mengniu, is most notable for his reverse thinking. His divergent and lateral thinking all derive from reverse thinking. The formation of Niu Gensheng's reverse thinking was first influenced by his family from a young age. Niu Gensheng once recalled: "My mother gave me two sentences that I will never forget: 'If you want to know, turn it upside down' and 'Loss is a blessing, gain is a curse.'" These two sentences, which influenced him for life, both reflect a reverse thinking contrary to traditional concepts. Later, when Niu Gensheng encountered difficult problems, he would always first think of the phrase "If you want to know, turn it upside down," inspiring his thinking to go in the opposite direction from ordinary people. When he was at Yili, he often voluntarily distributed bonuses to his subordinates, obviously influenced by the phrase "Loss is a blessing." Niu Gensheng used reverse thinking as a starting point, expanding and extending it to divergent and lateral thinking, forming his unique innovative traits. Reverse thinking in Niu Gensheng's entrepreneurship: "Process reversal: build the market first, then the factory." According to the general approach to starting a business, one would first build a factory, purchase equipment, produce products, then advertise and promote, so that the products gain visibility and market. If operated this way, perhaps Mengniu would still be like an ox moving slowly today, never running at "rocket" speed. But Niu Gensheng did the opposite, proposing the idea of "build the market first, then the factory," concentrating limited funds on marketing and promotion, and turning factories across the country into his processing workshops. Without a single dairy cow, Niu Gensheng used one-third of his startup capital, over 3 million yuan, for advertising in Hohhot, creating a massive advertising effect. Almost overnight, everyone knew about "Mengniu." Then, Niu Gensheng jointly developed new products with the Chinese Nutrition Society, and then cooperated with domestic dairy factories, investing in brand, technology, and formulas, using forms such as trusteeship, contracting, leasing, and commissioned production to "borrow a chicken to lay eggs" and produce "Mengniu" products. Mengniu called this organizational form "dumbbell-shaped"—with both ends inside (R&D and sales) and the middle outside (production and processing). Through this reverse operation, within just a few months, Niu Gensheng revitalized nearly 800 million yuan in external assets, completing expansion that would take ordinary companies several years. Within half a year, in the sales revenue ranking of Chinese dairy companies, Mengniu jumped from the bottom to 119th place. In 2000, Mengniu achieved sales revenue of 294 million yuan, 6.7 times that of 1999, ranking 11th in the national industry. In 2002, Mengniu achieved sales revenue of 2.1 billion yuan, 8 times that of 2000. Mengniu's total assets reached over 1 billion yuan, with the main plant area covering 550,000 square meters and building area of 140,000 square meters. Forming an annual production capacity of 200,000 tons each of liquid milk and ice cream. After Mengniu had its own factory, the "virtual association" not only did not shrink but further extended. Currently, the more than 600 transport vehicles, milk tankers, and refrigerated trucks involved in the company's raw materials and product transportation, the more than 500 milk stations and supporting facilities for purchasing raw milk, and nearly 100,000 square meters of employee dormitories, together worth over 500 million yuan, were not paid for by Mengniu itself but were all completed with social investment. Using reverse thinking, Mengniu integrated a large amount of social resources, turning the traditional "internal circulation" into "external circulation," and the traditional "enterprise running society" into "society running enterprise," achieving extraordinary development. Reverse thinking in marketing—effect reversal. Mengniu's successful marketing activities such as event marketing, entertainment marketing, and public welfare marketing contain rich creative thinking. Niu Gensheng said: "If you want to know, turn it upside down. No matter how a screw is designed, when it won't turn clockwise, it will surely turn counterclockwise. When the mountains are heavy and the waters are dark, and this road is blocked, change position, change heart, change direction, and often everything becomes clear." Just as Welch thought about strategy in a "counter-popular" direction, Niu Gensheng is also very skilled at using reverse thinking in brand management and marketing to achieve unexpected effects. In 1999 when Mengniu was founded, Niu Gensheng's two classic strategies in Mengniu's brand marketing reflected two reverse thoughts: The "second brand in Inner Mongolia dairy industry" strategy of willingly taking a back seat. At that time, Mengniu established such a brand positioning and promotional creativity, obviously using Niu Gensheng's "turn upside down" empathetic thinking, fully weighing the complex feelings toward Yili and the possibility of future suppression and siege from Yili, so they raised the banner of "learn from Yili" as cover, secretly crossing the Chencang, and biding their time. When Yili discarded the "grassland concept" and positioned its brand as "spiritual natural pasture," Niu Gensheng also did the opposite, "doing what others don't do," highlighting Mengniu's "grassland origin," making Mengniu the representative of the "grassland brand," and establishing a new brand image in consumers' minds. During the SARS period in 2003, ordinary people thought that normal consumption was affected by SARS, and advertising investment became a pure money-burning activity, so many merchants withdrew their running ads one after another. But Mengniu did the opposite: not only did they not withdraw ads, but they even increased the broadcast density on CCTV-1 and 15 provincial satellite TV stations. Their thinking was: because SARS kept people at home, TV became the main window to the outside world, which was a good opportunity for brand communication. Other merchants withdrew their ads, which could better highlight Mengniu's brand promotion effect. As expected, Mengniu's brand became more deeply rooted in people's hearts nationwide, and Mengniu products received generous market returns. Reverse thinking in management. The general corporate thinking is "how much money, how big things you do," acting according to rules and within one's means. But Mengniu's thinking is: the bigger the heart, the bigger the stage; don't fear not doing, fear not thinking. Mengniu's reverse thinking method: reverse resource allocation, reverse time allocation, link strategy and tactics, link methods and means. The specific approach is to start from the goal, plan the path to achieve the goal according to the goal's requirements, clarify the conditions for achieving the goal, and in actual work, strive to discover, leverage, and create the conditions for achieving the goal, advancing step by step along the path, and ultimately achieving the goal. Mengniu, founded in 1999, had sales revenue of less than 300 million yuan in 2000, and in the first three quarters of 2000, it reached 500 million yuan. Against the backdrop of China's dairy industry total sales revenue of only 20 billion yuan in 2000, Niu Gensheng set a sales target of 10 billion yuan for 2006 when formulating the future "five-year plan" in 2001, a market share equivalent to half of the entire Chinese dairy industry in the previous year. Many people thought Niu Gensheng was too aggressive. But Niu Gensheng's answer was: "Because I am timid, I set such a target. If someone else were president, it would not be 10 billion yuan, but 20 billion yuan." After Niu Gensheng did the ideological work, everyone still wholeheartedly rushed toward this goal: building a global model factory, building an international demonstration pasture, looking to Wall Street and partnering with Morgan, developing the Hong Kong market and eventually listing, fighting major battles in Beijing and Shanghai, with astronauts in the sky and athletes on the ground, forming an overall offensive posture of sea, land, and air. As a result, by the end of 2005, Mengniu Dairy's operating revenue had exceeded 10 billion yuan, and by 2006, sales revenue reached 16.2 billion yuan! Now Mengniu's growth ranks first in the world dairy industry, and the "ox has run at rocket speed." If they had not used reverse thinking to integrate resources according to the goal, but only focused on what was in their own basket and operated with existing resources, Mengniu would never have created such growth speed and miracles! Source: Internet 2017 (3rd) FMCG + Internet Conference will be held in Chongqing in November 2017. The conference will closely focus on the theme "New Forces, New Ecology," inviting domestic 1000+ distributors, 500+ brand owners, 200+ B2B platform founders, 100+ investment and financing institutions to jointly explore a new chapter of cross-border integration! Click the link below to review the highlights of the first and second FMCG + Internet conferences: 2016 "FMCG + Internet" Summit Forum -END-