Click the image to view registration details ◎ Text by Liu Chunxiong Some say the current Sugar and Wine Fair has nothing to see; I think they don't know how to look. "Small companies look at products, big companies look at marketing, forums look at trends." That's my summary of the fair. Some may wonder: big companies looking at marketing and forums looking at trends is easy to understand. Why look at small companies' products? Products have always been done well by big companies. " If I tell you that many successful products from big companies are imitations of small companies, many may not admit it. But from what I know, many are indeed so. " Most people's logic is: whoever successfully promotes a product is the one who made it. A common phenomenon is: small companies make good products, but big companies succeed in marketing. Marketing often proves a truth: perception is greater than fact. 1 Differentiation is a natural drive for small companies. As long as there is homogenization, people will think small companies are imitating. Big companies' drive is to create barriers, making it hard for others to imitate. Small companies have two main thinking directions in products. One is [copycatting] This is the most criticized, because copycats are most annoying. Copycatting means imitating successful products, then making them low-quality and low-price. This phenomenon is, of course, not rare. Doing this can disturb others, but cannot achieve success for oneself, so it's not in our discussion. The second is [differentiation] I have always believed that small companies are most aware of differentiation. This conclusion may not be admitted by many; people only acknowledge successful differentiation. Small companies' differentiation is truly intended from the product concept. The reason is simple: small companies cannot compete head-on with big companies, so differentiation is a must. 2 Differentiation can easily push oneself into a dead end, with no room for maneuver, especially for small companies. One type of differentiation is moving toward niche markets. This is usually not the original intent of differentiation. Niche is easy to differentiate, but the purpose of differentiation is not to be small, but to be different. If the niche market is relatively concentrated, it can serve as a starting point, which is not bad for small companies. If the niche becomes a long-tail market, small companies will find it harder. Long-tail means demand exists but is hard to grasp. Fortunately, e-commerce is naturally a hub for long-tail markets, providing survival space for differentiated niche products. Starting from a niche, igniting through communication, and harvesting from the mass market—this is a good niche differentiation strategy. Embed and take root in a niche, ignite through communication, and finally turn to the mass market. This is not truly niche. Of course, if you sincerely do well in a niche, become a hidden champion, and then go global, following the German hidden champion model, that is also a path. 3 In the food industry, I have seen many niche products, especially regional ones. At the Sugar and Wine Fair, there are many such regional niche products, quite differentiated. "My perspective is to find, from these niche products, those that can move to a larger market." There are many cases of regional products going national. What kind of niche products can go national tests one's insight. For example, a meat product company brought in R&D personnel from big companies but never succeeded. Later, by chance, they made [Taiwanese-style grilled sausage], which was also a success in differentiation. Of course, food differentiation usually has no imitation barrier. I suggested the boss quickly go national, using this product to drive other products. The boss didn't listen, but a giant discovered it and quickly covered the national market. Just this one product had annual sales exceeding 1 billion yuan. 4 Another type of differentiation is creating a new category. As long as it's a new category, it means there is a huge cognitive barrier. For small companies, a new category may push them into a dead end. From the perspective of cognitive barriers, category education has the highest cognitive barrier; followed by brand awareness. We know that building a brand is hard. Where is the difficulty? It's that a brand is a perception. Category education either requires a long time and endurance, or requires significant investment and sufficient resources. Of course, once category education succeeds, the rewards are enormous. 5 The third type of differentiation that easily pushes one into a dead end is pseudo-differentiation. Pseudo-differentiation means that although there is a difference, others can easily converge to it. Many people bring so-called new products to me, asking if they can do it. Some products, even if you succeed, are just adding a feature for others. If you only have one more feature than others, and that feature cannot form a barrier, it's pseudo-differentiation. Many small companies or startups die from pseudo-differentiation. 6 True differentiation is not about being different, nor adding a function, nor using a technology, but discovering unmet needs. Unmet needs also need to have sufficient scale. With sufficient scale, consider whether the company can bear the cost of consumer education. Only when these conditions are met is it valuable differentiation. Source: Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964)