-01- Survival Laws Law 1: As long as you have a strong will to do marketing, you can survive even without any marketing knowledge or skills. The U.S. Army Survival Manual states at the outset: Many survival cases show that a firm, strong will can overcome many difficulties. There is a case of a man trapped in the desert for 8 days without water or food, and without any survival skills training, so he did nothing right, but he wanted to live. Through his firm will and belief, he survived. Training, equipment, plus the will to survive, you can conquer any obstacles you encounter and survive. No matter what problems you face, a "survival attitude" is extremely important. Be prepared for all kinds of problems and difficulties in advance, both mentally and practically, which can prepare you for "habitual actions" later. Because in an emergency, you don't have time to learn or even ask. Knowledge and training about survival give you confidence—a survival attitude that prepares you for any unexpected event, even if you may not be fully aware of it at the time. Without a positive attitude, a person is easily panicked in danger.

-02- Performance Laws Law 2: Ordinary salespeople treat customers as gods; excellent salespeople make customers treat them as gods of wealth. Customers distribute or buy your product because you can maximize their interests. No matter how carefully you serve customers, you may be far from meeting their need for maximum profit. Make customers understand:

  • (1) Letting you distribute my product is giving you a chance to make money—I am not giving you a product, but sending you a bright future;
  • (2) We either become comrades in the same trench or competitors in the same industry—would you rather have me as a strong competitor?—If you don't distribute my product, you will regret it. If you sell an egg, the egg is not worth much. But if you sell a farming business of "egg gives birth to chicken, chicken lays eggs," then an egg is valuable—what is valuable is not the egg itself, but your unique understanding of the egg.

Law 3: As long as you help customers sell their products, your products will also be sold. The task of a salesperson is not to solve your own problems, but to solve your customers' problems—because customers need you, enterprises need you. A hotel owner was worried about poor business when a liquor factory salesperson happened to visit. The owner decided to "fleece" the salesperson by charging a high entry fee. But the salesperson didn't talk about selling liquor at all; the conversation revolved around the hotel's business. The owner was greatly inspired and immediately set up a banquet to consult the salesperson. Of course, the product entry issue was resolved, and the product sales expanded because the hotel business became prosperous. When a salesperson asked me how to sell products to customers, I told him: "As long as you help customers sell their products and make money, your products will be sold." When someone asked me how to solve the credit sales problem, I also told him: "As long as you help your customers solve their credit sales problem, customers will pay cash for your goods."

Law 4: Performance comes from opportunities; to achieve performance, first find opportunities. Fighting to the death in well-known fields may also yield performance, but the cost is too high and not worth it. To achieve performance, you must first have enough insight to discover opportunities that others haven't seen; this is the so-called blue ocean. Doing performance is like attacking a city in war: once you open a breach, the whole city is yours. And opportunity is the breach in the city.

Law 5: Make work that generates both current sales and future sales, so your performance will be unbeatable. If you think every day about how to complete the monthly sales task, your work may be mortgaging future sales, and you will only go downhill. If you do work that contributes to sustained sales growth, each task can produce "increments," and each month's sales will increase based on the previous month's sales.

-03- Promotion Laws Law 6: Choosing a fast-growing company is more important than choosing a prestigious one. A prestigious company may train you step by step according to a "career plan," and you might climb to a good position when you are old and gray. But in such a company, you will feel: No one is indispensable, including yourself. A company full of problems may be eager for you, or you may be irreplaceable. But note: Unless you can control the company, you cannot save its fate. A fast-growing enterprise can continuously create new positions, and a new position usually drives 3-5 people to be promoted in succession because each promoted person vacates their original position. Some people get promoted quickly not because they are more capable, but because there are more positions waiting for new people to fill. In a fast-growing enterprise, promotion is like sailing with the wind; your speed is aided by both wind and current, and the company's rapid development inevitably drives your rapid progress. Whether in a large or small enterprise, if there is no growth, your promotion only has the following paths: First, your boss retires—if your boss is younger than you, you are even more unlucky; Second, wait for your boss to make mistakes—your boss may be more cautious than you; Third, wait for your boss to be promoted—your boss may be more worried than you.

Law 7: Follow a fast-promoting boss, and you can also be promoted quickly. Learn to choose your boss. Only when your boss is promoted do you have the chance to take over. More importantly, a fast-promoting boss must have special tricks. By observing and learning from your boss, you may also learn a few promotion "secrets." After all, the most important training is the assimilation by your boss.

Law 8: It's best not to prove your ability with performance, but with influence. Smart people only use performance to verify their ability, not to prove it. Because turning ability into performance is a long process, and there are many factors beyond ability's control in the process. Smart people gain recognition from their superiors through influence. What is influence? It's when your boss thinks you are capable before you even do anything. Some people sit in important positions before they start working, while others with outstanding performance are still not valued. Don't complain; this is the workplace rule.

Law 9: Choosing a market with growth potential is more important than choosing a good market. Choosing the target market is as important as choosing the company and boss. Starting a poor market is not a short-term effort, and bosses often have a "Matthew effect" mindset: the better the market, the more support; the worse the market, the less support. Doing a good market that is already good is the result of "planting trees for future generations," and it may even create an impression of "sucking up to leaders" among colleagues. The best target market should be a potential market with "foundation but no sales," where a little effort can produce sales. Under the result-oriented principle of "performance is the only hard truth," bosses may not have the patience to wait for you to build the foundation; the best way is to build sales on others' foundations.

Law 10: If you have changed jobs multiple times without solving your career problems, try changing industries. A friend worked in the instant noodle industry for ten years, changed jobs countless times, but never got promoted, and his career hit a bottleneck. My advice to him was: Stop changing jobs; change industries quickly. Jump to an industry similar to the instant noodle industry ten years ago. Later, I introduced him to an industry, and as soon as he entered, he exclaimed: "It's so easy; opportunities are everywhere." At every sales meeting, others talked about difficulties, but he talked about opportunities. The boss liked people who talked about opportunities, and he was soon valued.

Law 11: If you only know how to catch mice, you are at best a good cat; if you are good at summarizing the experience of catching mice, you can become the leader of cats. Some salespeople have good performance, but asking them to summarize why they do well is harder than "giving birth," and such salespeople are just excellent salespeople. A leader is a "wholesaler of experience," summarizing the experience of excellent salespeople and then promoting it to become everyone's experience. The difference between a leader and a salesperson is: Salespeople solve problems; leaders are good at summarizing experience; salespeople are good at solving individual problems; leaders are good at solving universal problems.

Law 12: If you haven't been promoted in three years, either change markets or change jobs. A person's passion for a market does not exceed three years; after three years, "aesthetic fatigue" sets in—you become blind to problems and are assimilated by them. Similarly, when you think you know the market best, it's because "you can't see the true face of Mount Lu, only because you are in the mountain." If you haven't solved a problem in three years, don't expect to solve it later.

Law 13: Leadership thinking is more important than performance. Performance is not the only factor for promotion, nor even a necessary factor. The key to promotion is to have boss thinking or owner thinking. Salesperson thinking is: The boss gives me how much money, and I do that much work. Boss thinking is: You do how much work, and I give you that much money. If you have employee thinking, you will always be an employee; if you have boss thinking, you will eventually become a boss.

-04- Success Laws Law 14: Opportunities for success belong to those who have "eternal positive thinking." Positive thinking means when everyone sees difficulties, you must see opportunities. If you seize the opportunity, the difficulties may disappear. Therefore, opportunities for success always belong to those with "eternal positive thinking." I have asked many people: "Do good markets have more problems or bad markets?" Some answer: "Good markets have high sales, so of course they have more problems." My answer is: "Problems in bad markets are often exaggerated to prove that the bad market has reasons. So bad markets don't have more problems themselves, but more problems are raised. When you go to the market, do you start by seizing opportunities or solving problems?"

Law 15: If you are a lucky "unlucky guy," then you may be "forced to succeed." Biologists have proven that animals can perform beyond their limits when in danger. Biologists conclude that success belongs to the "unlucky." If you always encounter "misfortune," such as always being assigned the worst market, enjoying the worst policies, then your performance beyond normal ability in critical moments may force you to succeed. Therefore, when facing misfortune, don't always complain, but say: "It's so lucky that I encountered misfortune."

Law 16: Effective work is more important than hard work. Smart salespeople ask themselves every day: "Does my work today contribute to sustained sales growth?" If hard work doesn't contribute to sustained sales growth, what's the use? Many people's diligence is just doing too many ineffective things. People can be divided into two categories: One creates value, the other creates cost. Hard work may only create cost; effective work creates value. For those salespeople who are always rushing around the market, they are only "contributing to China's transportation industry," but for the enterprise, they are creating cost.

Law 17: Having "reason" rather than just "common sense" can make you stand out. Common sense is "public knowledge," like "1+1=2." Common sense only makes you a normal person; it doesn't create competitiveness. What to do if products don't sell? Lower prices, advertise—any normal person would think of that because it's common sense. If marketing were that simple, would it still be a discipline? Common sense can lead you into the trap of "fallacy of composition." The most typical fallacy of composition is the "paradox of丰收": when one farmer has a good harvest, income increases; when all farmers have good harvests, prices fall, and income may actually decrease. The fallacy of composition in marketing is: The first to distribute products succeeds; when everyone follows, they just catch up; the first to do terminal marketing succeeds; when everyone follows, they just increase costs. To succeed, you need to know something others don't. Effective marketing methods are often "unexpected but reasonable," which requires deduction by "reason." For example, common sense says "consumers want to buy cheap things," but reason says "consumers want to buy things that feel like a bargain."

Law 18: If you can't complete a task independently, learn to call for reinforcements. Calling for reinforcements is not shameful; failing to complete the task is. In "Journey to the West," few monsters were killed by Sun Wukong alone; whenever he couldn't defeat a monster, he would summon reinforcements. As an employee, learn Sun Wukong's skill of calling for reinforcements; as a leader, learn Guanyin's skill of stepping in at critical moments. Who are your reinforcements? Your superiors, colleagues, friends, or mentors. When to call for reinforcements? Only at the most critical moments.

Law 19: If you have received a lot of training but still progress slowly, try training others. Receiving training can indeed let you "stand on the shoulders of giants," but training others can make you a giant. Receiving training is one of the least efficient learning methods, while training others is the most efficient. To make others understand, you must understand better than them. To give the audience a ladle, you must have a bucket. To avoid embarrassment on stage, you must desperately research materials. Before you even start speaking, you have already surpassed the audience. If you want to be a leader, you must first learn to train others. For leaders, training is everywhere: meetings are training, assigning work is training, checking work is training, summarizing is training.

Law 20: Every three years, comprehensively upgrade your knowledge structure. In this rapidly changing era, when a practice is summarized as experience, it is already or is becoming outdated. Look at the marketing celebrities from a few years ago; how many are still at the forefront? Be ready to "reset to zero" at any time and quickly update your knowledge system; this is the only way to "stay young forever" in the marketing world.

Law 21: Career strategy is to do things you won't regret in the future. Strategy is not about ignoring the present, but making current actions have future significance. If you don't know what to do now, try the backward induction method: based on your expectations for the future, deduce what you should do now.

-05- Workplace Laws Law 22: Never speak ill of your old employer or old boss, even if they are truly worthless. People don't care about your grudges with your old employer or boss, but they do care about your attitude towards them. If you constantly speak ill of them, people might think: "How could they have been blind to choose you?" If you are dissatisfied with all the companies and bosses you've served, people might also think: "How can you be so blind as to never find a good company?" A human weakness is "overestimating oneself and underestimating others," which is the root of worry. Also, people tend to "underestimate the company they serve" because you are more likely to see the dark side of your own company and only the bright side of other companies.

Law 23: Always give your boss multiple-choice questions, not open-ended questions. Your boss needs you not to give him problems, but to help solve them. So never ask your boss "What should I do?" type questions. Even if you need to consult your boss, offer multiple-choice options to show you have alternatives, not that you are clueless.

Law 24: It's best not to complain; even when offering opinions, maintain a "constructive mindset." Many companies' sales meetings become complaint sessions for salespeople. Common complaints include: "The competitor's quality is better, prices are lower, policies are more favorable, and advertising is stronger." If the boss says, "The salesperson's duty is to compensate for product defects through your efforts," that's already tolerant. If less polite, he might say, "If products, prices, advertising, and policies were all better than competitors, why would we need you?" Complaining is an unhealthy mindset, or a negative one. Bosses usually like people who face problems with a constructive mindset, which means "face reality and focus on solving problems." So, when encountering problems, offer more suggestions and complain less.

Law 25: Learn to manage your boss and headquarters functional departments. Without the support of your boss and superiors, you will achieve nothing. Everyone's authority is limited; only the boss's authority is unlimited. Many salespeople think the boss is "stingy," but actually the boss is not afraid to spend money; he is afraid that the money spent won't come back, that investment won't yield returns. So, when applying for policies from the boss or superiors, say: "We've done everything we can; as soon as the policy is in place, the market will start immediately." When the boss sees "everything is ready except the east wind," the policy is given immediately. At every sales meeting, functional departments are the target of criticism. Salespeople's criticism seems understandable: "We are fighting at the front, and you are enjoying comfort at the rear, and you keep tripping us up." But the more they complain, the less support they get from functional departments.

Law 26: Evaluate your income comprehensively and continuously create room for income growth. The former president of GE once said, A person's job has two incomes: one is current income, the other is future income. Current income is salary; future income is the ability to earn money. Future income is more important than current income. At grassroots positions, income growth has limits, but as positions rise, income growth has no limits. In this sense, income growth is more important than income itself.

Advice: As a salesperson, if you are not professional enough, you should be smart enough; if you are not smart enough, you should be humble enough; if you are not humble enough, you should be diligent enough; if you are not even diligent, then don't do marketing.

Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing Tips will be paid 400-2000 yuan once adopted.