Introduction: The safest marketing for a company is to invest 100% of its marketing resources into the 5% of key matters.
There are always people around us who seem 'unlucky'. They often share these traits: they are warm-hearted, always ready to help, and rush to assist whenever anyone asks; they are hardworking, uncomplaining, worry about everything, and are busy all day long. Yet they themselves always seem to have bad luck, encountering many misfortunes, often living in poverty, with poor health, and many end up in bleak old age. Lao Miao has many such examples around him, too many to count.
When I was young, I attended a training course. A 'teacher' taught us about time management, dividing tasks into four quadrants based on urgency and importance: 'urgent and important', 'urgent but not important', 'not urgent but important', and 'not urgent and not important'. Then he asked us what order we would do things in. Of course, even a fool knows to do 'urgent and important' things first, and do 'not urgent and not important' things last or not at all.
What many find hard to choose between is: 'urgent but not important' versus 'important but not urgent'—which do you do first?
The training teacher told us to do 'urgent but not important' first because it is imminent. After hearing that, Lao Miao picked up his notebook and left. I thought attending such a class was a 'brainless and unimportant' thing.
Professionals often go against intuition. Most people are pushed by time and assume they should do urgent things first, without calculating their value.
A friend calls, saying there's a social engagement you should attend. You go out of politeness, chat for two hours, and eat some hard-to-digest food and drink. In fact, you had planned to go to the gym or read for two hours that evening.
So, you think you have no time to read or exercise.
Daily reading or exercise is not urgent. If you skip reading or exercise a couple of times, you won't notice much difference, but it is very important. If you don't believe it, try sticking with it for a year, and you'll see a transformative change. A friend organizing a dinner or needing a fourth for mahjong is urgent, but it's not important. Although it's euphemistically called networking and maintaining relationships, for most people, it's just a formality.
This is the first law we're discussing today: Don't do unimportant things; don't be led by the nose by urgent but unimportant matters. This is the most important principle in time management and also the most prone to misunderstanding.
Okay, with this foundation, let's upgrade our cognition. Among important things, there are also key matters and non-key matters. For example, in a company, which of 'production, supply, sales, R&D, personnel, finance' is not important? They are all important. But which is key? That depends on the specific situation. Under different circumstances, the key matters differ.
Chairman Mao liked to say 'lift the net by the main rope', and he was a master at grasping key actions. During the War of Liberation, Mao wrote every editorial himself, while Chiang Kai-shek personally commanded every battle, even flying to the battlefield to issue specific orders.
Different perceptions of key matters determine different actions. Mao said that the victory of the Liberation War was politically inevitable and militarily accidental. So his actions focused on the inevitable factors. Militarily, he mainly gave directions via telegrams, using 408 telegrams to manage 24 battles, including the three major campaigns, and specifically noted 'don't ask for instructions on everything'.
On the other hand, Chiang, who had attended military school and served as principal of the Whampoa Military Academy, believed more in 'power comes from the barrel of a gun'. He devoted most of his energy to troop strength, generals, factions, weapons, military supplies, and command.
Mao Zedong wrote in 'On Contradiction': 'In the process of development of a complex thing, there are many contradictions, among which one is necessarily the principal contradiction. Its existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of other contradictions.'
'In any case, there is no doubt that at each stage of the process, only one principal contradiction plays the leading role.' 'Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved.'
Contradictions are everywhere, and the principal contradiction is also everywhere in complex matters. Key actions are the most powerful means to resolve contradictions. Similarly, there is a law in marketing: At any time in any enterprise, there are only one or two key actions. A slight touch on them can bring about earth-shaking changes. This is the marketing button. If you press the right button, all problems will be readily solved.
Ma Huateng is also a master at grasping key matters. He believes that Tencent's success hinges on product experience. Pony Ma has publicly stated several times: Whether the product experience can move people is the biggest thing, bigger than anything else.
Like the basic law of contradiction movement, the key actions in marketing are also developing and changing. Contradictions transform into each other, the nature of things changes, and the key actions of business operations also change, so the buttons that need to be pressed change accordingly. The theory of development and change is the third law of button marketing.
When we were doing marketing standardization for Wanda, the principal contradiction was 'limited money and cheap land everywhere'. So Boss Wang used 'Wanda speed' to rapidly expand scale and improve capital utilization. But when it became a commercial empire, the key contradiction changed. Stability and correctness outweighed everything. Then things happened that cannot be described.
Dali's development is a vivid example.
I remember when Dali only made baked goods, I visited Dali once. It was astonishing: the entire office building was extremely empty, with only a few management staff. It was said that there were only about a dozen salespeople stationed outside, yet Dali's sales had already exceeded one billion yuan, and brands like Haochidian and Kebike were already famous nationwide.
When Dali launched beverages in 2006, the industry was full of naysayers who were later proven wrong, saying things like 'making beverages requires meticulous cultivation; Dali's extensive approach won't work' and 'Dali is just all talk (good at advertising); they will die in beverages'.
In fact, Dali's beverage business took off without a hitch. The 'meticulous cultivation' that others did was only a secondary contradiction for Dali. Dali made 'product communication' its key strategic action.
Undoubtedly, Dali's boss Xu is one of the best product managers in China's food industry. It is said that he personally oversees even packaging design. His product concept points and communication points are highly clever and unique. From Haochidian, Golden Egg Rolls, Heqizheng to Lehu, they have shone all the way, coupled with overwhelming advertising, which consumers, especially those in second-tier and below cities, appreciate greatly.
The 'outline' of product communication drives the 'mesh' of channel management. Once the principal contradiction is solved, everything else is easily handled.
However, Dali may now be entering a critical period. After listing, Dali's financial statements were extremely impressive, with 2017 performance reaching 19.8 billion yuan. But in recent years, sales growth has come more from finer distribution and a surge in the number of distributors.
Last year, the heavily promoted new product 'Doudouben' received poor terminal feedback. Many distributors said 'a large amount of product is piling up in warehouses'. For Dali, if the outline of product communication is not lifted, the performance brought by more distributors' purchases and inventory pressure is ultimately a mirage.
What the theory of contradiction opposes most is metaphysical equilibrium and balance. This equilibrium and balance also have a big market in marketing practice, confusing many people and harming many enterprises.
'Marketing is a system; it's not enough to just make a good product.'
'Marketing is a system; it's not as simple as advertising.'
'Marketing needs integration; just attracting investment (brand) cannot solve all problems.'
...
These statements are correct in the abstract, but in specific contexts, they are harmful: because when facing a specific problem, at that moment, you may most need a product breakthrough, or a way to increase awareness, or a sound sales channel. At that time, you need to invest all your resources in the most critical action for you to accurately press your marketing button. Opposing marketing system theory and equilibrium is the fourth law of the button.
Previously, President Ye (Ye Maozhong) talked about 'three ones': one main visual, one slogan, one TVC. Huayuhua has the concept 'super symbol is super creativity'. Many times, giving your brand a different impression and breaking through people's cognitive threshold with pure creativity is a strategy that requires you to concentrate all your forces to break through.
In a complex environment, discovering the principal contradiction and the key marketing action is not easy. Because 'traps' always disguise themselves as 'pies' waiting for you, while opportunities always seem like 'traps' and pass you by. Not everyone has such insight. The 'pie-trap theory' is the fifth law of the button.
Those who advocate marketing balance or system theory do not grasp the principal contradiction, nor do they know how to adopt key actions. Instead, they hope to sit at home and find a foolproof and comprehensive marketing plan. Seeking low risk and fearing loss also caters to many bosses' psychology, not realizing that the biggest risk for a company is the desire to be foolproof.
There are many key matters, but you cannot do twenty things well at once. 'Cutting off one finger is better than injuring ten.' The safest marketing for a company is to invest 100% of marketing resources into 5% of key matters. This is the sixth law of the button.
Of course, Lao Miao has also said before that many marketing balance theorists don't know how to discover a company's key marketing actions, nor do they know how to press the marketing button. So they like to blur the plan into a grand system.
Once a problem arises, we tend to attribute it to a powerful factor beyond our control, which reduces our stress. This phenomenon is very common in marketing management. Our solutions habitually face a large, non-specific thing rather than one or two key actions.
So, we often see some plans that are just 'collections of marketing tools' or 'lists of marketing elements', but they don't specify what the specific actions are, who does them, when, what the standards are, or what resources are allocated.
Speaking of specific actions, we should also pour cold water on those who expect to find a button and easily handle marketing. A company's key action is not a point, not a simple action like 'enlarge the toothpaste opening by one time'. The implementation of the marketing button has its complexity. This is the seventh law of the button.
To make the action fully land and achieve results requires the concentration of various resources, coordination of pace, and execution in place. This is not easy.
We all know 'hit the snake at its seven inches', but for someone unfamiliar with snakes, it's not easy to hit that spot.
Take the example above: In the battle against the Kuomintang's attack on Shandong, Chen and Su discovered that the key action to win the war was to annihilate the 74th Division, not to fully confront the KMT's 400,000 troops. But annihilating the elite 74th Division was no easy task. Troop deployment, main attack, blocking reinforcements, terrain, logistics, and mobilization—if any link failed, the entire campaign would collapse.
Speaking of Yake, when they decided to use 'star products' to launch the brand, creating star products became their key marketing action. But behind creating a star product, there are many actions: the selection of the V9 product, the 'three ones' creativity, the investment conference, media placement, and large-scale sampling. The implementation of these actions ensured the success of the key action of 'creating star products'.
This article has a lot of methodology. Let's summarize:
Button Law 1: Don't do unimportant things; don't be led by the nose by urgent but unimportant matters.
Button Law 2: At any time in any enterprise, there are only one or two key actions. A slight touch on them can bring about earth-shaking changes. This is the marketing button. If you press the right button, all problems will be readily solved.
Button Law 3: Contradictions transform into each other, the nature of things changes, and the key actions of business operations also change, so the buttons that need to be pressed change accordingly.
Button Law 4: What the theory of contradiction opposes most is metaphysical equilibrium and balance. In marketing practice, this manifests as metaphysical balance and system theory, which is the most deceptive and what we should oppose most.
Button Law 5: 'Traps' always disguise themselves as 'pies' waiting for you, while opportunities always seem like 'traps' and pass you by.
Button Law 6: The safest marketing for a company is to invest 100% of marketing resources into 5% of key matters.
Button Law 7: The implementation of the marketing button has complexity. To make the action fully land and achieve results requires the concentration of various resources, coordination of pace, and execution in place.
Source: Lao Miao Tears Marketing (ID: yiheyingxiao) -END-