Editor's Note: Recently, at the first session of the 14th National People's Congress, Premier Li Qiang spoke about "learning from the masses": "Sitting in the office, you encounter problems. Going down to investigate, you see solutions. Experts are among the people. Go to the grassroots to research, seek advice from the people, learn from the masses, and help solve practical problems at the grassroots." Indeed, the frontline market is the closest to consumers and the easiest place to spot problems. At the frontline, solutions always outnumber difficulties. As Mr. Liu Chunxiong mentioned, "There are gods at the frontline." If senior leaders feel stuck, they should go to the grassroots, walk the market, listen to frontline voices, and solutions will emerge. Some people don't like going to the market. Going to the market means facing difficulties head-on, answering questions, and providing solutions and policies. Others love going to the market because there are gods at the frontline. Once at the frontline, thinking becomes active, and the greater the difficulty, the more excited they get. In the office, they struggle for good strategies; at the frontline, ideas flow like a spring. When there's no other way, they go to the market. When encountering problems, read books, consult experts, or go to the market. This is a famous saying of a listed company boss. I particularly love going to the market, and I love going with bosses; bosses are also willing to go with me. Because going to the market yields great gains. The biggest gain is not methods, but cognition of the market. When going to the market together, we see the same things and talk about the same things. But the conclusions we draw are different, and the plans we come up with are different. Someone asked me, what's the trick? The book "Bottom-Up Marketing" has greatly influenced me. The English name is accurate: "Bottom-Up Marketing," written by Ries and Trout, the proponents of positioning theory. Compared to positioning, this book is not widely known. Some people are at the frontline every day and seem familiar with it, but they may not deeply understand it. Please note my wording here. Being familiar with the frontline means knowing details, but deep understanding and insight into the market require vision and insight. "Bottom-Up Marketing" presents three important viewpoints crucial for going to the market. First, strategy is the consistent alignment of successful tactics. Turning successful tactics into collective corporate action is strategy. This is the core viewpoint of "bottom-up marketing." Second, market insight requires senior executives above the vice president level to go deep into the frontline. Only when senior management goes top-down can market insight be bottom-up. I particularly agree with the view that strategy or tactics is not about macro or micro, nor the size of the problem, but the perspective of looking at the problem. If executives above the vice president level go to the market and see things from the same perspective as the grassroots, they are unqualified senior leaders. Third, there are only two marketing strategies: the big-bang strategy and the rolling strategy. In fact, the rolling strategy is also a small-scale big-bang strategy. Only big-bang and rolling can change market position; others can only maintain the market. This viewpoint tells us that as long as the market scope is small enough, even a small enterprise can create a big-bang in the market. Going to the market always requires a goal. If you just want to be familiar with the market and understand it, you may end up with nothing. Without a higher goal, you cannot obtain information to achieve that goal. If you only solve difficulties and problems, you will focus on the problems and difficulties themselves. Even if difficulties and problems are solved, the market may not improve. "Bottom-Up Marketing" talks about an important goal: the consistent alignment of successful tactics. Senior executives go to the market to discover successful tactics and then promote them consistently. That is the goal. Generally, when I go to the market, I have two micro-goals: one is to "move the market up a level or turn it around"; the other is to find the entry point for moving up or turning around. These two goals are actually the same goal. When the higher goal is achieved, difficulties and problems naturally disappear. Because if sales are poor, even non-problems become problems; if sales are good, even big problems are not problems. Therefore, difficulties and problems are "smokescreens" for real solutions. Going to the market is to study the problems behind these smokescreens. Don't get too entangled with difficulties and problems, and don't be led by the nose. Although as long as senior executives go to the market, the grassroots will either guide them to good markets to gain support and trust, or to problem markets, hoping to use the leader's power to solve specific problems. Going to the market should yield gains. Generally, I expect three gains: one is to discover opportunities; two is to summarize patterns; three is to elevate to models. These three gains are not about solving specific problems, but about solving universal problems. Not about solving individual problems, but about solving common problems. On the surface, every market is different. Deep down, all markets have commonalities. When I see the first market, I generally don't speak or guide. I definitely have thoughts, but whether it's commonality or individuality, I need to see more markets. When I see the second and third markets, I already have a sense of whether it's commonality or individuality. But I need to see more markets to verify. Commonalities and patterns are universally applicable. Individualities are local specifics. One market, one method equals no method. I particularly hate the saying "What fits is best," which is often an excuse for not having a reasonable solution. The smaller the enterprise or boss, the more they like to say this. The basic skill of going to the market is chatting. Chatting is a research method to obtain diverse information, real information, and to adjust questions and thinking direction at any time. Be sure to chat more with people at the terminal. For example, shop owners, sales promoters, sales clerks, waiters, and customers. If necessary, you can also observe and track. Chatting obtains real information because the other party has no guard, is relaxed, and answers without "political correctness." Besides greetings, the topics of chat should try to hide the real intention, but at the same time be purposeful and targeted. It's hard to chat well. Because it seems like chatting, but it's actually research. Research requires ideas, and ideas lead to topics. Otherwise, chatting yields nothing. Sometimes, when I chat, the people accompanying me don't notice and think it's just pure chat, but my information comes from the chat. Have ideas, but don't be rigid; be ready to shift ideas at any time. This is something to pay special attention to during chat. People without frontline experience often can't even chat; they only do formulaic chat. Discovering market opportunities and market entry points is the most important content of research. Without discovering opportunities, you can only spend money. Opportunities are the most important market resource. Spending small money to do big things often relies on market opportunities. Many people look at the market and tend to focus on problems. Solving problems doesn't necessarily start from the problem itself. Success is not because you solved problems, but because you seized opportunities. The famous American futurist Naisbitt said in his book "Mind Set!" that I remember deeply: What is opportunity? Opportunity is a way of thinking. For example, during the Year of the Ox Spring Festival, it was difficult to push inventory due to the pandemic. That's a difficulty. From another perspective, because everyone had difficulty pushing inventory, terminal inventory must be insufficient. That becomes an opportunity. However, when we hear distributors, terminal stores, and salespeople report problems, they often highlight problems and difficulties, and the work direction also leans toward problems and difficulties. Often, problems and difficulties are not solved, and even worsen. Indeed, the information reported to the office is mostly problems and difficulties. If you solve problems along the line of difficulties, you'll soon find that solving one problem brings out more problems. Why are there more difficulties and problems in reports? There are three reasons: first, the limited vision of the grassroots; second, to imply to leaders that "I've tried my best" and "I've done everything I can," and problems and difficulties need leaders to solve; third, the need to fight for resources. I once led two bosses to a sales meeting. At first, all employees raised problems, and I couldn't solve them either. Later, I stopped them from talking about market opportunities, and then I talked about how to seize opportunities. Finally, I found that if you seize opportunities, what problems are there? Of course, this doesn't mean problems are unimportant, but if you put problems in a broader perspective, when sales are good, problems may disappear. Let me talk about finding market entry points separately. If you can't find an entry point, you have to attack head-on. This is a big taboo in marketing. Even international big brands can't withstand repeated head-on attacks. Especially many small enterprises often imitate big companies' practices but lack their influence and resources. So, finding a suitable market entry point can be seen as an important opportunity point. Discovering patterns is another basic skill of going to the market. Once, I had a meeting with a manufacturer. A salesperson had newly developed a client because the original supplier's quality had issues. Then I asked, what will you do after the development succeeds? He didn't know. I told him: If this client's supplier has quality issues, then won't other clients of that supplier also have issues? Why don't you follow the vine to get the melon? Another time, I attended a manufacturer's sales meeting where they talked about many difficulties. Then I asked a question: What are the reasons for the newly closed deals? Finally, they summarized 9 reasons. These 9 reasons can actually be boiled down to one reason. The famous brand planning master Ye Maozhong once said that sales is "the art of persuading people to divorce." The success of a "mistress" has signs; there are reasons for squeezing out the original supplier. Once, I accompanied a boss who was "at his wit's end" to the market. Every time I met a salesperson, I asked two questions: give 3 most successful examples and 3 most unsuccessful examples. From the successful examples, find commonalities and promote them; from the most unsuccessful examples, find commonalities to prevent. At the end of the 4-day market visit, the boss said he had a "magic manual." Discovering patterns is to rise from individual cases (successful or unsuccessful) to methodology. Without patterns, you can't promote. Once you find patterns, you can promote. Induction and deduction are two common logics used in market research. Rising from successful methods to methodology requires induction; evolving more methods from methodology requires deduction. The highest goal of research is to discover models. Models are patterns that can be fully promoted. I have always emphasized that ordinary enterprises, even with many talents, can still fail completely. I have personal experience. Because the characteristic of ordinary enterprises is "everyone has methods," but "the enterprise has no methods." In other words, they lack models. Those enterprises that "can't die but can't grow big" basically have this characteristic: because they have a few capable people, they can't die; because they only have these few capable people, they can't grow big. The characteristic of excellent enterprises is "enabling ordinary people to make extraordinary achievements." Because the achievements are extraordinary, people think the people are also extraordinary. An important way for ordinary people to make extraordinary achievements is to have a unified model. Models can be big or small, but they must be uniformly promoted. Strategy is the consistent alignment of successful tactics. The result of consistency is a model. Models are not necessarily thought up by senior executives, but they are definitely discovered by them. For example, Jinmailang's "four-in-one" model was first created in a weak market in Shandong, and then the boss summarized it after researching in Shandong. For excellent enterprises, even if there is only one effective method, it must be promoted by everyone at the same time. This comprehensive promotion is the model. Any enterprise that is alive has some successful practices that can be promoted. But bosses often turn a blind eye to this. When serving enterprises, many industries I hadn't experienced before. But as long as I go to the market, I can quickly discover models that can be fully promoted. Is it better to conduct market research more frequently? No, it's not necessary. But periodic research is needed. Research after bottlenecks is necessary. How long can one research last? As a senior executive, I think half a year is fine. In most cases, senior executives get information through layers of management reporting. Without research, they lack the ability to screen and question the reported information. Remember, information is power. Management layers often want to monopolize information to gain power, or transmit information with bias to gain benefits. Recently, while researching marketing digitalization, I again conducted intensive research on many enterprise cases. I not only published a case series but also summarized the direction and methodology of digitalization. In addition to the three research goals of "opportunities, patterns, and models," I have three other goals during research: solving enterprise problems, writing a regular article, and conducting enterprise training. Opportunities, patterns, and models are the common issues of senior executive research; solving problems, writing articles, and conducting training are my individual issues. There are gods at the frontline. Opportunities are at the organizational boundary. The frontline is the organizational boundary. Staying in the office, you can't find opportunities. Market insight is at the frontline. No amount of research can replace insight. Generally, insight comes first, forming concepts, and then surveys refine them. The value of company resources lies in combining with the frontline, and executives above the vice president level have the ability to mobilize resources. More importantly, the frontline has a stronger sense of scene. The same words feel deeper at the frontline. Besides the frontline market, professional conference scenes also bring deep insights. From April 6 to 8, the 8th China FMCG Innovation Conference will grandly open at the Chengdu Tiwoli Hotel. At that time, Mr. Liu Chunxiong, an expert in channel digital marketing, advocate of new marketing, and dean of the Marketing Digitalization Research Institute, will attend the [bC Integration] forum and share on "High-end and bC Integration." Mr. Liu, who has been going to the frontline market all year round, will surely bring you a wonderful market insight. We strongly recommend you come to the conference and interact with Mr. Liu Chunxiong!