Click the image for details Author | Liu Chunxiong Source | Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964) The judgment in the title is based on empirical observation. I do not rule out that some marketing professionals with formal training also perform well. I state this upfront to avoid misunderstanding. Teacher Jin Huanmin and I are neither professional nor highly experienced in the marketing field. Teacher Jin majored in economics and never received formal marketing training. When he became Vice President of Marketing at Baixiang in 1995, he had not a single day of sales experience, so how could he claim experience? Now, Teacher Jin teaches marketing at a university. I once reminded him: "When you start annotating classic theories, you've reached your ceiling." Because I noticed he was showing a tendency toward being 'professional.' When I became a consultant at Baixiang, I also had no sales experience. My major was automatic control and production management, which has nothing to do with marketing. It is not because we lack formal training that we reject professionalism, nor because we lack frontline experience that we reject experience. In marketing, there is a kind of professionalism called dogmatism, and a kind of experience called empiricism.

  1. Formal Professionalism, Substantive Amateurism I have always regarded marketing as a practical science, with rules and theories, but best grounded in practice. Since marketing is a competitive field, like war or sports, it must determine winners and losers and rank participants. Therefore, theories and methods must be tested by practice. In marketing, I see two basic manifestations of professionalism: First, professionalism in terminology, mainly among those with academic backgrounds, including their students. Such professionals tend to pursue lofty ideals, overuse terms like brand, culture, innovation, and high-tech, and are particularly good at criticizing 'low-level successes' while having little idea how to achieve success themselves. Of course, if these people only engage in academic research, I have no say. Marketing students in universities are almost exclusively taught case studies from multinational corporations, and they don't know how to work with small businesses. When they graduate and look for jobs, they face a large number of rapidly growing Chinese companies but insist that 'there isn't a single good company.' Such students seem to be trained specifically for multinationals, so they are often extremely frustrated when they join Chinese companies. Second, professionalism in process, especially in flowcharts and PowerPoint files, mainly among those with experience in multinationals or large Chinese companies. When a leader presents a problem, they can quickly clarify the process. I have seen well-known consulting firms whose basic documents are flowcharts that clarify what the company has already done. I have tested many so-called marketing professionals with this question: Taking your industry as an example, if you had a limited time (e.g., two years) to grow a typical county-level market from zero to the number one market share, how many people, how much investment, and what stages and steps would it take? To date, no one has given me a satisfactory answer. Yet, without a satisfactory answer, they dare to invest and act, some even produce elaborate professional reports. Formal professionalism masks substantive amateurism. If a marketing professional does not demonstrate a deep understanding of how to successfully build a market, what use is that professionalism? A professionalism built on a pile of jargon and standardized processes is merely pseudo-professionalism. True professionalism is based on understanding the basic logic of marketing, its essence, and its laws.
  2. Don't Mistake Proficiency for Experience Now let's look at experience in marketing. Experience in marketing manifests in three ways: First, proficiency, such as monthly marketing plans. A novice might struggle, but a seasoned hand might finish in an hour, perhaps due to experience. But I have rarely seen monthly plans that satisfy me; they are usually just sales breakdowns plus promotional plans. Such experience is not worth having. Second, ease in interpersonal communication. Initially, meeting clients required careful thought about the first sentence, but now it comes naturally. Third, quicker reactions to routine problems. When month-end targets are at risk, they know better than newcomers to request promotional policies and, knowing the boss's habit of 'cutting in half,' they double their request. For experienced marketers, I have posed this test question: Of the work you do in a month, which tasks contribute to sustained sales growth? If a marketer's experience is merely habitual 'dealing with situations as they come,' then such experience will quickly become obsolete as circumstances change. What's worse, many marketers have rich experience in dealing with company management: how to cut corners, how to turn excuses into strong reasons, and how to look busy even when doing nothing. When hiring marketers, I prefer someone without formal training, because I might be able to cultivate true professionalism in them. I prefer someone without experience, because I might be able to cultivate the experience I need. Experience is a product of the environment and usually loses value as the environment changes. China was a stable agricultural society in the past, which is why experience was so valued. In my view, experience is easy to obtain. Every time I serve a new industry, I just survey the market or hold a sales meeting, and my experience may surpass that of many seasoned professionals. Some have direct experience, some have indirect experience, and some find the patterns in experience, allowing them to generate unlimited experience and train others. I do not deny the importance of professionalism, but I do not accept the current state of professionalism in marketing. I acknowledge that experience is important, but managers cannot each accumulate experience in their own way. Can one person's experience become everyone's experience? Can experience be turned into a methodology?
  3. What Does Marketing Success Really Require? First, we must analyze the nature of marketing. Marketing is a competitive industry, highly similar to competitive fields like war. In competitive fields, when your experience is widely known, opponents find ways to counter you. When your professional processes are known worldwide, they lose their meaning. Competitiveness means that what is universally recognized no longer generates competitive advantage. This is what distinguishes marketing from other fields. I recall a saying from the Liberation War: "Su Yu knows how to fight; Mao Zedong knows how to summarize." Su Yu certainly had experience, but it was experience flexibly applied according to battlefield conditions. Mao rarely commanded battles on-site but elevated others' combat experience into methodology, such as the 'Ten Military Principles.' Since both professionalism and experience are daunting in marketing, we should take a positive stance. What is more important? I believe there are two points: First, the ability to quickly elevate successful practices into methodology and laws. Here, I emphasize practice, not experience. I also stress that this practice can be others' or one's own. The reason for emphasizing practice is to discover patterns from minimal practice and summarize laws, rather than waiting for repeated practice to form experience. Second, the ability to quickly transform understanding of laws and methodologies into flexible and varied methods, into rapidly changing methods. I particularly emphasize the cycle from method to methodology, and from methodology back to method. Finally, I want to stress that I do not deny professionalism, theory, or experience, but I do deny pseudo-professionalism and pseudo-experience that hide behind these banners. I admire experts who dare to practice, or those who, though on the front lines, are good at summarizing. New Distribution's '7th B-end E-commerce Study Tour' is now recruiting! Activity schedule:

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  1. Company visit
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