---
title: "Why Tsingtao Beer Was the First to Propose 'Micro-Operations'"
description: "A marketing veteran who led a sales team of several thousand people recalls his deep connection with 'Sales and Market'... Lu Wenjin: 2007 Qingdao Outstanding Entrepreneur. Former General Manager of Tsingtao Beer Sales Company, Assistant to the President, and Vice President of Marketing. During his tenure at Tsingtao, he completed the ERP project and sales logistics specialization for the sales company. He successfully operated the Tsingtao Beer brand and helped create the second brand, Laoshan Beer. In 2015, he founded Hubang Chili Sauce, aiming to become a new-style chili sauce creator and build the number one internet chili sauce brand, exploring new paradigms of brand growth in the internet environment. He is currently Executive Director and General Manager of Qingdao La Workshop Food Co., Ltd."
author: "陆文金"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2019-09-01"
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# Why Tsingtao Beer Was the First to Propose 'Micro-Operations'

> A marketing veteran who led a sales team of several thousand people recalls his deep connection with 'Sales and Market'... Lu Wenjin: 2007 Qingdao Outstanding Entrepreneur. Former General Manager of Tsingtao Beer Sales Company, Assistant to the President, and Vice President of Marketing. During his tenure at Tsingtao, he completed the ERP project and sales logistics specialization for the sales company. He successfully operated the Tsingtao Beer brand and helped create the second brand, Laoshan Beer. In 2015, he founded Hubang Chili Sauce, aiming to become a new-style chili sauce creator and build the number one internet chili sauce brand, exploring new paradigms of brand growth in the internet environment. He is currently Executive Director and General Manager of Qingdao La Workshop Food Co., Ltd.

**A marketing veteran who led a sales team of several thousand people recalls his deep connection with 'Sales and Market'...**
Lu Wenjin: 2007 Qingdao Outstanding Entrepreneur. Former General Manager of Tsingtao Beer Sales Company, Assistant to the President, and Vice President of Marketing. During his tenure at Tsingtao, he completed the ERP project and sales logistics specialization for the sales company. He successfully operated the Tsingtao Beer brand and helped create the second brand, Laoshan Beer. In 2015, he founded Hubang Chili Sauce, aiming to become a new-style chili sauce creator and build the number one internet chili sauce brand, exploring new paradigms of brand growth in the internet environment. He is currently Executive Director and General Manager of Qingdao La Workshop Food Co., Ltd.
On January 1, 2002, I officially transitioned from finance to sales—marketing work for Tsingtao Beer!
As an outsider doing marketing, I set myself a learner's position from the start. I don't remember who said that people in sales should go to bookstores four times a month; at that time, I really did that.
Tsingtao Beer is a big platform, and the experience of various internal business units was the first thing to learn. I studied the practical experience that President Jin (Jin Zhiguo, former Chairman of Tsingtao Beer Co., Ltd.) brought from Xi'an, and the successful experience of President Yan (Yan Xu, former Global Marketing President of Tsingtao Beer) in South China. I also went to Asahi Beer twice for learning and exchange, and twice to Budweiser Beer. I was also the first in the company to introduce external talent, bringing in people from Coca-Cola and Pepsi. I was also the first to try localization, recruiting sales personnel locally. The diversification of talent stimulated various ideas and created a strong learning atmosphere in the team. When I took over, the company had a large number of post-70s college students stored at the grassroots level. I broke the employment mechanism and promoted these young people to sales manager positions. They are also the source of vitality for the company!
With various ideas colliding, diverse talent, and best practice exchanges, by 2003 (around September), a new marketing model was about to emerge!
But how to refine it, what to use as the outline, what the theme was, what core problems to solve, what the characteristics of our marketing model were—these were all unclear.
Just then, two events helped bring it about.
One was President Jin's inscription: "Macro momentum, micro modeling," which falls under the category of micro modeling. The word "micro" was borrowed because it mainly targeted the organization, development, maintenance, and management of a regional micro-market.
The other was that 'Sales and Market' serialized several articles by Mr. Kong Fanren about "refined marketing."
I treasured these articles like a treasure, truly feeling like I had obtained a "martial arts manual"! I read them repeatedly, and my reading notes were thicker than the articles themselves...
This was essentially a set of industrial logic applied to the sales field, emphasizing process, standardization, and systematization. It was a PDCA closed-loop logic, essentially a set of management logic, which was highly consistent with President Jin's proposal of "managing sales through sales management"!
What was its essence? It was operations.
What are operations? Our definition was: continuously organizing the daily work of sales to form a closed-loop process.
In FMCG sales, almost all companies have this experience: so-called sales means organizing activities—campaign-style sales.
In daily routine, what do salespeople do, how do they do it, what standards, and how to measure—there was no model or logic. I saw my predecessors doing sales by organizing activities: having the marketing department make a plan, investing a certain amount of promotional items, coordinating some advertising, dividing into groups, going to stock a certain number of stores, shipping a certain amount of goods, etc. They usually gave it a nice name, like "Harvest Golden Autumn," "Eliminate Violence and Pacify the Good," "Liaoshen Campaign," "Battle of Huaihai," etc.
Just like the military, when the order is given, everyone is excited and enthusiastic, and in the short term, it's like a typhoon or a rainstorm!
Does it work? Yes. For example, team members are passionate and tireless in this atmosphere, and they strike a blow to competitors locally.
But the fruits of victory were not maximized. "Rain passes, ground is wet," and it didn't truly constitute market results.
This "campaign-style" model is pulsed. It makes a lot of noise but produces little, and sometimes it wakes up competitors. The stores that were hard-won were not maintained afterward, the distributor supply chain was not established, and what was developed in the front was lost in the back.
Tsingtao Beer even organized "distribution teams" back then, from Harbin in the north to Hainan Island in the south, leaving their footprints, but after they left, almost nothing remained!
Why was this? Without doing this, it was impossible to drive the sales work of the salespeople.
We repeatedly argued and analyzed that this was a lack of a set of methods, more specifically, a lack of operations!
Developing distributors, developing terminals (distribution), merchandising, periodic visits (maintenance), distributor supply, and other sales actions are the daily work of salespeople. They should be carried out day after day, step by step, with self-feedback and self-promotion. Because of the lack of such a process, salespeople could not be organized, and only relied on activities for突击.
However, did this fit the stage? Would it cause over-control and rigidity?
I hesitated for several days...
I called a few key business personnel for a closed-door discussion for two days, and finally concluded that it was "imperative."
I remember on October 3, during the National Day holiday, I specifically reported to President Jin. His reaction was very excited. In his words, "First score high on required moves, then score on optional moves."
My conclusion was, "Free innovation within the framework is true innovation!"
Then I spent the whole year of 2004 forcefully promoting it. The difficulty, intensity, and strength can be described as "bloody"!
At that time, a salesperson's basic salary was only 1,100 yuan, but if the traceability showed no route visits, no on-site form filling, etc., a deduction of 1,000 yuan was imposed, making people nervous. Filling out forms incorrectly, being late for morning meetings, and other daily behavior management were immediately penalized without mercy.
It was under such strong pressure that the "micro-operations" model was born, and a well-trained sales team was born!
In hindsight, micro-operations brought at least the following three results.
**First, it took the Shandong market,** fulfilling President Peng's last wish of "unifying Shandong beer"! Shandong became Tsingtao's largest base, just as President Peng (Peng Zuoyi, former head of Tsingtao, editor's note) said before his death: "If the sky falls, Shandong will catch it!"
**Second, it built the Laoshan Beer brand.** Laoshan Beer went from a small brand of tens of thousands of tons on the verge of death to a top brand of millions of tons.
**Third, it built a well-trained team.** More than a decade later, more than half of Tsingtao's sales managers grew from this team, and they are the backbone of Tsingtao.
**And there is a fourth: I also traveled the world with my sword, using this martial art to navigate the world, and embarked on the path of entrepreneurship and becoming an entrepreneur!** Betis Olive Oil and Hubang Chili Sauce ventures, although the industries/products are different and the times have changed with great changes and innovations, at the root, the martial arts are still these!
Later, I learned that Mr. Kong Fanren's articles were the basic logic of "deep distribution."
In my view, Mr. Kong Fanren's articles in 'Sales and Market' were the finishing touch of "micro-operations," like the magical pen of Ma Liang!
If your tip is adopted, you will be paid 400-2000 yuan.


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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 陆文金
- Published: 2019-09-01
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/why-tsingtao-beer-was-the-first-to-propose-micro-operations-0d34c25d/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/l1gd5XrTLniyCI-a0BYf6Q

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