Click the image for details Is there a moat for personal branding? Today, I finally have time to truly think about this question: How many co-founders and marketing executives build personal IPs to bring huge traffic dividends to themselves and their brands, establishing an unshakable position in the industry or company, and ensuring their own stability? Over the years, I've walked through the bloody battlefield of the workplace, witnessing batches of capable and high-level marketing directors, co-founders, and seasoned professionals fall just as their companies were thriving! Some blame their own naivety, some blame their ignorance of office politics, some overshadow their bosses... Where there are people, there is a world; where there is a world, there is struggle! The company has officially transitioned from barbaric growth to the era of capital operation! But you haven't yet transformed from an operator to a manager, and the business model has quietly shifted from market-oriented to financial management-oriented! Professional managers must see the times clearly and switch roles at different stages. Whether it's conquering, stabilizing, or securing the kingdom, you need to change roles accordingly. When I was a professional manager, I always wondered what life would be like with an annual salary of over 1 million. In just 215 days, I experienced the real feeling of going from an annual salary of 300,000 to an annual income of over 2 million. Is it really hard to earn 2 million a year? Let me first tell you about my real experience: From December 2016 to July 5, 2017, I transitioned from being the marketing director of Jiangxiaobai to a maker for exactly 215 days. With multiple roles, my guaranteed income for 2017 was over 2 million, seven times my professional manager salary, reaching the level of a middle-class well-off life. But actually, four years ago, I was a rural youth from Guangxi, with a starting point lower than most ordinary people. In my first month, I only earned 2,500 yuan and left Jiangxiaobai with over 200,000 yuan in debt to start my own business! I. From zero to marketing director in just 20 days Four years ago, I zeroed out my previous five years of workplace foundation and joined Jiangxiaobai with the ultimate goal of becoming a business partner. I decisively gave up my own fashion liquor brand that I had been running for over a year to join Jiangxiaobai, simply because I saw the future trend of the industry and the development momentum of the Jiangxiaobai brand. I was sure this brand would establish my position in the industry. With the momentum of a fierce tiger descending the mountain, I led batches of newbies in various cities and counties with extreme depth-of-attack tactics, quickly creating a Jiangxiaobai craze locally. After a 20-day transition, from earning 2,500 yuan in the first month, I went on a winning streak, putting my previous tactical theories into action and forming my own set of integrated marketing tactics, which I systematized into a national, provincial, city, and county market operation template, laying the foundation for two major victories! Chengdu Campaign In the Chengdu campaign, I adopted a channel synergy approach, forming a direct sales team to use deep distribution to cover every terminal and street, from South Gate to North Gate, West Gate to East Gate; from the first ring to the third ring, covering terminal outlets one by one, then negotiating with Snow's regional distributors one by one: Mr. Y, in your area with 200 outlets, we've covered 80% and achieved 70% visibility. I'll give you 30 yuan profit per case, and my people will do professional maintenance. I'll bear the first round of outlet coverage costs. You just need to handle distribution, channel synergy maintenance, and financial management! I used the nanny marketing model, leveraging one-third of Snow's distributors to open up channels in Chengdu, allowing us to avoid spending energy on channel battles with competitors and not waste limited resources on non-strategic directions. We focused all our human and material resources on the consumer pivot point! Through social marketing, subway frames, and Focus Media's three-dimensional media marketing, plus sustained and innovative offline promotional activities, we turned Chengdu from a mess into a model market in just ten months! I summarized this as the "Elephant Theory": the provincial capital is the elephant's belly, with a large enough market and self-sustaining capacity. Once you conquer the provincial capital, it's like creating a huge elephant belly. Then, by taking two or three surrounding cities, you create several elephant legs, and an elephant is successfully built! The Chengdu model market precisely ignited the expansion across Sichuan. While conquering Sichuan, I truly established a systematic provincial operation template and built an iron-blooded army, which played a key role in Jiangxiaobai's introduction of venture capital! The success of the Sichuan campaign was a strategic turning point for the success of the southern campaign! Henan Campaign The victory in the Henan campaign laid the foundation for Jiangxiaobai's northern campaign! Before 2016, the Henan platform had been focusing on Zhengzhou with deep distribution and meticulous cultivation. Mr. Zhang Jianhui spent a full 1 year and 8 months leading over 70 brothers fighting day and night in the streets of Zhengzhou, pushing Jiangxiaobai's brand power in Henan to its peak step by step. When the campaign reached its "turning point," due to management games with the group, adjustments had to be made: we gave up the group's strategic product, frosted 100ml, and operated the group's marginal new product: youth version 100ml, fully leveraging the brand power accumulated in Henan over the previous two years to leverage channels through high-margin products. I redesigned the operating model: Jiangxiaobai's brand influence in the Henan industry was already sufficient. We lowered the threshold for distributors and flattened operations. As long as you have ideas, passion, and a team with drive, 100,000 yuan per county, we could quickly activate the provincial market through channel distribution! We formed professional special forces to cooperate with distributors in the first round of outlet coverage and activation, quickly starting the market, and then through systematic combat templates and professional guidance from practical managers, we led distributors to adopt deep distribution and meticulous cultivation! We acted as the front end, outputting brand, special forces, and practical marketing supervisors, giving distributors strong pull; then through high margins of over 100 yuan per case, we gave distributors strong push to leverage channels, making them proactive in adding people and vehicles, integrating all channel resources to sell goods, and letting distributors solve the back end themselves. In 12 months, Henan achieved sales of 100 million yuan and completed the layout of 100 customers across the province! The hot sales of Jiangxiaobai Youth Version 100ml in Henan created the second major strategic single product: Youth Version 100ml! The success of the Henan model found a new operating model for Jiangxiaobai's national expansion. In non-strategic markets, we no longer used the strategic market's manpower-intensive deep distribution model, but adopted a lighter channel distribution model to race across the country! The success of the two campaigns naturally relied on the support of social marketing. Through the combination of new media marketing and community KOL marketing, a series of drinking parties and friend gatherings were held across the country: local media people, online and offline communities, local internet celebrities, brand loyal fans, all gathered together to eat, drink, and have fun! Here, I've organized the basic logic of the entire approach to share with you: (1) Design the product's brand strategy from the top, opening up the path for online brand communication. (2) Use a systematic new marketing model to open up the offline execution path. (3) Use professional special forces to quickly attack and solve product distribution and visibility creation. (4) Clear division of labor between manufacturer and distributor: regional commanders are responsible for leading troops, outlet coverage, route visits, terminal activation, visibility upgrades, relationship building, and targeted tasting promotions; distributors are responsible for capital, warehousing and distribution, channel synergy, financial management, and KOL marketing leadership. (5) Collaborate with local media people to use PR marketing for brand momentum, gathering local self-media and community influencers to use various drinking parties, salons... scene marketing to connect brand, fans, media, communities, experts, and influencers, and stir things up. (6) Focus on high-quality, high-frequency core consumer groups for targeted marketing, upgrade drinking games in various places, let the product penetrate folk customs, interact deeply with consumers, and gradually occupy consumer minds. High-frequency conversion at the terminal is based on high-frequency self-ordering by consumers. Channel leverage, terminal linkage, and waiter pull are just icing on the cake. High-frequency self-ordering is driven by precise consumer brand mind occupation! Through new media marketing, we controlled the airspace, cutting in from the C-end with heavy firepower, bypassing channels and terminals and fierce battles, planting the brand fire in consumers' hearts, forcing terminals and channels through consumers, completing channel construction, and letting the spark quickly spread, while supporting brand landing with a replicable and systematic new marketing system! As shown in the figure below, build a self-contained systematic operation template! II. In the IP era, from 300,000 annual salary to over 2 million in 215 days In the new media era, individuals are media, individuals are brands. Whether building product IP or personal IP, the spiritual appeal of brand strategy is always from the consumer's perspective. You must solve brand communication, self-communication, and secondary communication from the top-level design! Your operational ability and cognitive level will also improve rapidly, and your wealth and income will naturally increase quickly! Are our products selling spiritual or material appeals? Who are we selling to? What age group? What characteristics do these groups have? What distinctive labels do they carry? Have any brands or companies served this group before? Are there products to meet their spiritual needs? If not, that's our breakthrough point. This is the origin principle of brand strategy top-level design! All strategies and tactics can only focus on this point for continuous development! For example, Jiangxiaobai: it subverted consumers' perception of baijiu, focusing on the post-80s and post-90s generation that traditional baijiu brands had abandoned. The new generation has a common pain point: they all suffer from urban loneliness and anxiety about moving up. Jiangxiaobai met consumers' needs at the spiritual level. One classic quote after another touched the souls of the post-80s and post-90s, resonating with them! This is the logic of strategic top-level design. Copywriting is not just a sentence; it must be elevated to a strategic height to leverage brand strategy operations! Over my ten-year career, from salesperson to marketing director, I've met all kinds of bosses, executives, and marketing experts... It seems our industry is full of talent, but after years of industry transformation and the rise of new media marketing, when the time truly tests the level of experts, you'll find that there aren't really many experts. Nine years ago, I deeply understood that only by focusing on liquor marketing, learning cross-industry integrated marketing theories and applying them to liquor practice, studying hard every day, accelerating growth, and forming my own systematic marketing system, would I be able to stand out quickly, reach the top of the industry category, and quickly leave 90% of people behind, becoming the top of the pyramid in this field. And once you become the top of the pyramid, the Matthew effect will occur, resources will automatically gather toward me, and I will become stronger and stronger. Facts prove I was right. From a monthly salary of 2,500 to an annual income of over 2 million, it happened in just 215 days. After your growth and accumulation break through a "turning point," you will begin to accelerate growth. Data shows that over 80% of mid-to-high-level professional managers in the marketing industry earn less than 250,000 yuan annually. Therefore, from an income perspective, 250,000 yuan is a "turning point." So if your current annual salary is less than 250,000, what you need to do now is strive to reach 250,000 as soon as possible, that is, break through this "turning point" and become one of the 20% in this field. Once you complete this breakthrough, going from 250,000 to 1 million or 2 million is a natural progression. On the career path of ordinary people, how can we quickly break through this "turning point"? From my life experience, it is: learn the systematic approaches of various industries and study the successful operational experience of top experts in the industry, truly understand the logic behind their success, and read the business logic and marketing tactics behind it. Once you comprehend, congratulations, you've broken through limitations, compressed the time cost of success, and found the path to successful execution. III. "Flash Mob Scene Marketing Theory" During the golden decade of Chinese baijiu from 2002 to 2011, the "plate-in-plate marketing theory" was popular for ten years, creating a large number of billion, ten-billion, and multi-billion liquor brands; since the winter of domestic baijiu in 2012 and the rise of the new media era, from 2012 to 2016, "social media marketing" effortlessly replaced the "plate-in-plate marketing theory"! A large number of small and beautiful liquor brands rose to prominence by infinitely obtaining the huge dividends of "social media marketing"! For example: Jiangxiaobai, Sishijiu Workshop, Moutai U-MEET... As 2017 arrived, it seemed that the dividends of "social media marketing" were exhausted overnight. All routines and techniques failed. Facing the new generation of consumers with distinct personalities, they were at a loss and couldn't leverage consumers' desire to buy. I study every day what marketing model can lead the next five years after the dividends of "social media marketing" are exhausted. I spent half a year developing the industry-leading "Flash Mob Scene Marketing Theory" marketing model under the upgrade trend of "social media marketing" and "PR marketing": Based on each brand, create a "marketing origin" linking products, consumption scenes, consumer groups, digital marketing, and PR marketing. Use big data to lock onto precise target markets, precise consumption scenes, and precise consumer groups for targeted detonation. Then, through precise PR marketing in the media, detonate the brand again, occupy consumers' minds, and truly ignite consumers' purchase needs! Some fragmented marketing tactics of "flash mob scene marketing" have already ignited two tea brands that are popular across China, becoming phenomenal brands! I firmly believe that "flash mob scene marketing" will lead the liquor industry for at least five years! Is there a moat for personal branding? I want to say yes, it's not simple, but it's definitely not out of reach. From 0 to marketing director, I only took 20 days. From a monthly salary of 2,500 to an annual income of over 2 million, I only took 215 days. And the only secret weapon is to study hard every day, accelerate growth, and build a self-contained systematic marketing system, then wait for a perfect opportunity. Opportunities are for those who are prepared. Once the opportunity comes, it's time to cash in on your talent. The newcomer standing at the top of the pyramid in this field is you. -END-