1. Change customer positioning
JP is a national high-tech enterprise engaged in the development and sales of photoelectric direct-reading modules for smart water meters. Due to its leading technology, the company has done business with large smart watch manufacturers in the industry. However, in recent years, sales have fallen into a trough and customers have been severely lost.
After the author was invited to serve as a director, he and the founder visited customers and found that these customers did not want the core modules to be controlled by a small company for a long time, so they took advantage of capital, technology, talent and market to conduct reverse research and development. , hoping that they can control the core technology and strive to get rid of the module supporting relationship with the company.
There are hundreds of traditional water meter factories in the industry, which only understand mechanics but not electronics. Facing the trend of intelligence, we must rely on the support of "a smart core" and system solutions to avoid being eliminated. In particular, the watch factory affiliated to the Water Group has its own market, coupled with JP's technology, we can learn from each other's strengths and offset our weaknesses. It can greatly reduce the procurement cost of the water group, and its subordinate watch factories can realize intelligent upgrades and double their profits. JP can also borrow ships to go to sea to maximize its technical advantages and serve traditional watch factories with market resources through the "co-construction" model. JP products have also found a new way to enter the highly competitive terminal market. When the time comes, he can also help the Water Group "co-build" a watch factory from scratch, help give birth to children, and then sell milk powder.
After changing its customer positioning, JP jumped from the red ocean to the blue ocean. Its competitiveness immediately changed from weak to strong. It quickly obtained continuous orders from several market entities such as China Water Group, and its customers quickly grew from single digits. The business is in good shape and has changed the passive situation of "sugar daddy and one-night stand".
2. Channel Innovation
ELETE is a domestic high-end custom-made women's clothing brand. It is popular for its features such as "fashionable design, excellent production, star-level customization and middle-class charging". Good reviews. It was initially spread through the interpersonal circles of entrepreneurs, and later opened stores in high-end shopping malls as the main channel.
After a period of time, due to relatively low pricing and high design service costs, especially shopping mall decoration, rent, labor and other expenses, growth became weak and profits became meager.
After being introduced to the brand by classmates, the author analyzed the cost structure and revenue sources of the brand and found that the channel cost was too high and the quality of customers was not high. Therefore, it was suggested that it adjust its channels, starting from high-rise shopping malls and street-front shopping malls. Instead of using high-cost channels such as beauty salons, we will cooperate with high-end beauty salons and adopt the "store-in-hospital" channel model. Since the beauty salon already has a large space, there is no need to pay additional rent, and the decoration is in place. After training, beauticians can also serve as receptionists. Especially if they have stable and familiar high-spending customers, they only need to give the beauty salon a share, which greatly reduces the cost. Despite the high fixed costs of the original channel, we now have a high-quality customer base, and our business is booming day by day.
3. Building alliances
Our party has three magic weapons for entrepreneurship: armed struggle, united front and party building. For entrepreneurial enterprises, it is technology, cooperation and management. To do a good job in technical work today, you must learn to find partners to "fight in groups". It is already difficult to work alone.
Industry Alliance
A certain company once enjoyed great success in printing books and periodicals. The rise of online reading on the Internet and company websites has led to a decline in the printing volume of books, periodicals and corporate promotional materials. Demand is down, supply is oversupply, and the industry is reshuffling. Listed companies in the printing industry have taken advantage of capital and technology to dominate the high-end market. Small workshop-style factories rely on their cost advantages to compete at low prices. As a medium-to-large-scale printing factory, it is difficult to survive. It faces rising labor costs, rising prices of paper and ink, rising rents, rising electricity bills, etc., and a serious shortage of orders.
At this time, we are considering product transformation, from making books and periodicals to packaging, which involves equipment and technical investment, and there is no customer base. Developing big customers and winning big orders also involves a process of relationship building. How to solve the urgent need and get orders quickly? During the consultation service, we found that among the four workshops of pre-press, printing and binding, and manual work, some were busy while others were idle. It is obvious in the off-season and peak season that the production capacity is insufficient in the peak season and there is a serious surplus in the off-season. So I thought that large-scale printing companies that are listed on the market will also face the problem of uneven salt and water. If you can be a substitute player, you can get relatively stable large orders.
The customers of listed companies in the same industry are usually high-quality customers who attach great importance to factory inspections, quality control and delivery, which are not something that small factories like Bagualing can undertake. As soon as this plan came out, it was just a matter of leveraging its strengths and avoiding weaknesses, and the order situation quickly improved.
Inter-industry Alliance
A certain beauty chain organization is planning to invite celebrities to perform for store celebration promotions, but it only has a budget of 500,000. After paying our planning consulting fee, there will be only 500,000 left. It only costs a few bucks, and the celebrity appearance fee is HKD 800,000, not counting venue fees and other various expenses. What should we do?
The client joked that since we had taken away all the budget, we had to come up with a plan to outsource almost all the costs and ensure a sales return of at least 5 million in the three days before and after the event.
Through the inventory and analysis of the customer's resources, we proposed a joint promotion plan based on cross-industry alliances. The star's performance was dubbed "Bank of China Night" and 2,000 tickets were donated to the bank to maintain VIP customer relations. This revenue was 1 million. Give 1,000 tickets to China Unicom, and get a ticket for every 300 yuan prepaid phone bill, and get back 500,000 yuan. Arrange for the celebrity to dine at a well-known local restaurant, agree to take a photo with the boss and chef, and provide 400 tickets. If you spend over 500 yuan, you will get a free ticket with an extra 50 yuan. The owner of the seafood restaurant also sponsors 200,000 yuan. Coupled with joint promotions such as wedding photo studios and flower shops, including free tickets for members of beauty institutions, photo taking with celebrities, singing chorus and other forms of promotions, the budget was not spent at all and a huge profit was made.
4. Keep it as simple as possible
For small and medium-sized enterprises with insufficient resources, subtraction is the most necessary but also the most difficult. For a boss who pursues survival as his biggest strategy, everything in the basket is full of vegetables, and there is no need to choose any flavor. As a result, all customers want it, and they sell whatever they can. It is easy to become "small but complete", but in essence it is "small but weak."
Tsinghua student Mr. Li Liangyao pointed out in his paper "The Application of the Three Elements of Force in Enterprise Management":
First, the point of action of force is the company's product market positioning, that is, Focus on solving which problem for whom. Only by establishing a good position based on its most "excellent" position can an enterprise form its core competitiveness. Only by targeting the core needs of specific customer groups and providing simple and powerful products can an enterprise become stronger because of its specialization and grow bigger because of its strength. Only by following the path of "small but refined, small but specialized, small but special, small but strong" can small and medium-sized enterprises have the opportunity to grow bigger.
Second, the direction of force is the strategic direction, goals and path of the enterprise. Only when the energy is directed in one direction can the maximum resultant force be formed;
Thirdly, the size of the force is the key resource capabilities of the enterprise, including talents, technology, capital, etc. In a relatively weak situation, the principle of pressure must be followed, that is, the stress-bearing area is reduced. That means doing subtraction or even division. Giving up requires both courage and courage, as well as insight and wisdom.
Focusing on a certain field, shrinking product lines, reducing customer types, focusing on sales methods, streamlining process links, etc. are all simple thinking points for subtraction.