Nine months have passed since 2020, and what happened in these nine months has never been thought of before. For home furnishing enterprises and distributors, this year's operation is more difficult. To solve these difficulties, we need to make double breakthroughs from thinking and methods.
First of all, we need to establish a cognition: there are no good things to do, and the rest should be based on our ability!
Someone is about to refute, by virtue of skill? Aren't I doing things by my ability now? I started from scratch, from scratch, from small to large, and laid such JS, saying that I didn't rely on skill?
I really think that most people's achievements are not entirely based on their own skills, but on luck and initiative. I am also like this myself. Why do you say that? Ask yourself, do you really understand products? Do you really know your users? Do you really understand management? Do you really understand business strategy?
In response to such a cognitive fact, I would like to tell you two inspiring things today: Where are the opportunities in the post-epidemic era? What skills do manufacturers and distributors rely on?
Why do you say that there are no good things to do?
Now the business is not easy to do, not because we become stupid, on the contrary, each of us is smarter than before, but because the market has changed. Let's look at a set of numbers:
in the past ten years, China's GDP growth has been 10.6 percent in 2010, 7.8 percent in 2013, 7.0 percent in 2015, 6.6 percent in 2018, 6.1 percent in 2019 and 2-5 percent in 2020.
The increase is decreasing year by year by less than 3%, and non-professionals may not pay attention to its impact. Then I will make a comparison between the two groups of figures: extract the 7.8% increase in 2013, if the growth rate is 7.8% for five consecutive years, the overall growth rate is 45.58%; assuming that the final GDP growth rate in 2020 is 4%, I will extract the 4% for five consecutive years, and the overall growth rate is.
That is to say, under the same initial value, the growth rate is 7.8% and 4% for five consecutive years, and the latter is reduced by about 24% compared with the former. It can also be considered that in the economic environment of the latter, the market difficulty will increase by 24% every five years.
Let's look at a set of data. In the past three years, the financial reports of 9 listed companies for customized household products showed an average revenue growth rate of 33.15 percent in 2017, 18.07 percent in 2018 and 16.74 percent in 2019. It also shows that the customization industry has been in a situation of slowing growth since 2018.
You see, our environment has changed. In the past, this cake was expanding. We only need to participate in it, and we can more or less share a little cake. For another example, in a fast-rising elevator, it is not much different whether you step a little bigger or smaller. But if the elevator slows down by itself, you need to move a few more steps to reach the previous rising speed.
Another reason why business is not good is the consumer side. Consumers have higher requirements. Consumers are not so good at "fooling around". Consumers urgently need to use some good ones, and their consumption has been upgraded. Some people also say that consumption is degraded now. In fact, consumption upgrading and consumption degradation are the same thing, which is that the requirements for producers are getting higher and higher, such as good products, low prices, considerate services, fast delivery time, etc. This is the current situation. But not everyone can do these jobs well. There are no good things to do, and the rest is tough.
To sum up, the plate becomes smaller, the customer requirements are higher, and the players with average level are becoming more and more difficult to play.
Focus, do less, do not do more
it is difficult to operate and the requirements of consumers are high, so we need to have our own position in the market. One of the ways and methods is to do less, not more, and learn to focus!
Many people do not want to understand a truth. In fact, they focus their capital, resources and attention on one thing, which makes it easier to be professional and gain the trust of customers, moreover, there is a big market in China. After focusing, there is no need to worry about the business becoming smaller. Making a wooden comb can be made into a listed company, making steamed buns can be made into a listed company, and in our household industry, making a massage chair can also be made into a listed company. Especially in today's Internet era, the more professional, the more popular!
Why are many of us unwilling to focus? The main reason is that many people can't see the trend clearly, have no confidence in their products and industries, and don't know what consumers want. It is possible to choose without thinking and do more, thinking that there is always a need of the market, but the actual situation backdrops.
Taking is very important, giving is more important!
One year I studied in Japan and visited many excellent Japanese enterprises, such as Panasonic, Kyocera, Suzuki, etc. Among them, what impressed me most was an enterprise called "xiaowanwu", which specializes in fans, not so much as an enterprise, it is more a workshop-it has only one store with only six employees. Although there was only one store, its annual sales was about more than 30 million yuan at that time, and its fan became the national gift of Tokyo Olympic Games.
Group photo with Ms. Sumitomo, president of xiaowangwu
all the fans are hand-made, from the color between each fan blade, you can see ARTISAN of the fine carving. Not only the products are good, but every decoration in the store is very meticulous. Unlike some of our stores, it is very luxurious from a distance, but the details cannot be seen directly. What is more powerful is that this store has been inherited for 400 years, and ten generations are making this fan.
In Japan, there are still many brands of sketch and subdivision products. Their products and business thinking are really different from ours, not to say that we are not good, but the development stage is different, and now we have come to the time when we should return to the original purpose of business, focus a little, be professional, and be deeper. Only in this way can we build competitiveness and obtain enough profit space.
Return to study products and services
in addition to focusing management ideas, we also need to return our attention to products and services. This is a very illusory era and an era of rampant marketing. Everyone hopes to make quick money, they are used to solving problems with their mouths and are not willing to think about products. The products here include services.
Some people may not agree and feel that they also attach great importance to products. Let me ask, in our household industry, is a sales director with higher income or a product director with higher income? Not to mention that many manufacturers do not have product directors. There is nothing wrong with the importance of sales. After all, income-generating departments, but products are equally important at least.
The market lacks good products, and consumers need good products!
Let's talk about a small example in my own life. I just finished decorating the house. The decoration of this House cost me a lot of effort, and I also chose the best materials as much as possible, including the whole house intelligent products. After checking in with joy, the problem came. Let me talk about a smart toilet I chose. A toilet with such a beautiful appearance found many problems after using it for a while:
① The Light of toilet push button is too bright. Not to mention the power consumption, the important thing is that it affects sleep at night. I have to cover the button light with old clothes before going to bed every day. I wonder what this toilet has forced me as a user;
② the sound of flushing is too loud, especially at the last moment, there is no way to describe the words, which affects sleep and mood;
③ the cushion is hot, so far I don't know if it has to be adjusted. Think about this feeling in the summer in Guangzhou.
You can also list many problems, but this toilet I am purchased by a relatively mature manufacturer, which can at least represent the medium or above level in the market, but the experience is just so. In the process of decoration, there are still many bad experiences. There are many problems just like this toilet, which seem to be very elementary.
This is the current situation. Many products on the market are like this, lacking details and paying less attention to user experience. This stems from the attitude of our whole society towards products, which are not valued and used. There was no problem with this kind of product before, but now it doesn't work. Consumers are mature, so they should take it seriously with you.
The more this happens, the opportunity is coming! There are not many good products. Whoever is willing to sink down to make products and services will have opportunities. You see, in the past, some enterprises, such as Xiaomi and Haidilao, have become big brands of large enterprises if their products and services are slightly better.
By the way, every time I think about this toilet, it encourages me to do well the products of our own company.
How do home manufacturers deepen their services
the above mentioned "to focus, to return to the product". Then how do our manufacturers return to products? How to make products and services deep? One is to do a good job of physical products, which is the physical products in our factory and exhibition hall. The other is to do a good job in virtual products, that is, to do a good job in the service system for distributors.
As for physical products, I have already mentioned above that many products on the market are only 60-80 points, but the other 20 points can truly reflect the competitiveness. To get more points in these 20 points, the difficulty is more than 10 times larger than that of each point in the previous 80 points. Each point is a test of product spirit.
I will focus on the service system of manufacturers to distributors, which is actually a virtual product of manufacturers. For most manufacturers, your first customer is not the one who buys your products, but the one who sells your products and the distributor. Serve the distributor well and take "distributor success" as another product and service.
The competition in the terminal market is large, and distributors can't do it alone. Brands need to be the rear of distributors, otherwise it is useless for you to recruit more distributors. Another point is that your ability must be complementary with dealers and promote each other, so that both parties have indispensable value.
Some brands only want to recruit the best dealers. This idea of "picking up ready-made" is speculation. Not to mention that this kind of the best dealers can recruit or not, even if they recruit, it will not be stable, because the dealer's ability is too strong, which brand he joined and who he has the initiative to cooperate with is in his own hands. The manufacturer has no right to speak and cannot form complementary capabilities. Only complementary factories and merchants can cooperate for a long time, is the real competitiveness of manufacturers.
What aspects does the service system for distributors include? I only make some suggestions based on my cognition:
1. Product portfolio design
the design conforms to the product portfolio sold by distributors and stores, including drainage products and profit products. Manufacturers can also set up long tail products according to different categories and manufacturers' capabilities. In particular, drainage products are very important. Many brands do not have this concept, but only profit-making products, which makes it difficult for terminals to obtain customers. Most manufacturers do this by providing a single product to distributors, whatever you want to sell, this kind of practice will become increasingly unworkable in the future.
2. Marketing content output
the natural passenger flow of dealer stores is less and less, and the requirements for marketing content are higher and higher, such as a soft article, a case analysis, a holiday marketing activity, however, it is very difficult for a dealer to operate alone. Therefore, manufacturers can output content and distributors copy and execute it. The output of marketing content can reflect the value of brands to distributors.
3. Shop assistant management output
the management of shop assistants mentioned here includes but not limited to the training of shop assistants, which is the whole process from recruitment, training, performance management to staff career development planning. This aspect is now one of the more troublesome problems for dealers. It is impossible for ordinary dealers to recruit and retain people.
4. Customer management output
many home dealers do not have systematic customer management, but now the traditional way of obtaining customers is becoming more and more difficult. If distributors cannot manage customers well, improve customer experience, strengthen customer conversion rate and increase the proportion of customer introduction, then they lack market competitiveness. For distributors, they need to manage the whole life cycle of customers and establish customer relationships that never lose contact. These are new topics now, but referring to other industries, I believe that in the near future, it must be the basic skills of our home channel.
There are still many contents to be listed about the distributor service system, such as store image management, design service content output, etc.
One of the key problems is that all the above projects need to be carried by means of the Internet, which is digital and online. Otherwise, the efficiency is very low and the effect is not good. We hope to have a special discussion on digitalization and online.
The above is the cognitive upgrade that brand manufacturers should have. Your products and services include: physical products + distributor service system. Improving the weight of distributor service system is the new competitiveness of manufacturers.
How can dealers make deep service
first, I would like to share with you a case. The service of Haidilao is as follows:
when dining in Haidilao, you usually have to queue up. When queuing up, you can provide manicure and other services for free. During the meal, the waiter, brother and sister, unconsciously, started to eat with you, you find that his waiter has special potential to talk cross talk; After the meal, your child suddenly said, "I want Doraemon more", and the waiter immediately said, "I'll go to the kitchen to see if there are any watermelons", after that, I will pack a whole watermelon for you for free and let you take it back to eat it; Even the waiter has the right to give you the whole table free of charge.
Many people have been to Haidilao and experienced these services, but have you ever thought about what kind of business logic this is?
Let me analyze, I think the reason why Haidilao launched such a "no bottom line" service is also an impossible way, because consumers of hot pot have no perception, especially Sichuan style hot pot, A, B, C, three hot pot restaurants, the taste of each restaurant is the same, basically no difference. How to establish brand perception and word of mouth for this kind of products without difference? Their strategy is: sensory transfer! Let perceptible things drive things that are not easy to perceive.
Hot pot has no perception, but manicure has perception, sending watermelon has perception, and it is easy to form public praise. Haidilao's products are not so much hot pot as "surprise", or "hot pot + surprise". Customers are actually talking about hot pot, manicure, jokes, paying for "surprises" such as sending watermelons is actually paying for "experience". Otherwise, how can so many people choose Haidilao instead of cheaper hot pot?
Back to our home products from hot pot, is there any similarity? Consumers have no sense of the quality of home products. For environmental protection and environmental protection, they just think it is very important, but they have no sense. Then we need to use more customer-sensitive services to drive non-sensory products, improve customer experience, achieve good delivery and reputation, and improve customer introduction rate.
Important things are said three times. The customer transfer rate is very important, very important, very important!
There are many ideas on how to create customer experience and perception. Here are some suggestions:
1. Service personnel should wear work clothes
this includes talking about the first measure gauge of the order and the dress of designers, as well as the dress of construction workers. If the clothes of salesmen and designers are not very uniform, at least they need to wear a uniform badge. Workers must wear uniform work clothes with brand LOGO for construction.
You can imagine how you feel differently when you go to any consumer place and see a service person wearing work clothes and a person without work clothes. Even whether there is a uniform dress becomes one of the criteria for distinguishing whether it is a brand or not.
Go to the front line of the construction site for investigation
2. The project progress needs to be fed back to the customer.
A customer service group must be established for each service customer, and the relevant personnel of the customer side and the relevant service personnel on our side must be pulled into the group. The progress should be fed back, including the design progress and the construction progress, especially the construction progress. Construction workers must take photos and record every day, sales or documentary personnel will conduct one-to-many or one-to-one wechat feedback on today's construction progress in the group.
The feedback includes the project completed today, today's construction photos, existing problems and solutions. Don't think customers don't give feedback if they don't ask. If you give more feedback to customers, you will trust more, and the better your next job will be. On the contrary, once customers have doubts, your work will become more and more passive.
3. Store manager makes customer return visit
when the store manager makes a customer return visit, sometimes it is to discover the problems in the service, but more often it is an experience for the customer, showing respect for the customer. Some people may think that there have been problems in the service process, so it is better to say less. In my opinion, if there is a problem, it is not a problem. If there is a big problem, you really shouldn't avoid the problem. How to solve it.
As for how distributors improve their customer experience, I will say these points for the moment, and there are still many problems that can be considered by myself. Some people think that the methods I mentioned above are all small things less than hanging gear. Are these methods effective?
It seems to be a little action, but it has the "flywheel effect". Behind each little action, there are more behaviors and mechanism support to complete these little actions. Just as haidilao's waiters can send watermelons and free orders, there is a strong system behind them. Here I will talk about wearing work clothes. Wearing work clothes seems simple but many dealers can't do it. If the installation workers are not trained, the workers will not cooperate without designing the evaluation mechanism.
Many stores do not have their own installation workers, so the implementation is more difficult. If there are no exclusive workers, it is also necessary to use familiar workers as much as possible and cannot be changed frequently, which will lead to unstable service quality. For non-exclusive workers who require to wear work clothes, it is necessary to design a reward and punishment mechanism. How much is the reward for wearing work clothes per day, and how much is not deducted at the same time, but the reward is the main punishment as the supplement. You see, through the implementation of wearing work clothes, this process is to enhance workers' sense of belonging and service awareness.
To summarize the services of distributors, we need to regard customer experience as services and products.
There is nothing easy to do now. For our home furnishing practitioners, this is both bad news and good news. If we can sink down to make products and services, we will gain new competitiveness, I think the overall idea or strategy is: Back to the product and service itself, from "doing wide" to "doing deep", there are the following specific points:
1. Narrow the scope from different dimensions such as product category, product quantity and service area, and only narrow the scope can establish professionalism;
2. The manufacturer group should make their own products and services deep, especially the distributor service deep, which can add new competitive advantages;
3. Distributor groups should make consumer services deep. Besides basic product services, they should also pay attention to user experience and make user experience a part of products and services.
(Article Source: Home hotline, invasion and deletion)
