wolf road

Chapter 18 Wolf-like qualities (8)
Sun Tzu said: A soldier is like water, and in the shape of water, he avoids heights and goes down; in the shape of soldiers, he avoids the solid and strikes the weak.The same is true for brand strategy. You should try to avoid the real thing, avoid the place that is unfavorable or not advantageous to you, such as the strong appeal of competitors, the expression techniques used by others, etc., and point to the imaginary place, such as the neglected consumer group , the opponent's weakness, etc., so as to gain the initiative and win success.Avoiding the real and attacking the false is actually a strategy used when selecting the target and determining the main attack direction; while winning by surprise requires breaking the routine, doing the opposite, going out of what you don't expect, and getting what you don't expect.Attack the unprepared, take it by surprise.

In 200 A.D., Yuan Shao laid down the battlefield in Guandu, preparing to eliminate Cao Cao and fight for the world in the south.At that time, Yuan Shao had hundreds of thousands of soldiers with strong horses and abundant food and grass; Cao Cao had only tens of thousands of soldiers and horses and lacked food and grass.In terms of strength, Cao Cao is far inferior to Yuan Shao. If he wants to fight the battlefield head-on, it is tantamount to hitting a stone with an egg and killing himself.Therefore, we can only look for Yuan Jun's vital and weak points to attack.At this time, Cao Cao got the news: Yuan Shao had more than ten thousand carts of grain and grass in Wuchao, with only a few soldiers and horses guarding them.Cao Cao immediately led five thousand light cavalry to attack Wuchao at night, and successfully burned down Yuan Jun's grain and grass depot.This is the very famous Battle of Guandu in history where the weak defeated the strong and avoided the real and attacked the weak.

In modern commercial warfare, all competing parties have high and low economic strengths.If a weak enterprise competes head-on with a strong enterprise, it will probably fail and go bankrupt. Therefore, it should also adopt a strategy of avoiding the real and attacking the false. It is very promising to find its own business projects in the gaps in the market.

Accurate brand positioning is a powerful means of avoiding reality and defeating fiction, and winning by surprise.American scholar Al Ries pointed out in his "Advertising Heart Attack Strategy-Brand Positioning" that positioning is the work you put on the minds of potential customers in the future... The purpose is to gain a favorable position in the hearts of potential customers.Positioning is not what to do with the product, but the discovery of the market and the occupation of consumers' minds. Therefore, the key to positioning is to find out the coordinates of consumers' minds.The choice of coordinate location is mainly determined by the two factors of consumers' psychological activities and competitors' strategies.Taking these two factors as the starting point, avoiding reality and attacking fiction, and digging deep into the undiscovered potential needs of consumers can often win by surprise.

The success of Shanxi Nanfeng Group can give us a very good inspiration.Its annual output of Qiqiang washing powder is more than 10 billion bags. Since 1997, it has maintained the first place in the national output for several years, breaking the four major brands in the world's washing industry, Procter & Gamble, Henkel, Kao, and Unilever, in the Chinese market. monopoly position.

From a company on the verge of bankruptcy in 1992 to the leader in China's laundry market, how did Nanfeng Group achieve such impressive results?The secret lies in the accurate brand positioning, which has found a huge market development space for itself.After market research and analysis, they avoided the reality and determined the road to encircle the city from the countryside, avoiding direct confrontation with superior foreign brands in the fiercely competitive big cities, taking the vast countryside as a stage for them to display their hands and feet, and targeting the vast number of farmers Consumers.Adhering to providing low-price, high-quality products to the common people, more than 30 varieties of washing powder have been developed to meet the needs of rural markets in different regions and environments, and are very popular.As a result, Nanfeng Group has firmly occupied 50% of the rural market. Of the 10 billion bags of Qiqiang laundry detergent produced every year, 8 million are sold to rural areas, and 8 million farmers have one bag per capita!
Another example is the famous American [-]-up soda, which is also a very classic case. It created a very cola brand positioning, cleverly divided drinks into two categories: cola type and non-cola type, and itself appeared as a representative of non-cola type, thus It avoided the direct conflict with Coca-Cola, the overlord of the industry, opened up a new market space, occupied a favorable position in the competition, and made it one of the three major beverages in the market.It vividly embodies the "Sun Tzu's Art of War" to be strong and avoid it. The army does not attack, the city does not attack, and the land does not fight.the essence of

The above-mentioned details only lead to a subtle connection with the brand strategy from a small point of "Sun Tzu's Art of War". This tip of the iceberg is enough for us to feel the great practical effect of this handed down work.

And Lao Tzu has a saying: the sound is rare, but the elephant is invisible. Perhaps, the highest state of strategy application is that the invisible is better than the visible, not sticking to the formula, and the ingenious application of "Sun Tzu's Art of War" to the brand strategy should also pursue its profound The theoretical connotation is well planned.In this way, it is not only of academic significance to deeply understand "Sun Tzu's Art of War" in order to master it.

In the era of fierce competition in the modern economy, businesses often resort to tactics.For example: if he does well, I will do better than him; if he sells cheaply, I will sell cheaper than him.This kind of competition based on the opponent's strength is often not worth the loss. Sun Tzu advocated: attack the opponent's weakness.For example: the product quality of the main competitor is indeed excellent, but the channel construction is not very good, then we can consider whether to use the main resources to attack the opponent's channel, and also emphasize how good our channel is in communication.Everyone who develops their strengths will gain profits.

However, the marketing of Chinese merchants has fallen into a deep misunderstanding. Many competitions are short-handed - not to explore and create something with its own characteristics, but to see that others have made money in a certain field, and they swarm the ground. Going head-to-head with merchants that have already taken a leading position in this field, but the market capacity is certain, which will inevitably cause both sides to suffer, but one will be less injured than the other.

Today's competition for the existing market has reached a feverish level, but few companies pay attention to the cultivation and expansion of potential markets, and how to quietly seize the existing market.

The degree of market congestion is directly proportional to the degree of economic development.The rapid economic development will inevitably lead to intensified market competition, and it has become increasingly difficult to expand market share in the face-to-face competition of developed markets; in the long-term fierce competition, the market strategy in the circulation field has been adopted by most enterprises. Familiar, such as pricing strategies, sales channel strategies... are widely used by various companies, and there is no secret to both sides of the competition. For example, at the beginning of a commercial company, one company engaged in prize-winning sales, and then all merchants flocked to adopt them, and the prizes and bonuses are more attractive. People, at first, under the lure of heavy prizes, people went to shopping malls that launched prize sales to purchase what they wanted to buy, and even bought blindly, but after many merchants adopted this promotion strategy, people became accustomed to these things. It is difficult to play the role again.The merchants who first used the prize-winning sales strategy consciously or unconsciously used the strategy of avoiding reality and attacking fiction, because no one in the business world used this promotion method at that time. Excess profits have been made from it, but when it is promoted, merchants can only compete with each other by increasing the amount of bonuses and prizes. Although most of the expenses come from customers, it still reduces the profits of merchants.

If a company can take the lead in using some strategies that other companies have not or have not used well, and subtly obtain the existing market share, or develop and cultivate potential markets, then it will definitely be able to remain invincible.

Don't we Chinese marketing wizards only watch foreign companies exploit the soul of the ancient and profound "Sun Tzu's Art of War" strategic thinking so proficiently to capture the Chinese market?

As every Chinese, we should feel great pressure.Indeed, marketing originated and developed abroad first, but can China only copy and imitate marketing strategies behind others?Didn't the foreigners break open the gate of China with gunpowder, one of China's four great inventions? Shouldn't we learn something from it?
"Sun Tzu's Art of War" first proposed that the shape of soldiers is to avoid the real and attack the weak. In war, it is necessary to avoid the main force of the enemy and attack its weak links: the image of a soldier is water, and the shape of water is to avoid heights and go down. The shape avoids the real and hits the virtual.The water controls the flow because of the ground, and the soldiers win because of the enemy.In the fierce market competition, it is necessary to study the weakness of the opponent in depth and attack the weakness of the competitor in time.

Reverse thinking is a bit similar to what we usually say to look at problems from a different angle.This is actually a question of a mindset and a way of thinking.However, it is the right and wrong of this thinking pattern or way of thinking that often plays a decisive role in our business activities.Dislocation competition is an operation mode of reverse thinking.The so-called misplaced competition, expressed in the popular language of manufacturers and merchants, is: you do this line, I will do that line; you do this, I will do that.

Compared with low-level price competition, dislocation competition is unique because of its unique and unexpected competition concept.Therefore, its competition space is wider, and it is easier to get twice the result with half the effort.American investment guru Warren Buffett once said: Our goals should be quite modest. We are only fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.This is the secret of stock investment, and it is also applicable to the choice of our business objectives.What are you going to do?Do you want to run what others are doing, or run what you see is profitable in the market, or choose promising business targets through investigation and analysis.

In each economic hotspot, because of people’s herd mentality, people blindly follow the trend, but the market capacity is very limited, and everyone flocks to it, often causing economic bubbles. As a result, most investors will not make money, but will lose money.You are not the first to discover a gold mine, fail to dig the first pot of gold, maybe you will never dig gold, because there are too many people digging gold.A large number of facts have proved that in many cases, following the trend in the industry cannot be a road to success, and there is no merit in following the trend outside the industry.No matter how lucrative a project is, it will soon lose its charm as the crowd flocks to it; no matter how ordinary a project is, as long as it can be recognized by the market first, it will eventually generate a lot of money.

Think about the problem in a different way of thinking, maybe we can make a difference in the economic hot spots and find another way.This is the so-called free-rider phenomenon in economics, which means that you can share the entrepreneurial profits of others without spending the cost of innovation.When the market is overheated, avoid hotspots and find other opportunities to develop adjacent industries, and use the expanded market capacity of economic hotspots to earn extra profits.Such an example was vividly staged in the United States as early as the beginning of the 21st century.

Yamer, a famous American entrepreneur, was originally just a farmer. He was involved in the gold rush in California at that time. drink water.Some hungry and thirsty gold diggers even claimed: Give me a glass of water, and I am willing to exchange it for a piece of gold.So Yamer decided to change his goal-selling water, as long as the water is transported to the mine, he can make a lot of money.He dug the well with a gold shovel, and what he dug out was not gold, but water from the ground.He sent water to the mine and was welcomed by the gold prospectors.Yamer has since embarked on the road to prosperity.

Coincidentally, Levi Strauss, the founder of Levi's company, also invested in this gold rush and won his first pot of gold, but this pot of gold did not come from gold mines, but from jeans.

When Levi Strauss sailed to San Francisco to start his business, he brought some small goods such as balls of thread and a batch of canvas for the gold diggers to pitch their tents.After disembarking, I happened to meet a gold digger.Levi Strauss rushed up and asked: Do you want canvas for a tent?But the worker replied: What we need here is not a tent, but hard-wearing and durable canvas trousers worn when panning for gold.Inspired by this, Li Wei immediately asked a tailor to make a pair of canvas trousers for the gold digger.This is the world's first overalls.

Today, the overalls have become a worldwide clothing Levis jeans.Jeans were favored by western cowboys and gold diggers at that time because of their firmness, durability and fit.A large number of orders came in one after another.Levi Strauss established his jeans company in 1853, mainly selling gold diggers and denim, and mass-produced gold digging overalls.Its brand continues to this day and is still the number one brand in the world of denim.

We can draw a conclusion from Yamer and Li Wei's fortune-making experience: you must have your own ideas when doing things, and you must dare to open up a new road where there is no road.Forging new paths requires both a certain amount of courage and an innovative spirit.To innovate, you must first change your traditional way of thinking. When the previous road fails, you can look at the problem from another angle and find a new path from the things you are used to.The two changed their two old ideas:

(1) Only by panning for gold can you make yourself rich.

(2) If you want to make a fortune, you must make a lot of money.

They chose the two roads of selling water and selling pants.Although selling water and selling pants makes less money, it does not require much capital, and there are few competitors and a large market capacity. If you accumulate less, you can still make a fortune.

When the market is overheated, it is also a good idea to develop adjacent industries to avoid reality and attack fiction.

When the Internet economy was at its climax, a large number of investors poured into this field.By making a website and packaging a concept, you can collect money on the spot, and even claim to be able to go public.Everyone regards the new economy as a gold mine, and when it is mined, it will be rewarded.It is an exaggeration to say that if you invest in a website, you can sell it by adding a zero after the cost.The bubble grew bigger and bigger, eventually leading to the arrival of the Internet winter, and many investors were trapped.There is a joke: If you love someone, let him invest in the Internet, because the Internet is heaven; if you hate him, let him invest in the Internet, because the Internet is hell.It is a certain portrayal of the development of the Internet in recent years.Although the website economy has created economic miracles such as Amazon and Yahoo, it is still only a small minority among the countless global website founders and investors.However, Cisco and IBM, which played the role of selling water in the network war, made a fortune by selling network equipment.Also in China, due to the rapid development of the Internet, the number of people surfing the Internet is increasing year by year.One of the top reasons people buy computers today is to surf the Internet.Network equipment providers are the first to gain huge business opportunities.The demand for PC terminals, network equipment, protocols and application software has greatly increased; the rapid development of the network has led to an increase in the demand for access services, and the demand for dial-up access, ISDN, WAP, DDN and satellite access has naturally increased strongly.The fact is that the website has not yet made money, Internet users may have just tasted some sweetness, while the pockets of network equipment providers have already bulged.

(End of this chapter)