wolf road

Chapter 50 The Wolf Enterprise (6)
But in fact, many successful entrepreneurs and many long-term prosperous enterprises in China and abroad are very good at using the strategy of knowing yourself and the enemy, and winning a hundred battles.

But what is that?And why for yourself?If we talk about it from the perspective of business management, the so-called self mainly refers to various factors of the operator itself, because these factors are comprehensive and cover every aspect of the operator himself.As for the so-called He, we have to speak from a broad perspective, that is, all external conditions belong to the category of He.From a narrow perspective, it can specifically refer to the objects of operation and management—that is, existing customers and target consumers.

If it is for everyone who is interested in engaging in business operations or is currently engaged in business operations, then first of all we should understand this point: consumers are our parents and gods, and we should analyze and study them carefully and deeply. Thoroughly understand and accurately grasp their various situations, truly know yourself and the enemy, grasp the overall situation, and know what you are doing.

But how can we effectively implement the strategy of knowing ourselves and our enemies?

In fact, there are many specific methods of operation.However, different businesses have different operating methods, so not all of them are very effective.However, one of the most commonly used, most needed, and most effective methods is to do a good job in market research carefully, grasp the first-hand information of consumers, and use it as the basis for business decisions.

In foreign countries, there are many well-known large companies that have done a good job in this area, which is worth learning from.

McDonald's is a very successful typical example. Through market research, McDonald's accurately knows that in a certain country, each person eats an average of 156 hamburgers and 95 hot dogs per year.

However, Hanbao Company is even more ingenious. It has secretly investigated whether consumers use toilet paper by stacking or folding, and even records the respective ratios.

In fact, in the United States, 73% of companies have a very formal market research department, which is responsible for product investigation, forecasting and consulting, and conducts special market research when each product enters a new market, so that they can Keep abreast of the usage of consumers.In this regard, we can clearly know that in-depth and detailed market research is an important means to know ourselves and the enemy, and is the main basis for making correct business decisions. However, if we do not conduct in-depth and detailed market research, how can decision makers Know yourself and know each other?And how can you make the right decision without making any mistakes?

In fact, no matter what we do, the guiding ideology of knowing ourselves and the enemy and winning a hundred battles is very important to us.However, everyone seems to understand this truth very well, but why, in the actual operation of management, are there so few people who can really know themselves and their enemies?
And our country once held a China trade exhibition in South Africa. In this exhibition, although the exhibitors did a lot of preparatory work in advance and claimed to have 100% certainty, during this period, there were surprises. Things that make people laugh and be generous:
A household electrical appliance company in Guangzhou took it for granted that since South Africa is an African country, it will be very hot, so they only brought a cold air conditioner, but when they arrived in South Africa, they realized that the weather was also very cold!I regret not bringing a hot and cold air conditioner.And some companies are even more outrageous. The products they brought to the exhibition turned out to be sugarcane machetes, and South Africa does not grow sugarcane at all!
There are too many examples of this kind of ridiculous self-knowledge.In fact, this exhibition would have brought some great opportunities for many companies to promote their products, but these jokes were caused because the companies did not know each other.

Although the classic wisdom of knowing yourself and the enemy is the quintessence of our country, many foreigners are more proficient in it than many of us, and they use it more meticulously, deeply, and skillfully.

A well-dressed foreigner carefully knocked on the door of an ordinary resident in Chaoyang District, Beijing.However, under the enthusiastic guidance of the owner, the guest not only carefully observed the layout of the living room and the structure of the kitchen and bathroom after entering the house, but also carefully understood the brands and functions of various home appliances at home, and finally asked the owner Specific information about the purchase and use of these appliances.In fact, we can see now that this guest is very interested in all home appliances.However, the host was very surprised when he heard the guest's words. After asking, he found out that the guest turned out to be the CEO of the Swedish Electrolux company!

It may seem unbelievable to many of us that the executive president of a multinational company would personally go to the homes of ordinary people to conduct market research, but those foreigners regard this as a necessary work procedure.This shows how much they attach importance to knowing the enemy.

Knowing yourself and the enemy has always been regarded as the premise of business decision-making. However, compared with foreigners, how are our decision-makers doing in this respect?In fact, we should reflect on ourselves, for example: Do we have a detailed and in-depth understanding of the market conditions at home and abroad?Do you have a thorough understanding of the potential needs and consumer psychology of consumers?Are you well aware of the various situations of your competitors?Do you have accurate forecasts and estimates of the current potential market?All of these require us to reflect carefully.

A large foreign-funded enterprise has successfully entered the Chinese market in great strides since 1997.At the beginning, the company's advertising slogan only had six simple words: respect people, value people.But there is also a very eye-catching CIS image.

But when this CIS image is widely familiar to people, or it can also be said that after the brand image is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, you can find a series of more than ten products of this brand in the home appliance market, but to your surprise, the series of office supplies of the same brand Then, in almost all cosmetics shopping malls across the country, brand counters with the same style were opened in very conspicuous positions, with dozens of beautiful glass bottles, large and small, from foundation cream to mascara. It has everything you need, and is very eye-catching, attracting the strong attention of many beauty lovers.

Such an overwhelming and uniform distribution of goods, what does this explain?In fact, this shows that it was not idle people who operated the market at that time, but a group of very remarkable marketing elites.

But why did they quickly and successfully occupy the market in such a short period of time?In fact, the reason is very simple but also very complicated. That is because they have put a lot of effort into the investigation and research of the Chinese market, so it means that they have truly achieved knowledge of the enemy: they have an in-depth and detailed understanding and grasp of consumers.

And we can see from this example that it is not difficult to understand that knowing yourself and the enemy is the prerequisite for a business to make a correct decision, so it should become the motto of a business and one of the basic rules for business decision-making.And the following is a counter-example:

The Great White Shark Restaurant is a restaurant with Cantonese cuisine, Dabianlu, and snake food as its main features. It is located at the intersection of Beijing’s North Second Ring Road and Xinjiekou. The location is pretty good.Walking into the Great White Shark Restaurant, you can find that it is located on the beautiful west coast of Shichahai.Sitting at the dining table on the first floor, you can enjoy the sparkling lake of Shichahai outside the window.The breeze is blowing, and I feel very comfortable.What a great place to have a good meal.

However, such a restaurant with a superior geographical location and a comfortable and elegant environment has not been very popular since it opened, especially during meal times, when the occupancy rate is less than 30%.No one knows why!
In fact, as long as you study its symptoms in depth, it is not difficult to find that the reason for its dismal management is that it knows neither itself nor the enemy.

The first is that they do not know themselves.The interior layout of the restaurant is not very practical or reasonable. For example, each floor has small dining tables that can only accommodate up to four people dining at the same time. There are no large round tables, which is very inconvenient for multiple people dining.Moreover, the arrangement of tablecloths is too dense, giving people a very cramped feeling.In terms of business items, most northerners are not very interested in making side stoves and eating snake meals, and it is obvious that the products are not right.

Second, this hotel has obvious ignorance and does not understand the preferences and needs of diners.Diners in Beijing have tasted all kinds of cuisines from all over the world, and they still feel that home-cooked dishes are the most intimate.Especially in the past few years, Beijing cuisine, Sichuan cuisine, and Northeast cuisine are popular in Beijing restaurants, while Cantonese cuisine in Guangdong has always been difficult to achieve in Beijing because of the large gap in taste with northerners.Moreover, northerners are not interested in snake meals.However, there are pictures of terrifying snakes on the menu of this restaurant!Obviously, this is extremely inconsistent with the preferences and needs of Beijing diners.

If you know neither yourself nor the enemy, how can you win the market?
The business of Great White Shark Restaurant, which has undergone a complete transformation, is getting better and better now, because they replaced the original dishes with Beijing-style popular dishes and special dishes, so the business is getting better and better.

(End of this chapter)