This issue of "Faces" is a dark horse in the catering circle: he left home at the age of 20 to start his own business in the north; in 2001, he became the youngest executive of his company; thirteen years later, he switched tracks and attacked the catering circle with all his strength to create the Cloud Flavor Hall; now he is sitting on the leading chair of the rice noodle category in South China, and has become a well-known traffic red man in the catering circle in the past two years.
He is the founder of the cloud flavor hall - Chi Huan Tao.
2001, Shenzhen CBD skyscraper, a young man in deep thought. Not long ago, he was promoted to become Skyworth's youngest executive. Life is a more and more far trekking, fork in the road, this is in the end is not their choice of track, at the moment there is no answer.
Years later, looking back, he realized that all the inevitability is covered in the grass snake grey line, follow the heart will be able to guide themselves to the finish line.
Toggling the gears of history, 2001 is destined to be an extraordinary year for the Chinese people. This year, the Chinese people's old friend Samaranch announced that Beijing's bid for the Olympic Games was successful, and won the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the whole country immersed in a sea of joy. This year, after 15 years of negotiation, China finally joined the WTO and became the 143rd member. The new era of China's economic reform has begun.
In the subsequent long years all the way through the waves, to find their own life track, he is the founder of the cloud flavor hall - Chi Huan Tao.
In 2001, for Chi Huan Tao is a watershed in the path of life. At that time *** guest Chang'an, like the first two land all young people. At the age of 27, he was transferred from the grassroots level in Beijing to the headquarters in Shenzhen, and was promoted to the youngest executive in the company.
Recalling that period of time, the biggest feeling - "pain and pleasure". The pain is that the external environment puts forward higher requirements on one's own ability, and every day is forced to experience the tearing type of growth; the joy is that every day's cognition is enhanced in the rapid learning, and every day's oneself has a qualitative leap. This is also a nostalgic experience for the later cross-border catering to lay down a solid basic skills.
Time back to the early 1990s, when Xinjiekou was not as busy as Xidan and Gulou, but it was also a lively area. The popular yellow side of the shuttle flow, when the night comes to the early lights, when the famous electronic street is here.
In his early twenties, he traveled all the way north from his hometown of Penglai in Shandong Province to the capital city where he could only see the Bohai Bay from afar. When he first arrived, he did not expect a few years later in this huge city, will also have their own piece of heaven and earth. "Where to go to school, what to do, all by their own decisions, parents almost never intervene."
If the family of origin has a profound influence on the child, then the openness, tolerance and understanding of the parents, so that Chi Huan Tao in the future to show many times more than ordinary people's independence, boldness and creativity. After graduating from the China University of Political Science and Law, he didn't want to look for a job, but went straight to a street stall in Xinjiekou, doing electronic business, as a small boss.
Then slowly contact with the electronic engineering, and then later to KTV rooms to do engineering supply, the boy's wings unconsciously a little full, to 1998, relying on their own hard work has nearly a million of assets accumulated.
An ordinary morning, Chi Huan Tao sold the warehouse inventory, the transfer of street stalls, he decided to go to the big company to see. So everything went to zero, three years of short-term entrepreneurship came to an end.
At that time, Skyworth was named "the most attractive 100 companies for talent". Starting from the grassroots, these years in Skyworth is one of his fastest growing stages. "The product, the concept of marketing is new, never heard of it before."
Just into the Skyworth feel everything in front of you is new, from management to marketing strategy, from product development to brand positioning, they have never been in contact with, a year later, the company invited to the then big-name traffic star Ekin Cheng and Zhang Ziyi to do ads, and in the turn of the year, Skyworth listed. In the eyes of young people, if you use two words to describe Skyworth at that time, is bull.
Three years later, promoted. 2001, at the age of 27, became general manager of sales of Skyworth multimedia industry company, and transferred to the headquarters in Shenzhen. Very few people can seize the opportunity to rise to the top, because the big thing is just a second in the small man, who missed it, there will never be a second favor on him.
Chi Huan Tao belongs to the category of people who seize the opportunity. After many years of asking about that experience in his life, he still thinks that the year of 27 years old is very meaningful to him.
From the electronics industry to cross-border catering "rice noodles brother", is not a pat on the head. The earliest and his wife to do catering, before 2014, more than a dozen stores involved in various categories; once opened to 25, until the end of the year and cut 15 ...... These are the initial stages of the cloud flavor hall.
In 2014, Chi Huan Tao is exactly 40 years old, during his tenure at Skyworth on the polishing of management skills, coupled with the business model in recent years to continue to feel the learning, will be molded into a mature entrepreneur.
Speaking of why he chose the category of rice noodles, he was blunt. "I think it's not enough, the category of rice noodles can do more extreme interpretation." Therefore, the bird has a phoenix and the fish has a Kun. The phoenix strikes nine thousand miles upwards, soaring above the darkness of nowhere. Looking back on these years, the biggest change is more relaxed, but stubbornness and pride are still there.
"Particularly dissatisfied." Asked how to evaluate the current state of development of the cloud flavor hall, Chi Huan Tao answered without thinking. Yunmeikan was officially born in 2014, with rice noodles as the main product, only 2 years, became the champion of the rice noodles category in Shenzhen, the market share in the field of Yunnan rice noodles is as high as 60% -70%, the volume is more than 3 times the sum of the second and third place combined.
Often people ask: Where else is there dissatisfaction?
This doubt is dispelled when he describes the ultimate product portrait in his mind. "Xicha has a lot to learn from the product polishing, such as a Cheerios drink, the Cheerios alone need four kinds, to raise the acidity of the sweetness, to ensure that the color, and to ensure that the taste, so that to make a hit, to do what others can not do at all, in order to ensure that it can not be replicated."
In the end, the secret to keep the product competitive for a long time is to solve the social pain points, and the greater the pain points, the greater the value, the enterprise may go more robust, more permanent. Back to the products of the cloud flavor hall, only the process of making soup uses heavy materials. Just to refresh the soup used seven kinds of dried wild mushrooms, and three years old chicken, and these ingredients are all poured out, not as the final plate ingredients.
"The dried wild mushrooms have a strong flavor, but the taste is relatively poor; three-year old chicken, after frying, to force out the freshness, and the combination of the two, the final soup ingredients are discarded, only to enhance the freshness." The color value of the soup is used three yellow chicken, so that the soup base is naturally yellow, fresh and natural, without adding any other ingredients.
This is the pursuit of the "rice noodle brother" on the product.
2015 to 2016, cloud flavor hall profit amazing, rapid development, far beyond the expectations of the old late. Until the second half of 2017, the catering environment ushered in a real glacial period. 2017 Shenzhen China Resources Vientiane opened, the whole of Nanshan other Mall customer flow fell into 2%, Baoan District Mall fell into 2-3%, plus takeaway impact, catering people are shouting: business is hard to do.
In the words of Chi Huan Tao, "the market has changed, the industry has changed, everything is out of control."
In the face of all the difficulties, in 2017 he made a new category - Mixed Powder Jun. Directly hit the two pain points of takeaway: first, the difference between the quality and taste of dine-in and takeaway is large, and second, the efficiency is not high enough and not fast enough. A powder 10-20 yuan, 60 seconds to order, 20 seats, single-day traffic of 500 people. On the day of the opening of the first store of Mixed Powder Jun, there was a long line, and it was a fire. A time in the dining circle set off a new round of imitation craze.
If Mixed Vermicelli Jun win in speaking ping efficiency, labor ratio, then convenience and extreme cost-effective is the inevitable cloud flavor hall. Want to achieve the ultimate cost-effective, the first step, is to improve the supply chain.
After switching to catering, the supply chain management of the whole catering industry is in a bad period, almost in a primitive state. Experience told him that he should make some changes, so he made a drastic reform of the supply chain. "Carry out national procurement, in the whole industrial chain of cattle, pigs, chickens and other raw materials for higher quality control, to achieve the stability of taste and quality, so as to form a stable price-performance ratio."
The importance of the supply chain, and the exercise during the tenure of Skyworth can not be dissociated, "the most in those years, a person in charge of more than sixty offices," from the Beijing branch to Skyworth Shenzhen headquarters, Chi Huan Tao accumulated a wealth of management experience in this period.
In a sense, although into the catering this line of time is not long, missed the catering wave of early incremental dividends, but many of his qualities, and just the development of China's catering industry is missing an important part.
Until the day of the interview, it was the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the cloud flavor hall flash mob rehearsal, himself and his wife, the cloud flavor hall of all employees are involved. By now, Yunmeikan blossomed in South China, opening nearly 90 stores in 5 years.
"What a business wants to be ultimately depends on the founder." Figure this out, has gone through life 40 years, from the young boy to the temple of politics and law, from the new street small business to the enterprise's youngest executives, from the electronics industry to the catering crossover, from the hands-on to focus on the cloud flavor hall deep plowing.
Driving six dragons, riding the wind.? Line four overseas, the road under the eight states. Finally, in the philosophical study to find the management of cloud flavor hall. "Each person's perception is the world." ? Ordinary people tend to agree with what they know, often thinking that it is appropriate; for things beyond their own historical experience, cognition becomes difficult to understand.
When self-perception reaches a certain ceiling, some method of enabling iteration is needed for self-growth. When it comes to business management, it is the coaching culture promoted by Chi Huan Tao. He jokingly called his wife is the chief coach, he is playing soy sauce.
In the work, the old Chi, down to all levels of management, all play the role of "coach". Encountering difficult problems, through the open-ended question guidance, so that the team self-driven to find the root cause of the problem. "It's not about instructions, it's about asking questions, and whether or not it's passive thinking at the beginning, the ultimate goal is to develop the habit of thinking."
Motivate employees in this way, see the blind spots in themselves, and thus seek a higher development path. It is the greatest wish of the founder to let every Cloud Flavor House person achieve self-growth and ultimately find his or her own happy belonging.
"As a coach, it's the rewards that are the greatest. Because that is a process of looking in the mirror over and over again and constantly introspecting." In addition to the coaching culture, Chi Huan Tao loves to think, and will also repeatedly guide the team to think about the meaning and value behind doing something.
He appreciates Haidilao's approach to business management, and feels that he has not been able to penetrate the essence of it in previous years. "Good management should be bottom-up self emergence, not making deals with employees."
Letting employees have a vision, and letting their vision and the company's vision fit together, is what Cloud Flavor House has been doing. The company meeting is never the staff to do the protagonist, the company's vision, driving force, internal drive are employees set, they imagine the future into what kind of business is what kind of.
The cloud flavor restaurant held a staff meeting, asked each employee to speak on stage, to find out what they think of the "sustained struggle", and say what qualities these people have. The general meeting was held for several days, from early morning to night, through the collection and organization of everyone on the "sustained struggle" traits description, found that six high-frequency vocabulary, respectively: self-discipline, perseverance, learning, change, pragmatism, truth-seeking.
These 12 words became the character portrait of the future "cloud flavor restaurant people", and the code of conduct. Employees have a great sense of identity and affinity, because they are involved in the whole process, and these six words contain the "self-emergence" of each employee and Lao Chi's management philosophy.
Just so, Chi Huan Tao is not willing. He wanted to cloud flavor restaurant corporate culture everywhere in the ground. Yunmeikan proposed to do a bowl of happy rice noodles. How to define the standard of happiness?
The old way, listen.
The front-line staff said that once to a pregnant woman to find a spacious seat, the pregnant woman returned a kind smile, so he felt very happy. A store manager of a branch said that the partner took a higher bonus with his help, and seeing him grow, that moment is happiness. Without exception, moments of happiness are born when they are needed, recognized, and dedicated to others.
The employee's perception of happiness is highly consistent with the essence of Yunmeikan's business - valuing user experience and focusing on partner growth. For every Yunmeikan person, to find their own happiness, the natural growth.
Surprisingly, these two points are not put forward by himself, but the staff through continuous thinking, "self emergence". "In fact, the values are not so empty, now every cloud flavor hall people understand very well, a bowl of happy rice noodles in the end what looks like, the false things to do real, is the cloud flavor hall adhere to."
There are also times when he is not understood, most of the time Chi Huan Tao is lonely, but he is not frustrated, because every Yunmeikan people in the construction of a happy life and dreams at the same time, but also constructed his as "Yunmeikan owner" spiritual Eden.
Now that he has passed the age of forty, Lao Chi has his own understanding of the "continuous struggler", "At a certain stage of the journey of life, it is no longer to do addition, but to do subtraction appropriately, subtracting excess investment, partying, and consumption." Chi Huan Tao summarizes the rest of his life to do only four things: sports, travel, reading and work.
And for those who continue to struggle, the focus is on persistence. When it comes to sports, no matter how busy he is, he insists on running for a long time, and never stops even when he is traveling, so he finds more beauty in life that is not easy to notice.
When he runs, he doesn't listen to music, he doesn't think, he just likes to look at the scenery. He fully integrates himself into the current environment and feels his true self, and every time he does this, he always feels that he has lived twice as long as other people, and that he has drawn more energy.
For traveling, he has too many novel experiences that he wants to try.
Last December, he went to Antarctica. At the southernmost point of the earth, he saw the world of ice and snow that never sets, and had countless thoughts of escaping from the world. It was a cold and beautiful, lonely and wonderful days.
After a 30-hour flight, turning around and taking a boat, crossing the Drake Passage in the Devil's Westerly Wind Belt. Catching the biggest wind and waves of 2018, the boat went for three days and three nights in ten-meter waves. Cutlery, food along with the crew all flew out the window and fell to the deck. Some of the people traveling with the ship could not eat a bite of anything for three days.
Chi Huan Tao underestimated the power of nature, people, not necessarily win. Through the glass windows of the cabin, the sea ice and icebergs in the distance.
Landing in Antarctica.
The scene in front of me is a scene that I have never seen in decades - millions of years ago, icebergs, a glimpse of the edge of the ice field, penguins walking leisurely not far away in twos and threes. Blue sea ice, see seals swimming ashore from time to time, in this pure land, isolated from the world, full of the most magical sights on this planet, and had a few tears. If you have to use a phrase to describe this journey, it is probably "the stars and the sea, not in vain."
In addition to Antarctica, traveling through the tropical rainforest several times a year to experience the ecology of the rainforest and the power of primitive nature is also a regular part of Lao Chi's travels.
Writer Bi Shumin wrote in her book, "You must talk to the sun, moon and stars, meet with rivers, lakes and oceans, shake hands with every tree, and talk to every blade of grass between the ears, and only then will you realize the greatness of the universe, the smallness of life, and the proximity of death." In the stop and go, to find more possibilities, more relaxed and firm in the present, in his own words: "the present is peace."
From the enterprise's youngest executives to cross-border catering "rice noodles brother", from the deep plowing Yunmei Hall to put forward the "sustained struggle", in the outside world, Yunmei Hall in South China is undoubtedly sitting in the leading chair of the rice noodle category, in his own view, "At present, it is only in the rice noodle category, but also in the rice noodle category. "Currently only in the rice noodle category leading half a body position," from becoming a real category leading brand there is a big gap.
Socrates said, "To recognize one's own ignorance is the greatest wisdom." Now the old Chi still recognize their own "ignorance", keep reading, watching and learning, to be a never satisfied upward wheel.
Looking back, he divided his life into three phases: before the age of 30, a period of rapid growth and absorption; 30-40 years old, constantly groping to accumulate strength in 10 years; after 40 years old, focus on the product to re-enter the road stage.
Maybe now the cloud flavor hall in Chi Huan Tao heart can not be considered a great brand, but who can determine in the near future, he will lead the cloud flavor hall people to make what breathtaking feat?
This article is copyrighted by Faces of Food and Beverage
The content service platform of Chef Core