Note: This article is summarized from the conversation between David Kennedy and Zhang Ding at the internal post-pitch sharing session "Geling Ask", where we spent the afternoon discussing topics such as sales, team management, corporate governance, talent coordinate system, and the nature of success.
KAN Jiawei, operating partner of High Tide Capital, president of Meituan Internet+ University, former COO of Meituan, former vice president of sales of Alibaba, Alibaba's No. 67 employee, representative of the iron army of China's supply chain, and known as "Agan".
Zhang Ding, partner of Puhua Capital and director of Head to Head, has been in Ali for seven years, and has been in charge of the national Top Sales of the Iron Army of China's supply chain, as well as projects such as the Tmall Think Tank, and is currently investing in branding, e-commerce, science and technology, and S2B, with projects such as Arashi Technology, Dingding Fresh Foods, Panda Preferred, StarTV, soulsense, AstroReality, and so on.
(1)
Thinking about building a sales team from the essence of the business
Zhang Ding: What's the biggest influence that Jack Ma or Xing Wang has had on you and your sales team at Ali or Meituan?
Gan Jiawei: Yun Ma believes that sales is the process of creating value for customers. He often cited an example of a good doctor to the patient, first asked whether the headache or foot pain, how the pain, and finally give the prescription, rather than not ask the condition directly to see the file. This is both the sales concept of Ali, or my personal influence is relatively large.
Frankly speaking, Wang Xing has little influence on me in sales, and his understanding of the whole business and strategy makes me gain more.
Zhang Ding: Is it possible to build a very good sales team just by having strong execution?
Gan Jiawei: Execution is very important to sales, but it is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Zhang Ding: If you abandon those things at the level of Ali's culture, such as the sentimentality in the team, can you still build a very strong sales team?
Gan Jiawei: Ali's culture of love and righteousness is still related to the characteristics of its business itself. Ali then B2B business value point is not obvious, prepaid, high unit price, the effect is not sure, and then the Internet has not been popularized, so it is a very high barrier to entry, the sales difficulty is also very large, the team attack ability requirements are very high. At this time, we need the whole team to help, share and encourage each other, otherwise it is difficult to go on. Including the "political commissar" system is also a way to get people to coalesce.
Ali's sentient culture does play a great value in the whole team, but I don't think it is a universal, necessary law. It's just a small methodology, and methodologies come in all sizes and, more importantly, think in terms of the nature of the business.
In Ali, I personally am not too involved in the circle inside, playing cards and mahjong party is also relatively small. It's good to be sentimental, but this is more of a personal style for managers, or the business characteristics of Ali at that stage lead to a higher density of people with this style.
Zhang Ding: Isn't it true that the founders acted as "political commissars"?
Gan Jiawei: It depends on how you define it. Managers definitely need to know HR, that's the basics. Some founders and executives feel that if something is missing in the company culture or if they need to build a team, they have to go to HR, which is actually a misunderstanding.
Because a company is how, must be related to the founder, like HR or financial functions, are just in their professional field of landing or amplify your ideas, but not change, because the company is your, not someone else's.
The company is not just a company, it is a company, but a company.
Zhang Ding: What is the biggest difference between Ali and Meituan in building a sales team?
干嘉伟：美团是基于效果支付的，相对而言，对效率或说精细的要求就会更高。 For example, after the shelves, only customers have sales, you have a share of the profits, if you on a lot of inappropriate, the company has to pay more costs. So for the Mission sales, how to run customers, how to classify the customer group classification, how to propose different programs for different customers, these aspects of the requirements will be higher.
(2)
The core methodology of doing business:
Strategic execution and tactical execution
Zhang Ding: You just mentioned that we need to think about methodology from the nature of the business, what is the core methodology of doing business? core methodology of business?
KAN Jiawei: I think doing business requires execution on the ground. I categorize execution into two types, "strategic execution" and "tactical execution". Their importance is different, equivalent to the front and back of the decimal point.
It's normal to have problems with tactical execution, just like a headache or a cold. But many times in the strategic implementation of the link is life and death, is to do the most valuable part of the enterprise .
Therefore, in the strategy implementation link, don't fool around. Recently, I've seen a lot of companies talking about strategic transformation, all in, all in several times a year.
All in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in, all in. The vast majority of companies are dying by their own tossing and turning, not by others, and that's a big problem in the execution of the strategy.
In addition to 'strategic execution' and 'tactical execution', there are some common ways of thinking about entrepreneurship.
The first is vertical and horizontal integration. To be a platform is to integrate horizontally, but when you don't have the conditions early on, you may need to integrate vertically first, starting from a business. For example, Meituan takeout, we first solve the problem of food, after this business, and then the distribution of the feed, and so the organizational capacity overflow before becoming a platform to send clothes, medicines and all other items.
The second is focus.
The first to do group purchasing revenue is very substantial, all of a sudden can sell hundreds of thousands of jeans, but the United States is to insist on only do local life, because the resource capacity are very limited. A company's most core and scarce resource is not money, but the attention of the founder. Money can be melted, but time can't be melted.
Third is Porter's competitive strategy. Although it is called "competitive strategy", I think it is a basic methodology for business strategy. Porter's competitive strategy divides all the enterprises in the world into three categories: the first category is to make differentiated products, such as luxury goods and Apple; the second category is to make cost-leading products, such as Made in China, Amazon, and Meituan; and the third category is to make focused products, such as focusing on a certain group.
The choice of which type of business to become is related to the nature of the business itself on the one hand, and the competitive situation on the other. Wang Xing first defined Meituan as a "cost-leading" enterprise, which is why there is the "three highs and three lows theory", and the object of learning for Meituan is therefore Amazon, a model for cost-leading enterprises.
The fourth is Buffett's four moats, branding, transfer costs, network effects, and structural cost advantages. Companies with a moat are less susceptible to cross-border robberies, such as Meituan Hotels.
Compared to the elephant-like Ctrip, Meituan Hotel was a rat at the time. But our advantage was that we could get customers for 20 bucks cheaper on a movie ticket, a boxed lunch, or a takeout package, while Ctrip's cost of customer acquisition for the same period was already more than 200 bucks, which is the structural cost advantage of Meituan Hotels.
Zhang Ding: When were you sure that Meituan would win the war? How did you determine that?
KAN Jiawei: In fact, I was basically sure in the middle of 2012, otherwise I wouldn't have gone to Meituan.
It's a big deal, isn't it?
2, the buddy later can not rank the top ten in the Internet?
3. Are they missing me?
At that time, Wang Xing looked for me for six months, I did hesitate, because Ali was getting better and better at that time. But after these three questions were asked, I still made a decision.
First, is it big. Look at the business itself how big the opportunity is is also the first step of "strategy execution", you can use the "three layers and four sides" analysis.
The four sides of the business can be broken down into the number of customers, frequency, unit price, and monetization rate.
The 'three layers' are the current state of the market, online rate, and market share.
This is not necessarily the best way to think about it, but it's a safe way to think about it, from top to bottom, with no factors overlapping or missing.
Generally speaking, the business itself has nothing to do with whether you're smart or not, or how hard you work; the potential market is the physical world that exists objectively.
At that time, I looked at the "four sides" of group buying, the number of users is very large, the frequency of transactions is high, and there is a certain customer unit price. Of course, there is also a problem in this industry, which is that the monetization rate was very low before.
Looking at the "third tier", the market is in its early stages, and the online rate and market share are low, so I just think that's a great opportunity. We can all see that the tertiary sector is definitely going to overtake the secondary sector in the future, and it's at a very early stage. So this is something that is really very big.
After the "three layers and four sides", it is necessary to take stock of the marketing organization ability, but also to answer the second question, is this person reliable? Is the team reliable?
Organizational capability covers a wide range, but for all companies, the strategic ability is undoubtedly the first, which includes learning, product, technology, management, financing, marketing, culture and so on.
In my experience, a startup can beat most of its competitors in this space if it has a clear understanding of, and builds on, the 3-4 core organizational capabilities.
Whether you look at Wang Xing's understanding of the Internet as a whole, or his technical background, this guy is solid.
At that time, O2O was relatively hot, and it was important to have the ability to do business both online and offline. Online toC, product-driven technology, Wang Xing's team can not be said to be the strongest in China, but the group purchase on the field of more than 5,000 completely and they are not in a class; if I go, offline should be higher than a paragraph. But in general, the two core competencies of the Mission are very strong. As long as the track has the opportunity, the probability of success is relatively large.
Things are big, people are reliable, this thing is worth doing.
Zhang Ding: Is this team missing you? You'll be able to run a better business if you join.
KAN Jiawei: There's no doubt about it.
Zhang Ding: Before you joined, capital did not invest in Meituan because they thought the ground push was too bad?
Gan Jiawei: The truth is, there will be others without me in Meituan, a little stronger or weaker than me, and the revolution may be won a little earlier or later.
This is the so-called strategic execution and tactical execution, Wang Xing where to find what kind of people, this is the strategic execution, determining the life and death of the enterprise. But in this direction to find Ah Gan or Ah Wet, this is tactical execution, there is a certain degree of chance.
Zhang Ding: you are right, strategically the Mission must go to find such a person, if you find a person who is weaker than you, it will be a few years late, maybe still can win.
Gan Jiawei: not maybe, is sure. So for me personally, instead of serendipity, I went to the United States is still quite lucky, of course, I also made a big judgment.
Zhang Ding: How did you find the crown of sales after going to Meituan?
Gan Jiawei: Because a lot of things in sales are unrepeatable, unscalable, and even incorrect. For example, being lucky, gifted or good-looking, having resources, this is not replicable. If these are used as role models, it could be a blow to the team.
So my logic at the time was to find the pin-ups that were worthwhile and could be replicated and scaled, and then replicate it to others through management. Management itself is a lever in the pursuit of certainty. Just get 80% of the people at 80% of the level of the best one and life can be happy.
There is a common problem in the group-buying industry, which is that there are various definitions of "top seller", and one of them is "sense of consumption".
The so-called "sense of consumption" is to be able to eat and play, with a good group of programs put online, sales must have character, otherwise not sold. This was a mainstream program at the time, but in this way, the business can not be effectively managed, I can not let employees eat, drink and play all day.
In the end, after various analyses, we found that the correlation coefficient between sales performance and supply was the largest, regardless of quality. After that it was validated in a few cities to open up supply, which turned out to work well, and then scaled it up.
In 2012, we were crazy about visits and orders, and then in 2013, we were crazy about visits and opening stores. The same program, the competitors have to go live in a week, we can go live on the same day, this is the difference between life and death.
China's group buying and groupon, the granddaddy of American group buying, parted ways at this point. Before that, our group buying copied groupon, take the marketing path, the flow of irrigation to a limited supply to do explosive single, and then take 2% or even 1% off the single.
But since then, we take the path of e-commerce, unlimited supply. Of course, unlimited supply will exist "shelf cost", so the task after that is to optimize the tool, to sell their own write a list.
At that time, we dropped four times a year commission, you (sales) must be in the heart scolded me, but the war is the efficiency of the fight. Every cent saved in the single can be used to buy traffic, sales can be higher, market share can be more a point, and then there will be more single, which can form a positive cycle.
When I first went there, Meituan's market share was a little more than 10%, and after we discovered and practiced the law, in March 2012 it was more than 13%, and by the end of 2012, it was 18%. This game is cost leadership, efficiency leadership, so we are certain to win, other peers do not have any chance.
Zhang Ding: How did supply efficiency improve so quickly?
干嘉伟：在千团战时，作为 CEO，王兴一个重要工作就是在外面和各行業的人聊天，经常跟我说别人如何创新，比如线下拜访分业，但 我坚持不分业，并且认为对于线下团队来说，拜访效率是最重要的问题。
A qualified sales face the biggest problem is not industry differences in the knowledge structure of the differences, this is not even the threshold, if you say you can only talk about restaurants, but not talk about the hotel, then I will think you are not a qualified sales.
In contrast, how to optimize the visit path, improve the efficiency of the visit is the main problem.
The problem of offline visits certainly has a methodology, but many people do not go to learn, but blindly think, the wall as a door punch and kick, seems to be innovative, in fact, just do a variety of meaningless attempts.
Zhang Ding: Looking back at the experience in Meituan, what do you think are the most important strategic stages in the battle of a thousand tours? And how was the core strategic advantage gained in each stage?
Gan Jiawei: There are two stages. One is what was mentioned earlier, choosing to take the marketing route or the supply route. The second is our merger with Volkswagen Dianping. If Meituan Takeout had not merged with Dianping, then we would still have competition in the "eat at the store" thing. Meituan now at least has a base in "to-store dining".
Zhang Ding: Every year or two, there will be a very competitive track, how to judge that a team will win in such a fierce track? What are the key points for a team to win in this situation?
KAN Jiawei: Fierce competition by itself cannot derive a team's capabilities and characteristics. Regardless of whether the competition is fierce or not, what kind of business should have what kind of team, and this logic has always been there and is very clear. The degree of competition just amplifies it, and if it's fierce, it dies a little faster, and if it's not fierce, it dies a little slower.
(c)
Management is not about how many people you've managed,
but whether there is a basic method.
Zhang Ding: The next question is relatively specific: how did you achieve cross-regional management through daily and weekly reports?
Gao Jiawei: Daily and weekly reports are just one of the management tools, and there are many layers between them and tool management. Cross-regional management is more for the end team, or sales team. It's not possible to have many layers of product technology or functional management at headquarters. And in the sales team across the territory management, there is a bigger methodology, weekly report, daily newspaper is just a very small one.
There are not many big methodologies per se. I've been at Mission for five years, and when I talk to people about sales management, it's just those few PPTs, totaling **** 11 pages. Effective underlying methodology is just those few, should be ten years as a day to stare.
Zhang Ding: constantly ensure optimization.
Gan Jiawei: Right. Management is not to see how many people you have managed, but to see whether there is a mastery of the basic methods. If the basic method is not right, even 50 people will be in a hurry.
Zhang Ding: the next is a very specific question, how to conduct a better debriefing, and through debriefing to achieve effective review, organization and talent diagnosis goals?
干嘉伟：我刚刚讲的在美团5年的11页PPT中，有一页就讲到述职这件事。 It is a basic action of management. I'm not an investor, but based on limited observation and understanding, this methodology is also clearly valid for investment.
I sometimes get frustrated after talking to some good investors and feel like I don't know anything. But then I figured out why, and it's because he's seen more than I have. He's seen all the teams in this track in China, so of course he has a better chance of seeing the good ones than I do.
That day, I was still talking to people at HighTech, saying that if I were a professional investor, I would definitely start early and share late, and check the amount of visits from your investors, so that I can effectively use the leverage of the organization. There is nothing naturally smarter, you just see more.
By the same token, review is one of the most important ways to cultivate your team and improve your subordinates.
In the same way, review is one of the most important ways to develop teams and improve subordinates. The higher-ups talk about what they've done, how they've done it, how they've seen it, and the lower-ups listen to them and then coach them from hand to hand.
Training is also an effective method. 2014, the group purchase is low gross profit, but we still squeeze out money for new employee training.
The last part of the training is sharing, which we still have today. 2014, I did 99 sharing sessions, more than 2 hours per session, basically 2 sessions per week, which is very tiring.
There are only a few effective ways to manage, and we all know them, but it's just a matter of who's sticking to the things that are really valuable.
Zhang Ding: the most important thing to cultivate talent is review, so how do you select talent?
KAN Jiawei: Selecting talent is part of building organizational capacity for "tactical execution". We've had a lot of problems managing our team, including recruiting.
The key reason why talent recruitment can go wrong is because of the lack of coordinates.
What do you mean by lack of coordinates? That is, I do not know how the level of the current staff, can see a person a bunch of problems, but he did a good job, but also understand the business, it is difficult to decide in the end to want this person or change him; including this person resume is very cattle, headhunters focus on recommending, came to find that the water and soil are not suitable, but also because of a lack of coordinates on the identification of the person.
Therefore, I invented a talent triage, that is, "wild and natural", "seen a good system" and "built a good system. This trichotomy is rough, but simple and good.
The first tier is 'wild and pure', which most people fall into. This refers to the fact that although many people seem senior, have worked in a certain industry for many years, and have beautiful resumes, in fact, those things may just happen objectively, and any person who works in that position will have a resume that looks this good.
A little more powerful is "seen a good system", that is, he was recognized in the industry in the field of the basic learning and exercise, such as we recognized the early years of Ali B2B sales, Tencent's products, the U.S. Mission's ground push. In addition to this, there are enough smart people in the field to have a position. To do this, he must have relatively strong organizational skills and systematic methodology.
The top configuration is "built a good system". He has not only seen a good system, but also knows that oranges are born in Huainan as oranges, and in Huabei as Hovenia, and can use systematic methodology to build a good system according to local conditions. Many airborne executives die because they don't have the ability to do this, and just copy the previous system.
(4)
There are only so many narrow doors to success
Zhang Ding: The previous sharing is all about business, including how to do management, matching and strategy. The next one is about personal, how did you achieve self-improvement and breakthrough over the years?
Gan Jiawei: In the area of personal growth, first of all, it's a matter of attitude. The so-called attitude is that you have to have the desire, or ambition, too Buddhist talk about rapid progress. If you have to talk about methodology, you definitely need to have a heart of tossing and turning, and have higher expectations for yourself. Most people are pushed up because they have expectations. Only a few people pursue stardom and happiness, and only a very few of those people make it big. Wang Xing certainly wasn't forced into it, and frankly, I wouldn't have worked as hard if I had his financial means.
Zhang Ding: Is there any understanding or judgment that you have that goes against the grain of most people today, but that you believe in?
Gan Jiawei: The path to success, I guess. I think there are objectively only a few narrow doors to success, and you should find a way to get in. And too many people spend time thinking about how to find an alternative, easier door. This is also true of the repeated all in's that we talked about earlier.
It's hard to rely on luck to win consistently, and it's likely that you won't be the one reaping the rewards at the end of the day.
It's hard to keep winning with luck, and it's likely that you won't be able to reap the rewards in the end. The success or failure of a company is also related to the era, and the two most valuable companies now, Microsoft and Apple, were both founded around 1975.
The company is facing Ali, China's most powerful Internet company, in a very tough and less fertile land. We can assume that if by chance, for example, it was not Wang Xing, but any other company doing this, would it have been possible to get to where it is today?
If you think about it, you know it's impossible. So the most important thing about a business is the founder, the hand , and there's no doubt about it, it's the front of the decimal point. If you don't think about these things clearly enough, it's just a matter of chance to win. Texas, for example, could be taken care of by others by the last hand.
Zhang Ding: Among the best entrepreneurs you've come across in recent years, who will be the next Jack Ma or Wang Xing?
KAN Jiawei: It's hard to replicate either Wang Xing or Jack Ma, it's a matter of right place, right time, and right people. Frankly speaking, the most powerful or the times. Individuals are small in comparison.
Zhang Ding: Finally, let's recommend a few good books that we've read recently.
Gan Jiawei: There aren't that many good books, I read them over and over again. A General History of the Globe is a great book on history and geography. In a way, geography is the more fundamental methodology; what kind of geography there is is what kind of countries and nations there are, and history is just an extension of the laws of geography in time.
Often times we look back at the mistakes we've made, and it's essentially the same thing as moving through a jungle without a map in your hand. Looking at the bigger picture, whether it's geography or history, can help you build a coordinate system, which is still quite helpful.
Also, I really like The Lean Startup, which has a more solid methodology, especially for startups. There's also the very good "All in One" that talks about Amazon, which I've read so many times with moist eyes and sweaty hair. This book turned me into a big fan of Amazon, and I even bought its stock as a faith-based stock to pass on to the next generation later.