How to revive a small business?

With the advent of the opening-up policy, I believe that many businessmen have begun to prepare to regroup and make a big move. Before that, we should learn some business strategies from other companies. This article lists seven thoughts of the author on some companies, so that business people can better deal with the problems encountered in business operations.

In the three years of the epidemic, most of the people who died were small businesses or self-employed individuals. In the face of the torrent of the times, they are just grains of sand, but these grains of sand are the cornerstone of the national economy and the underlying force for the world to become a better place.

I think the reason why many small business owners failed to survive is that they lack not only capital and technology, but also advanced business concepts. Now that the policy has been relaxed, small business owners can finally get back on their feet. I would like to share some of my research on small businesses, hoping to do my best to bring some inspiration to small business owners.

1. The secret to sustainable business operation of a small shop: always maintain the ultimate state

Reference case: Japan Xiaozhu snack shop

There is a pastry shop in Japan that has been open for nearly 50 years. The shop is called Kotake. It is only 3 square meters and only sells two kinds of pastries: yokan and monaka mochi. However, its annual income is as high as 300 million yen, which is more than ten times that of similar shops!

Why is Xiaozhu successful? I have summarized 5 points:

1. Make the ultimate product

The ultimate product is one that is five or ten times better than others. A little bit better is not the ultimate.

When making the same cake, if others use 70% sugar and you use 30% sugar, the texture is softer, but this is not the best. Because you are just a little bit better than others. The difference between 70 points and 80 points is no difference in the eyes of customers.

The products made by Xiaozhu are as follows:

This is not a work of art from a certain brand, but their yokan. They are all called yokan, but most of the products on the market look like this:

For the same product, not only does their taste improve, but it also looks five to ten times better than others. Customers often say that Kotake's yokan "looks so good that you can't bear to eat it, but it's so delicious that you can't help but eat it."

2. Stick to a single SKU

For 50 years, Kotake has been selling two types of desserts: yokan and monaka. The advantage of doing this is that you can focus on the same product and keep polishing it.

For example, Xiaozhu will adjust the temperature for boiling red beans according to the temperature changes of the four seasons. They will let employees take a walk in the park every day just to let them feel the temperature changes.

3. Limited supply

Xiaozhu's products are limited to 150 pieces per day, and each person is limited to 5 pieces. Because they are all handmade, they can only make 150 pieces a day. Although it is not a deliberate limit, it has indeed triggered the "crazy rush effect" of hunger marketing.

4. High average order value

Five or six years ago, Xiaozhu's yokan was sold for 580 yen each, which is about 35 yuan in RMB, and it is not cheap now. The high customer unit price supports Xiaozhu to sell only 150 yokans a day and still make a good profit.

5. No branch stores

This is a very important point for Xiaozhu to remain unique. For all small shops, once a large number of stores are opened and they become ubiquitous, you will overdraw your product strength and it will no longer be surprising.

For example, Nan Hotpot, the Sanlitun store had a long queue every day, but later they opened a branch in Changying, and that store was deserted. The food of a small store will only produce a herd effect if people flock to it to eat.

If you just want to open a popular small shop with the mentality of not seeking to become rich but to have enough food and clothing, Xiaozhu's model is very suitable for you.

2. Building a “social scene for acquaintances” is the key to doing a good job in business with acquaintances

Reference cases: Chongqing Huang Xuezhen Coffee, Shanghai 1984 Bookstore

There is a coffee shop in Chongqing that has taken the practice of overcharging its customers to a new level.

In this shop, you only need to order a cup of coffee and you will receive food from regular customers. If there is no seat for a newcomer, regular customers will consciously give up their seats or even arrange seats for the newcomer. If the boss is too busy, regular customers will automatically become waiters and serve you coffee.

Because one of the regular customers is a photographer, the store has inexplicably added a new service called "Free photo shoot with coffee". The photographer takes the photos and sends them to the store owner, who then sends them to the customers. The owner of this store has almost become the store's "mascot".

Do you envy this business model? It is useless to envy them. We need to understand how they do it.

When you open a store in a community, most of your customers are acquaintances. When it comes to service, you should not pursue professionalism, but intimacy.

Intimacy means that when a customer comes, you don’t say “Welcome”, you should say “Would you like the same Nutella latte as last time?” You should make the customer feel that you understand him and are willing to take the initiative to care about him. Don’t treat customers as gods, treat them as neighbors.

On Hunan Road in Shanghai, there is a bookstore called 1984. This bookstore has been open for 13 years, but they have never sold a single book. When you walk into this bookstore, you will see many old objects randomly placed inside. There is a small courtyard behind the bookstore, and the neighbors around love to come here to work, chat and read. After reading the books, they will leave them in the store. Over time, this has become a bookstore that does not sell books.

The arrangement of items and the backyard of this bookstore are very down-to-earth, and it is this down-to-earth feeling that makes regular customers want to get closer.

All community restaurants, community bookstores, and community supermarkets essentially do business with regular customers.

To attract regular customers, you don’t need to decorate your store brightly and beautifully, but you need to create a comfortable atmosphere. Five points of class and five points of neighborhood temperament are the feeling you want to pursue. You need to give regular customers the opportunity to communicate, and give new and old customers the opportunity to talk, so that they can feel like old friends chatting in the old place.

Not only does offline business with regular customers require building a social scene among acquaintances, but opening a small store online also requires doing so.

Reference case: Taobao store "Pilling Socks"

There is a small shop selling socks on Taobao. Someone asked the owner, "Do the socks pill?" He replied, "All the socks in our store are guaranteed to pill, dear!" This answer made people feel that the owner was very honest. Many netizens took the initiative to post screenshots of the chat on Weibo, and this shop became popular.

Many sellers who run small online stores do not have the money to invest in direct traffic, nor can they afford to do grass-roots promotion. The core relies on natural traffic and repeat purchases from old customers.

For small shops, the key to your service is to be honest and realistic, rather than pursuing absolute perfection like big brands. Because small businesses do not have the technical resources and human resources of big companies, it is difficult for their products to reach the level of others. If you speak the truth, people will understand you.

Just like the socks in this sock store contain 60% to 70% cotton, and they cost only two or three yuan a pair. After wearing them for a while, they will definitely pill. At this price, it can only be of this quality. The best way is to tell the truth like the store owner, and don't sugarcoat it, because sugarcoating is equivalent to deceiving consumers.

No whitewashing means no so-called professional customer service scripts, but telling the truth like chatting with friends. After all, among friends, as long as you tell the truth and don't cheat me, your small shortcomings can be tolerated. If you tell the truth, they will be embarrassed to give a bad review.

3. Path to closing a niche business: first get in the way, then close the deal

Reference case: Tmall store "Runyang Guzheng"

Guzheng is a typical niche business, but there is a shop called Runyang Guzheng that has an annual turnover of 20 million. In the field of niche musical instruments, this is a rare achievement.

Runyang Guzheng is so popular because of two reasons: First, they spend tens of thousands of yuan every month to invite teachers from famous schools to teach for free through live broadcasts for a month. Even if you are a novice, you can practice Guzheng with the teacher.

Soon after the class started, they created a very fashionable set of guzheng nails.

In the past, nails were either black or brown, and no one was interested. But their nails are like petals, and even the nail box is beautiful. Because of their stunning appearance, this nail style quickly became a hot item in the store.

Due to the large number of customers accumulated in the early stage, Runyang’s Guzheng was out of stock for a while when it was launched on Double 11.

The path that Runyang Guzheng took to turn its niche business around is what I call “getting into the pit first, then closing the deal.”

Guzheng is not as popular as guitar. It has a high threshold. Most people don't know much about it and have no interest in it. Runyang's free teaching is actually to arouse people's interest, and then use fashionable nails to lead them into the pit for the first time, and then gradually get addicted. Once they are in the pit, people will consume.

It's like a child who likes football. At first, he thought Ronaldo's muscular body was handsome. After getting to know him better, he found that Ronaldo was a very self-disciplined person and became his fan. And because he often watched Ronaldo's games, he eventually fell in love with the sport of football.

Erhu, Tai Chi, reptiles, etc. are all considered unpopular businesses, and the transaction links are relatively long. It is necessary to stimulate interest and circle users first.

For example, if you are a Tai Chi teacher and want young people to learn Tai Chi, it is very important that you improve the Tai Chi clothing and make it more fashionable.

The logic behind this is: unpopular products have a high threshold, and ordinary people are not able to appreciate them. You should first attract them with marginal selling points that they can understand, and then let them feel the core charm of the product step by step, and finally become addicted.

4. The secret of selling goods in WeChat Moments: treat WeChat Moments as information flow advertising

Reference case: A Chaoshan tea owner born in the 1980s

There is a tea-selling boss born in the 1980s in Chaoshan. His annual sales revenue exceeds 100 million yuan just by making transactions through his circle of friends.

The biggest difference between her and others is that others would think of a copy and send it to all customers, but she operates customers in layers. She divides customers into three categories: "unsuccessful transactions, intended transactions, and completed transactions", and sends different content to different categories.

For customers who have not made a deal, she will share the daily life of tea lovers and tea culture knowledge on WeChat Moments, and tell the story of her three-generation tea growing heritage, so that everyone can feel her professionalism and establish initial trust.

For customers who are interested in making a deal, we will post screenshots of positive reviews and chat feedback to continuously motivate them.

For the customers who have been sold, it is not through the circle of friends that they are attracted, but through the community that they are connected to, where they can chat with each other like friends and strengthen their relationship. It can be said that this boss is using the logic of information flow advertising to do micro-business.

Doing this can help promote sales, and the logic behind it is: no one likes to watch ads, everyone just wants to watch content that interests them.

Most WeChat merchants or people who do business in WeChat Moments write a copy and send it to everyone. Some ads may hit the needs, but most of them are annoying. However, this tea owner posts content in layers, so that each advertisement he posts can not only not harm other people's experience, but also generate business opportunities.

Following the idea of ​​the tea boss’s circle of friends, let’s expand on it. If there are upstream suppliers in her circle of friends, she can post something like this: “We sold 10 million orders in 7 days this month. Thank you for your hard work, partners!” If she posts like this, the suppliers will believe in her ability, and she may get a lower price when negotiating with the upstream suppliers.

All super individuals who do business in WeChat Moments should be aware that the same content may be "honey to one, poison to another" for different users. Therefore, we need to operate customers in layers, just like doing information flow advertising, and feed personalized content according to user needs.

5. Small players’ foothold in the involutionary industry: proactive involution

Reference case: Shenzhen "Spicy Chicken Pub"

There is a small pub in Shenzhen that can earn 400,000 to 500,000 yuan a month, which is very rare in the catering industry that has been devastated by the epidemic.

What is even more surprising is that this store is a pub, but the alcohol sold in the store is cheaper than that in a convenience store, with a gross profit margin of only 20% to 30%.

This is actually because they don’t make money from alcohol, but from their signature dish - spicy chicken.

A serving of spicy chicken costs 288 yuan, and costs about 120 yuan, enough for three or four people. Although there is little profit on drinks, their spicy chicken can account for 70% of their turnover.

Using low-priced drinks to attract young people to eat supper, and using the dishes to make money. This business model is roughly called "selling dog meat under the guise of sheep meat", using the products sold on the surface as "traffic-generating products", making the benefits of "traffic-generating products" as extreme, and making money with the "profit products" behind them.

In a fiercely competitive industry, how can you avoid being crushed by your competitors? Define your own strengths and weaknesses and proactively roll inward.

For example, many people open bookstores, but they don’t make money from books, but they do from the coffee in the bookstore; many people open flower shops, but they don’t make money from flowers, but they do from the vases and fertilizers in the flower shop.

There are also some food stalls in the Northeast, which are completely opposite to the spicy chicken pub model. These pubs do not make money from the food, but from the drinks. Because people in the Northeast love to drink, if you open a shop with cheap food and open late, you can attract many big drinkers from the Northeast.

The core of "attracting customers with traffic-generating products and making money with profitable products" is that you don't make money from what you sell, but make money from other matching products. If you run a pub, don't make money from wine, if you run a coffee shop, don't make money from coffee, if you run a restaurant, don't make money from dishes... Only in this way can you confuse your competitors, and use low prices to attract them, and gain a living space in the fiercely competitive industry.

6. The key to promoting product sales in product collection stores: helping users make choices

Reference case: Japan's "Morioka Bookstore"

This is the very popular Morioka Bookstore in Japan. Bookstores are a very competitive industry. Others increase the variety of books in their collections to attract customers, but this store, located near Ginza in Tokyo, only sells one book a week.

The owner of the bookstore is Tokuyuki Morioka. He found that many customers were confused when they walked into the bookstore. People were faced with a variety of books and didn't know how to choose. They often browsed for a long time without buying anything.

So, Morioka formed a "search" team, spent a lot of time reading books, collecting data from various websites, and picking out a book that people might be interested in.

The physical bookstore business has been bad in recent years, but many booksellers and brands are rushing to work with Morioka.

Why does selling only one book sell better? Because the human brain is naturally afraid of trouble and does not like to make choices. Every choice consumes brain energy. Although the brain does not like to make choices, it likes to be recommended. If you give direct action instructions, the brain will make decisions more easily.

If you are running a product collection store business, such as a clothing store, grocery store, home decoration store, etc., the key to your sales is to help users make choices.

The common problem of many clothing stores, grocery stores, and trendy toy stores is that they have a large flow of people, but a low conversion rate. Users often browse your store, find nothing to buy, and leave. This problem is particularly serious in the clothing industry.

What Morioka Bookstore does is to fully display the selling points of the products, sending a signal that the product is worth buying and convincing you.

Even if he only sells one book, Tokuyuki Morioka will arrange the store differently according to the book, just like holding an exhibition for the book. It can be said that Morioka is running a bookstore with the logic of a buyer's store.

Many stores used to do this, but the results were not ideal. That’s because many bosses only focused on product selection. You selected the products, but failed to recommend them. You should not focus on how to select products yourself, but how to help users select products. You should pay more attention to the recommendation process and make it a ritual.

The electronics industry is probably the best at this. Every year when mobile phone companies launch new products, they hold a very ceremonial press conference.

Even seemingly insignificant products such as clothing and books need to create a sense of ritual when they are put on the shelves, so that users feel that they will miss out on a beautiful moment in their lives if they don’t buy this item.

7. Small business owners looking for opportunities in large industries: industry parasitism

Reference cases: cup rims, turtle clothing, pet photography...

This doll is called "cup edge", and the first to make this product was the island country's Kitan Club. As early as a few years ago, this company with only 13 people could earn 1.7 billion yen a year.

They found that taking photos before eating has become a habit for young people. So they thought that if they designed a doll that "parasitizes" on the cup, the "photo rate" of food would be higher. Moreover, it would bring huge advertising effect without spending a penny.

The logic behind Beiyuanzi’s trendy toys is very different from that of domestic ones. Trendy toys are independent, but they are parasitic on cups, and behind them are the big cup industry and the trend of “photographing and eating”.

Many people who run small businesses do not have such a large marketing budget. It is best for your business to rely on a trend or a large industry, so that you can grow along with the "host".

For example, the pet economy has been booming in recent years, and many small business owners have made a living in the gaps of the pet track. Pet funerals, pet clothing, pet photography, and pet weight loss are all small businesses that have emerged in recent years.

My dog ​​Ponyo already has more than a dozen pieces of clothing in her wardrobe. I want to take a photo of her, and the most popular photographer in that store has already booked a date for October next year.

Not only are dog clothes popular, there are also Taobao stores that make wedding dresses and shrouds for turtles, and their orders are also scheduled for several months later. Maybe pets really need clothes, or maybe you just want to dress them up. In the big pet industry, the "human-like needs" of pets are small opportunities that extend from the big industry.

When an industry suddenly rises, there must be some small demands that are not fully met. Because the demand is too small, the big players in the industry are unwilling to do it, leaving opportunities for small players.

Mobile phone films in the mobile phone industry, converters in the computer industry, makeup artists in the wedding industry, etc., these are all common small businesses that are parasitic on a large industry.

When a certain industry or trend is rising, you can think about whether it is possible to parasitize it. If you parasitize in a rising industry, you will follow the industry's prosperity and build your business.

8. Conclusion

In the coming year, life will continue to be difficult for small business owners.

When the wind and snow are coming, retreat, hesitation, and self-pity are your greatest torment. Specific methods and the confidence to move forward fearlessly are the antidote to survive the cold winter.

Author: General Liang

Source: WeChat public account "General Liang (ID:liangjiangjunisme)"