Last week, the Frankfurt exhibition, which has not been held in Shanghai for two consecutive years, was held as scheduled, and I went to the exhibition for four days. Although the scale of the number of people is far less than before 2019, compared with Frankfurt in Shenzhen at the beginning of the year, it has been greatly improved, and people's confidence has returned.
In this exhibition, I also found a phenomenon that there are many first-class business booths, all of which are 54 square meters and 72 square meters of special equipment, and the number of booths is more than that of many factories.
In the concept of many people (including me), I have always felt that the factory has an advantage over the first company, especially in the foreign trade business. In the past, powerful businessmen would invest in some factories, and those who did not have strength would also pretend to have factories.
But in this exhibition, I saw most of the first-class businessmen, and they showed it generously: they are the first-class businessmen, not the factory.
So,The confidence of the merchant comes from?
I have a friend who also does foreign trade in ** company, and when he first entered the industry, he would often be depressed, lamenting that the products purchased by the company have no advantages and the business is not easy to do. But when I saw him at this exhibition, I have become very confident.
He said that when he first entered the industry in the past, there were several misunderstandings in his mentality:
OneCustomers don't cooperate with us because we are the best businessmen
In the past, I always felt that the product was the main reason why customers did not cooperate with us. But now, I understand that the fundamental reason why customers can not cooperate with us is:Can we provide value to our customers?, not because I am a **businessman.
Business in this world is originally divided into two kinds:One is whose product to buy;The other is to buy in **。The former is the manufacturer of the product, and the latter is the channel provider of the product.
Just like when I buy a Head & Shoulders shampoo, although it is produced by Procter & Gamble, I will buy it from nearby supermarkets, e-commerce platforms and other channels, and will never contact P&G directly.
If I want to buy both shampoo and beer, cola, peanuts, tissues, and other products, the importance of channels is even more obvious. Although these products are also sold directly by manufacturers on e-commerce platforms, I don't want to be so troublesome.
The same is true for auto parts, we can provide channel value to customers.
When it comes to "providing value", although it is easy to say and not difficult to understand, I have found that many people do it differently, including me at the beginning.
When many people send emails or call, they will tell customers: how many years of history our company has, how many customers we have served, what host the product is used for, and how cheap it is ......Wait a minute.
Do these statements provide value to the customer?Not really.
How good you are, it has nothing to do with the customer. Just like the "Bosch" company, although it is the leading big brother of the auto parts company, if I don't have its products, the value of this brand for me is equal to zero.
Of course, some people will say, that product is cheap, and this is not valuable?
Whether there is value or not, first of all, depends on whether the customer has this demandIf the customer's demand is not cheap, but wants to find an OEM foundry, it is not necessarily valuable.
Secondly, even if the customer has a need, why should the person believe you?No one else has ever met you, and they don't know the quality of your productsIt's simply not possible.
Therefore, the important thing in doing business is: what you can bring to others and what problems you can help others solve.
IIThe ** of the factory, it is definitely lower than ours
In the past, I always took it for granted that the factory's ** must be lower than ours. When customers ask us: can we get a lower ** than the factory, I often can't handle this problem well.
But now, I always say to my clients: we'll let youThe total transaction cost is lower
The total transaction cost of the customer consists of three aspects:
First, the cost of product procurement: that is, the first class of the product.
2. Product circulation cost: that is, the circulation cost of the product from production, to delivery, and to receipt.
3. Transaction costs in the early stage: that is, the costs paid in the early stage for this transaction.
From these aspects, I think that we have a lower cost than the customer docking the factory by himself.
Let's start with the cost of product procurement:
For factories, foreign customers are one-to-one docking with them, while we have multiple customers to dock with the factory.
In addition, we are not only familiar with the product, but also familiar with the upstream and downstream of the product, and related products. For example, in the transmission system, we not only know about the manufacturers of belts, chains, guide rails, tensioners, and idlers, but also about the manufacturers of product installation tools.
Therefore, our product quality may not be higher than that reported to customers by the factory.
Let's talk about the cost of product circulation:
When the customer places an order, the manufacturer purchases the source material for production, and then the production is completed and the delivery begins, until the customer receives the goods, there are a lot of costs in between, such as transportation fees, customs clearance fees, storage fees, etc.
In the past, people did a good job and may not have cared much about this expense. But now, everyone's life is not easy, and saving a little means earning a little more.
Speaking of having a hard time, let's take a look at the growth rate of Pinduoduo.
If it takes 8 years for Pinduoduo to be the top spot in China's e-commerce from birth, then Pinduoduo's overseas version of Temu only began to go overseas in September last year, and it took only one year to become the second largest shopping platform in the United States after Amazon, which can be seen.
Foreign businessmen can save a lot of transportation costs and delivery costs through our centralized procurement.
Let's look at the upfront transaction costs:
If a business can be achieved, the first thing to solve isTrust issues。And in order to build mutual trust, it costs a lot of money in the early stage, such as:
1. Search cost: In order to find the right businessman, we have to spend a lot of time to understand, and sometimes we have to go to the location of the factory, understand it in person, and verify it from the side.
2. Negotiation cost: After the negotiation is determined, it will take a certain amount of time to negotiate in order to pull together the product, product quality, delivery time and other issues.
3. Performance cost: After all the issues are negotiated, the two parties should write mutually agreed contract terms. When the contract is executed, the follow-up of the order and the acceptance of the finished product also require a certain cost.
4. Cost of breach of contract: In case of breach of contract after the contract is signed, the accountability cost incurred in the later stage is also very high, such as: compensation fees, lawyer fees, litigation costs, etc.
In fact, there are a lot of hidden costs, which will not be listed here, these costs seem inconspicuous, but they are real, and as a leading businessman, we will help customers reduce the cost in this regard.
Because of our existence, foreign businessmen do not have to fly around often, saving a lot of transportation costs and communication costs
Because of our existence, foreign businessmen do not need to recruit people to do it, saving a lot of labor costs and office costs
The above is where our value and confidence lie as a leading businessman.