When the Hunan Army was established, Emperor Xianfeng asked Zeng Guofan to reinforce Anhui. However, Zeng Guofan believed that the Hunan army was not ready enough, so he refused to go out.
Emperor Xianfeng issued an edict several times, calling him "paranoid", and Zeng Guofan refused to comply with the decree.
Zeng Guofan felt that the current Hunan army was a mob, with only 200 ships and 500 guns, all of which were rusted.
Zeng Guofan believed that 800 civilian ships, more than 1,000 cannons, 6,000 army personnel, and 4,000 navy personnel had to be replenished, and the sergeants had to be trained until next year before there was any hope of victory.
In the second year, Zeng Guofan led a 17,000-strong army of water, land and Xiangtan, first to Xiangtan, and then to Yuezhou, completely driving the Taiping Army out of Hunan in one fell swoop.
When we see the chess game instead of the chess pieces, we will understand that growth is not the goal, strategy is the goal, and growth is the result of the realization of the strategy.
And all strategic growth requires a long-term layout, and it needs to endure the dullness of no growth.
Take Baidu as an example.
Everyone has seen Baidu's "What Are You Saying" frantically swiping the screen, but few people have seen that Baidu has been exporting ideas for a whole year around "humanistic care".
Focusing on the same strategic positioning with different ideas, Baidu has only truly awakened users' brand perception of Baidu after a full year of energy accumulation.
It was not until the end of October 2020 country email list that the first screen hit "What Did You Say" was released.
If the first two ideas are not refreshed, the Baidu Marketing Department will abandon the brand strategy of "humanistic care", and will there be a refresh of "What Are You Saying"?
Moreover, even with the refreshment of "What Are You Saying", Baidu still focuses on the big strategic point of "humanistic care" and continues to output the creative "What Your Mom Wants".
(What virus TVC does your mother want)
In "What Do You Say", the generation gap begins with "Your mother doesn't understand your circle of friends"; in "What Your Mother Wants", the generation gap begins with "You think you know your mother well".
The ideas are different, and the landing points are the same.
Therefore, good marketers are only obsessed with strategy and not obsessed with growth.
Let's take the hometown chicken as an example.
Many people mentioned fellow chickens, and they all said that the event marketing of fellow chickens was well done, such as the chairman tearing up the joint letter, the 200 yuan strategy conference and so on.
But these seemingly fiery event marketing are all "tricks", and they are just the skin of a company's marketing. It is not these things that really determine the growth potential.
In 2013, Laoxiang Chicken decided to become a national brand. What was the first thing that Laoxiang Chicken did? It is to close stores in Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing and return to Anhui!
What's the point of doing this? It is to build Anhui into a sample base, thoroughly understand how stores operate in a standardized manner, how the supply chain operates efficiently, and how to continuously supply talents, and understand the logic of "internal growth".
In 2016, Laoxiang Chicken opened from 100 to more than 300 stores in Anhui. What is the concept of 300 stores in Anhui? 3 times the number of all overseas fast food restaurants!
At this time, the local chicken came out of Anhui, and successively entered Nanjing, Wuhan, and Shanghai, and became a national brand.
The original words of their chairman were: "After going out, we found that the accumulated potential energy is really high, and the development is really smooth..."
Sometimes, slow is fast. This seemingly slow but fast rhythm is the real benign growth.
In order to achieve long-term growth, founders must have the courage to not grow in the short term, and investors must have the vision of not paying dividends in the short term.
2. Growth cycle: different growth cycles, different growth drivers
Growth is not difficult, but continuous growth is difficult.
The anxiety of most founders is that the growth rate is good at first, and then suddenly stalls at a certain point. As a result, more product lines were added, more goods were added, and more shifts were added, but as the growth rate increased, profits fell.
I think this is the status quo for many Series B companies. Where is the problem?
The problem is, a lot of people don't know what's driving their growth? Different brand cycles have different growth drivers.
As we enter another growth cycle, we can't get to new places the old way. The growth mode must be switched in time to gain new growth potential.
Generally speaking, a new brand goes through four growth cycles, namely:
product type growth
traffic growth
operational growth
mental growth
2. Growth of product types
What is the type of product growth? That is, people have a new consumer demand, but no product can meet this demand.
If you launch a product at this time, you are filling a gap in the market and you will gain natural growth momentum.
For example, there is a new consumer brand called "Toffee Pie", and slogan is an underwear brand that "focuses on big cups" and is specially developed for girls with big breasts.
But in the eyes of girls, big breasts are actually a burden. Not only is it tiring to exercise, but if you dress casually, it will look very frivolous.
Not only is it difficult for women with large breasts to get the right cup, but they are generally uncomfortable. Therefore, underwear with large cups has always been a market gap.
The market growth of the toffee pie in this period is the growth of product types, and it enjoys the category dividend.