"Left circle" drives "right circle"

This may just be a coincidence. In 1992, Don Schultz, the father of integrated marketing communication in the United States, and two other heavyweight scholars co-authored a book that profoundly influenced the marketing world - "Integrated Marketing Communication", proposing four aspects of marketing mix. The basic elements: Customer (customer), Cost (cost), Convenience (convenience) and Communication (communication), formally established the consumer-centered marketing 4C theory.

In the same year, on the other side of the world, Chen Zhihui, a young scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, founded the theory of "left and right circle": the "left circle" is regarded as the masses that "I" (company or individual) want to satisfy, and the "right circle" represents The ability of "I", "Right Circle" needs to meet the needs of "Left Circle".

Before this, the 4P theory of American professor Jerry McCarthy dominated the world. This theory believes that the four factors in marketing activities are Product (product), Price (price), Place (location) and Promotion (promotion). It starts with the business and leaves behind the consumer, the most influential factor in a marketing campaign. Therefore, whether it is the 4C theory or the "left and right circle" theory, it can be regarded as a revision of the 4P theory.

Chinese and Western scholars have also noticed the importance of meeting consumer needs in marketing activities, but the 4C theory only stops there, while Chen Zhihui has gone a step further and proposed the operability of meeting consumer needs through the "left and right circle" theory Problem - The "Right Circle" satisfies the "Left Circle" by building on its own strengths.

20 years have passed, and the 4C theory has been increasingly questioned while being regarded as the standard by the marketing people; although the "left and right circle" is not as eye-catching as the former, it has fermented in the brewing time. richer content.

The thinking mode driven by the "left circle"

In 1982, Chen Zhihui, who holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley, returned to his alma mater, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, to teach, and learned what he had learned from American university professors Move in to teach students. Among Chen's students are those who made their mark in the business world after graduation. Although there is a lot of peach and plum, Chen Zhihui is always introspective: Is what I teach actually usable? After repeated introspection, he found that the answer was actually "no" - if the teacher just "draws a gourd according to the same way" and stuffs the students with various theories and methods, it is just "giving a man a fish". Under this model, talented students may be able to acquire more knowledge, but this is only the student's ability, not the teacher's ability. How to change from "give a man fish" to "teach a man how to fish", so that students can find solutions to their own problems in various environments? Therefore, while preaching and teaching for 10 years, Chen Zhihui established the theory of "Left and Right Circle" (as shown in Figure 1), and began to advocate a thinking mode driven by "Left Circle". For enterprises, the "left circle" represents the needs of customers or other groups, the "right circle" represents the company's capabilities, and the overlapping part (area C) of the two represents the market share that the company can strive for. If you can take into account the needs of customers or other groups everywhere, and establish your own advantages to meet such needs, enterprises will be invincible. Only after a company has a clear understanding of where it fits with its customers or other groups can it formulate its vision, goals and strategies.

However, each company has its own strengths, some of which are not needed by customers (area B) ; There are other places that customers need but the company can't do temporarily but may be able to do it in the future (region A). At this time, enterprises need to stick to area C, always pay attention to area A, and beware of wasting too much time in area B.

"If the company called IBM was driven by the 'Left Circle', there would not be a company called Microsoft in the world." Chen Zhihui said jokingly. "IBM's full name is International Business Machine. It used to think that it made machines, but it didn't expect customers to run these machines with empty hands. The machines it produced required software systems to operate, so Microsoft came."

Mobile giant Nokia The current predicament also makes a vivid annotation for this theory: when the touch screen technology and Android system in the mobile phone industry become the general trend, Nokia spends a lot of resources to continuously optimize industrial design and improve product quality, it does not find the need for the left circle And follow the "left circle" lifestyle. Because the "right circle" is too dominant, when the iPhone appeared, Nokia's "left circle" left it.

This example also illustrates two other points: the behavior of competitors, as well as changes in the economic and market environment will affect the "left circle" of enterprises; enterprises should not only start from their own advantages, but should fully consider their own strategies. Advantages and the point of cooperation with customers, otherwise it will be ineffective.

Because Nokia ignored the needs of the "left circle" and did not take into account the changes in its competitors and the market environment, in the fierce market competition, it could only be like a gambler who made a wrong bet and watched helplessly. The opponent takes his chips bit by bit.

The gradually plump "left circle"

Chinese people tend to respect the "left", so Chen Zhihui put the people who "I" want to satisfy on the left to show dignity. In the original version, the circle on the left refers only to customers, but Chen Zhihui gradually realized that the term customer cannot fully express what it should represent. For enterprises, its "left circle" not only refers to customers, but also includes employees, suppliers, and even government departments and environmental protection departments.

Furthermore, treating the "left circle" as just customers will lead to short-sighted behavior for the company. In his view, "customer" refers to the customers who come to patronize, but many businessmen just want to make the most profit from customers, and often use this as a success indicator. They just do "buy and sell" not "business". "Buying and selling" involves the concept of "buying out", such as a customer entering the store to buy clothes, leaving after the transaction, and the store and the customer owe each other. "Business" is different, it includes the long-term relationship between the customer and the store. After a store has made a business, it is expected that customers will be satisfied with the product and will come back in the future. Therefore, the store is not thinking about how to sell merchandise and how to make the most money from customers, but how to maintain long-term relationships with customers. Therefore, Chen Zhihui replaced the customer with the concept of "left circle".

With the passage of time, "left circle" gradually developed seven meanings:

The first level "old left circle, old demand": enterprises should not blindly open up new fields, but should more Ask yourself: Are the old needs of the original "left circle" being met?

The second layer "Old Left Circle, New Demands": There will be new demands in the "Left Circle", and enterprises should pay attention to and meet them from time to time.

Tier 3 "New Left Circle": If a business wants to open up new frontiers, it's best to first figure out where the new "left circle" is.

The fourth layer of "inner circle": colleagues, supervisors and subordinates in the company may have an influence on your behavior. Do they agree with your ideas and do you know their needs?

The fifth layer "left circle of left circle": some "left circles" are difficult to impress, they have no sense of your "right circle", and it has its own "left circle", which has Some are more easily influenced by you, so start with these "left circles". For example, the customer does not believe in your product, but he may believe in the recommendation of an expert, so he might as well seek the help of an expert.

The sixth floor "Turn left to right": "Left circle" can also become one of your core abilities. When your product has won the trust of consumers, they will be happy to recommend it to others, and even when you are criticized, these distant "left circles" will defend you, which is the success of turning "left circles" right circle".

Tier 7 "The seemingly unrelated left circle": The success of some businesses may seem unreasonable, but in fact, it often comes from amazing ideas, which are the magic of marketing campaigns. For example, Jobs once claimed that he never conducts market research and does not believe any market research data. It seems that he does not pay attention to the "left circle" and does not play cards according to the card, but the iPhone can sell well. In fact, it was because Jobs had a clear vision of what was going to happen in the future, and he saw a need that the "Left Circle" hadn't realized yet, and he fulfilled it.

Keeping up with and even surpassing the "left circle"

In the original version, the "left circle" In a static state, customers want, companies give, that's all. But things are always changing. The "left circle" is no exception. When your "right circle" can no longer attract it, and other competitors have more success than you, the "left circle" will gradually slip away. At this time, if the "right circle" stays still or even goes right, the area C will become smaller and smaller. The dynamic "left and right circle" theory requires enterprises to keep up with the "left circle" and even surpass it as much as possible, and adjust their "right circle" from time to time according to the changes of the "left circle".

It is also the application of new technology that causes the "left circle" to slip away. Back then, Microsoft understood the needs of the "left circle" and launched Windows 95, gaining a lead that its competitors couldn't keep up with. However, Bill.. Gates concluded that the future world is still dominated by the PC, not the Internet. As a result, when the Internet was rapidly rising and Internet browser technology was in the ascendant, he only added a web browsing function to the newly launched Windows 95, but had no plans to develop browser technology. That gave a Silicon Valley company called Netscape an opportunity to launch a new "Navigator" browser that could replace Windows, putting Microsoft under pressure.

Although Microsoft finally recovered with Internet Explorer, Bill Gates wasted three years and paid a heavy price of 2 billion US dollars.

Industry giants like Microsoft have been hit hard by not following the "Left Circle", and many more companies have been lost to history. Since the "left circle" is always changing, it requires companies to be forward-looking. "It's 2012, can you see 2015?" When Steve Jobs saw the future dominated by personal computers, not corporate mainframe computers, and Bill Gates saw operating systems as software that control computer hardware , they all seize the present by accurately predicting the future.

The "Left and Right Circle" theory is not just a marketing tool. The core idea is that the "left circle" leads, and the "right circle" follows, which is used in daily life, that is, people who take others as the starting point in advance, and then think about themselves. These seemingly simple two circles actually contain the great wisdom of life.