Make money with wisdom, not alcohol

The advantage of low price made in China is gradually lost. How will Chinese suppliers seek survival and development? How to formulate an effective promotion strategy? How to make the order profitable, where is the future development direction of export enterprises? Dongguan City Mr. Feng Zhaohui, General Manager of Hewang Electric Co., Ltd., shared his insights on how to deal with changes in foreign trade at the "Zhisheng Future Export Series Forum" Guangzhou Station.

Hewang Electric is a company engaged in the development of new technology and precision molds for metal products. A company that has been designing and manufacturing for 10 years. The main business is precision metal parts products: stamping, cold pier, hot forging, CNC turning and milling, professional manufacturing of parts assembly, newly developed LED energy-saving lamps. Serving ABB For Fortune 500 companies such as Honeywell Emerson, 80% are exported to the European and American markets.

Feng Zhaohui: When I established the company in 2004, I found that the Pearl River Delta was already overcapacity, and it is still overcapacity up to now. I said that At that time, the cheap labor had overcapacity, so what should I do? Then I started to lock in, and I said that hardware cannot fail in this world. If the world wants to keep running, hardware will support it, whether it is building an aircraft carrier or the universe. Spaceship, as small as a handicraft, iPhone or iPad, etc. Why don't I put my eyes on the world and make hardware accessories for the world's big companies, because they also manufacture products. So I used the Pearl River Delta at that time. The eyes of competition are overseas, and then advertising is done. Indeed, this concept and path are correct. It can be said that it is developing rapidly every year. We feel that the recovery efforts in Europe and the United States are very strong now, and our base is also very large. The growth target is at least It is mentioned that the share of more than 60%.

To do a good job in the overseas market, you must first enter. Entering is to advertise and participate in exhibitions. After entering the market, it is very important to make efforts. The problem of communication. Every time a foreign company launches a new product, the structural function of their hardware accessories must be discussed with us. The degree of our foreign trade now, no matter which country you are in Europe or America, as long as you are us customer, you tell us that there is a new product development, our personnel will immediately fly to you within a week to assist our engineers in the Pearl River Delta and their research and development personnel, no matter how long it takes, we will definitely assist him to complete this case , I will definitely come to me after this case is completed.

Nowadays, many people say that now that labor costs are rising and raw materials are rising, will the customer ask us to lower the price? I admit that there is pressure, but you have become indispensable to him. Part of it, you have properly mentioned the increase in labor costs, which is acceptable to him.

I think Mr. Pei did not mention the most critical point when he talked about "refinement" just now, which is how to achieve "people-oriented". If employees become When a member of the company recognizes your company, the refinement at this time exceeds all controls, all systems, and all certifications.

I founded the company for 10 years, and I gave up 60% of the shares to the managers below. , there are many employees I do not know, because I Only seven people were arrested, only four vice presidents and three managers were arrested, and then the managers arrested the supervisors, and the supervisors arrested the employees. The most refined management of a company is still people-oriented, grasping people's hearts and letting them develop and work together with the company. This is the best model. With customers, we still focus on communication, service and quality.

Many companies do foreign trade. He thinks that if they invest in advertising, if they invite one person, the foreign trade will definitely start. If you think so, I tell you in advance, don't do it, because it's a waste of money, if you don't put your energy into it, just hire a person and do an advertisement and think it can be successful, then it's too easy to do .

When I was doing it, I found that the Pearl River Delta had overcapacity. When I started my business in July 2003, because the Asian financial turmoil had just passed, I said that such cheap labor would have overcapacity, but I analyzed it again. , No one in the whole world is inseparable from hardware. Why don't those people in Europe and the United States with three or four thousand dollars produce this thing? At that time, there was already the slogan of "all-in-one". With such a high labor cost as hardware, do the products you produce still have advantages? I don't think so. I think this thing should have a big market. Why are we competing in the Pearl River Delta? I jumped out of this market and went overseas directly. Through advertising and exhibitions, etc., I did meet many European and American buyers. They also know that with globalization, good quality and good price can be found anywhere. If I make this thing locally, how can I beat China and Japan? And if they want to produce something new, they have to buy some accessories from China, and then make better products.

Did you go through some hardships and convictions in this process? there must be. We started ten years. From the eighth day of the lunar new year to the twenty-eighth day of the lunar new year, we basically work until eleven o'clock every night. We are still working hard and working hard, but there are still ways. The first is to analyze, I will focus on the pattern of successful people.

I also communicated with Mr. Xiao, and they do the same in foreign trade. First, the customer comes and analyzes the background of this customer. Because we do hardware, we don't like to find trading companies, we want to find manufacturing companies. First of all, it depends on whether you are a manufacturing company. As for whether you are a Fortune 500 company, we do not care, but you must be a manufacturing company with factories in Europe and America. Your annual sales are more than one or two hundred million US dollars, and such companies are locked into A category.

Then we passed some data. Mr. Xiao also used some customs data to analyze what you import in China. We also analyzed what hardware accessories customers imported in China, and then our personnel immediately flew to him and surrounded him. . Because he has emailed us, it will be easier for us to communicate and visit.

We apply the domestic business model in China to overseas. We do not simply communicate with customers by email. This is too slow and takes too long. We fly directly over, including myself leading the team to communicate with him, and try our best to complete it. His request turned his inquiries into purchasing behaviors, his small orders into large projects, and from one variety to two or three varieties. Especially those Fortune 500 companies, such as ABB and Honeywell, have many factories around the world. After you enter their supply chain, the supply chain of all countries has your name.

You are the supply chain of a Fortune 500 foreign company, and the latter companies use yours. I am a Czech ABB, and then German ABB, Swedish ABB, Spanish ABB, Danish ABB, Argentina ABB, Italian ABB, etc. all come to purchase with us. You win a big customer after a year of hard work. After he recognizes you as an excellent supply chain, you will get a lot of unexpected results. The most important thing is that the quality, communication and service must be in place. The customer will not easily give up on you, especially in the hardware part, because it is not easy for him to find a good manufacturer that can replace it.

In China, we made adjustments immediately, and labor costs continued to rise, so we in turn integrated the supply chain in the Pearl River Delta. The factory has been continuously incorporated, and the number of personnel has been continuously reduced. Because since there is so much overcapacity, why don't we set up a procurement team of five to six people and in turn integrate the supply chain. I find it cheaper to integrate this supply chain than to manufacture it ourselves. We continue to explore high-end customers here, and continue to integrate overcapacity enterprises in the Pearl River Delta to ensure that our products are well delivered to customers.

I have been doing foreign trade for ten years, and now the export return rate is very low, the success rate is 99.9%, the quality is very good, and the control is very strict. If you do this, the customer's dependence and trust in you will be greatly strengthened.

In recent months, I have had a client from abroad basically every week, especially the United States. I asked how the U.S. is doing now, and he said that he can’t recruit people now. I said it’s impossible. The unemployment rate in the United States is so high, and he said that good companies can’t really recruit people.

This month, there is an American customer who is doing supporting supply chain for IBM and GM. I made his hardware. He used to have a plastic manufacturer in the Pearl River Delta. Tell me this time, quickly find me a factory, about 10,000 square meters, I want to invest and build a factory by myself. I said there is no mistake, you came from the United States to build a factory in China. He said they were of poor quality. You did a good job with the hardware, but the plastic was bad.

It can be seen from the feedback of the guests that the US market has risen, and the European market has also risen. After this crisis, everyone from Obama to the president of any country knows that finance cannot save a country, only manufacturing. Just like Germany, only manufacturing can support a country, so they are desperately returning enterprises and returning high-end products to their homeland. The United States is recruiting American companies, and Europe is recruiting European companies. After recruiting them back, they will be encouraged to develop and innovate, hoping that they will produce high-end products such as Apple and Samsung and sell them all over the world. The returning companies went back to research and development desperately. It was a good thing for us in the process of research and development. They gave us some mold opening fees every time. My colleagues told me that customers open molds all day long. I said, the first point, have you lost the mold? He said there was no loss, but no mass production. I said what are you in a hurry, you open a hundred sets of molds, as long as ten sets can be mass-produced. If you just look in front of you, you can't do it.

Since the financial turmoil in 2008, we have felt that our efforts to assist customers in R&D have increased by 5-6 times compared with the past. We can feel that all countries are desperately investing in R&D, and it is high-end.

After the financial crisis in 2008, our company's turnover increased by 150% in that year. Those people who used to go to our factory to ask for orders, and then they kept closing the workshop. We held a closed-door meeting and brought together more than a dozen supervisors and managers for a meeting. I said that low-end manufacturing, shoes, clothes, and toys are all flowing out of our country. High-end Europe and the United States are recalling, what are we left in China? There is nothing left. They said, "Then our company's turnover has increased by 1.5 times." I said, have you ever thought that if you move the current equipment to India, Indians can't do it, they don't understand technology. You move to Vietnam, you give him a million CAT and he won't play, but you give him five or eight years? It surpassed us then. Have you ever thought that Brazil is also a BRICS country, their raw materials are cheaper than ours? If they also surpass our high-end devices, will we still have food? there is none left.

Since 2008, we have been racing against time. Although our turnover has been increasing, we are still racing against time. Even in research and development, we also put all our strength into research and development. The products we are making now are not available in China. We have patented inventions. They are very popular in the European and American markets. We use heat energy, light energy, and candle heat energy to drive LEDs, charge mobile phones, and drive Bluetooth speakers. , You can also make seismographs and some post-disaster things, all of which are national invention patents. This patent takes two years to be granted, but the state subsidy is also very large after it is granted. I don't count those subsidies. If we put them into the market, we rely on the research and development of these products, which should be a very good return.

The concept I want to talk about is that we started racing against time in 2008. Countries such as India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Myanmar will be ruled by Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Japanese for a few years. As their hardware technology improves, we will have no way to compete with them. Fight. We are living very well now. If we can't feel the crisis in five to eight years, I count our time at best with three to four years of nourishment. If we don't make adjustments quickly, our own old guild will Died miserably.

I will also show you the bottom line. After I set a goal for myself, I held another meeting. I said that after eight years, when the entire industrial chain and the low-end manufacturing industry in China die a lot, we will Go back to the manufacturing industry. At that time, China's automation was making great progress every year. We learned from Germany, and then invested tens of millions or tens of millions in higher-end precision manufacturing. We said that manufacturing can save China, and wait until they are finished , we will go to higher-end precision manufacturing, so that we have better room for development. This is my little experience.

In terms of marketing, I spend nearly 2-2.5 million in advertising each year, I have two six-stars in Global Sources, and there are many booths. Basically those booths you know are participating. You will be very surprised, how can I make a booth for a hardware accessories product? I go to that place to exhibit and see all my clients. In the past two years, I found that in the United States, Germany, and Hong Kong, those customers were looking for hardware everywhere, went to the hardware booth, and directly took out the hardware and asked if you can do it. I said that we can do this thing, which means that foreign countries The factory's own research and development efforts are very strong. They have tried desperately to find some accessories manufacturers, but very few really do hardware advertisements.

When I advertised in 2004, I was the first to compete with manufacturing companies in Europe and the United States, and the second was to compete with Hong Kong and Taiwan. Our prices are very competitive, so the growth is very fast. After that, there were some well-known domestic companies that made tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and they also advertised. At that time, I was not afraid of him, because I had accumulated a lot of big customers, and big customers kept pulling me to In the supply chain, there are constantly fission of so many manufacturers.

I still adhere to the concept of going down on the ground and not letting go of advertising investment. Let me tell the truth, if I don’t advertise, I am a small hardware company in the Pearl River Delta. I know which company in Shenzhen has five hardware orders of hundreds of thousands, and then see if I can invite his purchases out for a glass of wine. To get orders and live that humble life.

It's different now. Although our foreign trade personnel are very hardworking, at least they don't have to live a life of making money with my life. I found that many bosses use their lives to make money, and are trapped in the hotel karaoke day and night. I have several brothers. We have seven bosses from one factory. I am the only one doing foreign trade. Those six people have the feeling of being hospitalized several times a year. That is not my pursuit. If I make money with my life , I can't make money, but if I use wisdom and advertising to make money, I don't think I lose to anyone. thanks.