Yuan Yue: Pursuit of Invisibility

Yuan Yue is a true entrepreneur with knowledge. In 11 years, Zero Point has also developed from a market research and social survey company in the past to a consulting company that provides full management solutions (for the development strategy after Zero Point's entrepreneurship, please refer to the April 2003 issue of this magazine " "Dancing the Value Chain"). Zero may not have created much money for itself, but its social influence cannot be underestimated. Yuan Yue is complacent about this: "Although we may only have a business of tens of millions of yuan, the influence of our words is usually not possessed by a company with a scale of several billion yuan. That is another kind of wealth." Pursuing the intangible benefits of influence is a truth in his entrepreneurship.

Yuan Yue, the chairman of Zero Group, summed up his "ten successes in starting a business":

1. Use courage and be more attentive. I don't think it's because they're really attentive, but because they're really brave. In a blank market, the guts itself provides you with opportunities, because people don't try, but you dare to try. But that kind of audacity only helps you succeed when your company is starting out. In the process of enterprise development, the needs of many consumers and users are latent and not so obvious. You need to explore and cultivate them. At this time, courage is not enough.

Second, identify and focus

I have two declarations: First, research and consulting are my lifelong careers. Second, the joy I had from helping a lot of big bosses succeed far outweighed the joy I could possibly have. what is the reason? I don’t have the kind of big bosses who are both black and white, and I don’t have the kind of big bosses who borrow a lot of money, spend a lot of money, and never sleep. But I was able to help him think about it together and think about going home to sleep in the middle of the night. The joy of thinking is far greater than the joy of making a lot of money.

3. Constant denial, no termination

Start a business from a small business, and slowly develop from eight or nine people to 10 or 20 people, and then to more than 100 people, with the increase of internal staff in your company , and the market you are facing has changed, and your thinking and business management will also change accordingly.

It is very important for an entrepreneur not to regard any entrepreneurial achievement as a standard for one thing, but to use the previous entrepreneurial achievement as the starting point for the next stage. Therefore, the general managers I recruited are qualified to teach me a lesson, telling me the difference between "our professional managers" and "you" as a boss, and the position, emotion and standard of "our". Most of the time, I'm all ears, and sometimes it's annoying, but I still listen. Later, the continuous development of my career made me endure the unhappiness, listen to their opinions, and reach mutual consensus.

Fourth, be willing to be crazy about work

If you really want to start a business, especially want to be a good entrepreneur, you must be a workaholic, don't be ashamed of being a workaholic. In this world, there are many people who are crazy about different things. I think entrepreneurs are crazy about their careers. A career, if you do not reach the level of fascination and madness, will not truly become the so-called "home", which is the fundamental difference between becoming a "home" and not being a "home".

5. Never limit yourself to what you like

For ordinary people, starting a business is doing what you like, and doing so is easy to succeed. But I don't think so. Starting a business means reducing risk, and the most important way to reduce risk is to keep exploring what you don't like and don't know. After you graduate from college, after you start your business, especially after you have earned a few million or tens of millions of yuan, you will think: "I can do what I love, look. Books I love to read." In fact, when people have autonomy, they begin to enter a state of aging and become confined to old-fashioned thinking.

When we choose business partners, we can't just choose the ones we like. When choosing books to read, I recommend that you read at least 3 books that you don't like for every 10 books you read. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, only in the process of attracting more unfamiliar knowledge and making many unfamiliar friends can you accumulate more social capital to support your entrepreneurial career, so that you can continue to develop Move forward with lower risk.

6. Rationality comes from writing

When we analyze things with colleagues and partners, we often only use language to communicate. But entrepreneurship is not just a personal entrepreneurship, but a career, which depends on and needs our partners, colleagues, customers and the rest of the society to understand us, and the most important thing for understanding is to explain, constantly sort out, and provide precise definitions. and descriptions of things. Therefore, developing an organization's written thinking ability is very helpful for entrepreneurs and stable prospects for their entrepreneurial careers.

Seven, the pursuit of invisible interests

Only the wise know how to pursue invisible interests. Whether it's mitigating risk, maximizing benefits, or pursuing long-term goals and sustainable development, help from intangible benefits is critical. Of course, different people have different pursuits. As far as I am concerned, I like a little reputation, a little bit of so-called long-term interests, and a little bit of moral balance. When combined, I actually prefer to pursue an influential career.

Some people are very good at creating tangible wealth, but tangible wealth also needs enough social support, so I think it is very important to balance the relationship between tangible and intangible interests. I often tell my colleagues that we are a company that combines immediate interests with revolutionary ideals. So when we recruit staff, there are several ways to assess whether candidates are extremely sensitive to wealth. If it is a person who is extremely sensitive to wealth, then he is suitable for investment banking, not for our business. Therefore, those who may deviate from the work goals during the work process are filtered out from the beginning. We will choose those whose personalities and values are suitable for our career to work with us.

8. Keep the distance from the government

One of the basic features of Chinese social development brought about by the reform and opening up is the diversity of interests. Different people cannot have exactly the same interests, we all have our own interests. And in the full, divergent, and differentiated interest differentiation, life will become colorful. In this way, neutrality and objectivity become very rare. In a society with differentiated interests, being neutral and objective represents the greatest value.

So we need to keep a distance from huge interest groups including the government. On the one hand we cannot leave them. Many companies are very rich, and the government has a lot of influence over us, but we cannot let them control. We are probably the only one of the survey companies that can do business between the Chinese government, foreign governments, and governments. The most important reason why the government is willing to entrust us to do business is that we are a neutral institution, they don't even trust their own research department, and they come to us to do it exclusively. This is a great era, the power of the government will not be enough to kill you, but it will be enough to "frame" you to death. So, when you're too far apart, you get cleaned up, and when you're too close, you're corrupt. Entrepreneurship is to get our chance in such an appropriate distance.

Nine, believe in the value of integrity

I believe that the biggest temptation in entrepreneurship comes from: Do bad things get rich quickly, or do good things to get rich? The answer of many entrepreneurs is surprisingly consistent: Inwardly yearning for good things may actually do bad things. In fact, I think the market share of doing business with integrity is huge. I call it the 99+1 rule, which is the 99% and 1% rule. What does that mean? In our society, 95% of the business is relatively flexible, or there may be some unclean ways to make this money. However, 99% of companies are concentrated in these 95% areas, and only 1% of companies do 5% relatively clean business. Probably, the success rate of 1% of companies is far greater than the success rate of 99% of companies. When your business is successful in integrity, your purpose, confidence, sense of accomplishment, and trust and happiness in this society far exceed the wealth accumulated through gray and dirty money.

10. Fostering resources for the future

In a company like ours where the average age of employees is 28-29 years old, employees feel that the income of wealth and the growth of knowledge are very important to them. And, in the process of giving them these things, you nurture both their sensitivity to intangible wealth and their cultural spirit.

In fact, it is not easy for me to manage this company well. I now set a rule that I study every three to five years. At the same time, all our employees, whether you are a college student in accounting or a doctoral student in research, can get three-quarters of the company's sponsorship for any degree of study you apply for.

In fact, although entrepreneurship is a risky business, when you have a sense of control over it, the business can continue to grow. It doesn't stop you from sleeping, studying, traveling, teaching in schools, or pursuing more theoretical stuff. On the one hand, you are a workaholic, and on the other hand, you can play philosophy, fishing, and learning like Marx did. The purpose of starting a business is not income, but to experience life on a higher platform.