How Lin Qingxuan went offline to online, the founder personally told the entrepreneurship process of e-commerce!

As an original Chinese brand, Lin Qingxuan has won millions of consumers with his outstanding services and products. On April 1, Laogao's e-commerce live broadcast room invited Sun Laichun, the founder of Lin Qingxuan. He will explain the difficulties of the epidemic to fans based on Lin Qingxuan's development history. The following is his full sharing:

E-commerce entrepreneurial journey

I encountered a relatively big crisis in 2020. The epidemic closed all stores in one month and their performance was completely zero. I thought repeatedly in my notebook and split myself with a knife. Danger is a crisis, opportunity is an opportunity. The danger is clear. There is no abortion and no performance. I have to pay wages to employees and pay rent. So what is the opportunity?

Later, I found that there were about a dozen things that could be done and were very good opportunities, so I started to do it. So how can I make it? It is also divided into three steps. The first step is to get back your confidence. This confidence is not only my confidence, but also the confidence of 2,000 employees and the confidence of millions of consumers.

Retrieving my own confidence is the first step. How can I have the confidence to continue working, grit my teeth and hold on, instead of running away. It’s great to be a billionaire, why do I have to gamble? If I become a pauper, isn’t that the end? So something gives me the confidence to go on, this must be found!

I spent a week thinking deeply and found that I had been sticking to my dreams and mission visions for many years are still powerful, and I can still keep you at critical moments. I should try it out. Later I found that the employees had no confidence and everything was useless. How could they make the employees have confidence? I wrote a letter at that time. During this period, the epidemic in Shanghai was more serious than in 2020. I mobilized all employees to hold a video conference.

I said a point of view: no reason to be optimistic and work hard. Some people have reasons to be optimistic, such as promotion and salary increase, winning lottery tickets, improving performance, etc. In short, there is a reason to be optimistic. This optimism is not from one's own heart, but is given to external objective conditions, which determines whether the person is optimistic. I hope our employees and partners are optimistic without reason. You should do whatever you can. Don’t stay in self-pity and pain, and hurt others and yourself, it’s meaningless.

The first step in three steps is to regain confidence, the second step is to find the right method, and the third step is to do it with all your might. If you believe that the epidemic can pass, the company can survive, if you believe, your employees will also believe, and your partners and customers will also believe. Just try your best to find a way. After finding it, you will follow the method and do your best.

Lin Qingxuan has also accepted great challenges several times, and even several times it is very dangerous, but I think there is a gift behind every big challenge. There is yin on the yang side and yang on the yin side. We are an old brand for 19 years and have been opening offline stores. Twelve years ago, we created camellia oil category. New new categories have triggered new things to nourish the skin with oil. We are impacting China's mid-to-high-end cosmetics, which is more difficult because China does not have this product yet. The journey to climb the mountain is very hard and confident.

1. The current epidemic situation is closed. How did you adjust your business?

In fact, this problem was solved in February 2020. Just now, a fan in the live broadcast room asked how to do it without hurting the company, and employees could survive it. This problem has plagued countless retail companies since the lockdown in Wuhan. At that time, I had two choices. One option was to switch to e-commerce . The offline stores could be closed, and there were tens of millions of cash on the books and hundreds of millions of inventory. Life was still OK. 200 offline stores were an achievement of our years of layout, which was very helpful to the brand. The sudden outbreak of the epidemic was a temporary closure, not really closed, what should employees do, how to pay wages, no performance, and employees would not be able to stand it if they didn’t pay wages. If you fired the employees, you would not find someone after the epidemic. This was a dilemma.

This kind of dilemma is the biggest challenge. I still remember when I woke up on the morning of January 31, 2020, I kept thinking about this issue. I couldn’t sleep well for several days. I asked entrepreneurs in the industry and twelve people told me that if they didn’t work, they would close the store and the employees would persuade them to withdraw. It’s not necessarily the time when the epidemic will pass. Only two people said: Can Lao Sun think of a way to persevere? Maybe it will pass in one or two months.

The ratio of 12:2 made me lay off employees. I think if the store is closed, I will definitely be safe personally, and then my dream may be gone. I think it is difficult to create a mid-to-high-end brand without the layout of offline stores. I don’t want to be a simple WeChat business or a Taobao brand. I hope that online and offline can be deeply integrated.

At that time, I felt that the more difficult it was, the more you should not give up your dreams; the more difficult it was, the more you should not hurt the weakest person; the more you should leverage everyone's strength, rather than relying on one person to do it. Previously, Lin Qingxuan spent some money on private domain layouts, and nearly one million fans joined the offline shopping guide's corporate WeChat group. Although offline stores have been closed, consumers' skin care needs are still there. Since the demand is there, employees are started to mobilize them to stop lying on the bed immediately. They get up and take out their mobile phones and computers, and use all methods to contact customers in private domains.

At that time, we assigned the offline shopping guides to contact the customer based on the geographical location of all fans of the Tmall store. Whoever contacts the performance will be the one who will be. As long as the customer in our Tmall store adds the WeChat account of the shopping guide company, the backend can identify which offline shopping guide the customer is. The customer's performance on Tmall is considered the commission for offline shopping guides.

Simply put, it means opening up benefits and data, and things are not complicated. Employees in offline stores are all in emotions. How can we heal the emotions of offline store employees? Just let him have work to do. In fact, the best way to fight depression and solve wailing is to work immediately. With the help of an epidemic, some have become well-known people in a certain field, some have found an opportunity for innovation breakthroughs, and some can test employees and teams.

What is the epidemic? The epidemic is an innovative tool! In fact, there is no external force, you will not innovate, so the epidemic is an innovator. In addition, the epidemic is also a catalyst. You want to do many things but have not done them for various reasons. A sudden epidemic or a huge danger can catalyze something in an incredible direction. Whether you destroy or catalyze it is completely your own choice. Some people are destroyed and some people are catalyzed.

For example, hundreds of years ago, when the epidemic in the UK was in great danger, London could not stay, and they all ran to the countryside, which produced Newton's first law. Countless cases tell us, can you turn pressure into a motivation? More importantly, innovators and catalysts are also mirrors of demons. You usually think that your company is very awesome. When the epidemic comes, don’t try to not pay employees’ wages, and don’t have this idea, as you will hurt people’s hearts.

Unless you don’t want to use employees, you will be honest in paying employees. It is unreasonable to pay employees whether they want to pay employees. If you think the employee is unqualified, you can just use the mirror to show it and ask him to leave. Employees who do you think are very good during the epidemic and have to give him a raise.

The employees who asked him to leave were for his own good, because he knew that he had to fight wherever he was. When encountering difficulties, he could not fight with the team. He should give him a lesson and let him know that those who do not fight would be punished by the entire society. He has learned this lesson and will cherish it even more in the new workplace in the future.

So the epidemic is a catalyst, the epidemic is an innovative tool, and the epidemic is a mirror of demons. Until now, I still use these dimensions to test my team. The epidemic has all moved online, but the demand is still there, and the goods are not delayed in selling. The performance of Vientiane City in March in the past few days is close to the daily sales of the same period last year. This world is very wonderful. If you believe that everyone is isolated from the epidemic and cannot buy goods, then your goods will really not be sold. There is still a demand for your products, so you will find all ways to reach them. You firmly believe in your employees and firmly believe in them.

Last year, I invited more than 20 customers in Wuhan to have a meal. Because Wuhan was locked down, express delivery could not be entered in March. Our Wuhan's performance in 2020 was 20% higher than in 2019. It was the shopping guide who was desperately selling it in private domains. There was a teacher wearing a red skirt. I asked her that she bought 10 orders on the Lin Qingxuan mini program in March, and you couldn't receive the goods, so why did you still buy it?

She told me that after using it for three or four years, her skin repair was very smooth and her family conditions were OK, so I didn't want Lin Qingxuan to die. Millions of customers don’t want Lin Qingxuan to die, which is really touched. There was another customer who had sent express delivery three or four times and refused to sign up. When we contacted her for the fourth time, we had just returned home from the intensive care unit. I bought this order and I don’t know if it can be used.

A bunch of customers, including partners and suppliers, many people don’t want Lin Qingxuan to die, so we deserve to live to this day. When I was just starting a business, I was not doing well, so how many customers wanted you to die? We have survived to this day, and many customers don’t want you to die. I think in the final analysis, your mind, your brand power, and your service determine whether consumers can vote for you when it is difficult.

Lao Gao:

Sun is always an emotional person, and I am also an emotional person. It reminds me of the beginning of 2020 that I happened to be in Hainan for the New Year. At five o'clock in the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year, the whole family fled back to Shanghai. I also made a decision at that time that all members were exempt from three months of membership fees and five months of membership fees in Hubei. In the first seven months of 2020, there were no profits and losses for seven consecutive months.

The second decision was that the company announced that it would not lay off employees, would not cut wages, or would not cut wages. At that time, I also said to the employees that if the company does not make money, it means that I, Lao Gao, is incompetent. If I can't afford your salary, it means that Lao Gao is incompetent. Even if I sell a house, I can't let you eat braised food.

After a series of adjustments, it took us five months from July to December to basically reach the full year of 2019. I also summarized and thought later. On the one hand, we planted a cause of kindness, and the employees gave us back with the fruits of kindness; on the other hand, we were members, with no membership fees, and the online courses increased by 4 times. In fact, our cost was greater, but we spent 5 months to achieve the performance in 2019.

This is actually a cause and a result. During this period of epidemic, crises and difficulties will force out the bloody and wolf-like nature of our founders. If there is no epidemic, it is more comfortable to live. You may go to the company at 10:30 every day, hold several meetings every day, and go to see a few projects for the rest of the time, meet some executives of the platform, and talk about future plans.

The epidemic is indeed a forced force. We have been broadcasting live for more than 20 consecutive days. When there is no way out, we will find that many unexpected things will appear.

2. How do offline and online combine?

First of all, doing brand and wholesale are two different thinkings. If you just sell some goods, you can sell wherever you can, and you must first ask for a living. If you have long-term plans to build a brand, there are two solutions. The first is to solve the price system, called the same price; the second is to have wrong products, and the offline products sold from Tmall, JD.com, Douyin, and TikTok; the third is to have direct offline stores, you must open up the benefits. In your internal CRM software, you can identify the relationship between this employee and this customer.

Benefits are connected if the product purchased by this member online is an offline shopping guide service, then this order should be considered an offline shopping guide. Miscellaneous products, same price, and profit-sharing can solve 70%-80% of the problems.

Lin Qingxuan has always been a direct store, and has never opened franchise because of the price system. If the same product and price cannot be achieved online and offline, and this problem is not solved, we must never develop franchise and cannot reap the benefits of franchise stores. It is not easy to open a physical store.

In recent years, we have begun to systematically and gradually open up the rights and interests of 90% of the members, so we started to open an associate store. We must carefully choose people who like retail and are interested in new things. If customers of the associate store buy it on Tmall, they will also consider the profits as joint store, which can guarantee their interests. If you cannot protect your interests, don’t open a store casually, otherwise you will be scolding you.

I think online and offline, whether you are joining, affiliated, or directly operating, profit distribution is the biggest difficulty. If it really doesn't work, you will be wrong, but wrong products are not the best choice, because the brand must have a mind. Estee Lauder and Lancome are staggered in milliliters, and Gree sells different models, which can also solve this problem to a certain extent. You can also explore some better solutions when building a business.

3. How to recruit distribution agents for new independent brands?

If it is a brand new brand, it is not well-known enough and it is more difficult to recruit distribution, but you believe that there must be brave men in the face of profits. raising the commission ratio of distribution will give everyone motivation. How to control prices well? If you have this ability, you can send it with one click, because once the goods are leaked, the price will be more difficult to control.

If you want to be a brand, I think you should do it honestly, create super big products, do minds, and scientific research. If the quality is not good, you should advertise carefully, especially from the second half of this year to next year, relying on spending money to do business may not work. You have to make money when doing business. If you don’t make money in a company, how do you pay employees, how do you pay taxes to the state, and how do you pay suppliers?

If you want to make money, I don’t think you are too impatient. Just take the initiative to serve the customers step by step, and you can’t eat hot tofu in a hurry. Lin Qingxuan has been doing it for 19 years. Many people asked me why I haven’t done it for so many years. I remembered a text.

A small pine tree grows and grows in the mud, and does not grow tall. Small mushrooms grow taller after rain, surpassing the small pine tree. The little pine tree is quite inferior. As soon as the sun comes out, the little mushrooms fall, and the little pine tree lives for a hundred years in the wind and rain.

If you have a century-old brand dream, why not be impatient? In fact, you should take out the spirit of raising children to raise a brand, carefully polish it, and make the product beautiful, and buy a bottle after using it. With reputation, how can you not survive?

Lao Gao:

I am very touched by what you said. The way to raise children is simple. I only teach my children two things: one is kindness, and the second is a firm and optimistic personality. If you have these two items, the rest will come. A kind person and a passion for life cannot live a difficult life.

4. Can stores be built with such a difficult epidemic now? With the end of the epidemic, will offline stores usher in retaliatory consumption?

No epidemic or storm can stop things from moving forward. At this time, I think we should ask ourselves an essential question: If you want to be a great brand, a century-old brand or a long-term brand, as long as you want to do not simply do a business, then you must have long-term planning and mission.

Mission and mission are divided into two parts: "mission and mission". Mission is to make it live, just like giving birth to a child. You give him physical life, and you also have to make him have cultural education and quality cultivation, so that he has a brilliant life. As for a brand, you must make it live. Once the company and brand make it live, as the founder, you will be an employee of the company. The company does not belong to you at all, you are just a passerby in the company.

Just like raising a daughter, it still belongs to you at the age of three or four, but no longer belongs to you at the age of fifteen or sixteen. In fact, you have no right. This daughter has grown up and has her values ​​and hobbies. At this time, her parents are really passers-by in her life.

At the beginning of his business, Lin Qingxuan set a mission: to provide people with natural, safe and effective skin care products. This is our mission when we started, just like giving a child a full and warm clothing and a good study. This is the most basic physiological need. When Lin Qingxuan started her business until her 19th year, it was equivalent to her son and daughter who was 19 years old and had grown up. Her basic needs were no longer enough, so she should give her a greater mission.

The original mission has become Lin Qingxuan’s original intention. What is the new mission? It makes the skin of humans and the earth more beautiful. This mission is not something I can bear alone. After giving Lin Qingxuan a new mission, I suddenly felt that Lin Qingxuan floated in front of me. My employees and I bowed to Lin Qingxuan. It was not an employee to respect the boss, and the boss was nothing. The boss was a passerby in the life of the company.

I suddenly realized that my executives and I admire Lin Qingxuan's new mission very much and are willing to fight for the mission of making the skin of mankind and the earth more beautiful. This mission is so powerful. We have planned a new scientific research and production base in Songjiang, and spent 60 million to do an additional carbon-neutral new green project. Can it bring new achievements and can we make a profit immediately? None of them.

But because I want to make the skin of the earth more beautiful, the skin of the earth is white clouds, green water, green mountains, every tree, every grass, and clean air, spending an extra 60 million to meet Lin Qingxuan's great mission. People are in panic during the epidemic, and many people are worried about the flow of funds, but we have grown 385 Zhejiang Gaoshan Red Mountain Tea in Yong'an County, Fujian. It will take 5-7 years to use it. Are we still alive in 5-7 years? I never thought that I had lived for 19 years, and I never thought that the company would die in 5-7 years. Lin Qingxuan would not die even if I died. Since that is the case, just work hard and don’t care about the harvest.

If you do what you do today, do what you should do in a long-term way, and do what you do for 100 years of work in this brand, if you give a point, God will give you ten or eight times the reward, and you may gain ten or eight times the reward in the future.

After giving Lin Qingxuan a new mission, he also gave him a new value: to make stakeholders win-win . In the past, when doing business, the boss must have to make money by himself. When you have some money, you find that it is not possible and you can make money by all the brothers together. After a while, you find that something is wrong, and every employee has to feel gained. Later, you find that you still have to make customers feel gained so that customers can continue to buy and make money. Later, I found out that it was not right. You must let your partners and make money from suppliers, and the suppliers are willing to give you better packaging materials.

If you find that it is not right, you must let the city you are in receive enough taxes before the government can treat you as a treasure. Later I found out that something was wrong. You must make the environment you live in friendly and make the future of the earth cleaner. After raising funds, you find that you still have to let shareholders make money, otherwise you will be condemned and despised by the industry.

I have summarized the seven major stakeholders, the first is customers, the second is employees, the third is supplier partners, the fourth is the city and town where you are located, the fifth is the country where you are located, the sixth is the earth where you are located and the environment where you live, and the seventh is shareholders. In summary: Customer's first shareholder and seventh shareholder. If either party loses, shareholders cannot win. They are equal . I am also a shareholder. Only by letting go of my own interests can I gain long-term benefits.

Lao Gao:

I have also learned some history and philosophy. From the perspective of dynasties, the people are definitely put first, and the same is true for business operations. Put customers first, because customers are the foundation of raising them. The customer is OK, and the employee is OK too. This is the cause, and the cause and effect cannot be reversed. Many of your logic are very consistent with Tao. Your company will definitely be able to do a great job, that is, those who have gained Tao help more, and those who have benefited all water conservancy without competing for everything. You benefit all the relevant people around you, whether it is employees, shareholders, partners, customers, etc. I think this is in line with Tao.

Mr. Sun used practical actions to interpret the best example of using Tao to control the art and using Tao to manage enterprises. Your words really touched me too deeply. I had a little financial freedom in 2013, and I felt that struggle seemed to be without passion. I spent more than half a year on traveling. Later, I found that after half a year of traveling, I went to many temples to ask the master what the meaning of life is, and got many good answers. Some said that life is meaningless, and some said that we have to rely on us to create, find meaning, and do what we love.

Later, after I came back, I built up my company’s mission, which is called helping e-commerce succeed. Definition of success: successful career, spiritual fulfillment, happy family, and healthy body. We now have the National Academy, School of Management, Classroom, Three Major Clubs, as well as new media and investment, all of which are all centered on this mission. It is precisely because we only plant trees and do not worry about how many fruits we produce, but the woods grow very densely. It is to work hard on the cause, follow the fate of the consequences, do what you love, and continue to do it.

Just like you planting trees, our company has also had many seemingly profitable opportunities in the past 12 years, such as starting a micro-business and order-making company, but we have not done it. We think that those unreliable side-by-side things are not in line with the right way.

5. Which three books are recommended for entrepreneurs and why?

There is a booklet that is particularly useful, "Lee Kuan Yew's Governance and Life" by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who I found in his little book to deal with all the uncertainties. A country as small as Singapore, balanced between major powers and became the most developed region in Southeast Asia, must have experienced countless challenges and pressures. This book is very inspiring.

You can take a look at Mao Zedong's collections, "Speech at the Yan'an Literature and Art Forum" and "On the Protracted War". Mao Zedong's collections at critical moments can all be used as bedside books to read. There is another book called "The Art of War", which does not teach you how to fight, but teach you how to defeat others without fighting. It is a strategy book that you can read frequently.

6. Does Lin Qingxuan have a layout in cross-border e-commerce?

Cross-border e-commerce is still exploring. The most popular part in recent years is still in the category, mainly price wars. Chinese brands, especially beauty and skin care brands, have not gained much in the international market. In the two or three months before the epidemic, we had plans to plan physical stores in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, and some contracts were signed, but the epidemic suddenly stopped.

Cross-border e-commerce is a channel for the rise after the epidemic. If the brand has high cost performance, it is more suitable. Lin Qingxuan's products are very Chinese-style, re-cultivating international customers and preparing to layout in Southeast Asia and Russia. This is based on three backgrounds. The first is the rise of China's national brand, the second is to brand promotion first, and the third is cross-border e-commerce..

7. Is there any prospect for brand skin care products distribution?

As long as you are serious about brand building, there is no big difference in sales methods you use. You can do it, distribution, direct sales, agency operations, micro-business, and private community sales. In the past few years, there was a TV shopping channel, and many people looked down on it and thought it was too low. A Shuangliren kitchenware was shouting around on the TV station. The TV shopping was down, but the brand did not fall because the product quality was pretty good, and there were still many customers who came to buy it.

Brand is the reason to choose you instead of others. If you have this very good reason, you can increase the price. You can invest more money in scientific research and make the product better. It will enter a positive cycle flywheel. A group of hardcore fans agree with you, and the positive cycle flywheel is constantly running.

8. Is it more pragmatic to position an ordinary entrepreneur as a businessman or to position an entrepreneur?

I think a person is divided into different stages. Maslow's five needs are consciously divided into layers for everyone. Don't be superstitious about any theory. Superstitious theory will bind your imagination. In fact, when a person meets his physiological needs, he has great dreams, and when he is poor and hungry, he can still have dreams.

At the beginning of entrepreneurship, you must stick to reality, make some money and live, and be worthy of your family and investors. But while doing a business, can’t you dream of becoming a great company? Of course, there is, so why can’t you be tempted and make money if you have a great entrepreneurial dream?

I must be looking down at the ground and looking up at the sky. People should wander in reality and ideals, not become utopians, nor can they become short-sighted people, and work honestly in front of them, with unreasonable optimism, imagine that one day they will finally become a great brand, and they may become a good person as they do it.

Never think that just entrepreneurs can deceive consumers and make low-quality products. At this moment, you will not have a lofty mind and will fall into the dark night and walk at night. The road is difficult to walk, and you will never walk at night. You are very slutty in front of you. As long as you are full, you have to dream. You can’t just look at the front of you, but you can’t ignore it.

Lao Gao:

Once I went to a temple in Yangzhou and asked a master who graduated from graduate school, how do you think of Maslow's theory of stratification of needs? He said that Maslow's pyramid does not exist in Buddhism. If there must be, for us monks, the pyramid is reversed. This means that he can go directly to the spirit, and he can also have a sense of spiritual material security at the same time, and he can have the spirit first and then the material. This brings countless possibilities. Mr. Sun, you are a person who has realized the truth.

Sun Laichun:

In fact, if a real person is a combination of a villain and a gentleman, if a person shows all his strengths in front of you, he must be an actor. A real living person has to shit, fart, grind his teeth while sleeping, and also to dirty and messy socks are smelly.

The same is true for a brand. It may have many shortcomings. As long as you love it, everyone can get along with it. Want to be a great brand, but there is no problem at all. Is it hard? You have to make money right now. After making money, you can upgrade your product in three or five years.

What the Bible says is that sometimes people are one with devils and angels, and Taoism also says that yin and yang are one. Don’t talk about empty theories every day when you are a business. In fact, your current stage will not affect your great dreams, but you should also serve customers honestly. When the product quality is not good, you will charge less money, and when the product quality is good, it will be worthy of consumers.

9. Did the entrepreneur become a philosopher in the end?

Entrepreneurs always have their own responsibilities, to make employees have food and satisfy customers. It should be said that entrepreneurs are firefighters, and entrepreneurs want to become philosophers is a root of their unluckyness. Entrepreneurs should be practical people and work hard to enter the market. If an entrepreneur does not sell goods, it is against the basic responsibilities of the entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a practical worker, and an entrepreneur is a real seller. Everyone has food to eat. An entrepreneur is a shopping guide, a salesperson, a salesperson, and a waiter.

10. How to ensure positioning? How can a cosmetic product that is not a big brand be able to break through?

There is a book about "Positioning". You can take a look at it. Positioning requires three dimensions. First, determine your own advantages, second, determine the disadvantages of your competitors, and third, you must have internal core competitiveness so that you can do your positioning well.

If you want to come out quickly, it depends on whether you meet the requirements, whether you have good marketing or innovation. If you don’t have any, you really can’t come out.

Lao Gao:

I agree with Mr. Sun’s view very much. Buddhism says that appearance is created by the heart and things are created by the heart. The advantages of enterprises are often an amplification of the long-term advantages of our founders. You have to analyze what advantages you have. Early entrepreneurs must amplify their advantages, not to make up for their shortcomings. In the middle and late stages, they may be more about making up for their shortcomings. For early entrepreneurs, I think it is enough for you to survive by magnifying some of your advantages.