Ding Mingliang: From Stall To Net Worth

His success is legendary from the creation of a shoe factory with only 150 yuan to a well-known company with annual sales of several billion yuan.

He was 13 years old and forced to drop out of school early and set up a stall.

Among them, a fire had made his factory that had been built for nearly ten years instantly turned to ashes.

But he simply clenched his teeth and rebuilt the new home in ruins only in half a year.

He is also one of the senior bosses in the footwear and sporting goods industry in Quanzhou. He has been the leader of Jinjiang sporting goods enterprises.

He is Ding Mingliang.

150 yuan to create a leisure sports leading brand, the risk of adventure is the nature of entrepreneurs. Ding Mingliang's initial venture is linked to the basic needs of survival.

Since he was 17 years old and had only 150 yuan to run a factory, he has been dreaming all the time.

In the past, he liked to laugh and laugh whether he was successful or frustrated.

"What I really value is the future of enterprise development," he said.

Poverty: take the initiative to drop out of school and spread the stall.

For a child who has just graduated from primary school, it is not easy to let him give up his studies and raise the burden of supporting his family.

However, seeing the poverty at home and experiencing the hardships of parents raising six children, Ding Mingliang, the eldest son, could not calm down, decided to drop out of school voluntarily, and help his parents to raise the burden of supporting their families.

This year, he was 13 years old.

Ding Mingliang, who dropped out of school, started selling small items in Quanzhou.

Not long after, he went along with his folks for a long time.

Hard life has formed his strong and tough character.

In 1982, he opened a small bag workshop with his fellow countrymen to make plastic bags. This is his first venture.

Transformation: from the packaging workshop to the shoe factory in the second years of the normal operation of the plastic bag factory, he discovered that the shoemaking industry was a new student. Although he did not succeed, he saw the future of the industry, so he took two younger brothers and opened a shoe making workshop with only 150 yuan to join others in order to embark on a difficult road to start a business.

I remember the first day when the shoe factory opened, we made 6 pairs of shoes, and everyone was very happy at that time.

It's not how much money the shoe can make immediately, but its success has made its own product.

This means a new start for us. We can make shoes and make shoes business. "

He said that at that time, he and his brother all had a dream that one day they could live in their own two storey buildings.

In 1987, he made the biggest investment decision since he started his business: he spent 40 thousand yuan on a set of advanced shoe making equipment.

This move was somewhat unrealistic to many people in the village at that time.

Later facts proved that his choice was quite sensible.

The improvement of the quality of shoes has won a good reputation for the company in the domestic and foreign markets. He also officially named the "shoes" for the shoe factory, which initially owns modern equipment.

Tough and tough: after the fire upheaval, he stood up again. When he was ambitious to outline the grand blueprint, the sky was in bad luck. A fire that had never been anticipated was destroyed by all his factories and equipment.

His years of effort were destroyed.

In March 1990, Ding Mingliang, who was far away to Chaozhou, received a phone call from a factory fire, and rushed back overnight.

Looking at the ruins that he had been burned up for more than ten minutes, his heart was like a knife and his tears were pouring out. It was his 8 years of effort.

But in front of everyone, he clenched his teeth and held back his grief.

When he got home, he buried himself in tears.

"That's a big blow!"

But at that time, I thought, I had to hold on to the pain again.

People can pour anything, but perseverance and confidence can not be reversed! "

He said.

The fire caused him to become a poor man again.

After sorting out the remnant, he decided to start over again.

With tremendous pain and pressure, he began to borrow and rebuild factories and buy equipment from Jinjiang and Guangdong, looking for mold everywhere.

With indomitable willpower, by the end of the year, he not only paid off debts, but also opened a stable market in the market.

His company once again entered a period of steady development.

Upgrade: enter the era of brand management. Since 1996, the market has changed from supply to demand to supply exceeding demand.

Affected by this, his factory began in 1997, and the machine was discontinued one by one.

In the low tide of this market, Ding Mingliang was strongly aware of the urgency and importance of brand building, decided to bring the factory into the era of brand management, and hired football stars in 1999 to start the attempt of brand operation.

But after that, Jinjiang sports shoes began to fall into the "advertising war" and "Star Wars" in the same competition.

In order to avoid homogenous competition, he turned his eyes to the leisure sports market and thought that a new way could be found in the brand crowded sports shoes market.

In 2000, he had a chance to meet the famous brand planners in China, and expanded his brand cognition vision.

Why was it a member of the Lining brand development that brought the most advanced brand development concept at that time?

Enterprises from shoes production, processing and retail, really go to establish their own terminal sales network, and start branding development.

Differentiation: to do entertainment marketing articles in 2001, he worked with Nicky Wu to pform entertainment routes and effectively distinguish them from his competitors.

Two years later, Ding Mingliang, who has been steady and steady, once again made an astonishing move for the whole industry to hire Jay Chou for 2 years and 10 million yuan.

This is undoubtedly a risk game.

The fact that he had spent a lot of money was worth it. A well-known brand of entertainment and leisure has emerged.

In 2002, the total sales volume of the company exceeded 350 million yuan, and after Jay Chou joined the company, the sales growth rate of two consecutive years exceeded 50%%.

In 2003 -2005, its sales and brand awareness reached an unprecedented peak. Fujian's famous trademarks, state inspection free products, well-known trademarks in China and famous brand products in China came to a great extent.

Since then, Ding Mingliang, who has tasted the sweetness of entertainment marketing and pursued further cooperation with Jay Chou, has been letting him make the director himself to shoot the brand advertisement and fully support the shooting of his big slam dunk.

Adhere to the entertainment and leisure routes, so that de Hui Hui become a successful example of Jinjiang sports brand differentiation breakthrough.

Internationalization of the company: after eight years of rapid growth, the company has been expanding its scale across the country.

However, he kept sober and calm, faced with many blind expansion and made the company fall into a trap. He promptly put forward a series of reform policies to stick to the quality "backyard" and so on.

He believes that a strong company must have the ability to develop independently, and must develop faster than its competitors in the pace of development, constantly create popularity and take the initiative to guide consumption.

He boldly introduced the designers of Korea and Taiwan and set up a huge design and development team.

These design teams imported from Nike production base have become a pioneering work for Jinjiang footwear industry.

After he introduced international talents, he began to think about brand internationalization.

Last year, he combined with eight professional companies to integrate and enhance the brand, marketing, human resources, terminal market, graphic design, space design, production management and so on, and amend the combination of trademark and letter, so that the brand of the company is more internationalized and modern.

After changing the original alphabet "Deerhui" into English combination "Deerway", the new English name is more international and fashionable, and embodies the core value of "Sports Art and unlimited creativity".

Changing the label is only the first step to get rid of the internationalization of the brand.

We are still on the way to dream. "

Ding Mingliang said.

The grand blueprint of a century old brand culture enterprise has gradually become clear in his mind.