Xu Shuguang: It'S Not A Chance To Take Risks. That'S A Fool.

Xu Shuguang is an entrepreneurial fanatic. His entrepreneurial experience has been called "an example story" that Li Kaifu has always wanted.

In the past 14 years, he founded 9 companies in the United States and China. He has been involved in many different industries such as real estate, hotel, clothing, medical treatment, wine and so on. He is known as chairman of the board.

The most famous one in his business is GreenTree Inn, which is the most unprofitable project at present and is the focus of Xu Shuguang's work. His goal is to increase the number of branches to 700 this year.

Xu Shuguang, an ordinary rural boy born in Rushan in Shandong in 1964, was assigned to the Ministry of Astronautics after graduating from university. He soon quit "gold rice bowl" and went to University of Southern California to study in the United States. It has read mathematics, computer and business management successively.

Through the financial work of several large American enterprises, he was successively taken by bole, seized the opportunity in the 1990 American real estate crisis, became the chairman of a southern California construction firm, and led the company out of the real estate crisis and became a famous famous enterprise in southern California.

Since then, Xu Shuguang has invested in the United States medical office, back home in Shandong to establish clothing export factories, in Liaoning to invest in the old city pformation industry...

In the second half of 2004, Xu Shuguang started business again and invested $20 million to set up GreenTree Inn Econo Hotel in China.

Since then, the US private equity fund has invested an additional US $60 million to expand the GreenTree Inn chain hotel. Currently, GreenTree Inn has 430 stores in the country, and the total market share and scale are sixth.

Xu Shuguang's valuable asset is not just from scratch, but has become the founder of many companies across different industries, and is still in good operation after the track of operation, and then invested in the next wave of entrepreneurship.

In his autobiography "I just like to start a business," he has repeatedly stressed that entrepreneurship is not a trick, but to prepare for the coming of opportunity with a down-to-earth attitude.

In mathematics, he believed in the possibility of doing something more likely to have more chances to succeed. He often did things of great probability, chose industries of great probability, and even named his sons and daughters.

And he attacked different industries, adhering to his own "risk diversification theory", instead of putting eggs in the same basket and creating profit points in every subdivision industry.

A few days ago, Xu Shuguang received an exclusive interview with "financial weekly" and shared his beautiful scenery from scratch.

Only do great things.

Money is definitely an index of material wealth, but I think a person's greatest wealth is his ability to control, manage and manipulate material wealth, which includes other aspects such as your sentiment, spiritual wealth and so on.

Financial Weekly: if you read math and financial background, will you be keen to make some financial investments?

Xu Shuguang: I have made some investments up to now, but basically I do not buy stocks.

I prefer the index fund. In the past 20 years, most funds fail to win the index fund.

But index funds are stupid. No need to analyze, it is difficult for anyone to predict the trend of public investment.

The most sensible aspect of China's stock market is irrationality. On the other hand, anyone who says he understands that is boasting.

Some of them are all deceived and deceived.

A person can be accurate for five or ten years in a row, but it does not mean that he can see correctly. It is just the base of luck and probability.

1000 people predicted that once every six months, they could be eliminated 10 times. After 5 years, there were ten people who were accurate.

Financial Weekly: many rich people tell me that wealth is only a figure for them, meaning is not much. What do you think?

Xu Shuguang: money is absolutely an index of material wealth, but I think a person's greatest wealth is his ability to control, manage and manipulate material wealth.

This includes your ability of sentiment, spiritual wealth and other aspects. I am working hard to achieve this level.

I often ask people around me to give you 10 billion dollars to stay on the moon. Do you agree?

In fact, a happy life, a valuable life, is a sense of happiness, dignity and honor brought about by communicating with friends and society. These are not simply measured in Renminbi or US dollars.

What kind of value can you bring to the people or society around you? They will give you some feedback.

I saw some people who had some money, inherited a bit of family wealth, played ball games, watched TV, and finally died silently. Can this life call wealth life?

This is called money life and material life. It is called wealth life.

Financial Weekly: after reading "I just like to start a business", I think your father has some decisive influence on your outlook on life and values.

Xu Shuguang: it must be like this when I was little.

The influence of family on you must be subtle, and to a great extent determines a person's life values.

Financial Weekly: what values did your father give you?

Xu Shuguang: there are several.

The first is that a person must be a valuable and respected person.

Or from Shandong's most native words, it means saving face.

The second is to always work hard and work hard.

Financial Weekly: I remember that there is a saying in your book that if you want to be respected, you need to look at your performance, not your money and relationship.

Xu Shuguang: to be more conventional, you should at least have some use for others.

I hope this is very positive, which will bring a lot of friends, bring a lot of relationships and resources.

Financial Weekly: another thing you have always followed is to do something of great probability.

Xu Shuguang: This is the probability and statistics of mathematics that I learned later. This has a great influence on me.

I am observing the success of an enterprise and an investment. What does it depend on?

Is it a one-off opportunity or a bit of accumulation?

This has led me to find that the vast majority of successful life, business and even the state come from hard work and accumulate over time, just like calculus.

Financial Weekly: but looking back at your life trajectory, I think you have done a lot of things that are not a big probability. For example, at the very beginning, you have already had a decent job in the national space lab, and then chose to go abroad. Is it risky?

Because the language was blocked and the future was uncertain.

Xu Shuguang: it wasn't risky at that time.

I was relatively short at that time, calculated the wages at that time, in 1984, 50 yuan a month, I heard that in the United States at that time, the family was $5 an hour.

It is worth while to calculate from probability.

The main reason is that overseas experts who came into contact with us at that time, their knowledge, their knowledge and their way of looking at problems attracted me.

Financial Weekly: is there any conflict between the probability of big business and the adventurous radical spirit that you need to start with?

Xu Shuguang: No.

If you do not take the risk of chance, it is a fool.

A wise man is the probability of accounting to calculate success. At least we must be sure of it. We call it the expected value.

Expected value = value x the probability of getting, usually we should often calculate this situation, and finally do some overall consideration.

On the whole, I am still doing the probability events, so I did not build hydrogen bombs to do high-tech industries. The resources I needed and what I learned from my original subjects were not enough for me to succeed.

Financial Weekly: so the industry you choose is a big probability industry?

Xu Shuguang: the industry that I choose is definitely a sunrise industry, and people will not wear clothes on the day. So I make clothes and make the consumer goods industry of clothing, food and shelter. I guess we should all need it in the future.

"I am the frog."

I slowly sink in, but from another angle, it is natural that it may be boiled to death, but it is not good enough to be cooked into a bowl of delicious frog soup.

Financial Weekly: you are the chairman of the eight companies. The industry between the two companies is not very related. Is this not afraid of risks?

Xu Shuguang: This is the index fund.

For me, all industries have similar management models.

These different industries, knowledge and experience are certainly not enough at the beginning, but to a certain extent, they also disperse risks.

Different regions, different industries, different products, to achieve the goal of not laying eggs in the same basket.

In addition, I have done all these companies because of friends' referral support and cooperation to bring opportunities to you.

If you become a useful friend to your neighbors, you must have a chance to cooperate. People will think of you first.

Financial Weekly: how are your company's achievements now?

Xu Shuguang: besides GreenTree Inn, they are pretty good.

Despite the financial crisis, many garment factories have gone bankrupt, but our performance has been much better than that of the previous year, because we are taking the management and quality.

Last time the general manager told me that AMC was in the top.

The company is mainly exporting, and its profits are still good.

Our real estate projects in China are also very good. The two real estate and hospitals in the United States are also very good, including profits during the financial crisis, and the profits are also very good.

Rehabilitation products company is working with Shanghai civil affairs group. The development of the rehabilitation company is not satisfactory, but overall it is good.

Financial Weekly: how about the performance of the index fund?

What is the rate of return on investment and profit growth every year?

Xu Shuguang: very good.

The profit growth of all enterprises will always exceed 15% a year, and some will be higher, except for GreenTree Inn.

GreenTree Inn is due to the establishment of brands, systems, personnel, costs are beginning to be relatively large, which is also predicted.

Coupled with the fierce competition in the Chinese hotel industry, input is the only way to produce output, and the cash flow to the company's profit growth is quite healthy.

The profit rate of chain hotels is much lower than that of real estate.

But it has long-term brand effect and profitability, and valuable human resources. These are intangible assets of GreenTree Inn.

Financial Weekly: you have already had a very good career in the US. You can basically rely on professional managers to retire. Why do you return to China, and when your family is still in the United States?

Xu Shuguang: This is a stupid decision, and it is not planned.

Originally planned for China's clothing and real estate as investment, and did not want to directly participate in management.

However, there are too few talents in the chain hotels, so we all have to make a low level circulation, so we need to make the service quality less dominant.

Financial Weekly: at that time, did not consider from the home, JinJiang Inn dig some people over?

Xu Shuguang: they are all groping for themselves. They are all sixty or seventy points. This is a rather annoying thing, so they slowly get stuck in it.

Do you remember the story of boiled frog in warm water?

I was the frog, and I slowly boiled it in.

But from another point of view, it is possible to be boiled to death, but it is not good enough to cook a delicious chicken soup.

Financial Weekly: do you have any complaints about your wife and children in the United States?

I heard you didn't go back last Christmas.

Xu Shuguang: I'm used to it.

Let's go with the flow and accept the reality. Then it's better to think of ways to change than to complain.

My children, family is still very understanding.

I also plan to train our management team as soon as possible and take more time to go back.

Financial Weekly: how much time is in China now and how much time is it in the US?

Xu Shuguang: 65%-70%'s time is in China.

Financial Weekly: in the main domestic busy GreenTree Inn thing?

Xu Shuguang: Yes.

Financial Weekly: I heard that you set up a direct selling platform for wine at the end of last year.

Xu Shuguang: Yes, I invite Wine Technology Co., Ltd. to make wine direct selling and production.

In California, we have a company specializing in the development and production of wine.

Due to the problems of ecological environment, water quality and atmosphere, there are more impurities and pollutants in domestic wine.

We want to make things that are cheap, good and value for money.

After three months, there are many repeat customers, because the relationship between distribution is still mainly the customers of the Yangtze River Delta.

Financial Weekly: do you add another burden?

Haven't you thought about lightening the burden?

Xu Shuguang: (laughs) there are many friends. People keep recommending you. There are several items on hand to start.

I hope that there will be a group of talented people around us, and I will increase the number of them and make them difficult to do in the early stage.

People recommend opportunities and opportunities to you. They can think highly of you and can do more. The most important thing for me now is to train talents and lighten my burden.

I think what we need to do is the strength of a team. It is much more fun to brainstorm than a person to fight alone, and the probability of success is also great.

This year the store plan has increased to 700.

We do not want to beat the drum and spread the flowers. First hand goes to the second hand. Second hand goes to the third hand. We hope that both the original shareholders and the new shareholders are responsible.

Financial Weekly: back to GreenTree Inn, why did you choose the Econo Hotel industry at the beginning? As you just said, since it's all sixty or seventy points, the competition is so fierce and the profit margin is not high. Why not pick a more easy industry?

Xu Shuguang: I didn't know at that time, it was stupid.

At that time, I felt that the domestic hotels were expensive and the services were poor. They spent 1500-2000 yuan a night, which was not worth it. So they said they wanted to make Traders Hotel.

In addition, I compare the brand chain of mass consumer goods.

That decision is going on.

Financial Weekly: when it entered 2004, how was the competition?

In the past five years, what changes has taken place in the location of GreenTree Inn hotels in China?

Xu Shuguang: when the GreenTree Inn was founded, only a few of them were doing: family, JinJiang Inn, Mo Tai, and speed 8.

Now the top six include home, JinJiang Inn, Motai, Hanting, seven days, and we haven't changed a lot.

Two of them are faster, because they borrowed a lot of money to make financing, one is seven days, the other is Hanting.

We have never done this.

Besides, from the perspective of growth proportion, the development of everyone is not so large.

Last year, our speed was higher than that of other families. The main reason is that we have done more work in the economic crisis, no layoffs, faster development and less competition.

I guess the new round of competition will come again.

To make the chain hotel have long vitality, the most important thing is whether your staff is well trained and whether your service quality is improved.

This is the fatal point for the growth and development of enterprises.

We hope GreenTree Inn can do well in this respect.

Financial Weekly: the top six brands are similar in quality of service. Is it more important to have advantages on scale?

Xu Shuguang: No, I think the quality of service is not exactly the same.

Brand is different, service quality and cost performance are different.

How to make the difference, otherwise it is to compete at low level, to fight big but not to compete.

We hope to make some achievements in this respect.

Financial Weekly: let's take an example.

Xu Shuguang: many business guests do not feel much about all kinds of Econo Hotel. They feel alike. This is our most distressing place at present. How to make guests feel at home and return to high places.

At this point, we have already reached some hotels.

In Tianjin and Shanghai, we are at the crossroads with our competitors. We have won in these places, and even one of them has been turned off.

This is the embodiment of vitality.

Financial Weekly: is the price advantage?

Xu Shuguang: No, it's about the quality of service.

The most important thing is whether the hotel's overall feeling of occupancy is a product or service that is worth the money.

Financial Weekly: how do you see the development of GreenTree Inn in 2009?

Xu Shuguang: very healthy. It is the best year in five years.

Our backbone force, management team after 3-4 years of study, with better and better, the human resources department has done more in training, and overall competitiveness has been greatly improved.

Besides, the number of hotels in our hotel is increasing.

Financial Weekly: what figures can be disclosed on the performance?

Xu Shuguang: because there is no listing, it is not convenient to say.

It can only be said that although 2009 is still affected by part of the financial crisis, it is much better than that in 2008.

Financial Weekly: how many stores will this year increase?

Xu Shuguang: it is estimated that it will increase to 700, and the business plan will be more than 400.

This is not an explosive growth. In the past, we grew almost 100% every year, because the base was low.

Financial Weekly: are there any plans to go public?

Xu Shuguang: we are considering this issue, mainly whether the amount of financing can be effectively utilized after listing.

Our own capital is relatively adequate, new financing and new shareholders, we do not want to drum up flowers, first hand to second-hand, second-hand to the third hand, we hope that no matter whether the original shareholders or new shareholders, are responsible attitude.

Financial Weekly: since its establishment to the present five years, has not introduced strategic investors?

Xu Shuguang: No.

This is mainly my investment partner in the US.