Dan Zhimin, China's Shoe Maker

"There is a fish in North Yin, and its name is Kun.

Kun is not known for thousands of miles, but it is turned into a bird. Its name is Peng.

Peng's back is not known for thousands of miles, but its wings are flying in the sky.

Peng's migration is in the southern Hades, and the water strikes three thousand miles, and the upper reaches ninety thousand li.

Qingtian County, Zhejiang Province, is famous for its exquisite stone carvings. According to Shi Bao, it began to manifest itself in the middle of the Ming Dynasty and boarded the chamber of scholars.

Qingtian people pride themselves on stone carving, and praise a modern poem.

...

Qingtian stone

In a world of love and entanglement

Once a blood cut is broken

Flowing out

It was a surprise to the whole world.

The ancient stone carving culture has endowed the people of Qingtian with a stone like persistence and a brand awareness of products.

Now, a landscape of modern industrial civilization in Qingtian -- "Er Kang" has once again won the "astonishment of the whole world".

The Qingtian County town, which is built on the water and living on the mountain, feels an atmosphere of blending ancient culture with modern civilization. The shoe factories on both sides of the street show a picture of industrial civilization. The most brilliant painting in the picture is the "Erkang" of the red scarlet letter or the red bottom white character.

In the county seat, as long as someone asks "Dan Zhimin", everyone refers to "Er Kang".

The CEO of Yi Kang shoes Group Co., Ltd., a private entrepreneur who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, has made shoes known as "shoes road". Executives call him "old cow", and the workers say he is "shoe idiot".

Dan Zhimin, fluffy casual hair, bright colored shirt, water mill blue jeans, and bold heroic Lu Hu SUV, remind people of the "SUN BOY" (sunshine boy) on the golden beach of the Pacific West Coast.

But his body condenses the magnified "Wenzhou spirit". It travels through thousands of mountains and rivers, goes through all kinds of hardships, talks about thousands of words, and tries to do everything possible.

It is Dan Zhimin's ideal of "achieving the goal" in his life career, the spirit of "old ox" cultivating, the obsessive devotion to his dedication, and let him roam in the struggle of more than 10 years from the "northern Yin Kun" to the "Great Wall of clouds hanging over the sky".

In 1984, 17 year old Dan Zhimin and two brothers came to the bridgehead of the neighboring village with 600 yuan of capital. This is the largest button manufacturing place in China.

Brothers, together with several bags of buttons, went up to Hebei to dig for their first pot of gold.

Dan Zhimin and his brothers rode bicycles and ran through every village and sold them to every door. They earned more than 3000 yuan in a few years.

With money, Shan Chi min and his brothers did not return to their homes, but instead put in the sales outlets.

In the spring of 1988, Dan Zhimin came to a shopping mall in Huaiyin, Jiangsu, and rented a small facade to sell buttons.

The hardship and pain of entrepreneurship is a compulsory exercise for any entrepreneur without any background and foundation, but only in content and form.

Setting up a $3000 button stall is much better than walking around the village.

However, the unique and unsatisfied nature of Wenzhou people, as well as the character of Shan Zhi min's love for thinking, good understanding and decisive work, made him resolutely withdraw from the button booth a year later, and began selling unfamiliar and investment shoes.

The rental counters sell leather shoes, and Dan Zhimin has dealings with shoes.

But he soon discovered that selling shoes is better than making shoes.

So he once again denied himself, putting the hard work of years of savings and about 100000 yuan of family joint ventures into the industry of shoe factories.

The dream of a 22 year old young man rises at the edge of Wenxi, a beautiful Qingtian county.

This choice made him have a "margin" with his leather shoes, and let him enter into a state of obsessed with "getting rid of people's withered clothes and widening his clothes."

In May 1992, "Qingtian colt leather shoes factory" was born.

It is called factory, in fact, there are only one manual press, three sewing machines and eight iron hammers.

The processing yard is a rented house.

Dan Zhimin led more than ten pure farmers in the young passion and career dream, and began the "shoe road" voyage.

At that time, there were more than 20000 large and small shoe factories in Wenzhou, and the shoe factory that started alone was just like other businesses in Wenzhou.

"Qingtian colt leather shoes factory" is the 4 family of Dan Zhimin family co operation, the start of business, shoe factory also did not get out of Wenzhou enterprises just started routines.

The product hits others' brand, makes the clothing for others, sells is also manages the special counter in the shopping mall.

Nevertheless, the shoe factory, under the careful management of the Dan Zhimin family, has made great strides in a year, selling more than 10000 pairs, second years and more than 100000 pairs in the first year.

"Struggle must go through the whole business and always have a sense of crisis."

The sense of crisis makes Dan Zhimin realize that "good" is given by others. The production and sale of enterprises are products of others, and their own fate is tied to "others".

In October 1992, "Qingtian Er Kang Shoes Co., Ltd." took the place of less than half a year's history of "Kangte".

"Er Kang" began to take off.

"Yi Kang" originated from the joint venture of Italy and the "well-off society" at that time.

"Long life road, step by step," gives the "Er Kang" more perfect and far-reaching connotation - "meaning your Kang Jian, meaning your Kangle, meaning your Corelle, meaning your Kangtai."

With its own brand, Dan Zhimin began to focus on the construction and improvement of "Er Kang" brand.

At the beginning of the "Yi Kang" brand creation, the market development plan to attack the city first came to Jiangsu, Huaiyin, which was the original place where Dan Zhimin had accumulated capital.

The first battle known as the Huaihai Campaign was Dan Zhimin's search for a market on the south of a bicycle.

The Huaihai Campaign has won a good start for the brand strategy of "Er Kang", and has also inspired Dan Zhimin and his marketing team.

In the next two years, with the help of Huaiyin's radiation, its products entered Suqian, Xuzhou, Yancheng, Lianyungang, Taizhou, Yangzhou, Nanjing, Changzhou and other places, and continued to win the battle. Dan Zhimin's brand dream took off.

After the brand was called, "Yi Kang" established the idea of "big input and large output", expanding business scale, improving production capacity, expanding market area and expanding main business.

In front of the choice of "first loans to build a factory, or to focus on capital and production", Dan Zhimin identified the former with greater risk.

1995 was the most critical year for Dan Zhimin to run factories. At that time, the market was generally weak, but he spent millions of dollars accumulated over the past few years to build factories.

When the "Er Kang building" was rising in the economic development zone of Qingtian's overseas Chinese hometown, Dan Zhimin also fell into a predicament.

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In December 26th, Shan Zhi min clearly remembered that day he went to the Bank of the company's Bank, but was refused.

During those days, Dan Zhimin spent every night in tossing and turning and unable to make any progress.

An opportunity has made the "Er Kang" a turning point.

In January 1996, a local office of a bank changed its new leader. He looked at the development trend of the company and looked at the reality and firmness of Dan Zhimin's career.

The money problem that needs to be solved is inspired by the opportunity, waving the "shoe tide" and winning the north and South millions of miles.

"Yi Kang" has embarked on the fast lane of development. Dan Zhimin's sense of crisis has not lighten up: there should be not only a good product to adapt to the market, but also a marketing mode to adapt to the brand development.

People with a sense of crisis are lucky.

In 1996, "Er Kang" was lucky to be hit by the opportunity.

In the early summer of that year, when Dan Zhimin was visiting the market in Shantou, Guangzhou, a pair of Taiwan shoes attracted all his attention. Inspired by this, single Chi min stepped up the independent development of new products.

A month later, his new product shoes were placed in the business street of Wenzhou's fumen business, which attracted a large number of orders at once, and the company immediately entered a busy production state.

One order after another is a kind of encouragement and a hope.

Since then, the business of "Yi Kang" has taken a big step every year, and every year there are new opportunities to hit the waist.

"Er Kang" is regarded as a "dark horse" of rapid expansion of brand by the industry.

As a labor-intensive industry, the consumer goods with low technological content are increasing as people's quality of life improves.

Therefore, there are thousands of shoe enterprises across the country, and brand competition has become the theme of shoe market competition.

Dan Zhimin's unique pragmatic and decisive character shows the entrepreneurial style of foresight and bold attack when opportunities come.

In the early stage of competition in the footwear industry market, the operation mechanism of the provincial agent system and franchised stores was implemented in a timely manner, making the product of "Er Kang" rapidly spread all over the country.

They moved north to Shandong, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and other places. At the same time, they went south and West, and the market expanded to Zhejiang, Guangdong, Hunan, Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Sichuan, Guizhou and Yunnan.

Since then, all the major cities and towns in the country have seen the franchise store under the "red card" of "Er Kang", and the brand influence has expanded rapidly.

"Facing all levels of distributors and consumers, enterprises should be smart, but not too smart."

Dan Zhimin bold decision: enterprises in the development of profits for a year to cultivate sales channels, brand efficiency, profits to all levels of dealers, strengthen dealer loyalty to the brand, create brand cohesion.

For good dealers and honest dealers, "Erkang" will give full support to supply, settlement and publicity, encourage dealers to become bigger and stronger, and adopt credit sale strategy and establish credit mechanism.

At the same time, it also encourages those who are unable to make bigger dealers because of lack of funds, and will use limited funds to quickly seize the market.

"Er Kang" spare no effort to support and cultivate terminal retailers.

Under the current homogenization of the marketing mix, "Erkang" breaks through the payment method, adopts the credit sale strategy, establishes the credit mechanism, strengthens the brand, makes the dealer profitable, and speaks to the customer credit, never breaks the trust in the dealer.

Dan Zhimin attached great importance to communication with terminal distributors. In June 2004, Dan Zhimin visited distributors in 49 counties and cities in 5 provinces of Zhejiang, Anhui, Henan, Hubei and Jiangxi, and the terminal sellers exchanged face-to-face contacts and contacts.

Dealers are delighted about the president's personal visit and guidance and support for his business. At the same time, they also put forward many feasible suggestions for the brand building and enterprise development of "Erkang".

The good relationship between "Erkang" and local distributors has been further consolidated.

So far, "Er Kang" has 35 provincial agents and more than 3000 terminal sales franchises, and Dan Zhimin's brand strategy has been a great success.

During this period, Erkang introduced modern production equipment on a large scale, began production flow production, and made internal management systematic, regular and scientific, and the product quality entered the advanced ranks of the same industry in China.

During the period, the products were awarded Lishui famous brand, Zhejiang famous brand, Zhejiang famous trademark, China genuine leather mark product, China genuine leather shoes, national inspection free products, China famous trademark and other honors.

To survive with quality, win customers by reputation and expand the market with brand, "Yi Kang" has been roving north and South East and guarding the West in the ROC's wings.

Faced with the gradual development of brand strategy and the momentum of rapid growth of the "Yi Kang" scale, Zhi Min, one of the most dangerous minds, is acutely aware of the fact that the brand must be promoted and the cause needs to be developed. The current mechanism of "Er Kang" can no longer meet the requirements of the rapid development of enterprises.

Dan Zhimin's sense of hardship prompted "Er Kang" to start a new business expansion.

In July 1999, we planned the sales area in a comprehensive way, implemented regional management and established a strong marketing service network.

In September 2000, a group company was set up to carry out intensive scale operation.

Zhejiang Qingtian Yi Er Kang Shoes Co., Ltd., Wenzhou Yi Kang Shoes Co., Ltd. and other six companies reorganized the establishment of the Yi Kang Footwear Group Co., Ltd.

In June 2002, the company launched an institutional reform and implemented the CEO system. Dan Zhimin himself was the president of the group company.

Since then, the company has entered a period of rapid development.

The brand strategy of creating "brand" and "famous brand" has been throughout the development of Shan Zhimin.

"Quality is the foundation of brand, brand is the foundation of industry."

In its operation, Dan Zhimin persisted in implementing the guiding ideology of "focusing on the quality of the brand, developing the famous brand", passing the high quality throughout all the links of the famous brand strategy, and constantly improving the design and development ability of the new product and the level of design and development.

The core of the brand is product quality. The brand includes advanced technology, excellent staff quality, reliable and thoughtful after-sale service, and also contains the discipline of "Er Kang" for more than 10 years.

"Er Kang" has formed a complete set of perfect quality management system with its own characteristics.

In 2002, ISO9001:2000 quality system certification was successfully passed so that quality control and management reached the international standard level.

It is important to enhance the quality consciousness of all staff and improve the quality of staff.

"Erkang" adopts a variety of methods to enhance staff's quality awareness and quality management education, and carry out long-term advanced concept training.

In order to improve the workers' production skills and their own quality, Dan Zhimin invested hundreds of thousands of yuan in the production workshop to carry out "5S" rectification and training. From Taiwan, professional training companies were invited to train employees in batches to improve their quality consciousness and work level.

At present, the frequency and scope of all products are higher than the national standard.

The qualified rate of finished product before sampling is 100%.

Product research and development is a "trump card" of "Yi Kang" brand expansion.

Dan Zhimin believes that if an enterprise does not have good self-development ability, it is only a production workshop at best. In the fierce market competition, it can only play a supporting role, and at any time it will be threatened by market turbulence.

In particular, footwear like this fashion consumer goods, the development and design of new products has become one of the core competitiveness of enterprises in an invincible position. Innovation is particularly important. The development of customer satisfaction products is the key to brand upgrading.

In the "Yi Kang", there is a high standard design and development team, and at the same time, through the "please come in, send out" way to continuously improve the overall quality of the designer.

Dan Zhimin introduced: "we should give full play to the advantages of Qingtian's overseas Chinese hometown, establish friendly and cooperative relations with Italy's famous footwear companies directly, and timely introduce world-class development equipment, technology and technology.

Every year, we take out 1.5% of gross profit for the design and development of new shoes, and set up a R & D center of more than 5000 square meters last year.

Over the past 10 years, Dan Zhimin has been focused on shoe production and brand management. The scale of production and economic benefits have been among the forefront of the industry in the country.

"Er Kang" has developed into one of the largest footwear industry groups in China.

"Do your business according to your will, and do your own business."

Qingtian's winged side of the Wenxi border is soaring up to ninety thousand miles, making waves of China's shoe industry cloud.

Finally, the development of "Er Kang" has ushered in the spring.