Ding Jiantong'S Road To Success

　　 "Suona Atong"

Ding Jiantong has never been to school, but he is dexterous, diligent and proficient in various crafts. In addition to playing the suona and playing the erhu, Ding Jiantong was able to draw shoes as a designer at the beginning of his business and occasionally helped drive a forklift in the factory.

Now, many first generation entrepreneurs like him have gradually retired from the background to enjoy leisure, but Ding Jiantong, who is 71 years old, believes that work is his enjoyment.

Although we are busy every day, it is not hard compared with 30 years ago, Ding Jiantong believes.

In 1981, the reform and opening up had just begun. Ding Jiantong, like the local people, depended on farming and fishing for a living. None of his four children had ever studied, so they were sent to the nearby shoe factory to become apprentices and shoes. Ding Jiantong said that some children can make soles, some can make samples, and some can make uppers. All of them add up to a complete set of shoe making processes? He suddenly had an idea that he would open a shoe factory and bring all the children back to work.

He borrowed 2000 yuan from his relatives and friends to start his own business. Ding Jiantong set up a small factory at home to produce shoes. The employees are his four children.

At the beginning, the Ding family produced 5 pairs every day leather shoes 。 Ding Jiantong rides his bicycle every day to sell shoes produced at home in busy areas such as Quanzhou and Shishi. Each pair sells at 20 yuan, which was already a good non business income at that time.

Ding Jiantong also formed the habit of observing the shoes of pedestrians on the street. He even often follows others for two kilometers. When he comes home at night, he can draw the shoes and do the same the next day. In those years, Ding Jiantong drew thousands of shoe pictures as shoe samples.

In order to increase production efficiency, Ding Jiantong introduced Taiwan's shoemaking machines to produce sports shoes and casual shoes in 1986. Ding Jiantong, who is used to manual production, was impressed by the function of the shoemaking machine. He said: "As long as the shoemaking materials are put in, they will come out with a pair of finished shoes, which is too powerful." After several years of cross-strait exchanges, Ding Jiantong often went to Taiwan to investigate and learn shoemaking technology in person.

So the shoe factory began to make money quickly.

Even so, Ding Jiantong still kept the original farmer's character and clothes, but this also let him escape a disaster. Late one night in 1985, several gangsters broke into the shoe factory, held a gun to Ding Jiantong's head, and cut him on the arm with a knife, asking him to hand over 300000 yuan.

Ding Jiantong slowly took out 30 cents a pack of cheap cigarettes and a handful of change from his pocket, and said to the gangster, "I'm just a doorkeeper. Boss Ding has already left work." The robber believed that and let Ding Jiantong go. Later, after the robber was arrested by the police, he knew he had been cheated.

　　 From "Buick" to "361 °"

Around 1985, "tourist shoes" became popular in the mainland of China. Ding Jiantong took the opportunity to introduce a one-step shoe making equipment. Because of the good market in Northeast China at that time, this "tourist shoes" brought Ding Jiantong huge profits. In his words, "At least one car is transported to Northeast China every day."

With the development of the domestic market, people began to be enthusiastic about new sports shoes, so from 1989, Ding Jiantong turned to making sports shoes.

After working on sneakers for several years, Ding Jiantong began to have a vague sense of brand. He invited several people in his family to discuss the brand and trademark. At that time, everyone sat together and saw the logo of Buick "Bullet" and thought it was "beautiful", so they went to the industry and commerce department and successfully registered it. In 1994, Ding Jiantong led his family to establish Buick (Fujian) Shoes Co., Ltd.

In 1996, General Motors of the United States, which wanted to enter the Chinese market, was surprised to find that there were few Buicks in China, but there were "Buick" sports shoes everywhere. In the following years, it was inevitable that there was a dispute between Buick cars in the United States and Buick sports shoes in China.

In 2003, the Administration for Industry and Commerce proposed to let Ding Jiantong change his brand. "The original 'Buick' has the same name as the GM brand. If there are two 'Buicks' in the Chinese market at the same time, foreign investors may not come to invest, which may affect the country's investment policy, so the relevant national departments will mobilize us to retreat." Ding Jiantong said, "In 2004,' Buick 'was officially renamed' 361 ° '."

There is no compensation for this "concession".

Ding Jiantong's Buick Group had to change its brand at this time, which made the whole Ding family feel helpless. After 20 years of hard work, the little brothers around Ding Jiantong have achieved success, but their own brand has to start from scratch, which is really unacceptable. But as an entrepreneur, the only thing he has to think about is how to solve problems.

"Buick and 361 ° were used together in 2004, and they were officially replaced in 2005. This requires a transition, so that consumers have a process of acceptance," Ding Jiantong said.

Ding Jiantong explained that the reason why it was renamed as 361 ° was to take yesterday's brilliant record as a new starting point.

After a 360 ° turn, there is still 1 ° left for you to challenge and surpass again, Ding Jiantong said.

Moreover, the name 361 ° is easy to remember, and also very aptly expresses Ding Jiantong's innovative concept and pursuit of moving towards a new brand.

Generally speaking, any enterprise will be overwhelmed if it has to change its brand, but 361 ° has given the industry a big surprise.

The name change did not reduce the sales of 361 °, but increased more than the previous year. Consumers quickly accepted the new name 361 °.

From 2003 to 2004, from "Buick" to "361 °", 361 ° Sports Goods Co., Ltd. experienced the biggest change in its history.

　　 Let "361 °" power

This change is not only a brief visual update of the brand, but also means the construction of a new stage for enterprise brand development in a deep sense.

From shoe companies to sporting goods companies, from product simplicity to product serialization, from hundreds of sales outlets to more than 3000 franchised networks, from single store management of fragmented terminals to system upgrade of franchised systems... All of these, 361 ° has completed its energy leap as a strong brand in less than a year, This is the first among domestic peers.

After the name change, Ding Jiantong implemented a comprehensive management upgrade in the aspects of monopoly image, commodity display, terminal promotion, tour guide service, commodity management, etc. during the terminal operation and management of the 361 ° brand.

The 361 ° Regional Marketing Summit in June and July 2004 pushed the rectification of market terminal management to a climax. Ding Jiantong has also adopted the method of subsidy to help dealers make profits, so that franchise stores joining 361 ° have sprung up like mushrooms, greatly improving the overall image of the brand and the quality of the franchise.

After that, the development of 361 ° began to enter the fast lane under the leadership of Ding Jiantong.

The development of 361 ° is twice the 30% average growth rate of the industry. At the same time, the share of 361 ° in the domestic market has increased from 8% to 10% in the Buick era to 11% later, which is close to the average market share of several major sports shoes brands.

"The three northeastern provinces are our world, accounting for nearly 20%." Ding Jiantong Say.

In less than seven years, with Ding Jiantong's efforts, 361 ° has grown from a family enterprise to a listed company, from a workshop factory to a large enterprise with 6000 employees in its headquarters, 6500 end stores nationwide, and an annual sales volume of more than 4 billion yuan, and from a little fame to a well-known first-line brand of national sports clothing.

After years of wandering in the business world, Ding Jiantong always believes that product quality is the most important.

In 1985, the "fake medicine case" of Chendai Hankou Village in Jinjiang made Jinjiang people suffer a huge psychological setback. Not long after that, Jinjiang's "weekshoes" are also famous throughout the country, and quality problems will destroy a brand.

Ding Jiantong said that before shoes were made, everyone was still a farmer, mainly working on land. No one knew how to make shoes, and everyone learned to do so. The main problem with "weekshoes" is glue. Leather shoes have glue for leather shoes, and plastic shoes have plastic glue, but farmers do not understand. As long as it is glue, they apply it on shoes. Ding Jiantong has suffered a lot, but since then he has also learned the truth of "prefer less money to better quality".

Today, quality is the biggest cost of 361 ° among the numerous shoe brands in China. Ding Jiantong said: "For many years, I have been asking the company to publish its quality service standards realistically, consciously accept the supervision of consumers, and require employees to unconditionally return all products with quality problems such as degumming, peeling, bottoming, deformation, etc. Although many of the returned products are counterfeit products, we consider that consumers bought counterfeit products by mistake because they trust us, so we have The responsibility is to compensate consumers for their losses. "

　　 "Invisible gold medal"

"More creativity." Ding Jiantong has always pursued this goal.

In fact, unlike some other brands, Ding Jiantong doesn't like to be endorsed by entertainment stars. He said that if the country wants to make progress, it is more important to sponsor people who win honor and make contributions to the country. Only athletes and space heroes who win glory for the country and bring the country a progressive image are meaningful!

"At the beginning, we didn't hire (athletes) As a spokesperson, more specifically, it is sponsorship. They didn't have funds, so we set aside some money to sponsor them. Later, they became friends and brothers, and the two sides didn't care much about it. Therefore, we began to cooperate with the Chinese National Badminton Team in the form of sponsorship, rather than signing a contract with a general brand spokesperson. We are very frank with Li Yongbo, the head coach of the badminton team, and Li Yongbo is also very loyal, so we can continue to cooperate like brothers until now. " Ding Jiantong said.

For the London Olympics, 361 ° and CCTV jointly launched the "361 ° London Action" Olympic special program. As the ratings of this program, which focuses on the Olympic Games, sports, tourism and exploration, are rising, the 361 ° brand image has also reached thousands of households.

In addition to providing a full set of reporting equipment for the media Olympic reporting team, 361 ° has also developed a pyramid style London Olympic brand plan: the top of the tower has won the Olympic gold medal of Chinese men's swimmer Sun Yang, while the tower is to provide national teams such as the Chinese cycling team with uniforms, At the bottom is the match appearance clothes for the delegations of North Korea and other countries that attract the audience's attention. In addition, 361 ° also launched a "national press corps" activity through the Internet to attract "grassroots journalists" to join the Olympic reporting group.

When Yan Runzhe, a 56kg weightlifting champion from North Korea, stepped onto the podium wearing 361 ° sportswear shyly, at that moment, the Chinese brand was the "invisible champion" in the Olympic field, winning the world's attention for China as well.

"In the past, the mode of cultivating brands by a large amount of advertising has gradually transited to the stage of focusing on management, channels and internal skills." In the view of Wang Zhijian, the chairman of Beijing Century Runhua Advertising Co., Ltd., 361 °, the marketing method of intervening in the London Olympic Games, reflects the new needs of the enterprise in the new development stage.

Today's 361 ° has gradually stepped onto the rising channel of brand development. It is said that Ding Jiantong now has more than a dozen apprentices who play the suona, and will play the erhu and the suona with his former playmates in his spare time to review the past. There is no rich Ding Jiantong, only "Suona Atong".