Chen Liwen: The Entrepreneurial Mind Of A Display Designer

Brief content: in fact, whether Chen Liwen's personal job as a display designer and her career as an exhibition designer, or the exhibition and display of her 998 display as a display design company in China are vivid samples of display design in the Chinese market in recent years.

Chen Liwen archives, 2005, founded the first professional exhibition design, training and consulting organization in China, Shenzhen nine nine eight commodity display consultant Co., Ltd., the founder of China commodity display prop network.

She devoted herself to visual merchandising and display design, and developed a series of training courses and teaching materials for display designers combining theory with practice.

Service industries: shopping malls, clothing, home textiles, department stores.

Service brand: Xinjiang friendship group, good news birds, Li Lang, Georges white, French, BT BOY, Anta, noble bird, nareth, Ya Ying, Tian en, San Ma Tian, Luo Lai home textile, mercury home textiles, Kasen home textiles, special fabric, Merrick cloth, BELLE shoes, SKAP, honey, rose, AOKANG, pop beauty, Chao Hong jewelry and so on.

Chen Liwen and exhibition design were established in 2002.

At that time, she was still working in a clothing company. A very accidental chance, she met a friend who could influence her life through friends.

It was a teacher from the Japanese culture and Clothing Institute, who was holding a publicity class for designer training in Shanghai.

In Chen Liwen's impression, she was impressed by a beautiful picture displayed by the teacher in the classroom, and what struck her most was the drape technology adopted by a group of men's clothing Chen Li Li in Switzerland.

"Because of the drape technology, the tie in the window is floating up and feels like it is flying."

Chen Li Wen said, in fact, she did not know what the display was at that time, and the idea was very simple. She thought the content of the teacher was very interesting, and the windows were beautiful.

At this point, Chen Liwen's clothing company has a terminal teacher in Taiwan.

The teacher looked at Chen Liwen's interest in the display, and told her about the development of the display design in Taiwan. Most importantly, he encouraged Chen Liwen, "if you are interested in this, you can develop in this direction."

So at the end of 2003, Chen Liwen embarked on the road of studying and designing in Japan when he did not know what to display.

In this way, Chen Liwen's life has changed dramatically since then, and everything she has done since then has revolved around the display design.

Chen Liwen, a persistent young man for the ideal and resolutely starting his own business, returned from studying display design in Japan in June 2004.

At that time, she was full of blood, and took a lot of her work to interview, thinking that she could do a lot of work.

The first company to interview her is a clothing company in Guangzhou.

The boss of the company looked at all the pictures of her work carefully, but unexpectedly she threw her a sentence: "you are not practical for me."

The first time she ran into a wall, it made Chen Liwen feel disconsolate, and felt a little bit sudden at the same time. Because what she thought in her mind was, "these things are very mature in foreign countries. They are used everywhere in Japan. Why do Chinese enterprises feel unpractical?"

And when 3~5 companies continue to look for the same business, and have the same experience as the first enterprise, Chen Liwen began to soberly realize that at that stage, she could not find a job.

So, after that, Chen Liwen began to curve employment and became a training manager of an enterprise.

But in that position, she felt that she was getting farther and farther away from her profession.

By June 2005, Chen Liwen, who had always been dreaming of display design, was no longer able to bear the frustration of his ambition.

She was determined that she could not go on like this.

At that moment, a concept flashed through her mind, so she made a bold decision: since no company could make her realize her dream, she started her own business.

Do what you say.

After more than half a year's preparation, in January 2006, Shenzhen nine nine eight commodity display Consultants Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the 998 display) was officially launched by Chen Liwen.

Since then, she has embarked on a pioneering career for the girl who realizes her ideal, and has embarked on a butterfly changing road from simple display designer to business operation and display design.

Who knows, the road to entrepreneurship is arduous.

In the first year, 998 of the 10 employees were displayed, and the list was only 300 thousand yuan, and the cost of the whole company was about 1000000 yuan.

Moreover, as the company has just been established, Chen Liwen's experience in management is still relatively lacking, and the mobility of employees is relatively large.

This made Chen Liwen feel tortured.

Reporter: the first year is so difficult. Did you waver at the end of the year?

Chen Liwen: not wavering.

Because I firmly believe that there will be a market in the future, and one day it will break out in the Chinese market.

By then, my chance would have come.

Now that I have entered the industry, I must insist.

Any industry, the first to enter the people and enterprises, must pay a certain price.

This is a must.

Reporter: in 2007, in the second year, how big was the company's business?

Chen Li Wen: in 2007, the operation of the 998 display was much better than that in the first year.

Terminal training business has also increased on the basis of maintaining the original turnover. Meanwhile, the turnover of display business has begun to grow, but it still stays at hundreds of thousands.

But now, I feel much better.

Reporter: a young girl is very difficult to start her own business, especially if you specializes in the field of art, so it is even more difficult.

Chen Liwen: (sighing) it's really not easy for me to get to this day, but I just want to rub it in.

After all kinds of tests, Chen Liwen accumulated a set of management experience that suits him.

She streamlined all her work and implemented a performance appraisal system based on the grading system and the work score system. This kind of assessment has been specifically linked to the work objectives and contents of each job and is directly linked to the salaries of employees.

Chen Liwen was surprised to find that after performing a performance assessment, she became more relaxed.

"When I made this system, I read a lot of books, and I joined some of the actual situation of the company.

I think I have used a management mode that suits my company.

I'm going to look at their work and concentrate on the display design.

The core business of Chen Bosheng 998, which is constantly mature in the wind and rain, is to provide a series of display related services for the brand, including brand shop display design, display props design and sales, display designer training, brand visual image consulting service and so on.

For example, if you serve the brand store, it will provide six seasons of window design, store goods placement, and even display props design.

If the brand requirements are high and they want to start serving from space design, then the 998 display will also combine professional space design companies to provide the design of the brand from the source and continue to implement the terminal.

Chen Liwen pointed out: "we advocate that every brand should find its unique visual image, then find the visual elements to express, and finally show it at the terminal.

Display design should be done first, space design is very important, it is the source of the entire display design, and then it will be related to display techniques.

With the development of the 998 display, Chen Liwen's management ideas are also widening.

Starting in July 2007, 998 was launched to provide all kinds of intellectual services for enterprises, and began linking entity sales.

Chen Liwen set up a separate company to carry out display props sales.

Chen Liwen pointed out: "in the exchange with peers at home and abroad, I find that the largest display and sales company in the world is the display design company, which has strengthened my confidence in developing the business of linking display props, because only display and design companies can provide a more professional selection and combination of props.

Moreover, the industry has also added a new profit growth point for the 998 display. "

According to the introduction, 998 display props have been sold this year.

In the next three years, the 998 enterprise development plan is to turn the operation of enterprises to the track of "combining the creativity and wisdom with the" virtual reality "of props.

Chen Liwen also decided to set up the "China commodity display prop network", which is called "Qiao Qiao net".

On this website, there are nearly two thousand pictures of display props, which are divided into models, wigs, shelves, clothes hangers, general merchandise props, and Chen's tools.

The brand can be ordered online according to the needs of the enterprise.

Besides, when choosing the props, Qiao Qiao net will also provide pictures of the props and products in the shop, and give the most professional display guidance for the brand of the ordering props.

For all this, Chen Liwen's analysis is: "this is to better implement the brand strategy of the 998 display.

At present, there are more and more companies in the exhibition industry, and 998 display must constantly enhance brand influence in order to win a larger market.

At the same time, 998 display also hopes that through the creation of multiple platforms, the brand will pay more and more attention to display design, thus promoting the development of the display industry.

It can be found that as an enterprise operator, Chen Liwen's management ideas are becoming clearer with the accumulation of experience.

In fact, supporting Chen Liwen can be adapted to being an enterprise boss and a good display designer, as well as her constant learning.

Yes, she has to keep learning.

She needs to learn all kinds of knowledge related to business management.

Chen Liwen is a "newspaper class".

She is a regular member of a relatively large training company in the southern region.

Every year, the company will offer a large number of courses such as marketing, finance, strategic management, human resource management, planning, advertising planning and so on.

Whenever there is time, Chen Liwen will attend the class, and at least take the time to listen to it once a month.

Many of her management inspirations came out of the classroom.

Chen Liwen needs to learn more about his display design.

Every two years in January and June and July, she must go abroad.

She will go to France, Italy, Switzerland and other countries in Europe, and also go to Japan and Korea.

Not only did she go there, she also led other related professionals in the company.

In those countries, she saw a lot of local brand display props, window design, storefront design and display related learning materials.

"Every time I go abroad is not a game for me, but a war.

I've been to France two times, but I haven't even seen Palace of Versailles.

I have never seen any tourist attractions in foreign cities I visited.

I always take a camera and go back and forth on the commercial street there. I watch shops in the daytime and make window displays in the evening.

Sometimes it's very cold in the evening, but the cold hands keep shaking.

Finally, I took thousands of shots in the window, and I wanted to vomit.

Every day of going abroad is like this, from morning till night, there is no rest time at all.

Therefore, every time I go abroad for more than ten hours on the plane, I will go to sleep. "

Chen Liwen said a lot in one breath.

At this time, she suddenly smiled happily. "I think, when the display is growing in the Chinese market, I must give myself a holiday every year.

I have to go for a tour instead of going to work.

It seems that dreams are easy to make people happy even if they just think about it.

When reporters asked about the experience of this road, Chen Liwen summarized the four words of "ups and downs". She said that starting a business requires a mental journey, and she needs to explore in practice.

And in this storm, Chen Liwen became more and more mature as a business operator.

There is another important content for Chen teacher 998 to display the service provided by the brand, that is, the exhibition designer training class.

The first phase of the display designer training course was held in June 2006.

The participants in the training class are mainly responsible for the display and design of all brands.

Chen Liwen opened a comprehensive training course, enrolled 14 students, and trained for 8 days. The training contents involved display color, display structure, visual merchandising, window design, display management and implementation.

After the first training session, the trainees generally reflected that the content they taught was very practical.

This group of students later became the backbone of the display business in enterprises.

Moreover, they have maintained close ties with the 998 display since then.

Until now, they often passed the design drawings to them.