Laoganma
Founded in 1984, Ms. Tao Huabi relied on her unique frying technology to launch a unique food seasoning-flavored tempeh, which delighted customers. , talk about it with relish.
After mass production in 1996, flavored tempeh quickly became a sales hotspot across the country, and people realized that a popular condiment was about to emerge.
Development In 1996, "Guiyang Nanming Laoganma Flavor Food Co., Ltd." was established, and the product was named "Laoganma". Under the leadership of the founder of the company, Ms. Tao Huabi, more than 300 "Laoganma" employees adhere to the corporate spirit of "integrity-based, pragmatic and enterprising", constantly improve internal management and infrastructure construction, innovate in technological transformation, and establish equipment A complete inspection laboratory has installed a mechanized assembly line integrating bottle washing, sterilization, filling and capping, realizing the transformation from manual operation to mechanized processing; based on market demand, we actively develop new products, and have developed flavored oil chili. , fresh minced beef with black bean sauce, flavored bean curd and more than 10 varieties.
Today, "Laoganma" has more than 1,000 employees, produces 430,000 bottles of chili products daily, and has an annual output value of nearly 50 million US dollars. It has established a sales network in 65 cities across the country, and its products have been exported to the United States, Australia, and Canada. , New Zealand and other more than 30 countries and regions, "Laoganma" has developed into a nationally renowned enterprise and a leading enterprise in the production and sales of chili products. "Laoganma", originally a Guizhou specialty condiment, has become synonymous with flavored chili seasoning products and a must-have for many consumers across the country and the world to accompany meals and cook.
Tomorrow, we will develop high value-added pepper series and create an "aircraft carrier" for the pepper processing industry.
A rural woman who had never been to school for a day and could only write her own name actually built a large private enterprise from scratch in just 6 years with assets of 1.3 billion yuan! This is absolutely true and not sensational fake news!
The rural woman who created this real fairy tale is named Tao Huabi, and she is 51 years old this year. Many people may not know her name alone, but when it comes to her "Lao Gan Ma Spicy Sauce", everyone is familiar with it. Tao Huabi is the chairman of Guiyang Nanming Laoganma Flavor Food Co., Ltd.
How did this rural "old godmother" who couldn't even read documents establish and manage this large enterprise with more than 1,300 employees? Recently, reporters made a special trip to Guiyang to interview "Lao Ganma" and learned about her legendary "entrepreneurial trick"...
Entrepreneurship "trick": work hard! Work hard! Work hard and work hard yourself
The name of "Lao Ganma" is Tao Huabi. She is 51 years old and was born in a remote mountain village in Meitan County, Guizhou Province. Due to poverty in her family, Tao Huabi never read a day from childhood to adulthood. When she was 20 years old, she married a member of the 206 Geological Team; but within a few years, her husband died of illness and left her and their two children behind. In order to survive, she had to work and run a street vendor.
In 1989, Tao Huabi used the little money she saved through frugality to build a simple "affordable restaurant" with bricks picked up from everywhere on a street in Longdongbao, Nanming District, Guiyang City. Specializing in jelly and cold noodles. She had not read a book for a day, so she relied on simple ideas to figure out how to run the business. In order to win customers, she thought hard and came up with a unique "unique idea" that others did not have: others just added some pepper, MSG, soy sauce and green onions, but she specially made spicy sauce specifically for mixing jelly. Once this idea was implemented, business was indeed booming. Occasionally one day, Tao Huabi did not prepare spicy sauce. Customers turned around and left when they heard that there was no spicy sauce. She couldn't help but feel very confused: Could it be that the customers who come to my place don't like to eat jelly, but like to eat the spicy sauce I make? !
Astute as she was, she immediately spotted the potential of spicy sauce, and has been studying it painstakingly ever since... After several years of repeated trial production, the flavor of the spicy sauce she made has become even more unique.
After eating the jelly, many customers have to pay for some spicy sauce to take back. Some even don't eat jelly but come here to buy her spicy sauce. She couldn't help but beam with joy: So many people love my spicy sauce, why should I sell jelly? Why not specialize in spicy sauce!
In July 1996, Tao Huabi borrowed two houses in Yunguan Village Committee, Nanming District, recruited 40 workers, and set up a food processing factory, specializing in the production of spicy sauce, named "Laoganma" Spicy sauce”. After she became the boss, she knew that running the factory well required management, but she couldn't read a word, so how could she manage it? After some hard thinking, she identified a "management trick", which is: I do all the hard work myself, so the workers can follow suit. Are you still afraid of something wrong?
The hot-tempered Tao Huabi said so and did just that, doing everything personally. Production at that time was all done manually, and the droplets splashed when pounding and chopping peppers made people's eyes burst into tears, and workers were unwilling to do this work. Tao Huabi took matters into her own hands. She waved a kitchen knife in one hand and kept saying: "I cut the peppers as if they were apples, and it doesn't hurt my eyes at all." After hearing this, the employees laughed and picked up the peppers one after another. During that time, Tao Huabi took the lead and worked hard, but she was so tired that she suffered from frozen shoulder. The nails on all 10 fingers were all calcified from stirring the spicy sauce. She is the boss who works so hard, will the workers still spare their efforts?
However, after a large amount of spicy sauce was produced, local jelly shops could not digest it at all. Tao Huabi personally carried the spicy sauce and sent it to various food stores and unit canteens for trial sales. Unexpectedly, this stupid method works really well. Within a week, those test marketers called her and asked her to double the delivery... As a result, her "Laoganma Spicy Sauce" quickly established a firm foothold in Guiyang City. At this time, the shrewd Tao Huabi thought to herself: I have tried out the deep and shallow waters, what do I, the "Lao Ganma", have to fear? Isn’t the old saying about “strike while the iron is hot”? Simply, I can expand the scale and turn the factory into a company!
In August 1997, "Guiyang Nanming Laoganma Flavor Food Co., Ltd." was officially launched, and the number of workers suddenly expanded to more than 200. After the small factory expands into a company, everything must be on track. The "internal organs" such as production, supply and marketing must be complete. She must personally review various financial and personnel reports. She must also attend to many external affairs such as industry and commerce, taxation, and urban management. Relevant government departments often issued documents requiring her to implement them... All of this made Tao Huabi, who couldn't read a word, find it really difficult at first!
However, her character is just not afraid of difficulties. She couldn't understand things like financial statements at all, so she worked hard to practice her memory and mental arithmetic skills, and then asked the financial staff to read them to her; when she fell asleep while listening, she drank strong tea that was so bitter that her tongue was numb... ...In the end, she worked hard to develop a memory and mental arithmetic ability that surpassed that of ordinary people. Every time the statistics table came out and the financial staff read it to her, she could actually remember it after listening to it once or twice and distinguish right from wrong.
The most troublesome thing for her is that she often has to attend various meetings held by government departments, and she also has to speak on stage... For her who is uneducated, it is simply a rush to get on the shelves! Helpless, she had no choice but to ask someone to help her. Unexpectedly, Li Guishan, the eldest son who had transferred from the army to work in the 206 Geological Team Automobile Team, took the initiative to resign and came to her company after learning about her difficulties.
The first thing Li Guishan, who has a high school education, helped her do was process documents. He reads and she listens. When she heard something important, she would suddenly stand up, point to the document and say: "This is very important, write it down with a pen and do it immediately." Then, she would draw a circle in the upper right corner of the document that Li Guishan pointed out and needed her signature. Li Guishan looked at the circle and couldn't laugh or cry. He wrote the three characters "Tao Huabi" on the paper and asked his mother to practice when she had nothing to do. Unexpectedly, Tao Huabi looked at these three words again and again, shook her head, and sighed in embarrassment: "These three words are very complicated, very complicated!" Despite this, she still took out the " "Strength" and practice hard. But when she really practiced calligraphy, she found it more difficult than chopping peppers as she had never been to school.
But in order to write her name well, she worked hard and practiced for three days! When she finally finished writing her name, she was so happy that she invited all the company employees to an extra meal!
“Work hard! Work hard!” This is Tao Huabi’s first “trick” to get started. It was by relying on this hard work that she completed her "primitive accumulation".
The internal "trick": True! True feelings! So true that employees can't bear to betray them
Nothing can be done without rules. After the eldest son Li Guishan joined, Tao Huabi also wanted to establish rules and regulations for the company. Other companies have formulated many rules and regulations to restrain employees from being passive and cutting corners, and to prevent employees from being disloyal to the company. But Tao Huabi knew very well that she and her eldest son would not be able to create so many "high-end gadgets" with their limited education. However, in terms of internal management, she also has her own unique "trick": implementing family-friendly management! That is to say, "emotional investment" in employees from beginning to end, telling the truth, so that every employee feels that if he does not work hard, he will be sorry for him, and if an employee betrays her, he will be scolded by other employees!
When Li Guishan was first asked to formulate her own "local policy," she regarded "empathy" as the most basic element. For example: when formulating employee benefits, considering that the company is located in a remote location, has inconvenient transportation, and makes it difficult for employees to eat, she decided that all employees would be provided with food and accommodation by the company... When the company later grew to more than 1,300 people, this rule still remained. Not abolished. Such a huge enterprise has always provided food and accommodation for all employees. Who dares to think about it, and who dares to do it? However, Tao Huabi persisted no matter how much money she spent.
There is a chef in the company who comes from a rural area. His parents died early and he has two young brothers at home. However, he likes to drink and smoke. He spends almost all of his monthly salary of more than 1,000 yuan. Tao Huabi was very worried after learning about this situation. One day after get off work, she specially invited the chef to the hotel for a drink and said to him: "Son, you can drink whatever you want today, and drink as much as you want. But, starting from tomorrow, you have to stop drinking and quit smoking." . Because if you want your two younger brothers to go to school, they must not be illiterate like me." The chef was deeply moved after hearing these thoughtful words and immediately offered to quit drinking and smoking. But Tao Huabi was still worried. She only asked him to keep 200 yuan as pocket money every month, and she would keep the rest for him. Whenever his brother needed money for school, he would draw it from her.
Who is the boss of a large company and can manage finances for an ordinary wage earner like her? Who can care about every employee in such a subtle way? Although uneducated, Tao Huabi understands this truth: helping one person will move a group of people; caring for a group of people will definitely move the entire group.
There is a custom of eating dog meat during the Chinese New Year in Guizhou, so she built a dog farm and kept more than 80 dogs for many years. Every winter solstice and Spring Festival, the dogs were killed for the whole company's dinner. The company now has more than 1,300 employees, and she can actually name 60 people and remember the birthdays of many of them. When every employee's birthday comes, they receive a gift from her and a bowl of longevity noodles plus two. Poached eggs; when every employee gets married, she must personally be the witness; whenever employees go on a business trip, she always cooks a few eggs for them like an old mother sending her children on a long journey, and sends them to the factory. At the door, they didn't turn around until they got on the bus...
This kind of family-like "emotional investment" really gave the "Lao Ganma" company a strong cohesion. In the minds of employees, Tao Huabi is as amiable and respectable as their mother; in the company, no one calls her chairman, they all call her "Lao Ganma", and very few people are willing to leave; even if some people for some reason I left, and once I experienced the lack of "human touch" management elsewhere, I wanted to come back.
Once, a male employee had a very unhappy job in another unit after he left. He couldn't help but miss his "old godmother", but he was too embarrassed to see her directly, so he had to ask someone to tell him that he wanted to come back.
When Tao Huabi heard this, she said: "I have been thinking about him too! The little swallow in "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" is gone, and her emperor is so worried about her, and so am I! Tell him and let him I would like to tell everyone who has left Lao Gan Ma: If they are not doing well outside, they can come back. How can a mother find her child ugly? ”
True love, let Tao Huabi own it in her own company. With the charisma of "a real mother", the employees of the company became united and worked hard for the rapid development of "Lao Gan Ma Spicy Sauce"... In only 3 and a half years, the "Lao Gan Ma" company By the end of 2000, it had rapidly grown to more than 1,200 people, with an output value of nearly 300 million yuan and a national tax of 43.15 million yuan.
External "trick": Sincerity! Integrity! So sincere that others cannot bear to deceive.
After the company developed to this level, Tao Huabi gradually felt that the external sales of products had become a big problem. However, she doesn’t understand marketing strategies or advertising planning, and she doesn’t even use business cards. How can she open up the market and win new customers?
Tao Huabi knows her disadvantages, but she also firmly believes that: all roads lead to Rome! As long as she finds a way, she can still do big business. But what earthly method should be used? By analyzing the success of internal management, she felt that when dealing with people both internally and externally, you have to be emotional. Internally, this feeling should be reflected in the word "truth"; externally, this feeling should probably be reflected in the word "sincerity". As long as you make money, you also make sure that others make money; you don't deceive people, don't lie to people, and more people are willing to do business with you, and you can do well in sales. So, she held a special operation and management meeting and said to the employees: "They say there is no business without treachery, but I just don't believe it. I just want to say, 'I would rather everyone fail me, but I will never fail my customers!' Please keep this in mind." , stand on the basis of honest management and win in the market competition!”
In 2001, a glass product factory provided 800 pieces (32 bottles each) of sauce bottles to the "Laoganma" company. Unexpectedly, as soon as the company put the spicy sauce on the market, some customers reported: "Some bottles were not tightly sealed, and oil leaked out." Unfortunately, some rival companies somehow found out about this very quickly, and immediately Use this matter to attack "Lao Ganma". Tao Huabi took it very seriously after learning about it and asked relevant departments to investigate and deal with it quickly. Some managers suggested to her: "Maybe some bottles are not tightly sealed. Just recover this batch of goods and re-seal them. Otherwise, the loss will be too great. This is 800 pieces of goods!" Tao Huabi said firmly: " No! This is related to the company's reputation! Send people to various places to recover this batch of goods and destroy them all in public. No matter how big the loss is, it is not as big as breaking trust in the market. "The result is like this! Although this practice caused huge losses to the company, it allowed people to see the "Laoganma"'s determination to adhere to quality, and a bad thing turned into a good thing.
It was at the beginning of 2001 that a seller in Guangzhou set the annual sales target of "Laoganma Spicy Sauce" to 30 million yuan. Tao Huabi felt that this goal was too high and difficult to achieve, so she said half-jokingly: "If you really achieve this goal, I will reward you with a car at the end of the year!" The seller didn't take it seriously. He knew that Tao Huabi was very frugal - —She has become such a big boss, but she has never even been able to afford a car. When she goes out to do errands, she usually takes a bus or a minibus. Even when she goes to the tax office to pay taxes, she always carries two steamed buns as Chinese food in her pocket and sits there. How could she be willing to give up an outsider's car when driving back and forth in a farm vehicle? But by the end of the year, the seller really achieved sales of 30 million yuan. At this time, Tao Huabi expressed her position: "People have to be trustworthy. What they say is like splashed water. How can you win people's trust if you are irresponsible?" She went against everyone's opinions and awarded the seller a Jetta car! After this incident spread, the sellers all sighed: "'Lao Ganma' is the most honest! Who would have the heart to lie to someone like her!"
Integrity makes Tao Huabi win She gained a good reputation and tasted the benefits, which made her regard honest management as the magic weapon for enterprise development.
She said confidently: "I don't know any fashionable management methods. I rely on integrity. I want to be so honest that others can't bear to lie to me! If anyone cheats on me, others will say: 'You can't even bear to lie to her?' "Whoever is in the industry will be notorious and find it difficult to gain a foothold in the industry!"
Unexpectedly, some partners and manufacturers were actually prepared to lie to her for personal gain or some purpose. Once, her company was in urgent need of tempeh raw materials, so a tempeh brewing factory in Chongqing quickly shipped more than 10 tons of tempeh. Because they were "waiting for the rice to be cooked", the inspector did not look carefully when receiving the goods; who knew the goods After getting off the bus, I discovered that the tempeh placed outside was of good quality, but the tempeh inside was actually rancid! If they were just rushing to produce, it would be okay to use this batch of tempeh after special treatment, but how could Tao Huabi tolerate a little bit of deception to customers? She insisted on returning the goods, and the company was forced to suspend production for two days due to lack of raw materials, causing huge losses. But after the incident spread, Tao Huabi's spirit of sincerity and responsibility for customers moved people, and "Lao Ganma" gained a better reputation in the market. And what about that tempeh brewery in Chongqing? But because he deceived even Tao Huabi, he suddenly became a "spurred" street rat, and his reputation in the industry plummeted.
With integrity, Tao Huabi has won wide credibility among her peers. The company continues to grow, the brand is widely known, and profits are increasing year by year. Some people are jealous. For a time, there were more than 50 kinds of fake "Lao Ganma" in markets across the country every year! Tao Huabi finally stopped being "emotional" about this matter and began to make great efforts to crack down on counterfeiting. She sent people undercover to investigate, but the fake "Lao Ganma" was like leeks, cutting off one crop after another. She shouted loudly: "I am the real 'Lao Ganma'!" But a "Lao Ganma" in Hunan continued to go its own way. Tao Huabi was rebellious this time. She relentlessly started a lawsuit with this "old godmother" in Hunan, and the fight lasted for three years! In the end, Tao Huabi's "Lao Ganma" defeated Hunan's "Lao Gan Ma". This time, Tao Huabi learned a lesson and gained wisdom. In May 2003, her "Laoganma" obtained the registration certificate from the National Trademark Office.
Today, the cumulative output value of "Laoganma" company has reached 1.3 billion yuan, with tax payment of 180 million yuan, ranking fifth among the top 50 private enterprises in China. Tao Huabi, this rural "old lady" who has never attended school for a day, managed a private company to this extent and created an unimaginable true fairy tale in the new era. Her success is breathtaking; and the way she succeeds is even more worthy of reflection and reference by bosses with higher academic qualifications than her!