Entrepreneurship story of Septwolves boss Zhou Shaoxiong

Entrepreneurship stories not only tell the experience of entrepreneurs, but also tell everyone about the skills, experience and ideas in entrepreneurship, so that latecomers can learn and learn from them, and tailor themselves to their own needs. situation, to combine or learn from it to achieve the purpose of entrepreneurship. Below is the entrepreneurial story of Zhou Shaoxiong, the owner of Septwolves, that I compiled for you. You are welcome to share it.

More than ten years ago, Qi Qin’s song “Wolf of the North” captivated countless fans. Today, more than ten years later, Fujian Septwolves Company, led by Zhou Shaoxiong, has become the first company in Fujian Province to be listed in the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in Shenzhen.

With 15 years of hard work, how did Zhou Shaoxiong lead Septwolves to grow from a small rural enterprise to a listed company? Brief introduction of Zhou Shaoxiong

Zhou Shaoxiong, 39 years old, from Jinjiang, Quanzhou, economist. He started working in 1983 and served as the factory director of the Jinjing Overseas Chinese Clothing Craft Factory in Jinjiang, Fujian Province, the general manager of Fujian Septwolves Garment Industrial Co., Ltd., and the general manager of Septwolves Group. Currently, he is the vice chairman and general manager of Fujian Septwolves Industrial Co., Ltd.

Entrepreneurship Story

Starting: Throwing away the golden job and starting a small business

There is actually nothing legendary about Zhou Shaoxiong’s start.

In 1985, in Jinjing, a seaside town in southern Fujian, a small business called Jinjiang County Jinjing Labor Service Overseas Chinese Township Clothing Craft Factory appeared. Like other private enterprises at that time, it also Under the name of a collective enterprise, this is the prototype of the Seven Wolves. In Zhou Shaoxiong's own words: "In the beginning, I just did some small business and bought fabrics. Later, I gradually accumulated it. After two or three years of doing it, I came up with the idea of ??making clothing and opened a clothing factory."

Such stories can be said to be numerous in Quanzhou in the 1980s. Many people in southern Fujian who have suffered in poverty for many years are working hard with the most primitive idea of ??getting rid of poverty. The difference is that the three brothers of the Zhou family all had good jobs before going into business. The eldest brother Zhou Yongwei worked in a bank, and the second brother Zhou Shaoxiong worked in Xinhua Bookstore. These were considered golden jobs in the countryside at that time. At that time, they had the courage to throw them away. Not many people go into business with a golden job.

Naturally, his parents strongly opposed it, but Zhou Shaoxiong still walked out of the house with the idea of ??"going out to explore, you will not starve to death." At first, he was engaged in fabric trading. Because he had no experience and looked too young, it was difficult for others to believe that he could do business, so he did not make much money. But Zhou Shaoxiong was not discouraged, but continued to wait for opportunities. After several years of business experience, Zhou Shaoxiong traveled across most of China. After suffering enough, he finally saved a fortune.

More importantly, suffering has created his tenacity, patience and sensitivity to the market.

Capital: A group of entrepreneurial partners who work together

During the operation, Zhou Shaoxiong was surprised to find that the prices of local clothing and overseas clothing with trademarks embroidered on the chest were very different. Why can't we create a domestic brand on our own? A strong desire to start a business sprouted in the hearts of Zhou Shaoxiong and his partners.

So, the seven young people sat together and thought about those overseas brands with various graphics and patterns. After a heated debate, we finally chose the wolf! Because wolves are very team-spirited animals with a smart, agile and courageous personality, and these are indispensable qualities for the success of a business venture. "Since we are seven people starting a business together, let's call them the 'Seven Wolves'. According to the custom of southern Fujian, 'seven' represents 'many'. It is an auspicious number that means life, vitality and victory. It not only symbolizes a group composed of strivers, It also reflects the entrepreneurial spirit of young people who work together and are determined to do so. "Wolf" is a homophone to the word "人" in southern Fujian, so it is a coincidence."

Speaking of this, Zhou Shaoxiong said cheerfully. laughed. Seeing that many newly developed companies failed due to discord among people, Zhou Shaoxiong and his companions vowed: For a common future, everyone must be like wolves, unite sincerely, and create a first-class brand. .

Planning: Fighting counterfeiting and building a brand

Zhou Shaoxiong told reporters that in fact, Chinese clothing companies at that time had almost no so-called brand awareness. “The brand is just a beautiful little piece of clothing affixed to the clothes. It's just a pattern, nothing else."

In 1990, the Septwolves jacket entered first-tier department stores such as "Hualian" and "One Hundred" in Shanghai. It was not only an instant hit, but also achieved very good results. Sales performance.

But soon, many counterfeiters appeared on the market. This was a very common phenomenon in the clothing market at that time. Moreover, the Seven Wolves were not a famous brand, but Zhou Shaoxiong took this as an opportunity. , planned a marketing case that is still regarded as a classic: the Seven Wolves launched a vigorous campaign against counterfeiting and took several counterfeiters to court. For a time, the "war between real and fake wolves" became the focus of the media in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and other places. Front-page news, the Seven Wolves became famous!

Facts have proved that Zhou Shaoxiong’s approach not only did not affect the reputation of Septwolves, but instead successfully increased the popularity of its brand. Relevant marketing experts later analyzed that the anti-counterfeiting incident indeed showed Zhou Shaoxiong's excellence in marketing concepts.

In this year, Zhou Shaoxiong and his seven wolves began to rise to prominence.

Zhou Shaoxiong said frankly that the anti-counterfeiting incident made him realize the importance of brands. In the end, they turned bad things into good things, and the Septwolves brand also achieved great development.

Turning point: the first to adopt the marketing agency system. However, in the 1990s, due to the large investment in real estate projects by the Seven Wolves, coupled with the national macro-control and monetary tightening at that time, the company encountered difficulties in capital turnover. encountered great difficulty.

Zhou Shaoxiong said that in those years, he was worried about funds all day long. During those years, the Seven Wolves were basically in the adjustment stage and struggling to support it. What's worse is that during those years of stagnation, the garment industry in other parts of the country developed very rapidly, and the entire southern Fujian garment industry began to lag behind.

If you are poor, you will want to change. In 1995, at that time, most domestic clothing companies followed the shopping mall consignment or market wholesale model. At this time, Zhou Shaoxiong decisively proposed that Septwolves take the lead in adopting the agency business model in China. This change immediately brought vitality to Septwolves' re-emergence and became a major brand. A marketing model generally followed by most brand companies.

Building a brand: Find Qi Qin as the spokesperson

In 2001, after accumulating strength for several years, Zhou Shaoxiong finally burst out his energy.

In this year, the Seven Wolves became popular all over the country again. According to data from the National Commercial Information and the former Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Trade of that year, the market share of Septwolves jackets ranked first in the country! It was from this year that the media began to compare Zhou Shaoxiong and Seven Wolves with leading companies in China's clothing industry such as Shanshan and Youngor.

At this point, Septwolves has finally established its leading position in the field of casual clothing.

However, Zhou Shaoxiong, who had already achieved fame, did not stop his struggle. In 2002, he once again showed his ambition to the industry and invited Qi Qin to be his image spokesperson, thus pushing this year's celebrity endorsement craze to a new starting point.

Zhou Shaoxiong said that Septwolves shows the personality of wolves and conveys the beauty of wolf nature; the brand cultural connotations of Qi Qin and Septwolves coincide with each other, so Septwolves has the most matching image spokesperson. The wolf's team spirit and the tacit cooperation between wolves are the decisive factors for the wolf's success. The world of wolves is filled with all the noble qualities respected by humans - cooperation, loyalty, communication, focus, patience, perseverance, strategy, etc.

These characteristics are exactly what all successful people and those who desire success must have.

Zhou Shaoxiong condensed and sublimated the spirit of the seven wolves into a "wolf culture". In his opinion, being a male and a striver is the most wolf personality: the wolf's loneliness and vicissitudes, the wolf's honor and disgrace, the wolf's courage to move forward, the wolf's perseverance, the wolf's sincere unity... These are the "pursuits" of the wolf. The spiritual journey that "successful people" must go through can easily arouse the screams of struggling men.

Listing: Not for money, but for building a brand

In 2004, Fujian Septwolves Industrial Co., Ltd. became the ninth listed stock on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's small and medium-sized board, and the first in Fujian Province. A company listed on the Shenzhen SME sector.

“We started restructuring in 2000 and have successfully gone public today. During this period, we have invested tens of millions of yuan.” Zhou Shaoxiong said that many locals laughed at him and didn’t understand that he was “not short of money”. Money, why go public?"

"Everything we do is for the brand 'Septwolves'." Zhou Shaoxiong said that Septwolves was based on the domestic market when it was founded, instead of becoming an export-oriented brand through OEM processing for other well-known brands. The purpose of an enterprise is to build its own brand.

However, the idea of ??independent listing still caused some controversy within the company at the beginning. After all, capital is a double-edged sword. After two to three years of discussion, Zhou Shaoxiong persuaded his brothers and partners and successfully boarded the small and medium-sized board, becoming the first men's casual wear brand in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges. A total of 25 million A shares were issued. Based on the issue price of 7.45 yuan, the market value of Septwolves will reach 633 million yuan, and the Zhou family will also become a new wealth force with a wealth control of 318 million yuan.

Zhou Shaoxiong said that after listing, Septwolves will continue to focus on the clothing field.

Entrepreneurial motto

Firmly hold on to the goal

"We want to be strong, because we believe that in the process of nature and the process of marketization, If you are not strong, you will be eliminated, and no one is exempt." Zhou Shaoxiong believes that to survive, you must be better able to adapt to the environment than others. As long as you stick to your goals like a wolf, believe in yourself and your partners, there are very few things you can't accomplish.

Zhou Shaoxiong finally told reporters: "Team spirit is the most critical success factor for the Seven Wolves. Our goal is to become a world-class clothing and apparel group.",

Expanded content: Celebrities Entrepreneurship Story Wang Wei’s Entrepreneurship Story

In China’s express delivery industry, there is a man who has transformed from a poor boy into a CEO. Even Jack Ma admires him. This man is Wang Wei, who manages a huge SF Express with more than 200,000 employees. Express Kingdom. And 22 years ago, when Wang Wei was 22 years old, he was still a penniless poor boy.

Starting from scratch, making the first pot of gold in life

In 1993, on the streets of Shenzhen, Guangdong, you would often see a young man riding a motorcycle through the alleys. , the back seat of this motorcycle is full of packages, this young man is Wang Wei.

At first, Wang Wei was entrusted by his friends to transport packages from Hong Kong to designated people in Shenzhen for free. As time went by, more and more people asked Wang Wei to deliver packages, but they were too embarrassed to do so for free every time, so they gave Wang Wei some red envelopes. Wang Wei saw business opportunities from these friendships. Since the market demand is so great, can he set up a small company to specialize in transportation business?

Wang Wei told his father about his idea, and his father’s support gave him the initial HK$100,000 to start his business. In J Lan Street, Hong Kong, Wang Wei found a small store of just over 30 square meters. With a foothold, he contacted friends with whom he usually had good relationships for help.

In the end, Wang Wei cooperated with five friends and established a small company specializing in express delivery. Wang Wei and his friends traveled between Shenzhen and Hong Kong with large travel bags on their shoulders and suitcases in their hands. At that time, the express delivery service provided by Wang Wei only charged 40 yuan, while other competitors charged 70 yuan for the same express delivery. Wang Wei, who had just started his business, relied on his low-price strategy to grab a small piece of sky from his competitors and grow rapidly.

On March 26, 1993, a company named SF Express was officially registered and established in Shunde, Guangdong. After a period of time, SF Express has partially monopolized Shenzhen-Hong Kong freight. On the land channel from Shunde to Hong Kong, 70% of express parcels are carried by SF Express.

When Wang Wei recalled these difficult entrepreneurial years, he said, I started SF Express when I was 22 years old. When I was 25 years old, the company began to take shape and I made my first pot of gold.

Bold innovation, at the forefront of the industry

With money, Wang Wei spends money lavishly. But this did not allow Wang Wei to find spiritual satisfaction. When Wang Wei recalled this period of spiritual emptiness, he was glad that he had found spiritual sustenance: Buddhism.

Wang Wei placed 8 Buddha statues in his office. Perhaps because of worshiping Buddha every day, Wang Wei gradually became more stable and led SF Express to faster development, but it also led to an urgent need for funds.

It has always been difficult for private enterprises to obtain loans, and the situation faced by Wang Wei was no exception. At that time, the domestic express delivery market had a low threshold. A few people and a car could go to various high-end office buildings to distribute flyers and solicit business. The rapid development of the express delivery industry has also resulted in the emergence of a large number of express delivery companies. If you want to occupy the market, you must establish branches in the country as soon as possible.

Laying out the domestic market requires a lot of funds. It is difficult for Wang Wei to obtain sufficient funds from banks, so he has to mortgage shops or properties to banks again and again. This is the fastest way to obtain loans. The money he received from the bank turned into outlets across the country, and his competitors' more crazy ways of opening stores forced Wang Wei to mortgage his properties to the bank again and again. In 2005, the craziest year for opening branches in the express delivery industry, capital also became the main obstacle restricting SF Express's development. If you don't open a store, you will fall behind. After thinking for three days and three nights, Wang Wei used SF Express as a mortgage to borrow 4.2 million yuan from the bank to develop domestic business.

Since then, basically any city in China will have an SF express outlet. This not only strengthens SF Express’s channels, but also greatly enhances its ability to obtain express delivery orders. The express packages flying in like snowflakes made Wang Wei start to have a bigger idea: to use airplanes to deliver express packages.

Since then, the speed of SF Express has become the fastest in the express delivery market at that time, and the reputation of next-day delivery from different places has become synonymous with SF Express for the first time. After realizing the changes caused by the involvement of aircraft in express delivery, Wang Wei put the purchase of aircraft on the agenda to form his own airline. Finally, at the end of 2009, with the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, SF Airlines officially began operations, directly serving as an air express delivery company for SF Express. Transportation business services.

Try e-commerce logistics and explore the Heike model

In Wang Wei’s strategic layout, domestic express delivery, international express delivery, warehousing, and SF Airlines only account for 1/3 of them pattern, he extended SF Express's tentacles to a larger business empire, that is, a full retail layout including B2B, B2C, C2B, and O2O. At the same time, it is also supported by finance, mobile Internet, and big data strategies. Wang Wei described SF Express’s blueprint in one sentence, “to build a ‘department store’ in the logistics field.” Its subsidiary SF Express Heike has become an important chess piece in the layout.

On May 18, 2014, SF Heike community convenience stores were officially launched. In just a few months, there were nearly 2,000 outlets across the country, basically covering domestic district-level cities.

The emergence of Heike essentially solves the problem of outlet layout, and can also share the operating costs of outlets to a greater extent, and can also connect SF Express’s business units, such as SF Express + SF Express The full integration of Preferred + SF Express mobile terminal + finance + community O2O service platform + rural logistics, etc. is conducive to further strengthening the development of SF Express.

SF Heike seems to integrate various functions into one, but in fact, none of the functions are the best. The store area of ??SF Heike is too small and the display space is limited. If it looks like a convenience store, it violates some basic principles of store design and display in the retail industry.

Faced with market doubts, Wang Wei had to pay attention. His response to the outside world was: "B2C is the future direction. With Heike, SF Express can explore how to serve C-end customers."

In fact, Heike's model has already existed abroad. For example, the business format of ARGOS, the number one retailer in the UK, is actually similar to Heike’s model. The difference is that ARGOS has been committed to combining multi-way shopping and self-service shopping (electronic touch screens). The stores are more similar to traditional convenience stores rather than express delivery points, and operate in the traditional convenience store manner.

Wang Wei’s strategy for Heike also fully reflects his vision for SF Express’s future. But Wang Wei cannot ignore the dilemma Heike is currently facing. From the current point of view, Heike has a large number of outlets across the country, which is indeed ahead of other express delivery companies. However, Heike’s passenger traffic has not been increasing, and many preset functions, such as serving as both a collection and delivery point and an SF express connection All platforms are still being explored. Should Heike make adjustments next? This is an important issue that Wang Wei must consider.

Wang Wei once said this: "If SF Express is engaged in e-commerce logistics now, it will be a dead end. If SF Express does not engage in e-commerce logistics now, it may be a dead end in the future." In any case, it seems that Wang Wei's The choice is to do e-commerce logistics, and Heike has become an important key to the layout.

What is the fate of Heike? Wang Wei obviously does not have the confidence to do this: "Heyke is not a national unified management model, and its model is still being explored."

Insist on not being listed and lay a solid foundation for the development of SF Express

If the first listed company appears in the domestic express delivery industry, then it will definitely be Wang Wei’s SF Express. However, Wang Wei did not show any particular enthusiasm for the future listing of the company. He said: "The benefit of going public is nothing more than making money and obtaining the funds needed to develop the company. SF Express is also short of money, but SF Express cannot go public for the sake of money. After going public, the company becomes a money-making machine, and the stock price changes every day. It affects the nerves of the company and is detrimental to the management of the company."

Wang Wei hopes that SF Express can develop in the long term. He once explained to internal employees why SF Express is not listed: "If it is listed, The environment will be different, you have to be responsible for the shareholders, you have to ensure that the stock continues to rise, and profit will become the only purpose of the company's existence. In this way, the company will become very impetuous, just like today's society."

< p>Although Wang Wei insists not to go public, the express delivery industry is considered by the industry to be a money-burning industry. When SF Express was founded, Wang Wei once mortgaged his properties to banks to obtain funds for expansion. Despite this, Wang Wei seems to have always been wary of external capital. While other express delivery companies have introduced foreign investors, Wang Wei said no to foreign capital. In 2004, FedEx planned to enter the Chinese market and sent people to contact various domestic express companies to try to acquire it. The price offered to SF Express was RMB 5 billion. At that time, SF Express's annual revenue was only RMB 1.3 billion. Wang Wei rejected the offer.

Not accepting any external capital investment also made SF Express almost go bankrupt. Especially after the 2008 financial crisis, a large number of express delivery companies went bankrupt and closed due to the collapse of their capital chain. At this time, Wang Wei claimed that it was better to die in battle than to be a prisoner.

That time, SF Express escaped the market depression. However, as the competition in the express delivery industry market continues to intensify, Wang Wei has to seriously think about the value of capital. As a result, the outside world saw that SF Express still insisted on not being listed, but it attracted external investors Yuanhe Holdings, China Merchants Group, and CITIC Capital to sign an agreement with the company. The first three invested no more than 25% of SF shares in total and became SF Express. new shareholders.

The outside world believes that SF Express will be listed in the near future after introducing investors. However, SF Express officially issued an announcement denying this statement: The three institutional investors entered as strategic investors and have nothing to do with the company’s listing. . Moreover, SF Express currently has no plans to go public.

When Wang Wei talked about the development of the enterprise, he said: "To be honest, I don't believe in chance. Why is there chance? It is because of ignorance that people believe in chance. I suddenly won a big prize. I don't know why. You will think it is accidental. When all the causes and effects are gathered together, you will know that it is inevitable. What we have to do now is to use SF Express as a good platform to make the future seem uncertain. What is accidental becomes inevitable.”;