[ Nothing or All ]

business

My catering friend who is close to me,

Divide into two types,

One is a craftsman,

One is a businessman like a craftsman.

toot obviously belongs to the latter,

Talking about business,

Really full of talents.

Listen to toot, this young star born in the 1980s in Jiangsu and Zhejiang nightclubs is amazing when talking about business. Most big shots who come to visit and study can't help but hide their notebooks and pick up their wine glasses. But the strange thing is that after three rounds of drinking, they have to put away the wine glasses again and open their notebook.

I silently observed that the reason why I hid the notebook first was that this New Hangzhou native who had once sought a job in the Jinhua government was too pragmatic and energetic in talking about dry goods and competing with wine. Since he did not have the ability to use "surging" to "endless", the big shots could only give up decisively, and the idea of "just shutting people up before talking" was obviously wise. The reason why he took out the notebook again was that the big shots finally figured it out: toot was too good to drink, and his insights and ideas inside and outside the wine were indeed reasonable, so it was better to listen to the lecture honestly!

In toot's wine glass, in addition to the wine-making, the business experience of catering and business leaders from all walks of life is often shaken. That Zui Yin, which everyone knows about, is also a bar where I think people in Hangzhou can shed their instincts and talk about serious matters.

toot sometimes speaks bluntly. Most people need to think about it before they discover his charisma.

In this way, an hour of drunkenness class passed, and the big shots were satisfied by the toot that couldn't stop the car. From the business war to the taste, they couldn't help but feel a sense of pleasure of being trampled on. When a person returns to his senses, it is like wine returns to its sweetness.

At the beginning, he chose the bar industry, which sounded like it was for profit. "Around 25%, it is not difficult to cross this range for Western food and Japanese food, but Chinese food is very difficult, and Haidilao cannot achieve this high. Chinese food is generally between 10 and 15%, and it reaches at most 17%. If it is cooked better, it may reach 20%, but in fact, it is not 20% that falls into my hands. It is just 20% that is done after accounting."

But, in fact, he was the most popular guest in his bar. Because he loves wine so much. In his early thirties, he became the owner of two brands, one was "Joy Wine Yin" and the other was "Mr. Drunken".

Success and loss

In toot's 1986, he said that he wished he was born in the 1990s and could still run for a few more years. "We did it relatively early. I was 26 years old when I succeeded." As he still believes in now: everyone in the world must, once in his life, be able to evoke their own miracles.

When starting a business, toot's life was simply inhuman. "At that time, there were actually very few of us, only four of us. We would wake up every day and work, and then get drunk when we were hungry at night. We would keep using up all the daily desires to talk, and constantly introduce products to customers. Give the customer a good sense of experience." But toot set the standard very long ago. It must not be a way to flatter customers, and use good products as a barrier to competition.

"I was originally an assistant to the Party and Government Office. At that time, I always thought that when I was in my 20s, I would retire at the beginning of my life. I had a cup of newspaper and a cup of tea, and I would write official documents every day. I went on like this. Then, when my partner Xiao Xie came back from Beijing, I decided to leave, and the leader agreed." Their first store was on Haiguan Road in Hangzhou, and it was crowded with people.

"Then, at that time, people really had no idea about whiskey, because at that time, they were not even strong in distinguishing between fake and fake wines. So when we first put a whole side of foreign wine in our shop, it was indeed quite impactful. Many people feel confident when they enter the door. Of course, it's also because all whisky is good. Indeed, at the beginning, it also received support from many industry leaders. I think it was just a success under a state of asymmetric information, and it was also because our team was very energetic.

But, two months ago, I saw that the huge Joy wine seemed to be an empty bottle. There were only five guests, including me. At night, the whole of Hangzhou is filled with waste paper boxes in warehouses, gorgeous and useless.

There was a little moisture in toot's eyes and said,"It's entrepreneurial mentality again."

"I'm very inflated when I'm 28-30 years old. This is wrong. During my inflated period, I miss the most opportunities." He lowered his head. That day, he had just responded to the urban management dispute over illegal construction, and his business finally improved, and he fell into semi-paralysis.

For a long time, Jiuyin has ranked first among Hangzhou bars. They have shops in all high-end places and visible business districts. "There are currently 7 stores in Hangzhou, the eighth one is still under renovation, and there are almost 20 stores in all other places. All are sold directly and not joined. It mainly makes whisky and cocktails, as well as a small proportion of red wine, champagne and other types of wine. It is very professional. The bartenders are all good. When we first started making whiskey, the domestic team was quite professional. So there are many sources of whisky, including the support of some large companies. The customers are also quite single-minded, and when they come to wine, they just drink whiskey." said toot.

"Many shops have been closed in Hangzhou." I asked about the current situation of the entire catering.

"The same is true in Shanghai this year. Zhangyuan, which used to be very popular, is now on the verge of extinction. Only when you pay the rent is we know who is swimming naked. When there is no epidemic, many people do not make money but support it. However, when there is an epidemic, it adds up and it is over. The biggest impact of the epidemic is actually not the basic operations of the city itself, but the fact that cities are no longer connected with each other." said toot.

The fatal injury to tourist city bars is that tourists are gone.

"For example, in Hangzhou, in previous years, the store owner must not worry about business in recent months. The natural number of tourists alone can fill the business. Hangzhou has at least 16 million tourists every year, and these tourists boost all the economy. But the most terrifying thing about this year's epidemic is that in the past few months, locals in Hangzhou are still consuming. Whether the bar is restored to 40%, 50%, it will definitely not exceed 60%. Because more than 60% of them are given by tourists and have nothing to do with locals. Moreover, the overall number of stores in Hangzhou is too large. In tourist cities, the number of stores will always exceed the consumption of the local population. This is a natural attribute."

toot said that this year he will definitely stabilize first and slowly recover. It may be difficult to recover until next year, and next year will not be a good momentum.

"The biggest blow this year is that one of the most fundamental things we discovered when making calculations last month is that all areas involving tourists, such as our Nanshan Road store, are lined up in a mess, as if they don't know the boss. It's impossible to come in. I don't want to come myself because I don't have any familiar guests, they are all tourists. The same is true for us to build a bar and a restaurant. When we go to the store, we most want to see familiar customers. We will feel more friendly and take a look at the situation in the store. But at this time in previous years, we were reluctant to go to the store because they were all tourists and I didn't know them. I just need to keep checking online and in the background what they are complaining about, what problems are with our service, and what problems are with our products. That's enough, and we don't have to care about anything else. But this year, I am still thinking about marketing. This is a very sad thing."

At the turn of spring and summer in 2020, when tourists should be crowded, toot will go to the store every day, even if she sits idle.

Civilian understanding of whiskey

Many people think that bars have high profits, but Joy wine is not expensive. I said, why don't you sell it more?

"This is impossible to do in China. In fact, when the culture of whisky entered China, many people misunderstood it. Many people thought that whisky must be selling well in a good year and worth well." toot said that if there is a threshold for whiskey, it will be very unfavorable to the Chinese, because Chinese people must drink with a purpose, the purpose of men and women, and the purpose of women. But Europeans drink when they are bored. It's a way to socialize, just for fun. toot has several Canadian friends who just drink wine as water."

toot said one thing about her favorite whiskey. He used to hate Teacher Lin Yifeng from Taiwan and thought he was too pretentious. But after so many years, he finally understood that "whiskey is a life experience." When she first entered the whiskey pit, toot particularly liked to drink Lagavulin for 16 years. At that time, many drinking friends said that 12 years was better. I have never understood that according to traditional Chinese concepts, it is impossible to understand that a low vintage is higher than a high vintage? After half a year of learning to drink, toot still couldn't accept it. One was that she felt that the 12-year alcohol dosage of Lagavulin was too high and too spicy. The second was that she had not yet understood the thickness of the back section. Then, more than half a year later, toot began to adapt to strong alcohol. "Then you will start to realize that in terms of the relationship between the three stages of wine, the 12-year-old wine is indeed more full than the 16-year-old wine."

"At first, I liked to drink peat-flavored whiskey, because this may be because I am from Jinhua and I made ham at home. In fact, the smoky smell is not resistant to people who have eaten cured food since childhood. The first time I tasted the smell of peat, I cheered for joy. So the earliest I started was actually in Laphroaig 10 years, then in 15 years, and then I jumped directly to Lagavulin 16 years, and then I tried all the things on the island of Irene. Also, when Kilchoman first appeared at that time, I was excited. When I drank Talisker for the 25 years, 30 years, 35 years, I felt that my pursuit of this peat flavor had reached a peak. I even think that my love for single malt whisky will be on this scale for the rest of my life."

"I have a friend who has been drinking McCarran for 30 years, and he has the oldest blue label. After drinking that cup, my whole world was opened. Wine should not be obsessed with personal preferences, wine tasting should be a 'structure' without taste tendencies. So from that moment on, I suddenly no longer rejected the wine in Sherry Barrel, and began to try something that tasted good or bad. The biggest mistake I made at the beginning was to use my personal inclination for flavor to choose something that I would accept immediately. But in fact, the really good whiskey is always behind us, that is, we must start observing the structure before starting to learn."

So he began to understand that "life experience""is a very long process that begins to produce some in-depth changes in your understanding of society, values, and life. Now, if you ask me what my favorite whiskey is, I don't even dare to tell you."

"Whisky, a strong liquor culture, did not originate in the south. It has emerged suddenly. Brandy and high-quality red wines were used to be favored, and they have occupied the mainstream market for so many years. In fact, until now, whiskey has not been sold for a price." toot Keppe said that based on the professional knowledge of alcohol, the value-added of grain alcohol will always be low. Brandy and red wine are fruit wines. Only aristocrats drink wine brewed or fermented from fruits, and only ordinary people use grains to make spirits. From the perspective of aesthetic beauty of life, Europeans drink whisky to prepare for hangovers, but European aristocrats drink brandy to rush them to sleep. Fruit wine is not so efficient at the beginning, has a sweet taste, is not so high, and the taste is not so exciting, which makes the human body feel very comfortable. Many times it's not that your body can't digest alcohol, but your mouth can't.

"Whisky can never surpass brandy. High-end cognac is very expensive, but everyone doesn't know it. And the quantity is very small, and aristocrats like Britain and France will consume it. Their inheritance tax is very high. In order to pay for the inheritance, they usually go to the best winery to buy a barrel of wine for their children. If his children really have no money to spend, they can just sell the wine barrel and avoid tax."

"Industry prices are a commercial attribute that cannot be easily changed over the centuries. That's why the Rothschild family had so many races when making wine, passed down from generation to generation. We told customers when we first set up our products that we wanted to be affordable."

toot also advocates making the atmosphere of the bar relaxed. "It doesn't make any sense if you must adhere to the strictness of Japanese whisky or the meticulous formulation of British whisky. Or it doesn't make any sense to be so particular about the way you drink whiskey. Because when whisky culture was first introduced to China, the Chinese opened the bottle according to the bottle. Europeans felt very strange when they looked at it and wondered why these fools would open one bottle all night. In Europe, you usually drink five or six glasses a night, not the same. Europeans also like half, plus half dark beer. China adds water, which is learned from Japan. The streets of Europe are full of standing drinking, which is something the Chinese will never be able to do. Drinking standing is equivalent to a high turn-over rate, so in Europe you don't need to calculate the marginal profit, just calculate how many people can stand inside. They are even willing to stand on the street corner at the door, and they are very accustomed to it. They will bring the cup back after drinking it."

After the bar was opened, the expenses were not small. There was an invisible tiger called: decoration.

"If your bar is decorated in the same style from beginning to end, you will die. If it's all the same, why do customers come to your bar and not go to another bar? This one is European style, that one is Japanese style, and others are modern and industrial."

"We can reorganize the entire supply chain, we can also change the decoration standards, and I can even make 7 decoration templates and standardize them all. But you can't run anymore. Imagine that if you are running a restaurant in general, you might only have one or two standardized templates, one big and one small. Or if we want more changes, we will follow the relationship of sinking cities, how will first-tier cities come, how will second-tier cities come, and how will third-tier cities come? Anyway, at most, China will only reach the top of sixth-tier cities. Then restaurants can actually be made very simply. Although the profits are not as high as bars, the speed at which restaurants run is very exciting."

Self-rescue during the epidemic

Currently, Jiuyin's catering works closely with Pelicans

Last year, toot pioneered the cooperation between wine industry and Western food brands, making it possible to eat and drink at night and have advantages in the delivery chain. During the epidemic, he also led the entire bar industry in Hangzhou and expressed a very clear attitude on whether cocktails could be taken out. "Because in our understanding of bars, we have always felt that wine is a non-standard. It cannot be used on a standard track. People will cross the border and do something confusing. So from the moment we opened takeout, we sold whole bottles of whiskey, ice cubes and even some simpler cocktails. But it must not be that we switched to training, nor is it a failed finished product whose taste changes due to transportation time problems. Instead, we prepare everything and teach the guests how to do it at home."

In order to save themselves, they were also the first in the nightclub circle to normalize bar live broadcasts and provide active VIP services.

"Selling those wines one by one, our VIPs here, and some of the things they need. It was actually difficult and painful at the beginning, because it took two days to make a plan, and then it might be changed in three days. Because there really wasn't a good way to sell, the entire team was very anxious. The boss is even more anxious because the team is waiting for the boss to give the next step. However, we have no way to simulate it in a normal way. Some of our so-called sales logic is equivalent to looking at our peers every day, watching the news every day, and scratching our brains every day, thinking about what we should do. Even that is to say, before the next plan comes out, you must use very, very high efficiency, starting from putting out posters to preparing products to organizing everyone to do sales." In fact, it is to use change to seize opportunities. Secondly, it is to train troops.

"Originally, all employees were fearless because of their good brands. Let him start to become more proactive during this epidemic. Then, we also saw that a partner who really worked with the company could cut wages and face these problems together with everyone. He also received more than a dozen resignation letters, and some management members also left. I understand."

Suggestions for starting businesses born in the 1990s

Regarding entrepreneurship after the 1990s, toot said that he actually didn't dare to give much advice.

He used to believe in one word, and now he still believes in one word, that past successful experiences are very likely to be the most important part of your future failure.

He feels that if we are based on the catering industry, the most important thing is to adjust our thinking in a timely manner. Don't stubbornly believe that the small successes you achieved at that time will allow you to continue to succeed.

"Because I think the next era, including catering, will change rapidly. In terms of the transition from the post-80s to the post-90s and the changes from the post-90s to the post-00s, we cannot judge this market with our own aesthetics, our own values, and some of our own inherent perceptions."

"When it comes to business, I actually think everyone should understand that when it comes to catering to the market, as long as you cater deeply enough, have enough sense of trend, and then step on the right point, business will be done. Get up. The so-called enlightenment is to follow the market trend. When we were doing it in the early years, we were doing it against the market trend. That was because the market was immature, so it looked awesome for us to do this thing. But in the next era when information is transmitted so fast, I think it is more important to deepen the relationship between the market and customers. That is, we do what people like, but it does not mean flattery. We still have to adhere to the core values. This persistence is for our own brand and our hearts."

toot's judgment on the wine industry is like this. He feels that in the early years, the wine industry was still mysterious, and many elders even felt that going to a bar to drink was a shame, or rather inappropriate. The parents of his own employees did not understand their children's bar career, and when he came to liquor store, they supported him. "The reason why the profits of alcohol were so high in the early days was because there was a high degree of mystery about going to a bar to drink."

"But I think the wine industry will no longer maintain the same mystery as it did then under the impact of a torrent of information. In fact, why has the wine industry been so prosperous in recent years? It was the mystery that caused high prices at that time, which gave it a lot of room for lowering its latitude. Then because China is a big country that drinks, and its entire culture and foundation are sufficient, I am still very optimistic about the future wine market. In the future, everyone will speak based on their abilities. The more you understand it, the more you will be able to sell it. You, including us, have been doing it for so many years, and you have also felt that there is one thing that makes me feel quite magical. I have been telling others before that we have a large number of customers and a large coverage rate. In fact, all the customers who have really settled down regard us as consultants. This consultant stems from his earliest understanding of our brand, including his recognition of our products, and then includes some of the confidence he has built up during repeated communication with us and some elements of his willingness to believe in you. Because when we sell wine, we sell wine with a very peaceful conscience and consider it from the customer's perspective, such as hosting today, what kind of wine to drink, and what kind of wine to drink if we eat a meal. So I think that the future wine industry market is the one who deceived you. These things will definitely have no future. We need to patiently study every wine link and every wine category, and at least we can organize a reasonable and healthy sales language that is not particularly flawed. I think I can continue to survive in this industry."

"On our way to the future, I feel that we must eliminate all the diseases of complacency that have been left behind in the past, and we will be more patient in observing the development of this era and the needs of society. I even now start to consider whether bars in some sections are suitable for putting dice occasionally."

toot also spent a lot of money to attend catering schools, such as going to Hanyuan to learn McDonald's management model. "This is what I often tell many friends, that is, if you learn about this, it will be good, but if you are led by the nose, your project will not work. Success cannot be replicated. You can just go to these summary experiences and find your tools, that is, what you lack, what you take. I was deeply impressed. At that time, I went to Hanyuan and had a very complete class. I talked about how to calculate marginal profits all day long. I had something to do and left early. There was a person at the same table who listened to it completely. After the whole night, I counted until 1 o'clock in the morning. When he was at the scene, he told me that marginal profit was so easy to use, and then he returned to his own company. After three months of working on it, he found that it couldn't be achieved, so this touched me a lot at the time." Success is practice, inability is experience.

Before writing this article, I went to the wine shop again, and the bar returned to its usual lively atmosphere. I also understand more and more why toot is where he is today. After so many years, he is still vigilant, constantly accepting new rules of the game, and respecting new and old players, just as he did when he first joined the industry.

Every seemingly sudden night is an experience that is destined for life. Winning or losing is not important, just enjoy the process. In this way, we have the intention to restart it repeatedly.

Hangzhou's nightlife is as exquisite as ever.

The goddess asked

The name of the bar you like

"God made water,

Humans make wine."

--Hugo

Food Bless You!

Consultant for China International Food Expo

Producer of "God's Table"