Chapter 37 Business Way 36 Doing business requires the courage to pioneer

The essence of business: The significance of the Wenzhou model does not lie in the development of household industries, but in the fact that it proposes a large private market for small commodities throughout the country, directly establishing a pervasive distribution network between producers and consumers. Today's Wenzhou people are very rich, but yesterday's Wenzhou people were so poor that they left their homes.History turned to the 1980s, the early stage of reform and opening up. Wenzhou people with many people and little land had to carry heavy bags and wander around. After traveling all over the country, they took home orders one by one.

This group of people is the famous 100,000 buying and selling army in Wenzhou's history. Some people called them "locusts flying all over the sky" and disrupted the planned economy;It was from them that Wenzhou was first known to the outside world. These hard-working buyers and sellers brought orders from all over the country and then went to the market towns of Wenzhou to purchase products. The shops in front and factories in the back of the market towns were very popular at that time. , while producing and selling, and then sent to all parts of the country by these buyers and sellers.Over time, the shops in the front and the factories in the back are gradually concentrated and specialized, such as buttons in Yongjia Qiaotou, low-voltage electrical appliances in Liushi, Yueqing, and so on.By 1983, Wenzhou had formed the top ten professional markets known throughout the country.

It is these ten professional markets that brought about the rapid development of Wenzhou's economy, "and drove the development of local household industries, forming the regional economic characteristics of one village, one product, and one township, one industry. Therefore, professional markets and household industries are also known as as the two wheels of Wenzhou's economic development". In this regard, in the spring of 1986, Professor Fei Xiaotong, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, who came to Wenzhou for inspection, pointed out after inspecting Liushi and other ten professional markets: "The significance of the 'Wenzhou Model' is not that it has developed household industries, but It is because it proposes a large market for small commodities spontaneously spread across the country by the people, and directly establishes a pervasive circulation network between producers and consumers."

This is an interpretation of the origin of Wenzhou's economic characteristics of "small commodities, big markets" in a special program of "Wenzhou Tells Us" by the News Center of Zhejiang TV Station. In fact, according to the famous article "Small Commodities, Big Markets" by economist Fei Xiaotong, he also emotionally described the historical tradition of "small commodities, big markets" formed by Wenzhou people.It was the peddler he met at Yongjia Bridge during that inspection that reminded Mr. Fei of a past event more than half a century ago. "It was the summer of 1937. I went from London to Berlin to go on vacation with my brother. One day, someone knocked on our door, and when I opened it, there was a Chinese man with a suitcase. People who met in a foreign country were naturally overjoyed. , but our dialects are different, so we couldn’t understand each other. He bowed very politely, then opened the suitcase, and saw that there were some daily necessities in it. It seemed that he invited us to buy things. He After leaving, my brother told me that there are tens of thousands of such small businesses in many cities in continental Europe such as Berlin and Paris. Most of them come from Wenzhou and Qingtian. At first they carried the Qingtian Stone on their backs across the sea, and in Italy , France, Germany do stone carving crafts. When the stones run out, they turn to small business. These people rely on door-to-door deliveries and polite and good service attitude to make money in business.”

"When I returned to China in 1938, I found out that there were some ships going to and from China in Marseilles, France, and there were low-cost steerages specially set up for overseas Chinese in Europe. Friends, I learned about their hard work, but there is no trace of pain on their faces." Therefore, Mr. Fei concluded that it is "this historical tradition that promotes the formation of the pattern of 'small commodities, big markets' in which business leads industry in Wenzhou's rural economy." According to the survey of relevant departments, there are 1.6 million Wenzhou people doing business and starting businesses in other parts of the country outside Wenzhou. They have established more than 30,000 enterprises, nearly 50 enterprises with total assets exceeding 100 million yuan, and 370,000 individual industrial and commercial households. The income is 160 billion yuan.In the words of Qian Xingzhong, the former mayor of Wenzhou City: "It is equivalent to recreating Wenzhou outside Wenzhou."

On September 27, 1997, the ceremony for the appointment of Mr. Zhao Zhanghan from Yueqing, Wenzhou, as the honorary mayor was grandly held in the meeting room on the fifth floor of Gongzhuling City Government, Jilin Province. This is a pioneering work in the history of China's reform. The story has to start on July 19, 1997.On that day, Gongzhuling City held a meeting of thousands of people. Su Zhenguo, Secretary of the Municipal Party Committee who brought 270 people to Wenzhou to visit and study, issued a call at the meeting to learn from Wenzhou's experience, follow Wenzhou's road, mobilize the whole people, use business to revitalize the city, and raise funds to build Wenzhou Mall in northern China , Everyone did what they said, and soon a large shopping mall with a construction area of ​​55,000 square meters and more than 4,000 stalls rose from the ground. It is located in the most prosperous Gongzhuling Business Development Zone in the downtown business district.The first phase of the project broke ground on August 3, but after the city was completed, no merchants could be found to move in. Secretary Su of Gongzhuling City was in a hurry, so he decided to ask a Wenzhou native named Zhao Zhanghan to help him find a solution .It is said that this Zhao Zhanghan is a Wenzhou native who came out to explore the world at the age of 16. He has traveled to more than half of China, and finally became a successful businessman in the Northeast when he was in his 30s.Moreover, he was in charge of attracting investment for a large shopping mall in Shenyang. He attracted a large number of Wenzhou businessmen at once through the method of attracting investment, and filled all the thousands of stalls, making the shopping mall booming all of a sudden.

In this way, the municipal party committee sent people three times and finally invited Zhao Zhanghan, the boss of Wenzhou. Under his suggestion, he "completely changed the way of attracting investment, not only attracting investment by business, but also attracting investment by industry. People from Wenzhou, but the places they are looking for are different, some go to Wenzhou, some go to Beijing Dahongmen, some go to Shaoxing Keqiao, and some go to Yiwu Small Commodity City.”Although these moves are very simple, but these seemingly simple methods of Zhao Zhanghan's investment promotion immediately caused a fire in the northern Wenzhou Mall in Gongzhuling.

More than 600 people from the local area and surrounding cities, including Shenyang, came here immediately, some bought a few stalls, some bought a dozen stalls, and some even bought dozens of stalls. sold out. On November 8, the first phase of North Wenzhou Mall officially opened.People say: Wenzhou boss saved Wenzhou Mall.Wenzhou Mall revitalizes Gongzhuling City. In Wenzhou, we can hear countless Wenzhou people from all over the country driving a shopping mall, driving a field and even driving the economic development of a region. It can be said that Wenzhou people have become the drivers of getting rich in many places and propagandists of the Wenzhou model.It is these Wenzhou people who have promoted the process of moving towards a market economy across the country, or acted as a catalyst.While gaining personal wealth, they also promote the prosperity and economic development of the local market.

As Mr. Fei Xiaotong said: "Wenzhou people are making money while spreading the awareness and skills of commodity economy and market economy." What is even more commendable is that what Wenzhou people do subtly affects the thinking of local people way, changing some of their outdated concepts.This is the strong vitality of Wenzhou people and their great influence in business.