However, an MBA friend I recommended to a company a year ago has now earned millions of dollars a year.
Although I know his growing process very well, I will interview him again in order to be responsible for the readers.
His surname is Fan, and now he is the vice president of marketing in a medium-sized private enterprise. In private, I call him Xiao Fan, and he calls me Mark. In formal occasions, I call him General Fan, and he calls me Teacher Ma. I made an appointment with him at Zhulu Tea House in Xizhimen, and he invited me to drink the best cave top oolong.
... Fan started to talk, and the following is the main content of the conversation ...
I followed a guiding ideology and five selection criteria at the beginning.
a guiding ideology is that money is earned by yourself, not given by the boss.
I think there are still many MBAs who have not understood this truth. They always feel that they will get a high salary as soon as they leave school and become a senior manager. Why do they have this idea? First, I have worked for several years and have qualifications; Second, the MBA of a prestigious school has listened to the classes of domestic celebrities and taken photos with them; Third, the most important thing is that it took more than 1, yuan and 2, yuan to spend so much time. You can't lose money. You have to earn it back after graduation. In fact, this is very wrong. You spend your own money to study, and the money is earned by the business school. At the same time, you naturally set an expectation for yourself, thinking that the level will be different after graduation, and you can ask for a high salary.
In fact, regardless of foreign companies or private enterprises, the boss will not keep idle people. Even if you start to pay a high salary, you will leave if your work contribution is not qualified. Moreover, MBAs are everywhere now, and the possibility of knocking on the door of high-paid executives by MBAs is almost zero. But if you are really capable and can make achievements, the boss is afraid of your job-hopping every day. How can you not get a high salary?
The key for migrant workers is to find a suitable platform, work hard and achieve results, so that money can come to you, not you. I understood this truth before listening to your lecture, and of course I thought more thoroughly after listening to your class. This is the truth. Fan said with a serious face.
Then, before making five choices, I would like to talk about the purpose of my study. Is choice a means to achieve this purpose? As Mark said, there are six kinds of MBA students at present:
business people, friends, vacations, puzzles, company rewards and gold plating.
I'm here to dispel doubts. Of course, this does not prevent me from making friends and so on, but solving doubts is my main purpose. In order to achieve this goal, I made the following choices, of course, thanks to Mark's original guidance.
First, let's talk about choosing a school
Although I had some savings at that time, I was still distressed that I had to spend 2, yuan to study in the Yangtze River in Central Europe, so I chose an MBA from an ordinary university, which was only tens of thousands. I chose this school for several reasons:
1. I think learning depends mainly on myself, on my own understanding and thinking, not on teachers. Just like learning English, it's useless to listen to New Oriental without memorizing words and practicing oral English. You can't learn English even if you stay in the United States for two years and just hang out in Chinatown. And I realize that I need an environment, time and brainstorming, and these conditions can be fully met. In short, I regard it as learning English, I recite words at home, and the school is regarded as an English corner.
2. Students in the Yangtze River in Central Europe may have relatively high positions, but my work experience is not enough. If I go, I may have the lowest position. They all stare at the big boss and ignore me. And everyone in this school has similar qualifications, and I can still get everyone's recognition.
Second, let's talk about choosing teachers
At present, MBA teachers in China can be roughly divided into four categories:
The first category is foreigners; The second category is the old wives who have been abroad; The third category is native local university teachers; The fourth category is executives in enterprises and consulting companies). You know, I loved your class at that time. Because the first one doesn't understand the national conditions, and the second one doesn't have enterprise experience, I mainly listen to their classes to enlighten my mind and put my previous experience into the theoretical framework. But I think this kind of enlightenment is hard for MBA students who have not yet reached the top level in the enterprise.
I realized something at that time, but not much. On the contrary, I just realized something now. At that time, I loved listening to Mark and other people from outside companies. Because you have both practical experience and theoretical basis, you have talked about both high-end ideas and trading practices, and it is just what happened in the enterprises around you, so you have gained a lot.
At present, domestic MBA textbooks are basically translated from abroad. On the contrary, the external environment of most domestic industries is in a changeable situation, which is greatly influenced by policies, national conditions and human feelings. In this immature market economy environment, foreign theories cannot be a magic weapon for success in China. Besides, MBA textbooks can be bought everywhere. If you want to learn those things abroad, you don't have to attend classes at all.
so, although you were absent from class at that time, several of you were not absent from class.
Third, choose friends
Although making friends is not my main purpose, I still choose with a purpose. As you said, people must have three kinds of friends. The first kind is intimate friends, including middle school classmates, college classmates, people who have the same hobbies later, etc. This circle of friends can make people's lives happy and fulfilling, but it has nothing to do with work; The second category is friends at work, colleagues, upstream and downstream suppliers, etc. This circle of friends can make your work smooth; The third category is strategic, which can provide guidance and opportunities for your future career development. In this category, the key is to find big customers and contacts, which will not only save resources, improve efficiency, but also improve the effect. For example, you, Mark Ma Baolin, are one of my big customers, because your Beijing Times Strategy has a good reputation in the industry, and you are always famous in the circle, and you yourself are an active person who often contacts various companies in depth.
Fourth, let's talk about choosing companies
Enterprises operating in China can be roughly divided into three categories: the first category is foreign enterprises; The second category is domestic enterprises in the stage of seeking development; The third category is domestic enterprises in the stage of survival.
the first type of foreign companies are not rare for MBA graduates from China. The strategies of foreign companies are all formulated by foreign headquarters, so they just do what they are told at home, and they prefer to cultivate themselves.
the second type of domestic enterprises in the development stage are generally large in scale, but their operating performance has been hovering for many years, with no increase in profit or neither increase nor increase in profit, vague strategy, low operating efficiency and poor execution. In a word, hollow radish, why did this happen? At the beginning, the entrepreneurial heroes began to become obstacles to progress, and the internal relations were complicated ...
This kind of enterprise never waited for an MBA to solve the problem, and all the professors from Harvard Business School couldn't get it. What this kind of enterprise actually needs is your consulting company to re-engineer the system. Any MBA who thinks he is unambiguous and wants to make some changes here doesn't know how to die.
The third kind of domestic enterprises in the survival stage, the key task is to seize the opportunity, do big marketing, survive first and then develop. The purpose of inviting an MBA is to quickly increase sales, not to engage in operation and strategy. Therefore, if an MBA can't make achievements in three months, it will be bad .......
Although the company you introduced to me at that time is for survival, it has the genes to become a big company, but it is small but not big.
5. Finally, choose a position
I think the most important point is that at the beginning, you said that "money is not important, but the key is to have the right to do things". Later, I had a very in-depth talk with my boss for four times, and the company's problems were clarified, and the main contradictions were also grasped. I also knew my boss's expectations. After I talked with my boss about my solution, he also recognized it, and even after a month. I insist on two things: first, to be a marketing director and be directly responsible for marketing, but I must do it according to my ideas; Second, the treatment should be structured. I want the treatment of an ordinary manager at the basic salary, but I will do my part in the floating part related to performance.
You know everything here, which goes back to the guiding ideology I just said: money is earned by yourself, not given by the boss.
Now I have a platform to earn money, and then it depends on my personal skills.
the next step is to make achievements!
through the previous conversation, I found that there are problems in the company's policies, structure and processes. The policy is mainly manifested in that the incentive assessment of sales is not in place; The structure is mainly unreasonable market structure and product structure; However, the expense approval and write-off process of the sales team is problematic and inefficient, which seriously affects the enthusiasm of sales.
I can't reform these problems at the same time, so I adjusted the incentive and assessment of sales according to your instructions. In the original assessment, there were too many qualitative indicators, and the formula calculation was complicated. The sales team didn't know how many points they could get, and they couldn't figure out how much money they could get to complete the task next month, so they were not motivated. I removed all the qualitative indicators in the original assessment and changed them to quantitative indicators, just a few: the management of payment back, expense rate, and disorderly price of goods, and appropriately increased the original commission ratio to make it clear.
In ancient times, when the two armies were fighting, if a city could not be captured for a long time, the general who attacked the city would usually give an order: soldiers could burn, kill and plunder within three days after the city was broken, and then the city could be broken. Why? Soldiers can see their own benefits after completing the task, and sales are only concerned with the immediate interests, so they must see the immediate interests.
after the adjustment, the enthusiasm of the sales team has been greatly improved. In three months, the performance has reached 16% of the original target. The boss is very happy, and the sales have won the quarterly award, and he is also very happy. I took the next step, which is to adjust the market structure, allocate resources in key markets, and reduce the input of manpower and material resources in the general market to maintain natural sales. Three months later, the sales volume of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai in key markets doubled compared with last year, while the sales volume in non-key markets decreased by 2%, and the overall performance of our country increased by 5%.
this is my unanimous trust in the company. Then I adjusted the product structure, which was an early plan for the company's long-term stable development, and the boss agreed.
So the MBA should be clear, that is, not to get a high salary, but to look for opportunities to get a high income. This is what Mark said at that time.
In those years, because of my outstanding performance, I increased the company's sales from 4 million to 7 million. According to the assessment criteria given to me at the beginning, I got a bonus of 63, yuan, and the basic salary was more than 7, yuan.
Over the past year, I have been fighting in the front line, made some achievements, brought out a group of teams, and made a group of friends. Some people in the industry have spontaneously helped me promote it. Later, many companies talked to me, trying to dig me up, and the price was quite high. One company offered me an annual salary of one million to be the CEO.
I didn't tell anyone that someone was trying to dig me up. A few days ago, my boss invited me to tea, talked a lot about the ups and downs of starting a business, and finally undoubtedly increased my basic salary to 8 thousand, asking me to be the vice president of marketing. I calculated that if this year's performance is completed, my total income should reach 1.3 million.
So some MBAs just complain and are confused, and don't look for reasons from themselves. In fact, as long as you forget the MBA diploma first, make a serious and objective evaluation for yourself, see how much skill you actually have, and how much value you can create for the enterprise, and change your salary expectation from calculating according to your investment in MBA to calculating according to the value you can solve problems for the enterprise, adjust your mentality, and be ready to fight hard.
Domestic MBA graduates probably have the following four kinds of mentality:
The first kind is ambitious: don't do anything important, but which boss is so stupid that he gave you his life from the beginning?
the second type is the talent-less type: I always feel that the boss doesn't understand his skills, so I don't need him and complain every day.
the third type is empty talk and fault-finding: this is wrong and that is not good, but you can't come up with a good plan! In fact, everyone can see the performance of the problem. The boss cares about how to solve the package plan, not what you tell him is wrong.
The fourth type is low-key and pragmatic: work hard, accumulate experience, and combine theory with practice
As a person who has experienced it, I want to remind my friends who are preparing for or studying for an MBA, remind my friends who want to get a high salary, and remind all enterprising people in the workplace. Fan said, that is:
Skills are made, skills are learned, and skills are realized. We should have the mentality of solving doubts, seek the belief of Tao, and learn while doing. But the ability is definitely not heard by listening to lectures alone.
Therefore, people must be "people with three senses", that is, knowledgeable, knowledgeable and courageous. Whether you study for an MBA or not, that's how you want to succeed. Learning needs to really learn useful knowledge instead of memorizing textbooks; To be knowledgeable, you need to have seen a big scene, served a big company or been cultivated by a knowledgeable boss, and you can gain something by being enlightened; Have the courage to experience the hardships of the enterprise, have the successful experience of turning the crisis into a turning point, and have the confidence and courage to turn the tide. People who are knowledgeable, knowledgeable and courageous can often have a normal mind, be impressed by humiliation and perseverance, be thoughtful and decisive, be able to grasp the main contradiction of the company's problems, integrate resources in a short time, make achievements, help the company improve its core competitiveness for a long time, and achieve its own career while achieving the company. By this time, will you still consider the annual salary?