Business growth of merchants -4 stages, 3 levels and 2 routes

Edit Introduction: Do you have potential to develop this profession for a long time? The author of this article analyzes the career development of merchant operations from the 4 stages, three levels, and 2 routes of business operations. Let's take a look.

There were colleagues who had worked for 1-3 years in business operations before, and they were busy every day, and they did not promotion and salary. I saw some students around them who made a lot of money. After turning over, or like a live broadcast, students who make live broadcasts make fun videos every day. Ask me: Do I have the potential for this career for a long time? Do I want to change my job?

There are also just graduation interviews to find a job, interviewing the merchant operation post, and finding me to understand the development potential of merchants' operations, and is it worth choosing? (The names of different companies are different. Some are also called industry operations/category operations. You need to understand another article: What is the business of merchant operations? What capabilities do you need?)

In this article, we will talk about the career development of merchants operating together.

01 4 stages of business growth in business operations

My own merchant operation work experience and observing the career growth of the people around me, the business operations will go through about 4 stages:

When the senior manager and experts of the assistant manager are relatively smooth, the corresponding years corresponding to each stage correspond to the general as follows. With reference to the rank of Ali and Jingdong, the standard evaluation criteria of each company will be different and there will be differences. In terms of capabilities, there are obvious differences in the ability of the four stages.

Assistant stage: implementation learning

At this stage, it is generally fresh graduates who have just joined for 0-11 years. They are not familiar with workplace work. In the transformation from the ivory tower to the workplace, large companies generally bring people to learn in the process of implementation. In this process, it is generally done, such as the manager gives a data table, analyzed the results through formulas, followed up the merchant newspaper activities, and inventory to make activities to do activities (divided into new products, explosive models, tail models) and so on.

At this stage, ask yourself why, what goals to do this behavior, on the one hand, can align with the requirements of the manager, on the other hand, to promote the growth of yourself to the next stage. Behind the execution is strategic thinking.

Stage of manager: skill exercise

At this stage, it is generally operating for 1-3 years. It is already familiar with the workplace, and the dimensions involved in the work also have a general understanding. You need to change from the perspective of execution to skills. The learning practice of skills enhances the GMV of the category.

It is necessary to make efforts in four aspects: merchant layers, product management, category activities planning, user asset inventory, and achieve category growth through professional skills in these four aspects.

Senior manager stage: strategy insight

At this stage, it is generally a business operation that has worked for 3-5 years. The skills are already skilled. They need to have strategic insights. They can stand on the perspective of categories to promote the development of categories to achieve GMV.

Jumping out to see the role of the category responsible for in the department, you can take the initiative to think about the linkage with other categories; at the same time, see the horizontal linkage of investment, operation, and marketing in the entire working chain, and actively increase from the relevant roles in series from the category perspective; at the same time At this stage, there may be some new projects (probably the new category or the horizontal work of the department), which needs to have the ability to explorate from 0-1, and it is completely different from 1-10.

Expert/management stage: trader

At this stage, it is generally operated by merchants with 5-10 work, and the methodology of operating as a merchant has been mastered.

Can jump out of seeing the entire business model and local business models (such as understanding the business logic of Jingdong, Ali, Douyin, and fast -handed platforms, and the role positioning of various business groups), can mobilize more resources to achieve goals. There will be expert sequences in large companies. Talent saturation, no pits or management posts are not suitable for management, and they will go to professional posts. Small and medium -sized companies generally do not set up expert posts and lack of talents. This level is generally department manager in small and medium -sized companies.

02 Three levels of business growth in business operations

Above we summarize the four stages of business growth in merchants. Focusing on professional capabilities, professional abilities are explicit, as well as hidden parts, that is, thinking and mind.

1. Thinking will also go through four advances

In terms of thinking, the transformation of a single problem, complex issues, dynamic complex issues, and systematic thinking will be completed.

Single problem: relatively simple, usually the problem is already the minimum particle size. The actual stage is to complete the disassembly, and the assistant needs to do a good job of the minimum unit. At this stage, it is recommended to read the complex problem of "Toyota Thinking": For example, in the face of the layering of merchants, it is a structural complexity. Multiple parameters need to be considered to calculate. At this stage, it is recommended to read the dynamic complexity of "Structural Thinking": In addition to the complexity of the space, there is also time complexity, one thing will go through the development process from 0-10-100-n, in the development process, in the development process. At different stages, you need to have a completely different operating method, you need to have a method of thinking about verification, and recommend reading the system thinking of "Lean Entrepreneurship Methodology": After the first three growth stages, you can comprehensively look at problems from the goals, elements and structures, and time. Deeper insights, recommend reading "The Beauty of the Systems" 2. Mindness: Need to gradually precipitate and recognize yourself

There are various methods in the operation, imitating 60%-80%of the benchmark cases, and the remaining 20%-40%. In fact, it is not determined by the methods we have learned. The decision of feelings, what does it mean, whether you can feel your users, can you feel the other party's feelings. One of the incidents that have a deeper impact on me is that Li Wanqiang, who wrote "Participation" in a event, is "the practice of language sense and aesthetics". Everyone may think he will share marketing -related things. Behind marketing, the ability of the more at the bottom of the market is recommended to read more Tang poems and watching art albums. This will help you develop your feelings and empathy, and there will be an inner sense of rhythm.

The previous educational model of the workplace, knowledge education, learned a lot of knowledge, without skills and survival training. In the process of growing up in the workplace, in the face of real problems, it will gradually collide with the ability of the province and skin. In the collisions of self and reality, reflect on yourself, and at the same time go out of the ivory tower. Facing the real problems, you will encounter setbacks, you will cross the past, and you will be more and more real. Then there is the flower of the greenhouse.

At the age of 30, after experiencing some workplace attempts and collisions with people, they will gradually focus and belief. Focusing is to experience some attempts. After watching some other people's work and life, you will find your own boundaries, do not run outside, focus on doing your own business. With the solution of the problems one by one, it will gradually precipitate their awareness of the world, and it will become a support for the bottom of a person as a basis for judgment.

03 Two routes for business growth in merchants

There will be two roads for the development of merchants. One is to operate merchants on the platform, and the other is to operate or operate on behalf of the brand.

1. Broad development space

Merchant operations are called merchant operations or category operations or industry operations on the platform. Through the wealth of operators to solve the problem of users, users and merchants will accumulate cognition.

For the merchant's side, the platform is equivalent to the channels for merchants to obtain traffic selling products, and merchants are also willing to recruit partners who have worked in merchants on the platform. In addition to more than 5,000 listed companies on the head, there are still tens of millions of small and medium -sized enterprises in China, which will involve selling products through channels. Consumer products will have e -commerce operations.

Take Xiaomi as an example. The following is the recruitment of Xiaomi e -commerce operations. Different from the perspective of the brand and the platform, it coincides with most of the capabilities operated by merchants.

2. Four leaps of merchant operations for transit e -commerce operations

There are four leaps from merchant operations to the operation of transit e -commerce, and the order of transformation is expanded:

1) The mentality of from large companies to small and medium -sized companies

In the large factory, the resources are rich. The merchant will take the initiative to talk about cooperation. When you come to the brand, you need to turn around and take the initiative to find the platform to communicate.

2) The leap from a single module to the full link

To do business operations on the platform, it will be responsible for the supply and event planning of a certain category. The acquisition of traffic is generally resolved by the marketing department. However, in the brand side, the complete link of traffic acquisition and conversion needs to be experienced, and platform launching tools such as advertising are needed. This is relatively simple. The requirements for copywriting skills are higher than on the platform. Copywriting affects users to complete transformation.

3) The leap from individual to team

Generally, P5/6 to small and medium -sized enterprises, P7 to large brands, are the heads of a certain channel. They must bring the team, but on the platform, they are working alone to complete the transformation from individuals to leading teams.

4) The transition of the trading ability of other platforms

In the small and medium -sized brands, it is necessary to manage several channels at the same time, and it needs to have the trading capabilities of other channels. For example, the e -commerce operations transferred from JD.com and Ali need to understand the operation logic of WeChat, trembling, and Xiaohongshu. This process requires systematic thinking to build a running model and take the team to complete the goals.

The above is the growth path of the merchant operations based on my own experience and observation of the colleagues around me. Different e -commerce companies' post responsibilities will be slightly different. The stage is generally similar. , Trader), to improve your ability at different levels (mind, thinking, professional) and get better career growth. For students who want to prepare for the operation of the business, this position has a broad development space and is a field worthy of deepening.

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This article was originally published by @本 本 本 本 is a product manager.

The question map is from UNSPLASH, based on the CC0 protocol.

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