"I upgraded to a franchisee without hesitation. The model is so flexible now that my monthly income has doubled. Working hard with Baturu is the real way to go!"
Wei Shengqiang, a franchisee in Maonan, Maoming, joined Baturu in 2016 as one of the first city partners. Within two years, he successively signed contracts for four districts: Gaozhou, Huazhou, Maonan, and Dianbai. He was selected as a "benchmark partner" for three consecutive years. In 2020, he upgraded to become a Maonan franchisee, with nearly one million yuan in performance in the first month after upgrade, and income doubled.
(Wei Shengqiang's Team)
Joining as a partner, business performance increased six-fold in one year
Before joining Baturu, Wei Shengqiang was already an experienced auto repair professional.
In 2000, Wei Shengqiang started working at a repair shop opened by a relative, handling procurement, repairs, car washing, and accounting. He did basically every job in auto repair you can think of, working for 16 years straight.
In June 2016, he learned from a friend about a platform in Guangzhou that sells complete vehicle parts and was recruiting city partners. The next day, he rushed from his hometown of Gaozhou, Maoming to Baturu's Guangzhou headquarters. After in-depth communication and understanding of the platform model, he immediately signed the Gaozhou district and became one of Baturu's first city partners.
After working hard for one year, Gaozhou's performance increased six-fold. Subsequently, he moved forward at a pace of signing a new district every half year. By July 2018, he had signed four districts: Gaozhou, Huazhou, Maonan, and Dianbai, with a team of 7 people, and each district could generate 400,000 yuan per month.
Since becoming a partner in 2016, Wei Shengqiang has consistently ranked on the "Million-Yuan Partner List." As a benchmark partner lecturer, he has shared his experience at major regional conferences across the country. He can be seen at every important Baturu event, and as he puts it, he is "working hard to grow together with Baturu."
(Wei Shengqiang attending the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Partner Conferences)
Upgrading to franchisee, income doubled in the first month
In April this year, Baturu upgraded the "city partner system" to a "franchisee system." In August, the model was further upgraded, giving franchisees more space for independent operations.
This time, based on his understanding of the industry and market, as well as his trust in Baturu, Wei Shengqiang unhesitatingly decided to work with the platform and upgraded to become a Maonan district franchisee.
In September, the first month after the upgrade, the Maonan store achieved nearly one million yuan in monthly performance, with income doubling.
Wei Shengqiang said the main reason for the growth is the flexibility brought by the model upgrade.
"Compared to being a partner before, now there is more space for operations and management, and higher profit margins. We can more flexibly and efficiently meet customer needs. Although customer service and after-sales issues are now handled by us, which seems to add more work, we can connect suppliers and customers more quickly.
To put it bluntly, before it was like working for someone else, now it's running my own business, and every yuan I earn is mine."
Achieving rapid growth in just one month, how to learn and adapt to the new operating model? How to motivate the team? Wei Shengqiang has his own unique experience in these areas.
1. Emphasize mastering system processes
Wei Shengqiang says the foundation for doing this business well is learning to use the platform's powerful system.
"All of Baturu's systems are designed to be user-friendly. Parts breakdown diagrams, quality, prices, and everything else are displayed very clearly on the system. You don't need to be particularly knowledgeable about parts, but you need to learn how to use the main functions of each system."
His requirement for the team is that everyone must understand the three main functions and processes: order inquiry, returns and exchanges, and reconciliation.
"Because all processes are operated through the system, and the steps are very standardized and clear. Once you master the main processes and don't make mistakes in the operational steps, you can easily connect with suppliers and customers."
For franchisees who are not yet comfortable using the system, he also has his own views and suggestions:
"People who used to do traditional offline small B business may initially find learning and using the system troublesome, but they haven't truly realized that the future trend of auto parts is definitely online, and the system is ideal for managing and operating auto parts business.
For example, the system can clearly show customer purchase volume and purchase types, making it convenient to manage and serve customers individually and maintain customer relationships. The system also allows you to check your income and profits at any time, so you can directly understand what's good and what's bad about your business, and set more targeted performance goals for the next month.
Without system support, returns and exchanges, losses, and profits are all vague, the process steps are not standardized, and in the end you make little money in a confused way, and the customer service experience gets worse and worse."
2. Motivate the team to grow quickly
In Wei Shengqiang's circle of friends, besides parts, the most common content is photos of the team working overtime.
From 1 person to a team of 7, and a team that has been full of energy year-round, Wei Shengqiang says "common growth" is most important.
Initially, except for himself, everyone on the team knew nothing about parts. So, he made "delivery" an important part of training people. With each delivery, he had the sales staff carefully understand what the part was and where it was used. He says that after seeing enough, people naturally get started.
When they were partners before, team members did more deliveries, and the daily work was relatively easy. After the model upgrade, after-sales and customer service are now handled by the franchisees themselves. At first, everyone was unwilling to accept this and even had negative attitudes. Wei Shengqiang had in-depth communication with the team, explaining the current business model step by step to each member, and also shared his understanding of the industry with everyone. Gradually, compared to the fixed income before, now serving more customers means more performance. With more income, complaints decreased and initiative increased.
Wei Shengqiang said: "Give the team clear goals, communicate fully with each person to set performance targets, and actively share your understanding of the industry and good work methods with the team to help them progress. When work and income are concrete and there's hope, everyone's drive is stronger."
3. Good service is the real good
After upgrading to franchisee, to improve service efficiency, Wei Shengqiang hired a customer service representative specifically responsible for handling after-sales returns and exchanges and customer inquiries.
He said: "All processes can be handled through the system. What's important is how to serve customers efficiently."
He has always attached great importance to service standards. In 2019, he received the annual "Best Service Award," and now standardized service processes for delivery and inspection have become standard for the team.
After customer service and after-sales issues were transferred to franchisees to handle, Wei Shengqiang is more appreciative. He says that with increased flexibility, the timeliness of customer service has become very high.
"For example, in shipping time and returns and exchanges, we can operate flexibly. Sometimes a phone call can solve the problem without waiting for the platform to respond, allowing us to efficiently meet customer needs. When customer experience improves, naturally they will do business with us next time.
Before, we only needed to do delivery well, and customers didn't have a strong sense of us. Now customers actually feel that we care more about them and are more enthusiastic, and our relationship has become closer."
Next, he plans to develop a set of customer service experience under the new model by serving existing customers well, and then expand to more new customers.
Battle for 100 days, aim for 2 million yuan
Looking at the parts piling up in the store every day, Wei Shengqiang confidently said: "Next, develop more new customers, expand inventory, serve customers well, push hard for 100 days, and aim for 2 million yuan in performance by Chinese New Year!"
Wei Shengqiang has always been a benchmark for many partners to learn from. This time he wants to actively share some thoughts with franchisee brothers: "We who do auto parts in small places often settle for small wealth, because many people don't have such a good opportunity as now. The opportunity is right in front of your eyes. Getting ahead of others by just a small step at critical moments will definitely bring different rewards!"