6000 words to explain the underlying logic of operations

I believe that many of my friends will feel that their knowledge is disorganized and they do not really understand the various operational knowledge. They always feel that they don’t know how to start after taking over a task? In fact, the reason for all this is that the underlying operating logic has not been established.

So what exactly is the underlying operating logic?

The underlying operational logic is a combination of knowledge and thinking that supports operational personnel. The underlying operational logic will help us quickly make a set of logical judgments after taking over a job or project. It’s like, when you need to eat, you will be very clear about the process of eating, and the underlying operating logic is like this.

So what is the underlying operational logic knowledge and logic?

First, let’s think about how the underlying operational logic is constructed? We all know that Internet operations are composed of products, users, channels, and content. In fact, the underlying logic of operations is naturally inseparable from these four items. However, the construction of the underlying operational logic requires a line to connect knowledge with other knowledge.

So let’s take a closer look at how the underlying operational logic is constructed. Let's look at the following table.

From the above table, we can see that the underlying operating logic is supported by eight major items . So what is the relationship between these eight items?

According to the above figure, we can find that the logical management of the eight contents starts with products, content, users, and channels as the basic knowledge, and then goes on to needs, human nature, basic knowledge, and positioning. The actual operation is based on this bottom-up relationship.

So now you naturally ask what is the core relationship between these?

Taking the operation of a certain operation activity as an example , generally speaking, the process of operating an activity starts with determining the background and theme of the activity, then determining the goal, and then starting to determine the form of the activity.

So after we have the activity background, how are the others defined?

After understanding the background of the event, you need to start to understand the needs of the product users. After determining the core needs of their users, use this as a starting point to determine the common humanity of the user population. After determining the humanity of the users, start planning the event based on your basic knowledge. After planning the event, you need to position the event based on the original population and basic knowledge. At the same time, use basic knowledge and positioning to determine the promotional location and channels as well as promotional copywriting methods, etc. Once this is determined, begin formal implementation (practice).

For example: the background of the activity is to increase the number of users, and the core demand of users for using the product is to solve subject learning problems. These users are K12 students. The common point of these students' humanity is greed + desire to learn. Then, based on their own operational knowledge, they plan and determine the activity form of forwarding and giving away learning materials + red envelopes, and then position the overall activity as attracting traffic to the APP through materials + red envelopes. After confirming that other processes are completed, they will start formal implementation.

This will give you a general understanding of the logical connections between these contents. After determining these logics, you will actually face a very practical problem: After listening to you say so much, how can I build my own underlying operational logic? ?

Before I elaborate on the underlying operational logic, I would like to inform you in advance that the construction of the underlying operational logic mainly consists of three aspects: 1. Basic operational knowledge 2. Flexible operational thinking 3. Practical operational ability.

Verify and examine theory against practice, and then bring practice up to the level of rational understanding to review theory. This is the logic of establishing an underlying operating system.

Well, now we start to develop specific system construction knowledge in five aspects: needs, human nature, basic knowledge, positioning, and practice .

What is demand? Can we tell the difference?

From the definition of demand itself: demand refers to a conditional, feasible, and optimal choice driven by desire. This choice enables people to achieve limited maximum satisfaction of desire, that is, people always choose the best items they can afford.

From this sentence, we can see that demand refers to people’s desires, and at the same time, it refers to the items/content that can best satisfy people’s desires at the moment.

Well, first of all, in the underlying operational logic, all behaviors are based on demand . The main categories of demand here are divided into three categories: user demand for products, user demand for something, and user's own needs.

For example, when doing an event , we must first determine what the user's needs are for the product. After determining the user's needs for the product, the event can then plan content related to the product needs.

Then determine whether users have a strong demand for the activity itself, which directly affects users' expectations for the design, prizes, and links of the activity.

What needs to be determined in the end is the user's own needs for participating in this activity, such as whether the user participates in the activity in order to make a little money.

Of course, you may not understand what I am saying. In that case, let me give you an example to explain it briefly.

Case

When I was working in a company before, I planned to increase the sales of membership service packages by giving away one-year membership service packages for group purchases of high-priced goods.

During the early planning of the event, the first thing I considered was the user's demand for the product. Users first wanted to purchase high-priced items. In this regard, I found a core demand point and took advantage of the old users' trust in the platform.

Secondly, why should users participate in this activity? In other words, do users have a strong demand for this activity? How can this be solved?

What we considered in the early planning stage was to use a humane approach with slightly lower prices + one-click installment ordering + the fast pace of the event page itself to increase user demand for this event.

The user's own needs are because the customer must purchase this product, otherwise he will face punishment from the relevant departments.

In this way, we have achieved a practical result, that is, taking the old customers who trust the platform as the base, using the products that each customer must have as the entry point, using humanized marketing and stimulating demand, and ultimately increasing product sales.

So when we are thinking about any operational matters, the first thing we need to consider is what are the users’ needs for the product? What are the needs of users to participate in this matter? What are the needs driven by users themselves?

Because only by clearly understanding the three types of needs can we maximize the user's behavioral momentum.

Of course, the biggest trap in the process is not not understanding these needs, but thinking that you understand them, but you don’t. I personally think this is a false demand, and I will not elaborate on this part in this article.

So how do we conduct executive learning in terms of demand?

First: Find any APP in your phone and analyze its usefulness to you and what needs it meets.

Second: Open the app, find a certain function or thing in the app, and analyze how strong is your desire to participate in this thing (without considering personal needs, only considering what the activity itself brings to you)?

Third: Determine what direct needs this function or thing brings to you? (The demand at this time has nothing to do with the first demand)

When you have tried to execute it, the result you get is how to execute the learning.

Operational humanity? How does human nature operate?

First of all, I believe that everyone who reads this article knows the seven deadly sins, which are basic human nature. The seven deadly sins include pride, envy, wrath, laziness, greed, gluttony and lust.

These seven are actually typical weaknesses of human nature, and the most widely used of them are greed and lust.

The cases I have known about so far are:

1. Jealousy: Stimulate players to buy by giving them VIP rights or game props
2. Rage: Online comments or video content that provokes users to get angry and then pay attention
3. Laziness: All the hotels, cars and attractions are included in the travel package
4. Greed: "Zero-dollar mobile phones", cheap travel, etc.
5. Binge eating: Use copywriting to suggest that you should eat more when you are in a bad mood
6. Lust: Live streaming sites, Uniqlo incident, Momo

The above is just a small part of human nature, but why do we have to say so much?

This is because we need to be very clear about what human nature is. Human nature is to utilize the psychological attributes that are generally possessed by people . These psychological attributes can be good or bad. However , for operations, after determining the needs of users, corresponding functions that are in line with the human nature of some users need to be set up in activities or products.

Case

For example, in Meitu XiuXiu, after beautifying a picture and saving it, there will be a clear indication at the top that it will be shared to WeChat friends, Moments, and QQ friends.

So in terms of human nature, the human nature he actually applied is "showing off" and "laziness".

Therefore, in the course of operation, more and more human nature will be discovered, and the different ways of applying human nature will change with the means. For example, common methods include: bargaining, group buying, sharing, and lottery.

At this point you may also ask, I don’t know what human nature is, I only know what you said above. So I will share here what I know about human nature so that everyone can have a better understanding of it.

As for the analysis of human nature, I think it requires everyone to consciously apply it in the actual work process before it can be truly used. After all, human nature is relatively empty when it comes to talking about it, and we can only wait for the opportunity to experiment.

If you really want to experiment, you can do it this way:

Step 1: Prepare a red envelope and a group, and then prepare a paragraph at the same time

Step 2: Post the group QR code to your friends circle and tell them that they can receive red envelopes by joining the group.

Step 3: Tell people who join the group that they need to forward a certain sentence to their friends circle in order to get a red envelope.

Through the above method, we can discover the greed of human nature. Of course, I don’t recommend you to try this method, but if you are curious, you can try it.

What are the basics?

Speaking of this topic, it actually reminds me of the actual situation of a student I know. She went to the interview with the interviewer, and the interview was a mess. The reason was that she did not understand some of the meanings and nouns of what others said, as well as some of the operational logics that others said.

In fact, the core reason is that the basic knowledge has not been learned well. When this student was learning operational knowledge before, he basically did not listen or come to class, which led to this situation in the interview.

In fact, it is the same for other people. Without basic knowledge, it is impossible to plan activities or functions based on needs and human nature.

Because you think that your knowledge is not solid, and you are not aware of this knowledge at all when planning an event, then various loopholes will appear in the planning, and it will also affect your creativity.

Therefore, basic knowledge itself is the knowledge support for the entire underlying operating system . Therefore, in the entire picture, basic knowledge is the middle force that supports the upper part and connects the lower part.

At the same time, if you don’t have the basic knowledge, then for the next level of positioning, it will be difficult to identify the needs and human nature of users, and what kind of activities and prizes are appropriate.

Therefore, the basic knowledge of operations needs to be extremely solid, and then if you want to build your own system, you must quickly check for omissions and fill in the gaps.

Of course, you may start to ask, how can I find or learn this knowledge? For this aspect, I can only give you a learning form.

The above table is a recommended table for learning. You can study it selectively. Generally speaking, as long as you have a solid foundation in basic knowledge, it is recommended that your underlying operating system is extremely simple.

Positioning, this positioning is not that positioning

I believe that when I mention the word "positioning", many people think of the book "Positioning" written by Jack Trout.

But in fact, the positioning here is not the same as that positioning. The "positioning" in this article emphasizes the ultimate determination of the direction and tone of products, users or various operational behaviors through knowledge, needs, and human nature , so please don't misunderstand.

Now that we are talking about positioning, we actually have to answer a question. The question is, after we have understood the basic level of needs and human nature, and then integrated and planned through knowledge, can we do it directly?

Think about it, we plan an activity or a function, and then directly launch it online. This kind of launch often leads to two results: one is that there is no effect at all, and the other is that there is some effect but not good.

The core reason is the lack of the "positioning" step. The main function of the positioning step is to ultimately determine that the direction and method are correct.

Of course, most people would call it "verification", but I personally think it is more than just verification. Verification is to perform verification after determining the needs, human nature, and then the basic knowledge.

Positioning will be finally considered and determined after these processes are completed, which is the most important thing about positioning.

As for this, I have not yet thought of a quantitative model that can be used.

I will briefly talk about the general ideas I know:

Generally speaking, after I have finished outputting the plan, I will use three aspects to determine whether my previous positioning was wrong or correct.

Phase 1: After the plan is completed, I will reverse the plan through the original data or logic to verify the feasibility of my plan, and whether the positioning of each item in it is correct.

The second stage: After confirming that there is no problem with the plan, a simple demo picture or web page will be quickly produced, and users will be asked to conduct a further verification to inquire about the feasibility of this idea.

Phase 3: After all the above has been finalized, a final pilot will be conducted, during which the final issues will be corrected.

The above forms are what I would do myself. Of course, there will inevitably be team discussions and verifications in the process, which are all normal, but the ultimate goal is to consider how to do this well and ensure that the "positioning" of the plan is correct.

All thinking, conception, ideas, and verification are ultimately just preludes to practice, and these preludes ensure 80% of the success of practice.

Of course, don't expect to suddenly have an epiphany at some point; just accumulate capital through small practices.

If a person works hard to practice and never slacks off, he will become a gentleman.

As for practice, I believe this is everyone's pain point. I have seen too many people who are knowledgeable in the industry but are a mess, but once they are asked to do it, they begin to retreat and have problems doing it well. This situation is actually a typical lack of execution. In fact, the case I want to talk about here is myself.

My basic knowledge and operational thinking of operations are average, but my execution ability is really poor. Why do I say that?

During my entrepreneurial period, when I was actually asked to execute the tasks myself, I discovered that my problem was that I was slow in execution, thought a lot, talked a lot, and did little.

During this period of entrepreneurship, I also thought clearly and made corrections. Eventually, I gradually came up with an underlying operating model, an operating model driven by ultimate verification with practice.

So I won’t go into details about the motivation for practice. I will talk more about the most important 4 fasts and 1 slow in the practice process:

1. Rapid verification of results

Rapid verification of results means quickly verifying the execution results obtained on a daily or weekly basis during the execution of the established plan against the original plan to ensure that the execution is on the established track and does not deviate from the track.

This allows us to quickly adjust our approach when problems arise, execute smoothly, and quickly put the logic into action.

2. Rapid data analysis

The most important thing in the execution process is data, which includes target data on a daily basis, as well as test data in the execution process, conversion data in the process, etc.

The biggest problem in analyzing data is not the analysis itself, but how to collect it . Under normal circumstances, collecting data will become a relatively difficult problem because some data cannot be collected, such as conversion data during phone calls.

For this kind of data, the results can be used for statistical probabilistic analysis and testing.

3. Rapid problem solving

The biggest problem in the execution process is the various small problems encountered by each person during the execution process, and the slow resolution of these small problems will directly affect all execution.

So for this execution aspect, give yourself two options when you encounter a problem : Is the problem solvable? If the problem can be solved in 5 minutes, can we give up if it cannot be solved?

To ensure that the execution process is carried out in a fast-paced manner.

4. Quick review of things

In fact, when it comes to practice, I believe that most people will get the result that they did not do it well or succeed after completing the practice, but they don’t know why, or they wrote a review which is superficial and not deep enough.

This situation is a typical daily review, and the weekly review is not done, so we have no idea where the problem lies and whether there are any new methods.

5. Be well prepared

As for preparation, I think we only need to follow this set of underlying operational logic and there will be a lot of order, but in terms of simple preparation, there may also be materials, expenses, advertising, manpower, etc., which of course also need to be prepared in advance.

Through this practical 4 fast and 1 slow method, you can ensure your execution efficiency during the execution process.

Planning is the direction, execution is the guarantee!

Author: Zheng Wenbo

Source: Zheng Wenbo's front yard