He talks about 50 books a year and earns over 100 million yuan a year. Luo Zhenyu didn’t do it, so how can Fan Deng Reading Club do it?
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The popularity of " knowledge payment " has excited many media and content entrepreneurs . While most people are still exploring how to make themselves a new generation of "knowledge influencers ", there is a middle-aged man with a fat body and excellent eloquence who has already made a fortune from the book club business. I am not talking about Luo Zhenyu , but Fan Deng, the founder of Fan Deng Reading Club, who has a deep connection with him. Baidu Index shows that the search popularity of "Fan Deng" began in June 2016. During this period, Luo Zhenyu invited more than a dozen friends to serve as substitute lecturers for " Luoji Siwei " because he was on maternity leave. Fan Deng and Luo Zhenyu have been friends for more than ten years. Luo Zhenyu founded "Luoji Siwei" in 2012, and Fan Deng founded Fan Deng Reading Club in 2013. After Luo Zhenyu's " Get " was launched, Fan Deng opened a column "Fan Deng Speed Reading" on it. In the episode where Fan Deng was taking over, Luo Zhenyu said that he was also a member of Fan Deng Reading Club. In fact, Fan Deng Reading Club has made an indelible contribution to the fact that book clubs have become a popular product form of " pay for content ". This product has extremely strong profitability. In 2016, Fan Deng Reading Club, which had 1.4 million members (the latest data is 1.76 million), earned over 100 million yuan just by selling memberships for 365 yuan a year. What does this number mean? According to the latest product data released by Luoji Siwei, the total number of subscribers to the Get App currently exceeds 790,000, and the product prices are 1 yuan and 199 yuan per year respectively. It can be inferred that Fan Deng’s annual income is completely comparable to the total income of all knowledge influencers on "Get". Fan Deng said, "Fan Deng Reading Club has never been short of money since the first day of its establishment. We are the first to charge for all content." When he said this, Fan Deng was sitting in his other company located in Nanluoguxiang. It was a large courtyard house with guards at the gate and plants suitable for all seasons planted in the yard. "Including the Fan Deng Reading Club, I have a total of seven or eight companies," Fan Deng said as he made tea. "I have a screenwriting company, and the cake chain store called Cakeboss that you see in major shopping malls is also mine." Fan Deng is very good at doing business. " Talking about 50 books a year, with annual income exceeding 100 million yuan ." He has turned the book club into a lucrative business. Even Luo Zhenyu couldn't do it, so why is it Fan Deng? To establish a "knowledge worship religion", there must be a leader The goal of Fan Deng's reading club In a conference organized by Huxiu in 2016, Fan Deng told a story that inspired his initial entrepreneurship : There was a real estate developer in Beijing who was very rich. For the purpose of reading, he hired two university teachers, paying each of them 30,000 yuan a month, asked them to read a book, and told them the stories while they were running in the Olympic Forest every day. Fan Deng said that after hearing this story, he felt that this business was very profitable. "It is natural to charge money for saving time for people who want to read. This is the essence of business." Fan Deng's speaking style during the interview was the same as when he usually lectured on books to members of the reading club. He naturally had a sense of persuasiveness and confidence, and this ability came entirely from Fan Deng's previous experience. He graduated from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University at the age of 21, won the International College Debate Championship at the age of 23, and joined CCTV at the age of 25 to host programs such as "Telling the Truth" and "Studio 12". At the age of 31, he started working as the director of the School of Language and Communication and the Center for Applied Communication Research at Beijing Jiaotong University. He became famous at a young age, was a CCTV host, a university teacher, and also had a doctorate in film studies. Fan Deng's past growth experience has many similarities with Luo Zhenyu, who also came from CCTV and has a doctorate degree. In 2012, Luo Zhenyu started to run "Luoji Siwei". The following year, when Fan Deng Reading Club was established, Luo Zhenyu already had five to six million fans and became the most popular knowledge influencer in China. There is also a common foundation for two people to start a business, which is to build up "personal potential" . Luo Zhenyu has elaborated on this many times in the past few years. In the talk show "13 Invitations", Luo Zhenyu once talked about the reason for leaving CCTV. He observed that the value of the entire industry has shifted from organizations to individuals , "No matter what I do, I must show my fat face." Fan Deng directly named the product after himself. In the interview, Fan Deng specifically pointed out that the difference between himself and Luo Zhenyu lies in their profit model. "He has never offered a paid subscription because he thinks it is too difficult to get losers to spend money. But I think if I can give you complete knowledge and help you explain the book in more than 40 minutes, you should pay." He believes that "Luoji Siwei" relies on e-commerce to make money, and the conversion rate and profit margin of its model of selling books and mooncakes to fans are very low. "Because that's how the real economy works. With shipping costs and complaints, in the end we don't make much money." In contrast, Fan Deng directly collects membership fees from members, engaging in a more straightforward " traffic business." In June 2016, Fan Deng gave a substitute speech on "Luoji Siwei" and the content of the speech was how to manage a company. As a result, 20,000 Luo fans joined Fan Deng's reading club, which means that he earned 7 million from just one speech. Fan Deng said that "Luo Zhenyu was jealous to death." In fact, in addition to the little stories he is happy to tell after his success, Fan Deng has long been thinking about the pain point of reading. Before starting the book club, in addition to teaching at the university, Fan Deng often went to various lecture halls and academies to give courses such as "leadership" and "communication" to entrepreneurs and start-ups . During this process, he discovered that most people did not read books. They would often ask him for a list of books, buy the books and then put them aside. Fan Deng believes that this is a social problem, and whoever can solve this problem will gain great value. "This is the most basic entrepreneurial logic." Fan Deng said that he could earn up to 80,000 yuan for a lecture in the past, which was second only to Yi Zhongtian's price. However, this model could only bring in more than 20 million yuan even if he gave lectures 200 days a year, and the marginal cost was too high. However, the profit of making the same thing into an online course would be much higher than before. Compared with "Luoji Siwei", Fan Deng's standard for selecting books is more practical. Fan Deng believes that this can quickly attract readers' attention and let readers know that reading is useful. "How do you get along with your husband, how do you find a partner, how do you manage your children, how do you lead your company, how do you start a business, how do you calm your mind? Career, family, and psychology are the common pains of human beings ." Fan Deng highly praises the role of books. He attributes his entrepreneurial success to his extensive reading. "My entrepreneurial process all came from books. The failure rate of entrepreneurial ventures in China is said to be 90%. The reason is that they don't read books. If you read a little knowledge and then start a business, you might be better off." During the interview, Fan Deng recommended two books to me, namely "Best Sellers" and "Exponential Organizations". He used "Exponential Organization" to explain the goal of the reading club. Fan Deng said that exponential organizations like Xiaomi, Didi , Airbnb, and Uber all have one thing in common, which is a lofty and passionate goal. For example, TED's goal is "ideas worth spreading" and Singularity University's ideal is "to bring positive impact to 1 billion people." Fan Deng said that the Fan Deng Reading Club also has a lofty and ardent goal, which is to "influence 300 million Chinese people to develop a habit of reading." Since the beginning of this year, payment for knowledge has become a hot topic, and discussions on the nature and value of this business have become increasingly in-depth. Some people say that paying for knowledge is a form of “knowledge worship” and is “an IQ tax levied by the elites on the losers.” The key to the success of the book club product is to make users believe that "reading can change destiny" or at least change life. To establish such a successful "knowledge worship cult", there must be a leading and persuasive "leader". Both Fan Deng and Luo Zhenyu are very suitable candidates, and their lives themselves are examples of "knowledge changes destiny." Online business cannot be separated from offline promotion Fan Deng's reading club initially taught in the form of PPT, which was later converted into pictures and texts and pushed on the WeChat public account . After that, it was played on Himalaya through audio. It has now launched its own APP, which packages all the pictures, texts, audios and videos of Fan Deng's book lectures for sale on the APP. Fan Deng provides the service of lecturing on 50 books a year, and members pay 365 yuan a year to purchase his pictures, texts, audios and videos of book lectures. From 2013 to date, Fan Deng Reading Club has had more than 1.7 million members. They have opened more than 300 branches in three parts of the country and more than 20 branches overseas. In addition to an annual turnover of over 100 million yuan, Fan Deng Reading Club has also received two rounds of financing led by China Unicom Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Co., Ltd. and Himalaya. Like all paid content , Fan Deng Reading Club also had to face the problem of how to accumulate initial users and promote it in its early days. In order to solve the promotion problem, Fan Deng Reading Club adopted two methods of promotion. One is that online recommendations to friends can be exchanged for points or a free trial for seven days, and the other is local agents selling membership cards. In addition, Fan Deng signed agency contracts with companies with independent legal personality in various places. The agency companies sold membership cards of Fan Deng Reading Club in the form of branches, and Fan Deng Reading Club distributed half of the sales revenue to the agents. The first batch of agents were students who received lectures from Fan Deng when he was giving business lectures. Fan Deng said: “During the worst time for the real economy, these students were almost driven crazy by the real economy, and they were looking for new business everywhere.” By teaching and promoting courses at the same time, Fan Deng accumulated more than a thousand initial members. These one thousand "die-hard fans" began to spread the message across the country. Regarding this offline agency model, Fan Deng called it promoting the APP in the same way that P&G sells laundry detergent. Compared with laundry detergent, the cost of book clubs is lower and the profit is higher, and everyone can make money from it. "All those people became rich back then," said Fan Deng. In his speech at Huxiu, Fan Deng also shared a crowdfunding model other than agency, which is to exchange 30,000 yuan of venture capital for 1% of the shares and 100 membership cards in a certain area, and then reward 1% of the shares after completing the sales. In this way, if 30 people participate in a region, they can get a return of 900,000 yuan. Through the crowdfunding sales model, the number of members of Fan Deng Reading Club soon exceeded 10,000. Two years after its establishment, Fan Deng Reading Club had 50 members. But the growth from 500,000 to 1 million took only half a year. Fan Deng described this growth as "exponential growth" and he believes that the growth rate will be even faster in the future. As of now, Fan Deng Reading Club has established more than 300 branches across the country, and has also established overseas branches in countries where overseas Chinese gather, such as Japan and Singapore. In an interview with Beijing Business Daily last year, Fan Deng revealed that in Baoqing County, Heilongjiang Province, a small border town with a population of only 50,000, there are 3,000 members in the Fan Deng Reading Club, and the renewal rate in the second year is as high as over 80%. Along with various marketing innovations, there have also been doubts from the outside world about Fan Deng’s products and models. There was a time when when searching for “Fan Deng Reading Club” on Baidu, the keyword that followed it was “MLM”. Many people believe that the model of Fan Deng Reading Club developing members through local agents and making profits from it is very similar to the pyramid scheme model. In the interview, facing such doubts, Fan Deng was a little angry. His explanation was that in order to identify pyramid schemes, the number of agents must exceed three levels, the main purpose is to recruit people, and everyone will be promised a dream of getting rich. But he believes that the model of Fan Deng Reading Club does not meet these conditions. "We sell reading products offline in the same way that P&G sells laundry detergent, and our online model is the same as Uber 's. Do you think P&G and Uber are pyramid schemes?" Fan Deng said angrily. "This is because Chinese people cannot stand seeing others doing well, so they say I am a pyramid schemer." In fact, driven by Fan Deng Reading Club, various types of reading clubs have rapidly emerged and become the mainstream product type of content entrepreneurship. Searching for “book club” on Xinbang , there are over five thousand results. Many of them are very similar to Fan Deng’s business model. Compared with these later competitors, Fan Deng's offline promotion is more in-depth. The offline branches of Fan Deng Reading Club organize local members to participate in community activities every week. In 2016 alone, Fan Deng Reading Club organized more than 1,400 offline events. Fan Deng described these 1,400 events as full of positive energy and continuously promoting members' sales. At the end of 2016, Fan Deng Reading Club opened bookstores across the country. In Fan Deng's plan, bookstores will serve as an important channel for member promotion. Currently, more than 200 Fan Deng bookstores have been opened across the country. As for why so many offline bookstores were opened, Fan Deng cited the sales of Xiaomi and OPPO as examples. He said that although online sales accounted for half of Xiaomi's overall mobile phone sales in 2016, in fact, online sales were only 10% of offline sales, and offline sales were still the main entry point for sales. "Does knowledge have to be sold through the Internet?" Fan Deng said. In his plan, through franchising, there will be thousands of Fan Deng bookstores across the country in the future. In addition to selling membership cards, these bookstores can also become places to organize community activities. "We want to build the reading club into a knowledge supermarket that is within easy reach of Chinese people, so that Chinese neighbors can buy some knowledge to take home when they take a walk, rather than just buying some oil, salt, sauce and vinegar," he said. To create a hit product, you need to filter out the widest range of people Regarding the positioning of Fan Deng Reading Club, Fan Deng said that he was following the logic of the book "Best Sellers" and concentrating all resources to create a product that meets the needs of all people aged 5 to 80. "Fan Deng Reading Club is a product that can meet people's deep-seated pain points," he said. Two weeks after interviewing Fan Deng, I attended an offline event of Fan Deng’s reading club. At the event, when the organizers asked questions about what Fan Deng said, many members could clearly tell which book the content came from. Member Xiaoshuo told me that he listened carefully to every book written by Fan Deng, and his favorite was "The Miracle of Mindfulness". He said that this book changed his perspective on life. Now he is listening to Fan Deng talk about children's education. Although his child is only two months old, "learning in advance will definitely be helpful in the future." Another member, Xiao Ma, transferred from the Luo You Club of Luoji Siwei. Xiao Ma, who has been engaged in frozen food processing and has been working in Beijing for many years, is planning to quit his job and start his own business. Therefore, at the beginning of this year, he went to Guangzhou at his own expense to participate in an offline business school course. Whether it is Luo Zhenyu or Fan Deng, or other communities, for Xiao Ma, he will try anything he can learn if he can learn what he needs for starting a business. More importantly, through offline activities he witnessed with his own eyes two entrepreneurs blending resources on the spot. Xiao Ma said with regret, "It's a pity that my business hasn't started yet, otherwise I could have met some useful people on the spot." Xiao Ma saw the negative comments about Luo Zhenyu and Fan Deng on Zhihu, but he didn't care. "Fan Deng and Luo Zhenyu both have PhDs and their careers are very successful. No matter what, they know more than us. It's always a good idea to learn more." The members nearby nodded to show their disagreement with this evaluation. The desire for change and self-improvement is the most intuitive need of Fan Deng Reading Club members, among whom are micro-businessmen, sales personnel, entrepreneurs and newly employed college students. The smooth flow of information channels has allowed them to come into contact with a variety of knowledge influencers. In their circle of friends , in addition to the promotional QR code of Fan Deng Reading Club, there are on-site photos of participating in various cutting-edge Internet conferences in Beijing, as well as speeches by various celebrities such as Jack Ma and Pony Ma . When social classes are revealed through the circle of friends, they are all willing to pay one dollar a day for the possibility of change and progress. But Xiao Zhang and Xiao Ma's wishes were ruthlessly denied by many people. On Zhihu, many users’ comments pointed out that truly useful knowledge should be systematic, while the current knowledge payment is more like a kind of knowledge fast food that solves learning vanity and knowledge anxiety. The famous media person Keso also said in a recent interview with the editor of Laodao: " Paid reading is more of a temporary excitement. A lot of content is not really worth paying for. After the introduction of WeChat red envelopes , everyone has formed a habit of paying and regards payment as a form of interaction and game ." On Zhihu, Luo Zhenyu's program is often criticized by professionals for its logical and knowledge loopholes, and is even called a new type of success theory. Fan Deng has also encountered the same criticism. In the comments on the episode of "Luoji Siwei" in which he took over as the host, many people thought that he was just giving chicken soup for the soul without any practical content . "What is chicken soup for the soul? The characteristic of chicken soup for the soul is that it gives you a conclusion without any argumentation. For example, it tells you that if you let go, you will get everything, and you only need to go out and throw your backpack over the wall to succeed in starting a business. There is no experiment, no data. It's just nonsense." Fan Deng said that as a knowledge carrier, what he sells is his time and reading ability, and he provides value to those in need, thereby gaining commercial returns. "In fact, these book clubs are all traffic businesses. It doesn't matter whether there is useful information or not. As long as it can cover most people, there will always be people who will pay for it." said an investor who focuses on knowledge payment. As for what the Zhihu user said, the investor said it didn’t matter. "Because these people are not the core users of knowledge payment at all. What's important is that someone has this demand and whose product can meet it," he said. Mobile application product promotion service: APP promotion service Qinggua Media advertising This article was compiled and published by @刘丹如(Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting! Site Map |
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