Let me tell you an industry truth that many people are unwilling to admit, but it is extremely true: in the next one or two years, the home building materials industry will eliminate half of its brands, half of its dealers, and half of its employees.
This is not alarmism, nor is it short-term fluctuations in the market. It is the inevitable result of the market’s self-purification.
The industry has grown rapidly in the past two decades. The market is large enough, the dividends are generous enough, and the growth is large enough.
The threshold is extremely low and the error tolerance rate is extremely high. As long as you dare to open a store, sell goods, and endure hardships, you can get a piece of the pie.
As a result, the industry has seen a massive influx of people, countless homogeneous brands, and countless stores that survive by just “getting by”.
But now times have completely changed.
The existing market can no longer accommodate so many practitioners.
The cake has not gotten bigger, but the people sharing the cake are still crowded.
Profits continue to be transparent, customers are becoming more and more sophisticated, traffic is becoming more and more concentrated, and brands are becoming more and more exclusive.
The market does not need so many mediocre dealers, so many clerks who only wait for customers to come to their door, and so many small and medium-sized brands without core advantages, service capabilities, or operational capabilities.
Overcapacity, excess personnel, and excess stores are the biggest pain points in the industry today.
There is only one ending to excess: shuffling the cards and eliminating the fittest.
There is no middle ground in the next home building materials track.
There is no longer room for “dawling around”, no chance of “getting through it and getting over it”, and no luck of “waiting and watching and making a smooth transition”.
All those who remain in the same place and are internally dissatisfied, lying on their backs, afraid of change, and unwilling to take action, will be ruthlessly eliminated by the market.
In the future, all practitioners will have only two viable options, and those who remain stationary will have no choice but to be eliminated.
The first way: escape, leave the market in time, and take the initiative to stop losses
See the trend clearly and admit the reality.
If your team is old, your model is old, and you have no advantages, you will not be able to make money for a long time, you will only suffer from internal friction and anxiety, and you will not be able to keep up with the pace of industry changes.
The best option is to flee decisively and leave quickly.
Cut off inventory in a timely manner, streamline costs, exit the track, and escape from the quagmire of endless price involution and profit losses.
Invest your time, money, and energy into a track that is more promising and more suitable for you.
This kind of exit is not about admitting defeat, but the sobriety to stop losses in time and the wisdom to preserve principal.
By taking the initiative to quit, you can at least save your money, your energy, and the chance to come back again.
The second path: stand out, revolutionize, iterate and reborn
If you are not willing to give up on the industry that you have been involved in for more than ten years, and are reluctant to part with the resources, customers and foundation you have accumulated, you are unwilling to give up.
Then you have no choice: you must make radical changes, you must iterate and upgrade, and you must force yourself to excel.
We can no longer stick to the same old routine of sitting in the shop and waiting for customers, cutting prices at low prices, and operating extensively.
It is necessary to reconstruct the business model, optimize team organization, upgrade customer acquisition methods, polish the service system, and reshape core competitiveness.
When others are lying flat, you advance diligently; when others are internally consumed, you make breakthroughs; when others wait and see, you act.
During the industry reshuffle period, eliminate competitors, seize the remaining market share, and achieve success against the trend.
Shuffling the cards eliminates the weak and creates the strong.
The colder the industry, the better the opportunity for high-quality brands and high-quality dealers to overtake in corners.
The only way to die: not moving, internal friction, waiting to die
The most tragic, deadly and most numerous state in the industry right now: don’t run away, don’t change, don’t leave, don’t work.
I want to make stable money, but I am in a fierce involution track; I am not willing to quit, but I have not made any changes; I stick to the old store, the old ideas, and the old model, and consume every day.
They are reluctant to bear the sunk costs and lack the courage to break the situation.
Dilemma, repeated seesawing, and continuous internal friction.
To put it bluntly, staying put will only end up wasting both people and money.
The industry will not stagnate because of your hesitation, the market will not pick up because of your waiting, and your opponents will not stop because of your failure.
Everyone is evolving, but if you stay where you are, you are actively accepting elimination.
Slowly consuming profits, consuming cash flow, consuming team confidence, consuming all the wealth, and finally being passively eliminated and losing everything.
If you run away, you can keep your principal; if you win, you can win the future; if you don’t move, you will be cleared.
This is the cruelest rule of survival in the second half of home building materials.
There is never a middle option, no room for dawdling, no chance future.
If you still stick to this industry, please stop waiting and watch immediately and say goodbye to internal friction.
Either leave decisively and get out in time; or make a complete revolution and strive to shine.
Don’t waste all your retreat options by hesitating and lying flat.
