Zhishangwang Founder’s Update

July 19, 2018

 A year ago, a CEO who was successfully building his company’s platform told me two things. One was, “What you end up eventually pursuing will be much different from the idea you started with.” The other was, “The longer I run my company, the smaller my target user group and more focused our value proposition gets.” While I’ve always understood the truth behind these two thoughts, applying them to my own company has been another story.

I believe I’m like many entrepreneurs who want to offer something that can benefit as many people as I can. The problem in thinking this way is that it’s hard to get yourself to target a much smaller, narrower profile group.

I founded Zhishangwang in 2015. My goal was for it to become Your Go-To Website For Career Guidance And Inspiration. A highly reliable, career development resource to help people achieve their success and pursue jobs and careers that match their genuine interests.

To do this, I began highlighting the fundamental connection between improving your career sense, or Career Success IQ (CSIQ), and achieving greater success. But the response was always the same. Developing your career sense wasn’t very tangible or practical, and not urgent to most people.

I was also encouraged to build myself as a KOL first, instead of featuring Zhishangwang. At first, I said I wasn’t interested in building things around me. I wanted to feature the career expertise and training services of others. But I understood how becoming a KOL would help build our Zhishangwang platform. So last year, I posted many career articles and short videos, and responded to many questions on different career topics.

There have been significant achievements. I became a Top 10 Career V on Weibo, with over 150,000 followers now. I developed a workshop series, 7 Steps To Achieving Your Career Success: A Systematic Approach To Your Career Development. Beyond just getting a good job, it provides a solid, practical approach to developing your career. That’s something many people here lack. And I’ve built a directory of career-related videos that include Career Success In 60 Seconds (career insights and tips), Ask Larry (responses to user questions), Larry Live (from my presentations and workshops), and To What Degree Is It True (my assessment of popular statements about your career­).

I feel good about these things. But given the effort we’ve put into them, I can’t say we’ve done anything impressive yet. We’re still in the doing, trying, and learning phase. My biggest challenge? Separating what I want to do from what I need to do.

I mention all this because we’ve decided to make a major shift in our positioning of Zhishangwang, which you’ll be seeing very soon. Frankly, if you asked even our most dedicated followers who our target users are and what tangible benefits we provide them, I don’t think they could tell you. For most, the career advice and benefits we provide aren’t practical enough. And the career challenges we address aren’t specific enough.

Based on this feedback, and after many, long external and internal discussions, our new focus and positioning will be Your Go-To Career Development Platform For Global-Caliber Professionals. We’re going to target users who aspire to join and achieve success in top global companies, work overseas someday, or just become a global-caliber professional who’s able to capture better opportunities and go higher in your career. Instantly, this makes us one of China’s leading bilingual, career development platform.

In addition, we’ll also be focusing on developing online products. One, in particular, that we’re very excited about is a series of video subscription products, called More Than Career English, which you’ll also be seeing soon. Delivering my career development expertise in Chinese has always been a limitation of mine. But this product leverages my native English abilities. It’ll also allow me to share the career development expertise I’ve gained from working with top global companies and talent for over 20 years through my recruitment firm, Wang & Li Asia Resources.

Our first product will be More Than Career English: How To Accelerate Your Career Development In A Global Company. Far beyond just improving your career English, it’ll share the perspective of how top executives and highly successful professionals in global companies view and do things. Daily lessons will include practical insights and tips to help you achieve greater success as a global-caliber professional. And my Larry’s Golden Rule in each lesson will help you develop your Career Success IQ, or CSIQ.

Additional More Than Career English products will include How To Capture An Opportunity In A Global Company, How To Prepare Yourself For An Overseas Opportunity, and How To Communicate Effectively With Foreign Executives.

Whenever our young staff are facing big challenges, I talk to them about breakthroughs. About the moment when suddenly, everything you’ve done comes together and starts making sense. Similarly, I’ve heard many successful entrepreneurs recall their breakthrough moment. Where a key decision or move was made, and then suddenly their business took off. With Zhishangwang’s new positioning and our More Than Career English video series, I hope we’ll see our breakthrough soon.

Just so you know, I’m still committed to developing a platform that helps people identify reliable career expertise and training services. And that helps reputable trainers expand their ability to reach more users. But we need to first establish a clearer identity and stronger user base. We need to deliver more tangible benefits to core users. While pursuing these, I hope we’ll continue to be relevant to your career success. And I hope you’ll continue to support our efforts to support your career development. So stay tuned! I’ll update you in another month on how we’re doing!

Sincerely,

Larry Wang

来自职商网创始人的一封信

2018年7月19日

 一年前，一位成功创业的朋友跟我说了两句话。第一句是“创业这条路，你最后选择的方向，会和你在起点时计划的大相径庭。”第二句是“公司经营时间越久，目标客户群体就越集中，并更专注于我们的价值主张”尽管我一直理解这些理念，但相较于我们公司的情况，就另当别论了。

我和其他创业者一样，一直以来都希望可以尽自己所能，把优质的服务与专业的经验提供给大家，让尽可能多的人受益。但抱着这样的想法，实际上很难让公司的服务定位在更小、更精准的客户群体上。

2015年我创立了职商网，当时的目标是，要让职商网成为“您首选的职业发展网站”，为有职业理想的朋友们提供可靠、实用的职业发展建议。

因此，我开始强调职商和取得成功之间的联系。但一直以来用户的反馈都是，提高职商太过形而上，没办法立即解决人们当下所遇到的问题。

也有人建议以我为中心，先做网红，然后再推广职商网。虽然我的初衷是建立一个传递职场专业知识和培训的平台，而非以我为中心。但我也明白，网红带来的知名度可以帮助对职商网的推广。所以去年开始，我在各个新媒体平台上都发了很多文章、视频，回答了各种各样的职场问题。

我们的努力有了成效。我成为了拥有15万粉丝的微博职场博主，跻身职场类博主前十名。我们开设了职场线下课《七个步骤 职场成功》，这个系列课程不仅旨在帮助学员找到好工作，而是教他们更实用的方法，更好地实现职业发展。这也是很多人所需要的。同时，我们也发布了多个职场短视频系列，提供职场建议和见解的《60秒职场箴言》、回答粉丝问题的《Ask Larry》，线下讲座精华《Larry Live》以及评价常见职场问题的《To What Degree Is It True》。

这些内容反响都不错，但和我们投入的时间跟精力相比，实在算不上是让人满意的效果。到现在为止我们都还在新媒体这一块不停尝试、学习新的东西。对我来说，最大的挑战是什么呢？是分清什么是我想做的，什么是我需要做的。

之所以洋洋洒洒说了这些，是因为我们职商网即将做两个重要的转型。第一个是我们网站的定位。说实话，如果你问职商网最忠实的粉丝，我们的目标客户是哪类人群，我们给他们带来了哪些看得见的效果，他们可能也说不出来。对于大部分人来说，我们所提供的职业发展内容可能并没有实用到能在短期内改变大家的现状，我们提供的案例也不够具体。

根据用户的反馈以及我们团队的商讨，我们决定将职商网的定位由“您首选的职业发展网站”变为“国际化专业人才首选的职业发展网站”。我们计划针对想要加入跨国企业并且取得成功，或者出国工作的国际化人才，提供精准优质的职业发展内容，帮助他们实现事业上的飞跃。这也将会使我们成为国内领先的双语职业发展平台。

第二个转型是，我们会重点推出一套职业发展订阅视频《More Than Career English》。因为语言的限制，我没有办法很好地用中文传授我的职业发展知识，但这个系列视频能够发挥我作为英语母语者的优势，同时我也可以顺利地和大家分享我20多年来通过我的猎头公司王李亚洲资源，和顶尖国际企业合作所总结出的职业发展经验。

我们的第一个产品是《More Than Career English：如何在国际企业加速你的职业发展》。这个课程能够带给你的远远不止是提高英语水平，更重要的是，我会和大家分享国际企业高管及成功人士如何看待事物，以及他们的做事方式。每天的订阅视频内容包括有：实用的职场见解、建议，帮助用户作为国际化专业人才，取得更大的成功。每节课后的Larry’s Golden Rule 则会帮助你提高你的职商。

其余《More Than Career English》系列视频则会包括《如何在国际化企业抓住好的机会》，《想要出国工作该做好哪些准备》、《如何与外籍高管高效沟通》

无论何时，当我们公司年轻员工面对巨大的挑战时，我都会告诉他们要突破自我，总会有那么一瞬间，你之前所作的所有努力都开始厚积薄发，变得有意义。同样的，我也听过很多成功的企业家回忆起他们当年突破困境的时刻。只要做出了关键的决定，他们的事业就能扬帆起航。我希望在职商网转型以及《More Than Career English》上线后，我们也能迎来事业的飞跃。

我想告诉大家的是，我还是会致力于发展职业发展平台，帮助人们识别可靠的职业发展建议及培训服务。同样也能让有实力的专业职业培训师更多地走出来，让大家看到。但我们首先需要有个更清晰的定位，并为目标客户提供更实用的服务。我希望大家能够继续支持我们，我们也会努力提供更优质的职业发展内容。大家拭目以待吧！下个月我会和大家汇报我们的近况的！

祝好

Larry Wang