Guo Taiming Business Sales

Foxconn chairman Guo Taiming is an entrepreneur who rose from the ground up in grassroots sales. He frequently shares business techniques and management wisdom with the next generation of salespeople in company meetings. The following four “what-ifs” are distilled from Guo Taiming’s personal life and work experience—the essence of his business philosophy. Through constant self-questioning and reflection, one can gradually increase their value in the workplace.

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💼 The First “What If”: Requirements for Assistants

1. You only answer phones, telling customers you don’t know and can’t help.
2. You only process orders, never follow up or track, and don’t report or resolve problems.
3. You only fill out reports without verifying data accuracy.
4. You only answer phones, never hoping customers feel satisfied or place larger orders.
5. You only think of yourself as an assistant, never considering that your words and actions represent the salesperson, manager, boss, and company.

Then, you’re not qualified to be a competent assistant. Your job is replaceable by anyone.

🚀 The Second “What If”: Requirements for Sales Staff

1. You never keep department revenue targets constantly in mind.
2. You never consider that your personal targets affect departmental goal achievement.
3. After sending samples, you never wonder about the outcome or why there’s no response.
4. After quoting, you never follow up on why there’s no order, or how much less you’d need to close the deal.
5. When orders increase, you never stop to think what’s happening—you just go with the flow and let clients lead you.
6. When orders decrease, you don’t investigate the reason; you feel nothing and take no action.
7. You never think about being more professional or reliable in front of clients.
8. You don’t plan work, manage time, control costs, or educate clients.
9. You think developing new clients and markets is troublesome and painful.

Then, you’re not qualified to be a competent salesperson. You’re a burden to all of us.

🛠️ The Third “What If”: Requirements for Production Managers

1. You don’t treat customer needs as highly important.
2. You don’t treat customer complaints as top priority, actively investigating and reviewing.
3. You often fail to deliver on time, assuming customers will always wait for you.
4. When salespeople report customer problems, you find them annoying.
5. When customers report quality issues, you call them picky and dismiss them as bad customers.
6. You frequently have “it’s too troublesome,” “it’s difficult,” “I don’t want to,” and “it’s impossible” on your lips.
7. You treat coming to work as a routine task, never proactively looking for problems or improving quality.

Then, you’re not qualified to be a competent production manager. Working with you exhausts me. While we work hard outside, without solid quality and service backing us up, all our efforts fall short. We break all promises to customers and become a company with first-class talking skills, second-class quality, and third-class service.

👑 The Fourth “What If”: Requirements for the Boss

1. You only criticize, never praise; only punish, never reward.
2. Things beneficial to the company—you don’t act immediately.
3. You constantly have “let’s wait and see” and “let me study it more” on your lips.

Then, I can only say quietly: you’re not a qualified boss. But I can’t say more because, after all, you’re still my boss.

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The Secret to Business Success

I’m no genius—geniuses belong in the heavens. We’re at best talented, but we need execution to count. Every person faces daily pressure from time, quality, costs, and performance. Without pressure, it’s not “work”—it’s “play.” I deeply understand this; lacking pressure would make me age faster.

Last year, our performance was mediocre. This year, our targets are clear. A few months have passed, and while our achievement rate isn’t great yet, I remain deeply confident. Economic conditions and politics aren’t scary—what’s scary is lacking crisis awareness, lacking the ability to review, and lacking execution capability.

I have a dream:

• I hope each of you holds an irreplaceable position in the organization.
• I hope each department holds an irreplaceable position in the company.
• I hope our products, quality, and service hold an irreplaceable position in customers’ minds.
• I hope everyone works hard together so that our difficult journey yields rich harvests by year-end.
• I hope to experience once more that “sweet” feeling after achieving our goals!