Sun Zhihua's briefing course is known as the "encyclopedia of business briefings", and when "doing presentations" becomes a must-learn skill for everyone, he tells everyone that doing briefings is not about design, but about doing it deeply into the hearts of the people!

Text| Gao Kexin Cady

In Taiwan, as long as you mention a business briefing, you cannot fail to mention Sun Zhihua.

He is the founder of the Briefing Lab and a well-known corporate lecturer. His briefing course has been known as the "Encyclopedia of Business Briefing" and has taught all the top companies in Taiwan.

In the highly competitive newsletter production market, Sun Zhihua forged his own way.

His unique positioning allows him to be both a pioneer in his career and almost never encounters a latecomer, even if he encounters an epidemic, he can continue to move forward like a storm.

How did such a resilient personal brand come about? How did Sun Zhihua find his own positioning and establish a style?

This interview will decipher his career story and how workers can build their external influence while deepening their careers!


Image source| Courtesy of Sun Zhihua

The only belief at the beginning of your career is to live to the fullest

Becoming a lecturer is an accident in Mr. Sun Zhihua's life. However, this accident, looking back many years later, can still find a clear path and a key fork in the road.

It turns out that these choices made at a young age have become the most important moves for him to build his personal brand in the future.

When he first entered the workplace, Mr. Sun Zhihua was as confused as many college students, did not do undergraduate related work, and entered the Institute of Technology and Research after self-learning procedures, and the life of an office worker was ten years.

As a rook, he had no plan, with only one belief and one action, both of which invisibly helped him throughout his career.

"Living a wonderful life is faith, and continuous reading is action."

After entering the workplace, Mr. Sun Zhihua cultivated the habit of reading, which lasted for 20 years.

Reading shaped his vision of which books he liked deeply and which books had the opportunity to be incorporated into his body of knowledge.

At the same time, at the beginning of his career, he set a simple belief for himself: to live as well as possible.

This belief is just a young and ambitious person, a small hope for life, but in the future became his career principle, like a north arrow, at every fork in the road in life, became the basis for making decisions, led him to meet noble people, and began his future career as a lecturer.

(Extended reading: "When everyone can do what they are, they can also play their true abilities" To those who are confused in their careers: please find the meaning of a job for you)


Image source| Courtesy of Sun Zhihua

3 keys to career transformation, build personal brand influence

The days before becoming a lecturer were Mr. Sun Zhihua's "nurturing period", which accumulated anything he needed to shape his personal brand in the future.

Three of the most critical actions and encounters were the most important turning points in his opinion.

Although the master introduces the door and practices in the individual, the door that a good career mentor can take you to open will be completely different.

While working at ITI, Mr. Sun Zhihua followed the team of Zhou Yanpeng, former legal director of Hon Hai, and studied and sharpened for four years.

At that time, he did all kinds of briefings in the team: competitor analysis, financial forecasting, industry analysis and marketing briefing, and Zhou Consultant was never picky but kept refining his output, and over time, his insight and ability gradually improved.

The accumulation and tempering of these four years has become the most solid soil for Mr. Sun Zhihua, giving him the opportunity to plant more choices on it in the future.

In the past few years of studying with Consultant Zhou, looking back on it is a very critical growth period, so that when training young lecturers now, he encourages young people to work hard in the workplace, because the height of the workplace determines the depth of the lecturer, and the accumulation in the workplace is precisely the most important cultivation of becoming a lecturer.

Don't underestimate the time spent squatting in the workplace, he may become the most fertile ground for nourishing himself when shaping his personal brand in the future.

(Same screening: Can the "right" career and career choices lead you to happiness?) ）


Image source| Courtesy of Sun Zhihua

Workers who are just starting out in the workplace are often busy building internal value and ignoring external value.

Teacher Sun Zhihua once said, "Writing a blog has changed my life."

Writing, on the other hand, is a powerful tool that everyone possesses, allowing you to create external influence as an individual.

When he was still working at the Institute of Technology and Research, Professor Sun Zhihua wrote a personal blog, which became known as the Briefing Lab.

With the nourishment from studying with Consultant Zhou, he began to write down his key skills and experiences in making presentations in the workplace, and wrote with joy with the mood of sharing, but he did not expect that when he wrote the seventh article, he was invited to the company for internal training.

This is the first job he received as a lecturer out of the company, and from this time, teacher Sun Zhihua also started his career as a lecturer step by step.

If the four years of studying with Advisor Zhou in the early stage are the soil of the teacher's career; That writing is the subsequent planting of plants, and on the stage, it is the most effective fertilizer, irrigating plants to make them flourish and be seen by more people.

The opportunity to go on stage is not always given by others, and the first experience that teacher Sun Zhihua impressed with was volunteering.

At HPX, the largest UX community gathering in Taiwan, he volunteered to be a sharer, even if he did not perform well, but it was this time on stage that made him continue to walk on stage and accumulate valuable contacts.

Self-recommendation may be seen as conceited and big in the workplace, but in shaping your personal brand, the wind attracted by Shuda may help you blow unexpected surprises.

After continuing to write and take the stage, the path of lecturer gradually became clear in front of him.


Image source| Courtesy of Sun Zhihua

Unique brand style has become the foundation for gaining a foothold in the market

With the rich cultivation in the early stage, Sun Zhihua began to think about the possibility of becoming a teacher.

However, the lecturer of briefing paper production is an industry full of involution and competition, so finding the right market gap and making a unique style is the most critical thinking of Mr. Sun Zhihua in shaping his personal brand.

When he was first invited to the company's internal training, he had a clear insight into the market demand for newsletter production, and found that the theories in the book could not effectively solve the problems encountered within the company.

The newsletter on the market focuses on "presentation presentation" and "presentation layout", but what employees really need is a presentation on business thinking such as proposals and strategy sharing.

Therefore, Sun Zhihua established his own lecturer style at that time: "follow the communication strategy of the briefing, not the design and production of the briefing."

A briefing is not just a layout of information, it should be an extension of ideas; When everyone is teaching how to make a presentation look good, he comes to teach how to make a briefing deeply rooted in people's hearts.

The four years of studying with Zhou Consultant have enabled him to establish a rich database of business thinking, combined with the briefing to form a unique teaching direction, and has helped countless employees learn more rigorous thinking and better expression.

Such a self-contained course, even if it has encountered the epidemic in recent years and changed from offline to online, it has hardly been greatly affected.

(Guess you like: changing jobs is tiring: how to plan for long-term career development?) ）


Image source| Courtesy of Sun Zhihua

Post-pandemic reflection: Brands that deliver value both online and offline will have a larger market

The epidemic is a huge sieve, screening out companies that only have offline markets and competitiveness, and leaving behind companies that are already operating online markets or have a high degree of flexibility to switch between online and offline.

Sun Zhihua mentioned that the epidemic has driven consumers' living habits online, and in the face of the unknown in front of them, consumers' habits have stagnated.

Such stagnation tests many businesses, facing this unfamiliar online field, is it already deeply cultivated, or is it only now ready to develop?

"You must squat before flying high, and when you can't do anything, it's probably right to invest in yourself."

During the epidemic, Sun Zhihua was not in a hurry, read more books and speeches, and his life was more appropriate.

The change of the general environment can not be reversed by one's efforts, it is better to take advantage of this time to rethink the business model, study and recharge, accumulate professionalism and reputation, and make yourself after the epidemic become the choice that others want to cooperate with.

However, regardless of the epidemic, personal career planning is never a one-time event, but a series of continuous review and testing processes.

In the face of changes in the general environment, sometimes it is necessary to follow the trend, and sometimes it is necessary to wait for the opportunity; Faced with the many choices in front of you, sometimes you have to go hand in hand, and sometimes you need to have the courage to break the cauldron.

Good personal brand planning, vitality, it is organic, and it grows with the times.

It is not as good as planning in the workplace, and it can often start from a solid starting point and see the end.

More often than not, it may just have an initial prototype or start with an accident, but always accept what is found along the way and open up to change and change.