Is managing an e-commerce team solely based on incentives? The truth: Standardization is the key to a fundamental solution!

E-commerceThe truth about team management: Incentives are just a painkiller; standardization is the real solution.

E-commerce business owners, are you still managing your teams with motivational tactics? Wake up, your employees are immune to it.

A truly efficient e-commerce team doesn't have motivational slogans on the walls, but rather a densely packed manual of job standards.

Why are standards more important than incentives?

Incentives are like injecting employees with adrenaline—a short-term boost, but ineffective in the long run. Standardization, on the other hand, is like installing an operating system for the team; the more you upgrade, the smoother it becomes.

A certain company has 100,000 words of work standards for each position, but don't be intimidated by the numbers.

These standards were not written overnight, but rather accumulated naturally like a snowball rolling downhill.

Customer service encountered a peculiar customer? Write down the response script. Operations discovered a new pattern for best-selling products? Immediately update it into the product selection manual.

Standardization of 4 major nuclear bomb-level benefits

1. A zero-cost, high-return compound interest game

Other companies spend 100,000 yuan on team building, while one company spends zero yuan to build up standards. By writing a few extra lines after each problem is solved, they can compile a "job encyclopedia" in three years.

A junior operations staff member didn't even know how to use paid advertising when she first joined the company, but became the department's star performer three months later. Her secret? Every night before bed, she would flip through the standard manual and discover that her seniors had even written 500-word guides on "how to use emojis to increase click-through rates."

2. Talent Copying Machine Model

During recruitment, we directly provide applicants with three things: a company introduction, a job description document, and a test account. Those who can understand and are willing to work on the job are hired; those who find it too complicated are automatically eliminated.

Last year, before Singles' Day, I urgently needed to hire warehouse packers. While my competitors were still offering "monthly salaries of over 10,000 yuan," I directly sent the "22 Measures for Preventing Parcel Losses" to labor agencies.

The new employee was more efficient than the veteran employees on his first day – the standard even included a diagram for the "optimal wrapping angle of the tape".

3. Cutting-edge technology for immortality of experience

When employees leave a traditional company, they take their experience with them. But at another company, an employee's work wisdom remains locked in standard documents. A new intern opens the "Negative Review Handling" folder and finds solutions to 47 bizarre negative reviews from the past five years.

The most remarkable case: A graphic designer quit his job to start his own business, and the "details page color formula" he designed is still being iterated upon. His current team has added a new chapter, "Visual Traps for Generation Z," to his work.

4. The key to unhindered growth

Why do live-streaming teams dare to open 10 new accounts simultaneously? Because their standards state that going from 0 to 1 followers requires going through three stages: A, B, and C, with 21 checklist items for each stage. They even have contingency plans for "how to deal with trolls in the live-stream."

Last year, a new brand suddenly experienced a surge in orders, prompting the warehouse department to implement an "Order Surge Response Manual" overnight. From training temporary workers to coordinating with courier companies, the 32 steps were clearly outlined. While competitors were still in meetings discussing the situation, this company had already processed all its orders.

Three Fatal Misconceptions about Standardization

Myth 1: Standards equal stifling creativity. In fact, the last rule of our art design standards states: "All of the above rules can be broken—as long as you can prove with data that the new method is better."

Myth 2: Waiting for HR to write the standards. The most valuable standards always come from frontline employees. The "Practical Guide to Not Talking Back When Insulted" for customer service supervisors has now become an industry training textbook.

Myth 3: Treating standards as gospel. Our standard documents have a weekly "debunking update section" specifically for recording outdated methods that have been overturned.

Hard-won advice for entrepreneurs

Don't wait until your team grows large to establish standards; start building them now. Even if you only write down three today:

1. Morning meetings must be held standing up (to prevent anyone from dozing off).
2. Customer service keyboard F1 key bound to the character "亲" (saves 0.3 seconds/use)
3. The warehouse barcode scanner is always placed at a 45-degree angle (tested to be the most efficient).

You'll come back to thank me in three years. Those bosses who spend their days figuring out "how to get employees to work overtime voluntarily" will be crushed by your standardized team sooner or later.

Remember: incentives address the symptoms, standards address the root cause. When your standards manual is ten times thicker than your competitors', the war is over.