English is my second language, my family immigrated to America when I was 9 years old from South Korea. (just like every American family did at some time except for native Indians.)

Where I grew up, in Korea, ginseng has been used for centuries to cure all type of diseases.  I don’t know if it cures everything but I know it does some good things for your body.

Anyways, here’s a story of how Korean ginseng became Korean ginseng.  It’s actually a true story and if this didn’t happen, Korean ginseng would never be today’s “Korean ginseng”.    There’s actually even a movie about this guy who sold ginseng to China back in the day.

He’s name is actually “Im Sang Hok“.

He’s probably the one guy who did “brand marketing” for Korean ginseng and till this day, Korean ginseng are the most expensive ginseng in the world, some of them more than $100,000 just for one ginseng root.  (Yes, it is worth more than a lot of drugs out there, grams for grams.)

Sometimes in life, you need to do exactly the opposite in order to sell what you want, especially if customers do understand the real value.

I know, this has nothing to do with blogging but I thought I’d share with you some century-old Korean brand marketing wisdom, it can’t hurt.

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Here’s a little bit about his strategy on “Death” strategy:

백척간두(百尺竿頭)는 백척이나 되는 장대 위에 있다는 뜻이다. 위로 올라갈 수도 없고 밑으로 내려올 수도 없는 상황이다. 앞으로 가도 죽고 뒤로 물러서도 죽는다. 지금 임상옥의 입장이 그렇게 된것이다. 임상옥은 선택했다. 백척간두에서 살아남는 방법은 단 하나. 갱일보(更一步), 한거름 더 나가는것. 죽음(死)을 벗어날 수 있는 방법 역시 단 하나 필사(必死), 반드시 죽는것. 못팔면 도로 가져갈 것도 없다. “다 태우고간다.” 임상옥은 장작더미를 쌓아놓고 불을 붙힌 다음 가져간 인삼을 불구덩이에 넣기시작했다.

Well, translated, he basically felt that the only way to survive his “death” (not being able to sell the ginseng for the the price he wanted) was to basically bring “death” to himself.  He decided that if he couldn’t sell the ginseng at the price, there’s even no need to bring it back to Korea.  He started burning all the Korean ginseng to prove a point to the Chinese merchants.

이렇게 되니까 다급해진쪽은 중국상인들이다. 저걸 다 태우고가면 앞으로 수년간 중국에서 인삼을 구경하기 힘들다. 자기들도 인삼이 있어야 약점상에 팔아먹을 것 아닌가. 인삼이 저렇게 잿더미가 된다면 자기들 장사도 끝장이다. 상인들은 임상옥에게 매달렸다. 제발 불을 끄시라고, 그리고 인삼값은 원하는대로 지불하겠다고. 그날 불에 태우다가 남긴 인삼 모두를 태운 금액까지 쳐서 단숨에 팔아 치울 수 있었다.

As he started burning all the Korean ginseng, the Chinese merchants became “afraid” as it wasn’t often that they got to even see Korean ginseng.  The Chinese merchants realized that if they don’t have Korean ginseng to sell in their medicine stores, they would also probably all go out of business too as they would have no Korean ginseng to offer. The Chinese merchants all started yelling to stop burning the valuable ginseng and that they would pay more than double the original asking price.

Im Sang Hok sold the unburnt Korean ginseng for more than his original cost.  From that day on, Korean ginseng was exported to China at the price the Koreans wanted, not what Chinese people were willing to pay for, even till today.

The moral of the story?

No matter what hardship you face, there’s always an opportunity you can find if you think clearly and thoughtfully. Blogging, brand marketing, brand marketing, centuries, china, diseases, drugs, ginseng root, Great Entrepreneurs, korea ginseng, korean ginseng, marketing, south korea, true story, wisdom, 산삼, 인삼, 임상혹