Once a company loses its credibility, the collapse comes like a landslide.
Tips
history
Recorded in the 20th-century historical work 《北洋军阀统治时期史话》 describing the rout of warlord Sun Chuanfang's (孙传芳) Jiangxi forces after their commander fled. Though the phrase has older oral roots, this is the canonical written attestation in 新华成语词典.
memory
Picture a mountainside collapse: once one boulder gives way, everything above slides with it. 兵败 = army defeated; 如 = like; 山倒 = a mountain falling. It captures how a rout snowballs — the second a line breaks, the rest goes.
