The Birth of Shanghai's First Conglomerate

Chapter 113 Run, Middle-Aged Man!

Song Yanxi didn't know why her husband always liked to hold grand events, condensing a year's worth of earnings into a single day.

Anyway, there must be a reason for everything he does.

All she has to do is cooperate.

Previously there was only one, but this year there are 14 Shuiyunjian stores simultaneously preparing for this grand night.

Song Yanxi believes that inviting thousands of high-end clients to participate is definitely not a problem.

However, that was six months later.

The reason for bringing this up now is to prepare as early as possible.

The most urgent task at present is to complete the enrollment as soon as possible; otherwise, the college will be nothing more than a decoration.

Zhou Chun and her team couldn't handle this task; they just needed to discuss the specific training content together.

Two years is neither a long nor a short time.

Their family also has to pay each student a monthly salary; if they can't train these people properly, they'll really lose a lot of money.

According to her husband, the training of beauticians should mainly focus on their overall personal qualities.

The courses mainly consist of traditional Chinese studies.

Professional training only takes up one-third of the time.

To put it simply, it only takes two or three months for someone with no experience to become a beautician.

They spent two years, so naturally they had higher aspirations.

Fortunately, Tencent Film Studio had already done a good job of publicizing it beforehand, and the school officially started on September 1st.

Registration closes on September 1st, but registration will begin on August 20th.

The first batch of trainees were mostly referred by internal beauticians, since they were the ones who truly understood Shuiyunjian.

It's no exaggeration to say that the treatment here is far better than that of a typical 985 university graduate.

Entering Shuiyunjian means starting with an annual salary of 200,000.

Which university graduates can be so powerful?

In addition, the boss frequently gives out bonuses, like when Chen Xinyi was born.

Everyone inexplicably received a red envelope of 16,800 yuan.

There were absolutely no warning signs beforehand.

Don't be fooled by the seemingly small amount of 16,800 yuan; Shuiyunjian has a total of 200 beauticians across its five branches.

He casually handed out over three million.

The boss's wife gives birth every year, and that makes them the happiest.

In addition, there are red envelopes for various holidays, and those who perform well at the end of the year can receive several months' worth of year-end bonuses.

This looks like an excellent retirement home.

You could do it for a lifetime.

They were all from rural areas and had never seen a private enterprise like this before.

While sharing the good news with their families, they also asked them to introduce their relatives who were about to graduate from high school.

Two years of training is fine; it's definitely better than attending a regular university.

The key benefits include free meals and accommodation, tuition waiver, and a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan.

Honestly, I've never seen such a good boss.

Therefore, the hundreds of beauticians already at Shuiyunjian have long since started referring others.

The specific registration period starts from the 20th.

Everyone started reporting headcount in July; it had to be done well in advance.

Otherwise, once the quota is full, there will be no chance to get in at all.

They are all internal staff, so naturally they are much faster than outsiders. By the time the recruitment process, which is generating a lot of buzz online, has just begun, they have already recruited almost all of them.

Song Yanxi would naturally prioritize referrals from internal employees; every company would do the same.

It doesn't matter who we train.

Having relatives working here makes it much more stable.

Chen Pingsheng simply handed over all the big responsibilities of Shuiyunjian to his wife.

He then took Chang Fu, who had just arrived in Beijing, and Yang Qian to visit his Tenghui Capital. Lin Jia had been working alone here for several months, and the data she had collected on traditional industries could fill a whole stack of A4 pages.

The boss invited her here, of course, not to listen to her long-winded speeches.

The ability to simplify complex data is a fundamental quality of an excellent market researcher.

Inside the office, Lin Jia officially began her first professional presentation in the past few months.

She was a little nervous, after all, she had been receiving her salary for several months before the boss officially came to work here.

Lin Jia said: "President Chen, China's internet entrepreneurship started in 98, but the main ones that really had a big impact on traditional supermarkets were large e-commerce platforms, with Alibaba as the main player and JD.com as the secondary player."

"These e-commerce platforms have completely eliminated all levels of intermediaries in traditional businesses, thus achieving complete price transparency and changing customers' consumption habits, shifting them from offline to online."

"Currently, e-commerce shopping accounts for about a quarter of domestic consumption, and this figure is expected to increase further in the next three years."

"The main drawback of traditional supermarkets is that their operating costs are much higher than those of the virtual internet economy. For the same product, traditional industries have to go through at least three intermediaries to sell it to customers, while e-commerce can go directly to the customer without the high costs of rent and decoration. In terms of price, e-commerce does have a clear advantage."

"Another point is that the lack of transparency in the consumption of physical supermarkets is also a major reason why customers are increasingly reluctant to buy things in physical stores."

Chen Pingsheng stroked his chin, then twirled the pen in his hand before saying, "What I mean is, if I want to run a supermarket or hypermarket, I must solve problems such as pricing and lack of transparency in consumer behavior."

"Indeed it is."

Lin Jia said, "President Chen, once you can solve these two problems, coupled with good quality and excellent service, you should be able to make it a hit."

The minimum investment for a large supermarket in a first-tier city is over 30 million yuan.

Chen Pingsheng really wanted to do this, mainly because he felt that supermarkets had great potential for development.

Once it's developed well, it can even spin off the best shops from within in the future.

They split into separate entities seeking to go public.

In other words, a large supermarket can house at least five listed companies.

This is definitely more intense than Boiling Sheep.

"Another point."

Lin Jia added, "Small supermarkets nowadays all need to add fresh food markets, mainly because fresh food is a necessity. It can maximize the flow of customers to regular supermarkets. Supermarkets that can sell fresh food well will basically not lack customers."

"Hey Lao Chen, what big business are you planning to get into this time?"

Chang Fu, standing to the side, exclaimed dramatically, "You already have five companies, isn't that enough for you? Now you want to specifically study supermarkets?"

Chen Pingsheng turned his chair around and said:

“If you go to Beijing now, almost everyone is talking about ‘Internet Plus,’ as if the Internet can really kill our physical businesses. But I think differently. My daughter likes to buy things online, but the things she buys are either unsuitable or extremely ugly.”

"I've always felt that the online shopping experience can't compare to that of physical stores. Everyone likes to shop online now, mainly because the prices are cheaper. If I can solve this problem, I'll still have a great opportunity in the future."

"People still need to have dreams, otherwise what's the difference between them and Xianyu (a second-hand marketplace platform)?" Chen Pingsheng chuckled.

Chang Fu couldn't help but complain, "Damn it, you don't even have a dream. Your house is so big, and you can casually give your wife a car worth over 20 million yuan when she has a baby. I'm telling you, you should at least shut up a bit and focus on running your current businesses well. Wouldn't that be better than anything else?"

Changfu is quite insightful; many business owners have gone bankrupt because of this—constantly diversifying into different industries, leading to a break in their cash flow.

The past serves as a lesson.

"You don't understand, society is developing too fast these days."

Chen Pingsheng shook his head and said, "If I don't improve, I won't even know why I'll be eliminated one day. Let alone me, those big internet companies are acquiring this today and that tomorrow. What do you think is the reason? It's just to strengthen their own moat."

“Take my Tengsheng Fruit for example. Everyone sells fruit. I have invested more and developed faster in Beijing, and I’m doing quite well. But I might not be doing so well outside of Beijing. There are other fruit sellers in other places that have taken the same approach as Tengsheng to the extreme, and they also have the advantage of being local brands. What can I use to compete with them?”

"If I could do a good job in supermarkets, it would be different. I would sell fruit and also sell fresh produce to the fullest extent. With a wider range of products and more customers, the competitive advantage would be immediately apparent."

"You know what I mean, right? When a company grows big, you can't just sit back and wait. The market will push you to keep changing. When you can't keep changing, that's when you should either move forward or fall behind."

Chang Fu was dumbfounded. There really was a reason why this guy could handle such a huge amount of work.

This level of awareness is far superior to his.

"Besides..."

Chen Pingsheng smiled and said, "My company will never operate with debt. If one business fails, it will just go bankrupt. It's just a loss of tens of millions, nothing serious. Why not try more?"

That makes perfect sense.

He genuinely admired that the company was debt-free.

That means he will absolutely not experience the kind of domino effect where the cards fall.

If one company falls, it won't necessarily affect the others.

(End of this chapter)