How can you become a star without money?

Chapter 120 Event Situation Structure
Role models have power.

Human beings' need for idols is something that is created later in life.

However, the imitation of role models stems from an instinctive thirst for power and growth.

For art students like Jin Chen, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li may be idols, but Fan Bingbing is definitely one of their role models and someone they can emulate and learn from.

All the promises Ni Ni made to them were less effective than seeing Fan Bingbing in person.

If I had known that fame was so useful, I wouldn't have needed to waste time and effort signing people in the future. Bringing my stars to the audition in person would have been far more effective.

"That's called the authority effect. Status and fame increase the importance of your words and actions, making it easier to gain the trust and blind obedience of others. After all, society is made up of people," Wang Yao laughed after hearing Ni Ni's complaints.

“But what does someone else’s achievement have to do with their own choices? Is authority always right?” Ni Ni asked rhetorically.

"People who blindly follow authority do so because they don't know how to choose, and these are the people who can be guided and communicated with. The kind of people you mentioned are either very opinionated or narcissistic, and neither of them can be communicated with."

"There's no need to waste time on this type of person. The same applies to choosing business partners. Our premise for cooperation is to only screen, not change," Wang Yao corrected.

"Hmm, let's filter out the gullible fools." Ni Ni pondered for a moment.

"Fools sometimes have good luck," Wang Yao chuckled.

"Does our company have business with Ms. Fan?" Ni Ni couldn't help but ask curiously.

She knew Wang Yao was capable and very powerful, but she didn't expect that an artist of Fan Bingbing's caliber would be a target customer.

Does this mean that by getting involved with Wang Yao, I've already entered the ranks of top-tier entertainment companies in China?
"It's just a business collaboration. Even if there are opportunities in the future, it's best not to get too entangled with her," Wang Yao reminded her.

“Okay, then I’ll arrange online sales for Jin Chen and Li Yitong first, and we’ll take over other business after they’ve adapted.” Ni Ni nodded obediently.

She never questioned Wang Yao's words.

“Yi Xiaoxing is currently preparing for a new project, which would allow them to get more exposure to filming and become familiar with the camera,” Wang Yao thought for a moment.

Dance-themed variety shows still need some time to prepare, which will give them a chance to get used to the filming rhythm and avoid adding extra burden to the filming process later.

Although the two often perform on stage offline, there is still a big difference between performing on camera and performing in person. In fact, neither of them has top-notch acting talent. They may be a little better than Gulnazar, but they can't compare to Ni Ni.

Wang Yao's initial positioning for the two was a development path of dancers + eating without gaining weight + variety shows + supporting actresses. The initial monetization path was mainly through sales of weight loss/skincare products. If they were to rely on the two's acting fees to make money, wouldn't they lose money for several years in the early stages?

After explaining these matters, Wang Yao turned his attention back to Chengtian Entertainment's stock price. Despite the release of the positive news about the cross-shareholding arrangement all day, the stock price did not rise but continued to decline.

It's quite noticeable that Liu Haifeng's side is continuously exerting pressure, and now it's almost fallen below 13, with its market value shrinking by almost a third.

Liu Haifeng said he only acquired 5% of the shares in the secondary market, but Wang Yao strongly suspected that he might have locked up most of the circulating shares in advance, just to force Wu Kebo to continue releasing the shares he held.

Is this driving Lao Wu crazy?
Wang Yao pondered for a moment, deciding to observe before deciding whether to push the price up. His gaze turned to the Li family's Hejiang Group, whose stock price had fallen to around 95 without much fluctuation. It seemed to have withstood the pressure from various short sellers, with an overall drop of 6%. However, the losses incurred during the struggle were difficult to estimate.

Without a doubt, even if the Li family wasn't severely weakened by this wave, their plan to switch allegiance to England has completely failed, and that's enough.

What's also interesting is the incident last year involving the second son of the Li family privatizing the electronics company. It has now escalated even further, with even a senior executive at Tencent getting involved, believing that privatizing telecommunications is not a good option.

I wonder if someone is trying to force the Li family to vomit up their flesh.

Overall, the storm has subsided, and the gains are considerable. At least the film production, theatrical distribution, and promotion industry chain has been connected, laying the foundation for future monetization of traffic and new product placement models.

The next day, Wang Yao took Ni Ni back to Shanghai.

More than a month later, spring has gradually arrived in Shanghai. When Wang Yao returned to the company and faced the searching eyes of many unfamiliar faces, he still felt like he was in another world.

"Welcome home, Mr. Yao." Chi Xin has been taking care of the branch company for Wang Yao during this time, and she has done her best.

"Ms. Chi, you've worked hard." Wang Yao handed her a gift.

"It's not hard work at all. President Yao's willingness to entrust the company to me shows his trust in me," Chi Xin said with a smile.

"I was quite busy in Beijing this time and didn't have time to visit President Xu. Did he say anything?" Wang Yao asked casually.

Chi Xin's smile froze, and she quickly shook her head in surprise, "President Yao is back from Beijing? I just spoke with President Xu on the phone yesterday, and he didn't mention it."

"Yes, it's about the movie website." Wang Yao glanced at her, then moved on from the topic and began auditing the company's operations over the past month.

Xu Chen definitely knew that Wang Yao had been in the capital for a long time, but whether he had told Chi Xin was uncertain.

In the past month, as per Wang Yao's request, the company has recruited a large number of people, with the operations and execution positions expanding to 50 people, forming nearly 12 teams, responsible for the work of more than 30 contracted models.

The newly appointed cultural and creative department, managed by Kevin Rudd, is currently recruiting more than 40 new media writers.

The company currently has 110 employees. Excluding a few management personnel, the average salary is 4000, which is considered high. The monthly salary cost is close to 40.

Fortunately, the business revenue is quite considerable. Qu Shou and Ma Ruo, the two top performers alone, should currently contribute 6 million yuan (after revenue sharing) to the company. The revenue from the other 30-plus models can cover salary costs and ensure team expansion.

Including previous loans and a sum of revenue from Julibao, and after deducting the expenses of investing in the Korean branch, there are currently more than ten million yuan in available funds on the books.

However, this year's revenue has already reached nearly 2000 million, and the first quarter alone exceeded last year's total revenue. The gross profit margin is as high as 40%. If the growth continues in the next three quarters, Tianhuo Media is very likely to surpass Meishe Company's size this year.

Although Chi Xin prepared this report herself, she still can't quite believe that the results are actually true.

However, Wang Yao was not very satisfied with the revenue. "In a couple of days, Kanpianer.com will have another 500 million yuan in annual cooperation revenue. If Boss Chi has any suitable business, we can also connect with them. Let's try to achieve 3000 million yuan in revenue in the first quarter."

Chi Xin's breath hitched upon hearing this. Wouldn't that mean annual revenue would exceed 100 million? Was they really aiming to surpass Meishe?

"Okay, Mr. Yao." Chi Xin didn't say anything, secretly pondering how to conduct herself in the future.

After Chi Xin left, Lu Kewen came in. Although the two talked on the phone almost every day, this was the first time he had met her in person.

"Mr. Wang, I didn't expect you to be so young." Lu Kewen said with some emotion. Even though he already knew that his boss was an undergraduate student, he still had mixed feelings after meeting him.

"How is Manager Lu adapting?" Wang Yao made him some tea.

"Although the work is very high-pressure every day, it is very fulfilling and much more enjoyable than my previous job in e-commerce." Kevin Rudd is also quite frank.

"You have e-commerce experience, and our company will mainly serve e-commerce clients in the future. I've partnered with others to create a website similar to Meishe.com, but we don't sell model photos."

"It's about matching e-commerce clients with models and providing store marketing services. This platform has models and operations staff, and each person's persona needs extra packaging to ensure clients are accurately matched with suitable roles to place orders," Wang Yao explained, describing the features of the Taobao Girl website.

In January, he snapped up the domain name 'Tao Girl' before Taobao could, and then Cai Haoyu directly optimized the Meishe website, creating a website similar to Future Star Map.

All e-commerce business owners can select suitable e-commerce partners on the platform, place orders directly online, and access online operation services. The platform mainly features Taobao models, so their personas and branding need to be distinctive.

Kevin Rudd, with his background in e-commerce operations, immediately grasped the need.

"Another issue is the overseas expansion of our cultural and creative departments." Seeing that he had no questions, Wang Yao continued, "We've reached a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Myspace. In the future, we'll not only cover domestic self-media, but also self-media in East Asia and even the West. Don't feel pressured; netizens all over the world grew up reading Yilin and Story Magazine. We've already reached a consensus on this. Our first step is to translate all our previous content on 'women's dilemmas' into text and images that can be understood in different regions."
First, build up your user base on the international version of Myspace. Basically, whatever you post domestically, you can directly replicate it overseas. Of course, it would be best if you could recruit local copywriters.
Our main targets this year are Korea and Japan, in particular. In addition, we will set up a special materials department to collect relevant posts from netizens around the world about their own or their local special events.

After selecting and compiling some information, such as what tragedies occurred in Korea or what bizarre events happened in Japan, we will optimize these and put them on the domestic version for platform users to discuss.

"The purpose is to let domestic users see the real situation outside?" Kevin Rudd paused, lost in thought.

"Yes, we need to let domestic netizens know that the situation abroad is even worse and more outrageous. This comparison will make people realize they aren't the only ones facing difficulties. As new media professionals, we need to be aware of three key points: events, the situation, and the structure."

Events are like ripples, various scandals, gossip, and human ethics; situations are like tides, class mobility, shifts in circumstances, and transfers of power; structures are like riverbeds, including climate, geography, culture, and production relations. Events and situations are all triggered by structural pressures.

For example, the Li family in this case was a case of structural changes leading to a shift in the situation, ultimately being swallowed up by the waves. What we need to do is make domestic netizens realize that there are waves everywhere, and then take advantage of the appropriate situation to promote the harvesting of some interests. As for structural issues, that is not something we need to consider.

The only thing we need to pay attention to is to channel internal pressure externally, using external problems to reduce internal pressure.” Wang Yao’s expression was relaxed, but his tone was somewhat subtle.

Kevin Rudd roughly understood the unspoken meaning and nodded, "I understand."

"At the same time, we will also be collaborating with many international artists or internet celebrities in the future. I will have them shoot some suitable content as our traffic-generating channels, such as the upcoming films 'Alice' and 'Gods'."
This can serve as a test case for you in Southeast Asia. The website is about to update its international version; see if you can leverage social media to promote it.” Wang Yao then returned to business planning.

“I understand, Mr. Yao.” Kevin Lu took a deep breath.

"Feel free to make any requests," Wang Yao said with a smile.

“It’s naturally a budget issue. At the very least, we might need to recruit a few more people,” Rudd said.

"We could try recruiting some overseas students or part-time workers. They have an understanding of both cultures and the realities of the environment. We have a branch office in Korea, and I'll have someone specifically connect you with them."

"You can train a few people in other regions first. If there is investment value in the local area, we can talk about it then. I won't restrict your budget. As for the number of people, is 80 enough?" Wang Yao pondered for a moment.

This is equivalent to the cultural and creative industries needing a basic operating cost of 30 yuan per month.

“Of course it’s enough.” Kevin Rudd was a little surprised. He had originally planned to recruit two or three online part-time international students in several major regions to contribute articles, but Wang Yao directly doubled the budget.

It seems there are high expectations for this project.

His department doesn't have many full-time employees; most are online part-time contributors, so the current requirements for office space are not high.

The company supports online work, but there are performance requirements for online work to prevent employees from slacking off.

Tianhuo Media's business lines are very clear, and there are not many decisions that require Wang Yao's personal involvement; he only needs to grasp the general direction.

After finalizing the order of the next few projects with Kevin Rudd, it was almost dinnertime. I asked Chi Xin to inform all departments that they could leave work early today, as the boss was treating everyone to a team-building dinner.

The message was released in the employee group and quickly sparked heated discussions among everyone.

Wow, Mr. Wang just got back and immediately treated everyone to dinner, and it was a team-building activity that didn't even take up his rest time. That's the advantage of a young boss!

"Oh, right, this is a gift from President Ren to you before the New Year." Chi Xin took out a Porsche car key and handed it to Wang Yao.

Wang Yao then remembered that Ren Quan had indeed said he had prepared a gift for him during the New Year, but after the New Year, he went straight to the capital and was so busy that he forgot about it.

I thought it was a small gift, but it turned out to be a car, a black 2009 Panamera. As a milestone in luxury sports sedans, Wang Yao also owned one in his previous life. At that time, he gritted his teeth and bought a used car with 80,000 kilometers on it for 300,000 yuan to make a good impression when negotiating business.

In the end, I drove it for 20,000 kilometers and spent more than 50,000 yuan on repairs.

I never imagined I'd be driving the same new car in my lifetime.

Wang Yao didn't know much about cars, but Chi Xin did. She introduced the car's configuration and value, estimating that the Turbo version would cost close to 300 million yuan. Wang Yao guessed that Ren Quan originally bought it for himself.

But after the unexpected collaboration with the movie streaming website, I gave it to him as a gift.

Wang Yao took a test drive and then called Ren Quan to express his gratitude.

"Hey, I almost forgot about it if you hadn't mentioned it. The car's nice, isn't it? I'll give you a call later so you can transfer the ownership," Ren Quan said with a smile.

"It's too expensive," Wang Yao declined.

"Mr. Wang has helped me make hundreds of millions in business, what's this little bit of money? Alright, stop being so dramatic, I have a dinner appointment to attend, let's talk later." Ren Quan hurriedly hung up the phone, afraid that Wang Yao would refuse.

"I'll give you a number later. We'll buy this car under the company's name, and anyone who needs it can use it," Wang Yao said, turning to Chi Xin.

"Okay." Chi Xin didn't ask any questions.

Everyone who knows this knows what's going on. The money will definitely be transferred to Wang Yao, but the car is nominally company property. Who would dare to drive it?

Wang Yao picked up Ni Ni by car, but they didn't attend the company's team building event because they had an appointment with the Taobao staff member in charge of business coordination.

"Mr. Wang, Mr. Ni, it's a pleasure to meet you. I never expected that there would be such handsome men and beautiful women in the e-commerce industry." Although Wei Bo called himself a Taobao employee, he was actually the manager of Taobao's advertising department, specifically responsible for connecting with major Taobao Express customers.

Wang Yao currently operates over a hundred stores, spending millions every month, making him one of the top spenders. In addition, he recently signed a multi-million dollar annual cooperation agreement, which is enough to attract his personal attention.

He has a technical background and analyzed a lot of interesting things through the traffic data of Wang Yao's stores. In particular, he found that 40% of the sales of several stores with monthly sales of 50 yuan came from external organic traffic. This is definitely a benchmark for Taobao at present.

So after the New Year, he kept pestering Ni Ni to meet him, never expecting that the boss behind the scenes was actually two young people.

Although e-commerce is an emerging industry, the average age of shop owners is around 30, and many of them are merchants who develop their businesses offline through ground promotion teams. People like Wang Yao and Ni Ni have a completely different temperament.

"Mr. Wei, I apologize for keeping you waiting. There was an unexpected incident at the company, and we had to deal with it to make up for the delay." Wang Yao smiled and shook hands with him.

He was not familiar with the early figures of Taobao, except for the Eighteen Arhats who frequently appeared in online articles.

"It's alright, it's alright. We just arrived too. Let me introduce you. This is my colleague, Chen Qi. He's the product manager and is in charge of the campaign architecture," Wei Bo introduced another person in the private room.

"Mr. Wang, Mr. Ni, it's a pleasure to meet you. You are among my first batch of VIP clients for targeted advertising," Chen Qi greeted them warmly with a smile.

Wang Yao found the name somewhat familiar, but couldn't quite place it. He sat down and exchanged pleasantries with the person.

Wei Bo and Chen Qi seemed to be using the guise of treating each other to dinner to conduct user research, asking many questions about store placement, operations, and user experience.

Ni Ni was open to all questions, not only answering them but also raising some doubts.

Why is the ROI dropping so quickly? As soon as the ROI exceeds 1:15, it starts to decline every day. Are you adjusting the traffic behind the scenes?

Faced with Ni Ni's questioning, both of them showed a little embarrassment.

　Thanks to Xiaozhi, Xiangjian Turen, Donghai Zuiqiang, Yishui Jieqianchou, Tang Huangtian, Changchun Haorenduo, Xingkong Zhilan, todgott, Xianyu Dasan, Yanhu Hanchan, niezheng, Liqhthouse, Of course I came, 99 points, Renxing de Roujiamo, Qingfeng Mingyue 334, Liu Jia Dashifu, and Chongchong Taichongchong.

　　Thank you so much for the monthly tickets from readers 20200916091341966, 20180615233115425, 160803215618047, and 20200701122211852!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)