All the heavens begin with the love in the courtyard.

This street is considered the best commercial street in Jinzhou. Just 300 meters away is Jinzhou's largest department store, Jinzhou No. 1 Department Store.

This place used to be a state-owned stationery store. The store was not large, but there were two warehouses built with walls behind it. When Lei Dongbao passed by, he took a liking to this location at first glance. After asking around, he learned that the warehouses behind it belonged to the street and had been built during a special period. No one had taken care of them until now. Lei Dongbao immediately went to talk to the street office.

As a trial balloon, we gave the neighborhood committee seven electric fans as a price, and finally negotiated the lease on the two small warehouses. The reasons for giving away seven fans are too complicated to discuss in detail. In the end, we reached an agreement: the rent would be 500 yuan for the first year, with an annual increase of 5% thereafter, and we signed a five-year contract.

Lei Dongbao successfully rented the two warehouses, but the export stationery store in front was not so easy to negotiate. Although the stationery business there was indeed not very good, it was a state-owned enterprise, and they didn't care whether there was business or not.

Helpless, Lei Dongbao had no choice but to swallow his pride and go to the stationery store's workplace to talk to their leaders. After a week of talks, he finally managed to get them to move out, which cost him nearly 5,000 yuan. In the end, he still had to pay them 120 yuan a month in rent.

In fact, Lei Dongbao was very familiar with Jinzhou. There were many places to choose from, but he specifically chose this place.

Of course, it's because of its great location. A good location is priceless. Besides, just 300 meters away is Jinzhou No. 1 Department Store, which is the best-selling and most popular department store in Jinzhou. In the peak season of the year, Jinzhou No. 1 Department Store can achieve monthly sales of over one million yuan just for home appliances.

Therefore, Lei Dongbao had to choose this location to deliberately provoke Jinzhou No. 1 Department Store; that was his real purpose.

After securing the site, they directly connected the two small warehouses at the back, along with the shops outside, to create a super electronics mall of over 300 square meters. This size is among the largest in Jinzhou.

The setup and renovation of this venue alone cost nearly 80,000 yuan, not even including the cost of stocking inventory.

Fortunately, money is really valuable in this era; otherwise, Lei Dongbao's two million would have been used up long ago.

In reality, he now has less than 200,000 yuan in cash, and he also owes tens of millions of yuan in debt. The debt he owes to Jinzhou Second Machinery Factory alone is tens of millions of yuan. Many other electrical appliances and factories require cash payment. When negotiations fail, Lei Dongbao has no choice but to purchase with cash.

In short, after all the miscellaneous expenses, Lei Dongbao only had about 100,000 yuan left in his account. With so many people to support and such a huge cost, if he didn't start making any more business soon, Lei Dongbao would really be starving.

Today is May 10th, 1983. There are still eight days before the opening date. The weather is hot exceptionally early this year, and there are already many people wearing short sleeves.

Lei Dongbao didn't plan to keep the last hundred thousand or so yuan. It was definitely unrealistic to use that amount of money for large-scale advertising, so he had no choice but to choose the cheapest option.

"Posters, flyers, wall painting!"

Yes, those are the three advertising methods. Posters are a given, and they're not cheap either. These days, many businesses are scrambling to get posters in major cities, and prices are rising year by year. Lei Dongbao only spent a few thousand yuan to put up more than twenty posters in parks and factories in a few cities where he has stores.

Flyers are the lowest-cost yet most effective form of advertising. Lei Dongbao had his eighteen disciples and their apprentices distribute flyers for a week in the city center of each city where he opened a store. This part of the cost was actually not high.

The last form of publicity was, of course, wall painting. Lei Dongbao had wanted to do this advertising campaign five years ago in Xiaolei Village, but he was arrested as a spy and had to stop.

Today is 1983, and the spy crisis is no longer so severe. Occasionally, you can see young people carrying tape recorders and playing Hong Kong and Macau songs on the street, swaggering by without anyone finding it strange. If this were five years ago, this young man would probably only be able to listen to them in his own bed at home.

The changes brought about by the changing atmosphere are enormous, so Lei Dongbao had already sent five young men from the factory to work frantically painting walls in the rural areas of four cities half a month ago. It has been going on for half a month now, and no one knows how effective it is.

Of course, these promotional methods were still not comprehensive enough. With his last few tens of thousands of yuan, Lei Dongbao chose to run an advertisement in mainstream newspapers in four cities for one day. Yes, just for one day, because he really had no money left.

Time slowly passed until May 17th. On this day, Lei Dongbao walked alone on the streets of Jinzhou. He had less than a thousand yuan left, not even enough to pay his salary for next month. Everything depended on tomorrow.

Lei Dongbao casually bought a copy of the Jinzhou Daily from a roadside newsstand. He opened the newspaper, flipped to the second page, and immediately saw a huge cover advertisement.

"One hundred TV sets are being given away for free!"

The following text then reads:

"Buy appliances and enjoy discounts at Jiangcheng Appliance City!"

"Jiangcheng Electrical Appliance City will grandly open on May 18th. On the opening day, any customer who spends 39 yuan or more can enter a draw to win a 14-inch Qingshan brand black and white television. The opening will take place simultaneously in four cities: Jinzhou, Wucheng, Jinling, and Hangzhou, with promotional offers available in all four cities. This lucky draw event will run from May 18th to May 28th!"

At the bottom are more than twenty densely packed pictures, with the product and price listed below each picture.

From electric fans to pressure cookers, from power strips to light bulbs, almost every household appliance in that era had these items, and they were significantly cheaper than state-owned products.

Especially the pictures of electric fans at the very top; many people are immediately attracted by the prices listed below them!

Metal table fans start at a minimum price of 39 yuan, and floor fans start at a minimum price of 59 yuan. These are obviously refurbished goods. To be honest, these prices directly address the pain points of ordinary people. These refurbished goods are still Thunder brand electric fans, but Lei Dongbao did not label the brand below, hoping to attract people to the store first.

Actually, besides the refurbished Thunder brand fans, the store also had several other brands of electric fans this time. Naturally, the new electric fans wouldn't be so cheap, with prices ranging from 98 yuan to 158 yuan.

Lei Dongbao even negotiated deals for the Dianfeng brand and Hongyun fan from Jinzhou Second Machinery Factory, both of which are sold in four electrical appliance stores.

These electric fans, of course, were just supporting roles; Lei Dongbao's real purpose was to sell those hundreds of thousands of electric fans.

Lei Dongbao was even willing to give away a hundred black and white television sets for free in a lucky draw to promote his four appliance stores!

The advertisement has already been launched; as for its effectiveness, we'll find out tomorrow.

His eighteen disciples had already been scattered across four cities, distributed among the four electronics stores according to shop size and foot traffic.

Tomorrow morning at eight o'clock, all four appliance stores will open on time. After nearly three months of hard work, the results will be revealed tomorrow.

Each of them had five apprentices, who had been traveling around for more than two months and had gradually matured. At least they were all eloquent and articulate. These young people would rotate through various positions in the future and eventually become the backbone employees of Jiangcheng Electric Appliances. In the future, these backbone employees would become store managers or similar figures. Of course, the timing would depend on their individual talents.

On the evening of May 17th, Lei Dongbao returned to Jiangcheng Electrical Appliance Factory to oversee operations. He will be stationed at the factory tomorrow to monitor sales over the next ten days and will also travel to the four cities to check on the situation and make timely adjustments.

That night, Lei Dongbao had a rare bout of insomnia, tossing and turning in bed. From 1978 to this year, these five years felt like he had been on the road the whole time, from Xiaoleijia to Jinzhou, and finally to Jiangcheng. Although he was very confident about the future, reality was moving so slowly. He really wanted to see what kind of achievements he would make in the future!

It was late at night, and Lei Dongbao had fallen asleep without realizing it. Little did he know that at that moment, in a residential building next to a foreign-owned factory in Guangdong Province in the south, in a small one-bedroom apartment, a woman in her thirties with disheveled hair was holding a baby and leaning against the wall in front of the bed, feeding the child with a bottle.

This person is Gao Shengnan. After leaving Jinling County last year, Gao Shengnan went to Guangdong Province. With her child in tow, it was difficult for her to find a good job. However, Gao Shengnan's indomitable spirit, along with her education and professional knowledge, eventually led her to find a high-paying job.

This is a foreign company that just established a factory in Huaxia last year. It urgently needs professional technical and management personnel. Gao Shengnan's professional knowledge allowed her to adapt to the company quickly.

However, now that she has a child, she feels like she's being held back. At first, she hired a nanny to take care of the child, but one time, she sensed that the nanny seemed to have other intentions towards the child, so she immediately fired her. She even took the child to work, and after being reprimanded by her boss several times, just when she was feeling helpless and wondering whether to resign or continue looking for a nanny, her landlord and his wife took pity on her and offered to take care of the child during the day, which gave her a temporary chance to catch her breath.

Every night, Gao Shengnan would hold her child and often shed tears. Although her name contained the character "Shengnan," she was still a woman. But she had never regretted her decision today. She vowed to raise her child alone and to cultivate Gao Jin into an outstanding person, no less outstanding than his father.

However, a woman's vulnerability still makes her occasionally miss someone. But after missing him, she still grits her teeth and perseveres because she has never regretted everything she has done. With Lei Dongbao, she once had a brief love, a very short experience that she had never experienced before in her life.

All of this was my own choice, and I can only walk this path forward by myself!

Chapter 89: This is a miracle!

At 7:00 AM on May 18th, Xun Jianxiang, panting, rolled up his sleeves, munching on two steamed buns, while still directing everyone to place the television set used for the event in the front right of the entrance.

One hundred television sets were distributed to four electronics stores, with twenty sets going to Hangzhou. The prizes for each city were different.

In Hangzhou, 20,000 lottery tickets were set up for the draw. This draw had a grand prize of 20 winners, each receiving a 14-inch black and white television set worth 658 yuan!

The first prize is for fifty winners, each receiving an imported tape recorder worth 369 yuan!

The second prize is for 200 winners, each receiving a Thunder brand floor fan worth 59 yuan!

The third prize is awarded to 500 winners, each receiving a Thunder brand table fan worth 39 yuan!

The lottery rules are as follows: after purchasing any item worth more than 39 yuan, you can participate in the lottery once. Thereafter, if the purchase exceeds 50 yuan, you can participate in the lottery twice.

The minimum spending is 39 yuan for one draw, 89 yuan for a second draw, and 139 yuan for a third draw, with no upper limit!

With 20,000 lottery tickets, including 770 tickets with prizes, the odds are about one in 25 tickets. The winning rate is quite high. Lei Dongbao really went all out for this opening event.

Lei Dongbao had long ago categorized and refurbished the recycled second-hand Thunder brand electric fans according to their quality and appearance, and the selling prices varied, with table fans starting at 39 yuan and capped at 69 yuan.

The floor fans ranged from 59 yuan to 89 yuan, and the ceiling fans ranged from 39 yuan to 79 yuan. In short, he bought them all from Jinzhou Second Machinery Factory for 26 yuan each.

The costs of transportation and refurbishment packaging added about five yuan to the cost per unit, bringing the total cost per unit to between thirty-one and thirty-three yuan.

These fans are actually of pretty good quality, after all, they are products that have been used for one or two years. Back then, Lei Dongbao personally managed Leiting Electric Factory, so the quality of the parts was top-notch. I dare not say that they will last a lifetime, but if properly maintained, they should last for ten years without any major quality problems. So the biggest problem now is how to dispel everyone's misunderstanding of the Leiting brand.

Because the Thunder brand logo was engraved on the base, and the accessory in the outer cover was also engraved with the Thunder logo by machine when it was in the parts factory, it looked very impressive. Lei Dongbao once thought of simply covering it with paint and then randomly printing a brand name on it with silk screen printing, selling it, and making money first.

But think about it, if the people of this era start to take things too seriously and ruin the reputation of Jiangcheng Electrical Appliances City, then it will be a real problem, and then it will be all over.

So it's better to present it to everyone in its original form using the Thunder brand. After each electric fan is refurbished, it will be tested several times by plugging it in. If the appearance and function are normal and there is no damage, it will be packaged according to its appearance.

If any fans are found to be damaged or make unusual noises, they will be removed, disassembled, refurbished, repaired, and then repackaged. This batch of refurbished fans will then be sold at the starting price.

In reality, there are very few electric fans with serious quality problems. Most of them are damaged due to improper storage during transportation, and these are not many.

Many fans are simply processed and repackaged, making them look almost indistinguishable from brand new ones. These high-quality fans naturally deserve a high price, and selling them for 89 yuan each isn't unreasonable, is it?

The quality is fine, but what if people don't trust it?

Lei Dongbao could only attract customers by offering after-sales guarantees and price discounts!

A full refund for quality issues within one year, a replacement for quality issues within two years, and a free warranty for quality issues within three years – this level of sincerity is enough to win over the public.

The most crucial point is!

It's cheap!

This is an all-metal electric fan! There aren't any on the market for less than 100 yuan, but now it starts at 39 yuan, which is enough to tempt everyone!

What's more, this event also features a huge prize draw!

Among Lei Dongbao's eighteen Arhats, Xun Jianxiang and three others were assigned to Hangzhou. In addition to them, there were twenty disciples they had brought. They got up at five o'clock this morning to prepare and were busy until seven o'clock before they went out to buy some steamed buns to fill their stomachs.

With the simultaneous opening of four electronics stores, the Eighteen Arhats were divided into four teams, each leading a group of twenty to thirty people, ready to meet this challenge.

Lei Dongbao gave them a base salary of zero yuan. All eighteen Arhats received a base salary of zero yuan. Lei Dongbao had told them beforehand that top salespeople shouldn't focus on that base salary. All their income should be based on their performance. Lei Dongbao set strict performance standards for them. Those who didn't meet the standards would still receive zero income.

However, their apprentices' salary is a base salary of fifty yuan per month plus a bonus. As for how much the bonus is, it depends on their sales performance in the electronics store.

Everyone agreed with Lei Dongbao's arrangements; only challenges could motivate everyone to be more engaged!

At 8:15, Xun Jianxiang had the doors of the electronics store opened. The moment they opened, everyone's eyes were on the outside entrance, hoping for a miracle!

The moment the door was fully opened, everyone's expression changed, because a few people hurriedly walked by on the street outside, without even glancing at them. Xun Jianxiang and the others exchanged glances and saw the heaviness in each other's eyes!

Their location isn't the best, but it's not the worst either. There are two bus stops across the street, and a farmers' market about a kilometer away. In theory, the foot traffic should be quite high. They spent half a month researching before deciding on this location!

These days, they've been busy for half a month painting walls in the rural areas on the outskirts of Hangzhou, distributing tens of thousands of flyers in nearby markets and residential areas, and even yesterday's Hangzhou Evening News had a full-page advertisement. Everyone has worked hard for more than two months, and this is the result.

Everyone fell silent!

Everyone looked rather dejected. Seeing how low their spirits were, Xun Jianxiang felt a surge of competitive spirit and turned around to shout at everyone.

"Stop acting like women. This little difficulty is nothing. At worst, we'll go to the market and the neighborhood one by one to sell and recruit people. Business is all about reputation. We've only just opened for business. Isn't it normal that no one wants to come? Get the hell together!"

Xun Jianxiang's words prompted the other three of the Eighteen Arhats to stand up as well, turn around and stand with Xun Jianxiang, and shout together.

"Keep striving, keep striving, keep striving! Believe that tomorrow will be better!"

The crowd's emotions were finally stirred, and everyone cheered!

"Keep striving, keep striving, keep striving! Believe that tomorrow will be better!"

The crowd shouted three more times. Just then, several employees suddenly looked up at the road not far from the entrance. One employee's face changed from surprise to excitement. He raised his hand and pointed outside. He was so excited that he stammered as he spoke.

"Master...Master, you...you look outside!"

The employee's words made everyone look outside, and Xun Jianxiang and the others also turned around and looked outside in surprise.

Just across the street at the bus stop, two buses had just arrived, and dozens of passengers disembarked, each holding a flyer they had distributed in the past few days. The group walked towards the electronics store. One older woman couldn't resist and started jogging. As she ran, dozens of passengers behind her followed suit.

When Xun Jianxiang saw this, his surprise was fleeting, but then a bright smile appeared on his face. He turned around and shouted at everyone.

"Everyone, get ready! We're about to welcome our guests!"

Later, Xun Jianxiang learned that it was Sunday, and everyone had already gotten up late. In addition, the bus was delayed that day, so they didn't arrive until a little after eight o'clock.