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Chapter 659: Chapter 649 Keep Trying
After sending off a thoroughly satisfied Director Hou, Shen Yunfang and the others continued their meal.
They had been busy drinking just now and hardly ate. Of course, this refers to Liu Jianqiang. The three women didn’t drink but were too busy talking to eat much as well.
"Sis, why did you have to give him a deal? Even if we don’t sell to him, we can find other places to sell our vegetables," Liu Jianqiang complained. He had done some calculations when his sister-in-law mentioned the pricing earlier. Not only did they lose the money for this meal, but they were also out a good eighteen hundred yuan. What was going on?
Shen Yunfang didn’t say anything, just continued eating with her chopsticks.
"If you don’t understand, don’t talk nonsense. I think it’s quite good this way," Lu Xing, who had watched everything from beginning to end, understood her sister-in-law’s intentions.
"Exactly. By giving Director Hou a little incentive, we can sell our vegetables. That’s great. Even if you take the vegetables to the market, don’t people haggle over the price?" Wang Anhua also saw the point.
"How can that be the same," Liu Jianqiang was still not convinced. He felt it was unfair to work hard for months growing vegetables only for an outsider to reap the benefits.
"How is it not the same? When you sell vegetables for fifty cents a pound, it’d be strange if people didn’t haggle you down to twenty-five cents. Now you can’t even take a four-cent discount?" Lu Xing retorted.
"No, aren’t we negotiating with the government now, not the common people?" Liu Jianqiang mumbled.
"It’s all the same, doing business with the government or individuals. By giving Director Hou some advantage, our veggies can be sold smoothly at a relatively high price. That’s great. We won’t have to endure the cold or toil, nor do we need to hawk our goods. With that time, we can grow another greenhouse, and all that money will come back," Wang Anhua explained.
Shen Yunfang nodded in agreement. "That’s right; since we’re in business, we can’t be too clingy over such a minuscule profit. We must look at the ultimate gain; you can’t catch the wolf without sacrificing the child."
"Also, you need to understand that, although we have vegetables on our farm, we don’t have many workers. By the time all the vegetables are ready, if we haven’t found buyers like the Director Hou," Shen Yunfang pointed outside, and everyone understood she was referring to Director Hou who had just left, "then who will go out to sell them at the stalls? Can you do it all by yourself?"
Liu Jianqiang internally understood his sister-in-law’s reasoning but still felt somewhat disgruntled. "We’re just short-staffed, right? When the time comes, we could just hire a few temporary workers to sell our vegetables. That’s better than this," he argued.
Shen Yunfang looked at him and left him with a sentence, "Your math must have been taught by a Chinese teacher."
Liu Jianqiang’s face froze, puzzled by what his sister-in-law meant. So he turned to Wang Anhua and Lu Xing, but they looked just as confused.
"Sis, what does that mean?" Since he didn’t understand, he wasn’t ashamed to ask.
Shen Yunfang, having almost finished her meal, put down her chopsticks and looked at the several people with similar expressions before her. "I’m saying you didn’t learn your math well."
The few who were not used to the modern ways of speaking pondered carefully in their hearts before they finally understood, with Liu Jianqiang wearing an expression of utter dejection. His sister-in-law really knew how to hit where it hurt.
"Do the math properly. If we don’t push our vegetables to these units, we’ll have to hire people to sell them. With hundreds of thousands of pounds of vegetables, even if you hire a few people, they won’t be able to sell it all before it rots. Z City is so large, do you know how many free markets there are? Think about how many people we would have to hire, not to mention the costs of transportation, insulation, heating, and so on. Do you really think we could break even with just eighteen hundred yuan?" Shen Yunfang laid it out for them.
"Sister-in-law, that’s not just a thousand or eight hundred yuan we’re talking about here, if we ’give away’ a thousand or eight hundred yuan per unit, with so many units on your order list, calculate that and see how much we’d have to give away. Adding it all up, it’s definitely going to be more expensive than hiring someone," Liu Jianqiang insisted on his opinion.
"Hehe, that’s why I went to negotiate privately. I added the benefits we were supposed to give them directly onto the price of the vegetables, so we don’t have to bear this part of the loss ourselves."
"Oh, I get it. It’s like when we sell vegetables at the market, we clearly sell vegetables that cost ten cents for twelve cents, and the few hundred yuan that sister-in-law gives to them is just the extra two cents, right?" Wang Anhua suddenly understood, looking enlightened.
Shen Yunfang smiled, there were indeed clever people around.
"Correct, that’s exactly what I mean. The money we’re giving is not at all a bad deal. Think about it, if I hadn’t agreed to give Director Hou a discount in secret, would he not haggle with us? If he truly told us that our prices were too expensive, asking us to drop a cent or two for every type of vegetable, how would we handle it? Even though the municipal government has talked to us, if they really put pressure on us saying they have no money, what could we do? They can delay, but can our vegetables wait? This way he didn’t bargain a penny, just took a little profit for himself, and when we calculate, we’re still making money. And do you believe that Director Hou will definitely try to secure the largest possible quantity of vegetables for us when he goes back?"
"Yeah, the more vegetables their unit buys from us, the more money he gets, as we calculate it by weight," Lu Xing shouted excitedly, slapping his thigh.
Shen Yunfang nodded, "In reality, our vegetables aren’t cheap at all, yet we can still sell them in large quantities. How nice it is to sell vegetables this way, saving time and effort."
Everyone nodded in agreement, and Liu Jianqiang was no longer obstinate. 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓅𝓊𝓫.𝒸ℴ𝓶
After Shen Yunfang explained the principles of running sales to them, she took them to another unit and cut a deal to sell vegetables at three cents less per jin.
Then, Shen Yunfang held a small meeting with a few people.
"I have taken you out for a few days, and basically, running sales is just like this model. You all clear about it, right? Is there anything else you don’t understand?" Shen Yunfang asked.
Everyone shook their heads, indicating they understood.
"Great, since you understand, then the remaining units on this list will be divided among the three of you. You will go out and sell our vegetables at the agreed prices."
The few people felt somewhat uneasy about being left to their own devices.
After seeing their apprehensive expressions, Shen Yunfang slowly added, "Sales is all about individual skill. You’ve also been following me for several days. It’s not so easy to treat someone to a meal."
Everyone nodded in agreement, especially the leader of the second unit—they had insisted that their female colleagues also drink at the dinner table. At first, they were reluctant, but seeing that the sister-in-law didn’t say anything and started to switch to clear liquor, they just followed suit and drank. Luckily, they could hold their liquor; otherwise, they really would have ended up collapsed on the dinner table.
"I’ve also set up an incentive system for the sales staff. Starting this month, you won’t get a basic salary for running sales—I doubt you’ll even want that fifty yuan after going out for a round. The maximum rebate I’m offering is five cent per jin. If you can negotiate to four cents or even less, then the difference will be your bonus. Do you understand?" Shen Yunfang explained, smiling at their incredulous expressions.
"Sister-in-law, you mean if we can bait them into fixing a deal for one cent cheaper, the remaining four cents would be ours?" Lu Xing’s eyes shone as she looked at Shen Yunfang.
"Exactly. Think about the thousand and eight hundred yuan that built up Jianqiang’s heartache. Work hard."
