KC | Chapter 30

Chapter 30 Chase and Attention

Lanhai’s work pace was fast and intense, and there was no slacking off on workdays. Although Lanhai did not rigidly require overtime, every day there was more work than could be finished, and many employees “voluntarily” stayed late to do it.

For functional positions, one person had to be used as at least two people. Take the maintenance tech in the administration department for example, on ordinary days they had to handle all employees’ computer maintenance, central computer room system maintenance, cleaning up idle office equipment, customer gift purchasing, and every month when Lanhai held sales meetings, they had to work overtime to go in and debug the equipment…

KA was different from other positions, there was no fixed work arrangement, and the flexibility was higher, but it was the hardest of all the positions.

KA did not require you to work at the company, did not require clocking in, did not require call volume, and did not have tests like written exams either. Precisely because of KA’s extremely special work nature, it gathered special groups from all kinds of fields. Zhang Yuanji did not understand marketing at all, Li Hua did not understand online advertising, Lin Yiran almost never came to the company… These KA big shots who were thriving at Lanhai would probably not be able to find jobs if they left here.

All KA work revolved around key customers. For those who had key customers, they served existing customers. For those without key customers, they looked for new customers. Chen Xi also wanted to work overtime, but Shanyao was a consumer-type client, he did not need to drink with the client until midnight, and if the results were not ideal, even Sun Xingshun would not pay any attention to him.

After Shanyao signed the contract, Chen Xi could only ask which customers had budgets recently, and all the names in his mind were key customers on the list. He could not find anyone to do the job, and he was burning with anxiety, spending every moment in struggle.

That feeling was like being able to watch the pig run every day but never getting to eat the meat, he was almost driven crazy with craving.

KA was not an industry that could be done well just by working hard, connections and circles were especially important.

Lin Yiran moved skillfully in the North China advertising circle, and through his connections could easily find the key people on the client side. Chen Xi used all the connections he had, but his experience was indeed limited, and the people he had contact with were all from the bottom layer, not even able to touch the doors of key customers.

Yesterday he had learned from Jingmei that Gulin Decoration on the list was planning to place ads recently, so he mass-sent a WeChat message to all his friends except clients: “Everyone, who among you has friends, relatives, distant aunts, or eight-great-aunts working at Gulin Decoration? Please contact me quickly, there will definitely be a heavy reward!”

Chen Xi received dozens of replies, most of them asking him: “Are you planning to renovate your place recently?” “Bro, you bought a house.” “When are you getting married?”

Only one reply was useful,

「Xiaoqiang: My childhood friend works at Gulin Decoration.」

Chen Xi was very excited, but this person had no note, and the avatar was a cockroach.

…It really was Xiaoqiang.

The things Xiaoqiang posted on Moments were all about Landlord , and Chen Xi had no impression of him at all. This suddenly appearing Xiaoqiang, who exactly was he?

Forget it, no matter who he was, he should contact Xiaoqiang’s childhood friend first.

Chen Xi put on a friendly face and asked for Xiaoqiang’s childhood friend’s WeChat, and Xiaoqiang passed over Xiaofang’s business card. Chen Xi, following the principle of asking for help by speaking first, greeted her first.

「Morning Glow: Hello, pretty lady.」

「Xiaofang: Hello, handsome.」

The other side sent over a voice message. Chen Xi clicked it open, and half his face went numb and tingly, almost making him drop the phone.

「Xiaofang: Little brother, do you have a partner?」

He had originally wanted to ask her about some information on Gulin Decoration, but in the end, she treated him as if he had come to a blind date.

「Morning Glow: No partner.」

「Morning Glow: I heard you work at Gulin. I just wanted to ask about something.」

「Xiaofang: Oh oh, I’m just a front desk staff. I only started last week.」

What use was front desk, and she had only just started!

Chen Xi left Xiaofang hanging and stopped replying.

The other key customers were mostly like this too, he could contact people, but he could not contact the key people, let alone the decision-makers.

In the blink of an eye it was Friday again, and Chen Xi only felt that time was not enough.

If only I were as smooth and well-connected as Zhang Yuanji or Lin Yiran.

Finding someone at a key customer really was hard.

Early in the morning, Chen Xi arrived at the company 10 minutes early and was chewing a jianbing at his workstation,

when suddenly there was an awoo howl beside him, shaking his ears with pain: “Brother Ma is really amazing, he signed 3 big orders in one week.”

Wang Shuang was not tall, but his voice was very penetrating. During training and meetings, he never needed a loudspeaker, his throat came with a built-in “amplifier.” KA all had special traits, and if one had to name Wang Shuang’s special trait, Chen Xi thought it should be: his voice was especially loud.

Small and medium business regular orders were 1 to 2W, and KA generally 3 to 5W, which in Wang Shuang’s eyes were all considered “big orders.”

Chen Xi could not help but mock in his heart: he’s only praising Brother Ma, I signed Shanyao’s million-level framework deal, why doesn’t he praise me? Look at how inexperienced you are, what does this little money count as, wait until Lin Yiran settles accounts at the end of the month, then you’ll know what KA big orders are.

Ma Longfei picked at his ear at his workstation, clearly disdainful of the “bootlicker Wang Shuang,” but he could not easily slap the leader’s face, so he gave a symbolic reply: “If the client has needs, then they give money, I’m not really that great.”

These days Wang Shuang was devoted to building good relationships with KAs other than Chen Xi, and he went over to flatter whoever signed a deal. Chen Xi had never seen such a talented director at flattering.

After Chen Xi finished his jianbing and clocked in, there were still 5 minutes until morning exercise.

Taking advantage of the fact that all the KAs were present, Wang Shuang inserted the weekend team-building plan: “Tomorrow’s team building will be at Glacier Gorge, each person pays 300 yuan.”

“Wha, wha how much?” Chen Xi perked up his ears, suspecting he had heard wrong.

“300, of course, more will be refunded, less will be collected.” Wang Shuang did not give Chen Xi a chance to ask further, and continued talking like a machine gun, “President Lin negotiated a ticket waiver with the client side, the KA team-building fund has 5000 yuan, almost all the entrance tickets and bus tickets are waived. For this team building, we only need to pay the lunch money and that’s enough. This is the benefit President Lin secured for us. Whoever wants to ask for leave or has special issues can tell President Lin.”

Wouldn’t it be fine to use the team-building fund to eat properly, why insist on going traveling and doing all this flashy stuff. And “the benefit President Lin secured for us,” why did it sound so much like a streamer’s standard line? Wang Shuang definitely bought things in livestream rooms.

Wang Shuang continued his survey: “What activities should we do tomorrow, grabbing name tags or three-legged race?”

“Manager Wang, we’re not as young as the business department. We’ve got old arms and legs, and going to Glacier Gorge means climbing a mountain, right? Whether we can even get back down is hard to say, if we still do sports then we’ll definitely be wrecked,” Ma Longfei said, holding a thermos cup.

“If we don’t do activities, isn’t that too boring?” Wang Shuang thought: team-building mainly exists to take photos, if I only take photos of scenery and water, that still can’t show off my team-building planning ability. We have to do activities!

“How about we do some simple games, like ‘beat 7’ or something?” peacemaker Liu Xueying suggested.

“No no, that’s too simple, KA has to play something special.” You all can play Beat 7, but I can’t photograph it!

“What counts as special?” Chen Xi said sarcastically, “We can’t possibly play chest-smashing-a-stone, can we?”

Wang Shuang gave Chen Xi a glare and said, “I’m just asking for everyone’s opinion, I want to do some sports that can enhance team cohesion. If you don’t have any reasonable suggestions, then let’s just play grabbing name tags.”

“How about we play hide-and-seek.” Zhang Yuanji suggested. Grabbing name tags meant running all over the field, and with his 200-plus jin body, he could not run. Hide-and-seek meant finding a place and staying there for two hours, just muddle through it.

“No, hide-and-seek doesn’t work, if you hide too far away it’s not easy to gather everyone.” Hide-and-seek also could not be photographed!

“Ah, you mean something dense, not too physically demanding, and different from other systems, right?” Wang Shuang was not speaking clearly, and Li Hua helped summarize the requirements.

“Right!”

“Heh, I suddenly thought of an activity, lots of people, not too much exercise, absolutely one of a kind, and the props are easy to prepare too.” Chen Xi intentionally dangled the answer halfway through, deliberately keeping Wang Shuang hanging.

The prelude to morning exercise sounded, time was tight, and Wang Shuang temporarily put aside old grievances, asking impatiently, “What activity?”

“Tug-of-war.”

“Ah hahahahaha!” The KAs laughed until they were bending over.

Wang Shuang was so angry his nose was not a nose and his eyes were not eyes, thinking: what kind of rotten idea did Chen Xi come up with, tug-of-war can be photographed, but the problem is which system’s team-building does this? If this gets out, how am I supposed to keep doing this.

During exercise, Chen Xi deliberately sowed discord with the people in the back row: “We should have rested tomorrow, but Wang Shuang insisted on organizing Glacier Gorge, and a good weekend got ruined.”

Zhang Yuanji slapped his forehead and said, “That woman ruined my good weekend.”

Between brothers, you had to talk about shared topics, and Chen Xi was happy to hear people cursing Wang Shuang, feeling secretly pleased.

Zhang Yuanji had been tormented by clients for a whole week and his negative emotions were bursting out. When he spoke, it was all nonsensical things: “Lanhai just loves exploiting employees, they don’t let people rest on weekends, and at night they don’t even let people get off work on time.”

Chen Xi bumped Zhang Yuanji with his knee, signaling to him that walls had ears, telling him to keep his voice down.

Zhang Yuanji was full of complaints, with no filter at his mouth, and he fired at Chen Xi in one breath: “I was here before 8:30 in the morning, why am I not at home at 17:30 in the evening?”

Chen Xi was stunned by the question and momentarily lost for words.

“I leave at 7:30 every day and get home at 18:30, so my working hours are not 8 hours, but 10 hours, I’m fucking working overtime 2 hours every day!” Zhang Yuanji tilted his neck and spoke with conviction.

Chen Xi covered his forehead: it seemed the one who was mentally split was not just me, the miserable KA being squeezed by key customers, more or less all had some mental issues.

After morning exercise ended, Chen Xi asked Li Hua in the back row: “Brother Li, are you going to Glacier Gorge tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Xiao Chen, do you have something going on this weekend?” Li Hua had been mixed in with all kinds of veteran client-side people for over ten years, and could see through the essence through phenomena, perceiving the client’s real needs. Chen Xi’s mood of “not wanting to go traveling” was fully written on his face, and Li Hua would have had a hard time not seeing through it.

“Ah.”

“If you really have something, then go tell Brother Lin, he can’t make things difficult for you either.” What Li Hua said was “really” having something, clearly seeing that Chen Xi was just pretending to be busy when he was not. Those who really had something going on would privately message Lin Yiran to ask for leave, how could they be here asking whether colleagues were going traveling.

Chen Xi: …

I’m not unwilling to go, I’m really short on money.

Quarterly 100K gross profit task, the commission was 20% of gross profit. If he completed three months for 20K commission, that was an average of 6K per month. Base salary was 7K, and after deducting social insurance and housing fund, take-home pay was just over 10K. Rent was 1500, mortgage was 2000, and under normal circumstances, the remaining 6000+ every month was completely enough to live on, but the bad part was that this month he had to pay quarterly rent. The money he had saved from working for 3 years, plus a little subsidy from his parents, was all used last month to pay the down payment on the off-plan apartment. Now he had no money at all, and if he could not sign any deals, he would have to drink the northwest wind. If he went on a day trip, he could only swipe a credit card.

Was I insane last month? I bought an off-plan apartment and in one breath spent all the money, why didn’t I leave myself some bridging money?

At this point, regret was useless. Chen Xi opened WeChat, searched “Lin Dog,” and prepared to ask for leave.

Lin Yiran’s forbidden-item avatar that was flammable, explosive, and prohibited had never been changed. The picture resolution was not very good, and it got a little distorted when clicked to enlarge.

Their last chat stayed at half a month ago, when Chen Xi asked him, “Do you have a problem?”

Chen Xi: …

The previous line asked “Do you have a problem?” and the next line said “I want to ask for leave,” this chat span was too big, the thinking was too jumpy.

Forget it, better not say anything, I don’t want any more entanglement with him.

300 was impossible. Glacier Gorge tickets did not cost much, the expensive part was hidden consumption. There were super many self-paid items in the scenic area, and just experiencing half of them would already cost over 200. Plus lunch, 400 was the minimum. If you wanted to eat something better, it would definitely exceed 500.

Lin Yiran sat in the car with a cigarette between his lips, a MacBook propped against the steering wheel, his long fingers clacking on the keyboard. After typing the client quote, he typed the Glacier Gorge trip.

Whether at work or in life, Lin Yiran always planned meticulously. He opened each paid item on some compliance software platform, typed it into a table, and totaled the count items: 524 yuan.

Very good, this price was just right.

After the target was set, Lin Yiran subconsciously calculated the money-asking script. He arranged the originally relaxing “team-building” as if it were a client-side activity. First set the goal, then sort out the script, and finally weigh the pros and cons and calculate the gross profit.

Putting the money aside for now, after playing at the scenic area and heading back, he would tell them on the road that I paid 24, and let them make it up to a round figure of 200 per person.

24*20480, using 480 to坑 Chen Xi 500, this deal could not really be called cost-effective, but in this very special period it was also considered worth it.

Chen Xi had always been chasing Lin Yiran’s back, wanting to become a Key Account standing shoulder to shoulder with him, while Lin Yiran, standing at the top of Key Account, had always been paying attention to Chen Xi.