KC | Chapter 44

Chapter 44, The Client of the Client

The escalator landing on the second floor of Gulin faced the meeting room directly. In the corridor, one could hear the passionate speeches coming from inside the meeting room. Chen Xi thought to himself: this was definitely a sales department meeting, it seemed that no matter which company it was, the sales department had to hold brainwashing meetings.

When the appointed time came, Gulin’s finance director was very polite as he led Chen Xi into the general manager’s office on the second floor. When Chen Xi entered the room, Wang Yaohua was talking with someone.

Most of the furniture in the office was of redwood carved style, a typical preference of middle-aged entrepreneurs. There was a large solid wood desk, the desktop neat and orderly. Wang Yaohua sat in a redwood carved high-backed chair, and behind him was a huge floor-to-ceiling window, from which one could overlook the traffic and bustle of the commercial street.

Wang Yaohua looked to be in his forties, with a plump build and a relatively gentle tone when speaking. It seemed he had forgotten that the finance director would be bringing someone over today to talk about advertising. The first sentence he said to Chen Xi was, “Are you the model we invited for this afternoon’s event?”

Chen Xi froze. The finance director smiled and said, “This is the little guy from the advertising company I mentioned to you yesterday, introduced by Taxation Brother Li.”

“Oh, oh, what a pity to have such a good-looking face and do sales,” Wang Yaohua said with a smile, his double chin folding into layers, his expression kind.

Chen Xi had prepared many kinds of opening lines, most of them professional-sounding. He had not expected a private entrepreneur worth hundreds of millions to be so approachable.

Wang Yaohua told the design supervisor and the finance director to go back to work first, then pointed at a chair to signal Chen Xi to sit.

Chen Xi sat opposite Wang Yaohua and began reciting his opening line: “Hello, President Wang. I’m Chen Xi, mainly providing advertising planning for local brand companies. Recently, I’ve often seen Gulin’s advertisements and noticed a few small issues, so I came to see you today without much notice.”

This opening line had been designed based on Lin Yiran’s description that “President Wang likes to listen to other people’s opinions.” A normal person hearing this would probably ask, “What issues did you find?” or “Where did you see our ads?” … But what Wang Yaohua asked was, “Which renovation companies have you planned ads for?”

Chen Xi bit the bullet and turned Lin Yiran’s key clients into his own, just like when he wrote his resume before, making it sound complete, reasonable, and well-founded. Wang Yaohua kept listening to him. It was not until about three minutes later that he continued, “Have any of the clients you served refused to cooperate?”

This was a question asked in negative form. If he answered, “Yes, there are clients who refused to cooperate,” the other side would definitely ask, “What was the reason for the refusal to cooperate?” All reasons for being unable to cooperate were negative problems. As long as he brought up one, the other side would very likely keep expanding on it, killing off all possibility of “cooperation” and ultimately turning it into “non-cooperation”. If he answered, “No, there aren’t any who refused to cooperate,” then, first, it would not be realistic, and second, it would show that he lacked experience and had signed too few clients. Even top-tier KA clients had to have a churn rate of 20%.

Gulin was a major taxpayer, and Chen Xi had been introduced by the tax bureau, so Wang Yaohua definitely would not refuse him directly. By starting with a negative-form question, he simply wanted to end the conversation in the most efficient way. Wang Yaohua kept smiling kindly at Chen Xi, but Chen Xi felt that this fat man was smiling with a knife hidden inside.

It was all Lin Yiran’s fault for giving him the wrong information. Wang Yaohua did not talk according to normal logic, he was authoritarian and overbearing yet cunning as hell. How was this not someone who did not manage anything, this was clearly pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger!

Chen Xi racked his brains to think of a response, while on the surface he tried hard to keep calm.

“There are some who refused to cooperate,” Chen Xi said. “Because the client company went under.”

If the client went under, then it was not that cooperation with them had gone badly, it was a business operation problem.

“Then that means your ad…” It had no effect, otherwise how could the client company go under?

“Some were because of equity disputes, some were because of capital turnover… anyway, they went under in all kinds of ways. What a waste of that great ad I planned!” Chen Xi was talking nonsense off the top of his head, blocking Wang Yaohua’s line of questioning.

Xu Dongxu was basically already hopeless, Wang Yaohua was the last chance. He absolutely would not end the conversation lightly!

When Wang Yaohua saw that this kid opposite him reacted pretty quickly, he became a little interested at last and finally followed Chen Xi’s script to continue, “Then tell me, what problems are there with Gulin’s advertising?”

“Heh heh, if I hadn’t had a house to renovate, I might not have noticed this problem either.” This time Chen Xi was working from the script of a “new house renovation user.” His off-plan apartment would be handed over next year, so this role was basically a natural performance for him, not too difficult.

“I wanted to find a renovation company. Since our ads are everywhere, Gulin was the first thing I thought of,” Chen Xi said. “I usually don’t have time to go into the store and learn about things in detail, so I checked online. Gulin had a lot of good reviews on all the major platforms, and I was really tempted, so I went to consult your sales staff.”

What could move a client was always the client of the client.

Chen Xi placed himself in the position of a consumer, talked about his mental journey in renovating a house, and became Gulin’s target customer, becoming Wang Yaohua’s client.

“The salesperson first asked me how big the apartment was, then combined the layout of the house to show me suitable renovation styles. The drawings he sent were all quite nice, but I was afraid the budget wouldn’t be enough, so I asked him to give me a quote first. The salesperson probably worried that a too-high quote would scare me away, so he called me several times and asked me to come to the store to talk.”

“As a salesperson, I can completely understand his behavior,” Chen Xi said. “But I already said before, I didn’t have time to go to the store, so I searched online. And because I didn’t have much money, I asked him to quote first… He kept asking me to go to the store, which made me very helpless. But since he had served me before, I felt embarrassed to delete his WeChat, so I could only set the messages to do not disturb.”

“Gulin has good renovation designers, a ‘Huizhou-style craftsmanship’ construction system, complete after-sales service, and quality assurance… but Gulin doesn’t understand me.”

Chen Xi was not only talking about his own needs, he was talking about the renovation needs of 80% of white-collar workers. This group accounted for 60% of Gulin’s served customers and could determine Gulin’s overall revenue. Gulin’s sales did not have a good understanding of the needs of renovation users.

Opening the market with white-collar needs as the orientation was an urgent problem Gulin needed to solve at this stage.

Wang Yaohua never avoided problems. Every time Gulin encountered difficulties, he actively sought solutions. Gulin had crossed bottlenecks and soared again and again thanks to Wang Yaohua’s outstanding talent.

Although Gulin’s output value exceeded 10 billion and the company had grown in scale, its liquid assets were limited. The renovation construction fund turnover cycle was slow, and main materials were also pressed. If sales did not sign new orders, the company would not have money to continue renovating for old customers. Gulin had been established for 15 years, and its treatment of sales had always been first in the industry. Only by relying on sales to quickly recover funds could Gulin survive. Gulin had opened the market ten years ago by relying on “Huizhou-style craftsmanship,” and ten years later it survived by relying on sales.

So, at this stage, sales collections were Gulin’s lifeline.

Chen Xi’s words were like a needle, accurately piercing the vital point, leaving him unable to refute it.

Wang Yaohua immediately restrained his smile, sat up properly, and after a moment of silence said, “How can Gulin ‘understand you’?”

Since the dazzling first battle, Chen Xi no longer felt nervous when facing key clients. At this moment, the positions of the client and the provider had switched, and he became even more composed.

The collar of his dark blue suit was slightly open, his neck was slender, his facial lines soft, and his refined features matched the clear voice unique to a young man. “I suppose President Wang already has an answer in mind, and doesn’t need me to give advice.”

Wang Yaohua was authoritarian and autocratic, I can’t casually give an opinion. I have to hook his appetite first and make him ‘beg’ me to speak.

Wang Yaohua said politely, “I don’t understand marketing. I’m not professional like you people.”

Chen Xi said unhurriedly, “President Wang divided Gulin into multiple segments, such as 1936 for villa mansions, Lincong for old house renovations, Enlin for low-end mass market, and the main Gulin body for high-end renovation… Isn’t that just to understand target customers better and do differentiated marketing?”

Customers did not understand the intricacies of the renovation industry. They only matched renovation companies according to their needs. When Chen Xi took the subway, he heard the 1936 villa mansion advertisement; at the highway toll gate, he had seen Enlin’s old house renovation advertisement; on bus bodies, he had seen Gulin’s high-end design advertisement… Gulin separately marketed different segments, precisely to better serve target groups. So Wang Yaohua was not that he did not understand target customers, nor that he did not understand marketing.

Wang Yaohua said frankly, “We want to better serve renovation clients, but Gulin’s order volume over the past two years has not increased significantly.”

Chen Xi smiled and said, “Nokia, which was all the rage ten years ago, is now used by hardly anyone, because the market has changed, and the concept of marketing has changed too.”

Wang Yaohua stood up, took a tea set from the cabinet behind him, and started boiling water and brewing tea. “The marketing methods from ten years ago can no longer catch the younger generation. Gulin really does need to move.”

On the surface, the two of them seemed to be exchanging one line after another, but in reality Chen Xi was guiding Wang Yaohua to speak along his line of thought. Chen Xi knew very well that if he rashly offered suggestions to a leader who was used to being authoritarian, they would most likely be rejected. So he switched to this gradual negotiation method.

Since the fish was already in the urn, Chen Xi smiled faintly. “How to help a long-established brand catch the emerging group, that’s exactly what I can do.”

“Haha, you’re a good one, straightforward when you speak. Not like some people who dawdle and never get to the point, just looking at them is irritating,” Wang Yaohua said as he poured tea for Chen Xi.

Chen Xi received the tea cup with both hands and thought to himself: what kind of leader brings out what kind of employees. Luckily I ran into a wall with Xu Dongxu before, or I would have gone in circles with Wang Yaohua too.

“Your time is so valuable, so let me speak more directly, then we’ll both save time,” Chen Xi also laughed along.

The tea tasted a little strong. Chen Xi took a sip, and finally asked the main point: “President Wang, I just want to ask, could you give me a chance with Gulin’s advertising placement?”

Wang Yaohua smiled until his eyes narrowed into a line. “The way you say that sounds like you’re proposing marriage. Whether I give you a chance or not, don’t I have to take a look and decide first? You can’t ask someone if they’re married the first time you meet them when proposing marriage, right?”

“That’s true, I was abrupt,” Chen Xi said, taking small sips of tea.

Just now he said he liked directness and wanted me to answer his questions, but he didn’t directly answer my question. This fat man was a typical double standard type, talking crookedly to straight people. I’m being direct, but he’s not being direct, huh? I have to break my straight words into several pieces, but I can’t say useless nonsense either. Isn’t that making things hard for me!

If only Lin Yiran could lend me his mouth to use.