KC | Chapter 46

When they were in college, Chen Xi and Wang Xin had both worked part-time at a supermarket.

The job content was, using milk as a gimmick to bring in new users for a certain app.

To put it simply, it was, scan the code to download a certain app, and get a free carton of milk from a certain brand.

The app platform would give new users a 15 yuan subsidy coupon. Users only needed to register on the app and buy milk, then choose “use new user coupon” as the payment method to deduct 15 yuan.

Chen Xi’s superior had the merchant backend on the platform, and as long as he put a product called “milk” priced at 15 yuan onto the shelf, he could earn 15 yuan from the platform on each order. In reality, that milk cost 12.8 yuan a bottle, and when bought in bulk from the supermarket, each bottle was less than 12 yuan. The net profit on each bottle was 3 yuan. Add to that the 2 yuan commission the platform gave Chen Xi’s superior for each new user, and the gross profit per order was 5 yuan.

At the supermarket, Chen Xi had to pull in at least 200 orders a day, earning over a thousand yuan, while the wage his superior paid him was 15 yuan an hour. From nine in the morning to nine at night, with no lunch break, he would take home 150 yuan a day. Milk was in the fresh goods section of the supermarket. Chen Xi stood with his back against the freezer and was freezing to death, while Wang Xin had rough skin and flesh and could take the cold better than him.

From time to time, when he saw a glamorous woman linked arm in arm with a plain-looking man, Wang Xin would sigh, “The world is cold and cruel, all the good cabbages are let be trampled by pigs. If I could find a rich lady to keep me, I wouldn’t have to suffer and freeze here.”

Chen Xi was so frozen that he felt dazed. He didn’t dare hope for a rich lady, he only hoped that after graduation he could find a job with a government post.

Life played tricks on people, he never found a job with a government post, and the rich lady turned into a handsome guy. Calling it keeping him was not quite right, the other person simply wanted to sleep with him.

Chen Xi could let Lin Yiran do whatever he wanted, because he liked him. He could not do a money deal with Shen Yuesheng, because it was disgusting. His forearm had just lifted, then trembled as it lowered again. Chen Xi clenched his fists tightly and took a deep breath.

You are treating me like a commodity and putting a price on me? If you weren’t the client, I’d slap you!

Calm down, I need to calm down.

He wants to fuck me, how the hell am I supposed to calm down!

There were cameras in the café. If I made the first move, then he’d be acting in self-defense, and I very likely wouldn’t be able to beat him. I might even end up in jail.

It’s not making excuses for him, and it’s not because he is the client, it’s just because I can’t beat him…

So I have to stay calm.

Shen Yuesheng’s beautiful eyes looked at Chen Xi indifferently, as if inspecting a decoration in an office, his gaze calm and without ripples. He made no attempt to hide his frivolity and arrogance, always saying heavy things in a very light tone: “If you want this deal, the best way is to lower the price. Or you can also assess how much you’re worth, 15K would be enough for me to sleep with you a few times.”

No, I can’t calm down, why the hell am I putting up with your bad habits, you’re getting out of line?

I won’t beat you, but can’t I at least curse you a couple of times?

Chen Xi restrained his anger and thought it over again and again before saying, “Whether an event is successful or not is not only about the execution company’s standards, but also the fit with the event concept, the planning, and the later publicity. To measure standards based on price alone, ‘your standard’ itself is unreasonable.”

“I think the premise of cooperation between both sides is mutual respect. You won’t even let someone finish speaking, and you don’t even look at the resource placement, you just want to compare prices. Pinsheng has not let Lanhai see sincerity in cooperation, so naturally the price cannot be discussed.”

For people in sales, they had to always remember the goal. Along the way to reaching the goal, there would inevitably be setbacks. The client had only two options, signing or not signing. If it did not reach 100 points, then 99 points were the same as 0, and both had no meaning.

Chen Xi both wanted the contract and wanted to curse, and he used a pun to say, “Some people are just people who have eaten too much trash, they can’t eat even a tiny bit of good stuff. Their taste and their offers are absurdly low, and the money they pay can only buy cheap goods.”

When negotiations reached the price tug-of-war stage, usually the client would try their hardest to push the price down, while the vendor would use advantages like quality, service, and professionalism to protect the gross margin. But in today’s situation, it was the client demanding a “free gift,” and the vendor refusing to give anything for free while aggressively demanding money from the client.

The direction of the negotiation developed toward a bizarre trend. Shen Yuesheng had stayed silent the whole time, and Chen Xi was full of mixed feelings.

If there were no payment coming in from this deal, I would lose the 500 yuan incentive registration fee, miss out on the Zao Wangcheng project, and there would be a very high chance I wouldn’t complete the quarterly assessment, wouldn’t be able to pay my credit card, and wouldn’t be able to pay next quarter’s rent…

I need Pinsheng’s payment.

Shen Yuesheng wasn’t acting like a decent person, but I still had to act like one.

All clients were dogs. If these people were scored by the ranking of dogs, Chen Xi felt that Shen Yuesheng was not even as good as Xu Dongxu. Although Xu Dongxu was angry, he could still soften things through persistence, but Shen Yuesheng gave no opportunity and only wanted a clean cut. The demands he made were absurdly unreasonable, difficult to deal with, too difficult to deal with!

The negotiation had entered a deadlock. Shen Yuesheng was not speaking, obviously thinking whether this mediocre deal was worth doing.

At times like this, it was up to the salesperson to break the stalemate.

But how should he say this?

If he had just refused him and then started flattering him, it would be too deliberate. If he didn’t flatter him and instead held himself too high, then it would be slapping the client in the face, and he would definitely lose the chance to cooperate. So he had to find a balance between “flattering” and “high posture,” and could not make his words too frivolous, much less too much.

This was damn forcing a good person into prostitution, acting all righteous while actually being shameless!

Looking at negotiation scenes throughout history, he had never seen such a bizarre and tricky one.

Even if Roger Dawson came here, he would be dumbfounded.

If he spoke, the negotiation might collapse. If he didn’t speak, the negotiation would definitely collapse.

Chen Xi clenched both fists and cheered himself on, wealth and honor came from taking risks, screw it, go all in!

“Event execution is only part of Lanhai’s business. There will still be many opportunities for cooperation between Pinsheng and Lanhai in the future. If, at the early stage, labor costs are compressed and the number of execution staff is not enough, causing the result to fall short of expectations, I think that would be a loss for both sides.”

Hitting the snake at its seven-inch point, stabbing a person at their sore spot, since he knew your needs, he had to stab hard!

If words didn’t work, then use force. If being soft didn’t work, then be hard: “Pinsheng’s event execution time is tight. No matter which company you choose, you have to enter the site tomorrow. If it’s any later, it will be too late. I’ve already made Lanhai’s policy clear enough. If you think it’s okay, then we’ll sign the contract. If you think it’s not okay, then you can leave now. From now on, no one at Lanhai will touch any of Pinsheng’s projects.”

When communicating with a straight-talking player, it was not about saying more, it was about saying it precisely. Chen Xi’s knife stabbed accurately. Shen Yuesheng’s armor was pierced, and his face, like a jade carving, finally showed a crack. The Pinsheng event had already been publicized, and execution was imminent, time was tight and it could not be delayed.

Chen Xi was forcing Shen Yuesheng to make a decision.

Shen Yuesheng lowered his head, his hair falling to his brow bone, and his cold, stern face carried the innate arrogance between his brows.

Chen Xi had seen eyes full of desire before, deep pupils like an endless abyss, greedily swallowing flesh and burning longing, burning until every cell in him was boiling.

When he was with Lin Yiran, even the air was hot; when he was with Shen Yuesheng, the surroundings were cold as if frozen.

“Want to sleep with” was not an action, and desire was not expressed like that either.

Although they had not interacted for long, Chen Xi keenly discovered that the fox opposite looked like a straight shooter on the surface, but in fact had many twists and turns in his heart.

Shen Yuesheng spoke little and spoke directly because every sentence he said had been carefully considered.

Wang Yaohua’s inherent thinking pattern was the same as ordinary people. He would put Gulin at the top priority and adopt suggestions that were beneficial to the company, but he needed to say things in a patient and persuasive way. Shen Yuesheng’s thinking pattern, on the other hand, was to firmly believe that the decision he had repeatedly thought through was correct, so he felt that correcting other people’s ideas was a waste of time.

Unlike Wang Yaohua’s arbitrary authoritarian style, Shen Yuesheng would not give people a chance to speak. In negotiations, he would not listen to the other side’s worthless suggestions. Although this style of communication made negotiations extremely difficult, he could always get what he wanted through forceful means. Because there was more than one vendor, he had many choices.

Shen Yuesheng was a typical capitalist, and I didn’t have much surplus value for him.

If he only wanted to sleep with me, with his personality there was no need to circle around for so long.

Pinsheng had an annual revenue of several billion, and for an activity execution worth over 100,000 yuan, he would not care about a 10 percent increase.

So, his goal was not me.

Pinsheng did not have an execution team, and it was even possible that its planning, marketing, and administration structures were not complete either. Mature institutions needed to speak to the outside world to increase brand influence and attract capital, not use enrollment conversion as their main source of income.

The reason both sides could reach cooperation was nothing more than the client having a need and the vendor being able to take it on. The client’s needs were further divided into implicit needs and explicit needs, surface needs and real needs. Shen Yuesheng’s explicit needs were “event execution” and “sleeping with me,” while his implicit need was “replacing the current event execution company.” His surface need was “using me as an added-value tool for event execution to push down the price,” while his real need was “full-service planning.”

This fucking client simply thought Lanhai’s quote was too high and wanted some added-value tool to find a bit of psychological balance.

Compared with Shen Yuesheng’s indifference, the manic split-personality patient was a little unable to hold back.

Minute by minute, second by second, passed. Chen Xi tried hard to keep his face calm, while the gunpowder inside had already exploded.

If you sign the contract, I’ll serve you like a client. If you leave, then you’re a fox spirit!

Shen Yuesheng took a sip of latte and finally spoke, “Why aren’t you drinking?”

Chen Xi replied, “I drank too much this morning.” Mainly because I didn’t want to drink with you!

With his personality, changing the subject was nothing more than wanting to blur the issue. If I followed him in talking about coffee, I would easily be led into a trap again.

Shen Yuesheng said, “Your labor costs are too high, lower them a bit, and this can be settled today.”

Chen Xi said, “I really can’t lower it.” If I lower the labor cost, there won’t be enough execution staff, and then I will have to go work for you. You already said you want to sleep with me, so if I still shamelessly send myself over, isn’t that courting death? Besides, I had just already made my position dead clear. Lowering the price now would be slapping myself in the face.

Shen Yuesheng put down his coffee cup, his eyes flickering slightly. He had thought Chen Xi was a flashy shell with courage but no brains, but he had not expected the other side to be able to see through his real intentions.

Chen Xi’s eyes remained tightly locked on Shen Yuesheng, like a hunter staring at prey. In a negotiation battle, whichever side was the hunter had the gun.

His not leaving directly meant that this deal still had a chance. These two lines of bargaining were just the final struggle of a psychological battle.

Chen Xi said, “In the future, Lanhai can take on Pinsheng’s full-service planning, set up a project team, and file the case for maintenance. Right now, we’ve only met for a few days. Lanhai doesn’t know enough about Pinsheng and can’t sort out the brand or produce a full-service plan. So why not give both sides some time? While Pinsheng assesses Lanhai, Lanhai can also gain a deeper understanding of Pinsheng’s culture, teaching philosophy, and school-running purpose, laying the foundation for the full-service plan.”

The deceitful fox wearing a Patek Philippe was just like a poor bastard who insisted on grabbing a handful after buying loose sunflower seeds, or insisting on tasting a few cherries after buying them, carefully calculating and squeezing profit out of the vendor. He wasn’t without money, and he wasn’t obsessing over service quality, he just had a habitual way of thinking. The habitual way of thinking of capitalism was exploitation.

If he kept following Shen Yuesheng’s thinking and argued with him endlessly about price, even if the price was lowered to the minimum, he would still feel it wasn’t enough, because there were other companies on the market asking for even lower prices. Price was not Lanhai’s core advantage, comprehensive service capability was.

“I wouldn’t dare say Lanhai’s event execution price is the lowest, but I dare say that for the same execution standards, Lanhai’s price is the lowest.”

A common closing tactic in sales was to find the most suitable entry point and make promises to the client.

Chen Xi moved the client with Lanhai’s cost-effectiveness, service quality, and full-service planning, avoided the “smoke bomb,” and truly achieved “tailoring to his tastes.”

Shen Yuesheng said, “Draw up the contract.”

Key client, second round, keep it up!

Author’s note:

(1) Roger Dawson: adviser to the U.S. president, senior cabinet consultant, and universally recognized as the world’s number one business negotiation master.