KC | Chapter 69

“How is Lin Yiran getting along with you?” Xu Dongxu asked, holding his bowl and夹菜, as he looked at Chen Xi.

“Not that well.” Lin Yiran taught whatever Chen Xi learned. These past two days, he had not learned much real negotiation technique, only how to lie and bullshit.

Chen Xi had waited until nine o’clock for Xu Dongxu to get off work, and he was truly hungry. At that moment, he had no time to care about manners, so he picked up his bowl and started shoveling food in aggressively.

The restaurant where the two of them ate was on the commercial street below Gulin. The storefront was not big, but the dishes were varied and tasty. It was still full at this hour. The only downside was that there were no private rooms. But that did not matter. Xu Dongxu was not Sun Xingshun, so there was nothing especially private they could talk about.

“Lanhai KA only has a few people, and they all answer to Lin Yiran. He signs a lot on his own, but he’s a real bastard.” Chen Xi tore off his lover filter, made things up as he went, and kept talking nonsense, ranting hard about him, “I never told this to any other coworker. It’s just that Brother Xu seems pretty easy to get along with, and also, you don’t know many people at Lanhai, so… ”

“Ha!” Xu Dongxu laughed. “You brat really do suit my temperament!”

To boost Xu Dongxu’s goodwill, Chen Xi cursed Lin Yiran from head to toe: “Lin Yiran made us pay for our own team-building trips. I only make so much a month, and one outing costs 500 yuan! Also, he used his power to sleep with my coworker. At first my coworker thought he had a wife and refused no matter what, but later she found out his wife had already run off!”

Xu Dongxu could not help blurting out a curse, “Fuck, he’s divorced?” Even though the two of them had had a bad falling-out before, the advertising circle in Yucheng was so small, and Lin Yiran always had people pass him messages, so it was hard for Xu Dongxu not to pay attention to him.

“Yep.” Chen Xi opened a beer, poured himself a glass, and also filled Xu Dongxu’s to the brim. “What kind of good person could live with such a bastard?”

Xu Dongxu clinked glasses with him and nodded. “True.”

“What happened to that coworker of yours in the end, did he sleep with her?”

“Uh, my coworker wanted to quit last month, but because she had not found a new job, she put up with it. Sigh, it’s not really my place to ask too much about other people’s business.” Chen Xi took a sip of beer and learned Lin Yiran’s skill of telling lies with his eyes wide open to perfection.

You were the one who told me to curse you together with Xu Dongxu, so that can’t be blamed on me.

“Doesn’t anyone at your company handle this? Otherwise, have your coworker come work at Gulin. Our salespeople’s salaries are only higher than Lanhai’s, not lower.”

“How does the commission at Gulin work?” Even though they had met by chance, he was giving out job referrals. You were a bit sharp-tongued, but you were pretty loyal.

“The base salary is 5K to 8K depending on level, and the commission fluctuates between 5% and 10% based on contract amount. For our top sales, a monthly salary of 20K is not a problem.” Speaking of Gulin’s compensation and benefits, Xu Dongxu was very proud. “Let me put it this way, in Yucheng and even the North China market, there are very few decoration companies that pay this high.”

“True.” I’m already working myself to the bone every month and still not making over ten thousand. Gulin’s benefits really were good. If this had been last month, I might have come here, but now that I had just started something with Brother Lin, I could not leave.

Beauty ruins people, beauty ruins people.

“I’ll ask that friend later. If she plans to, I’ll contact Brother Xu. Thanks, Brother Xu.”

Xu Dongxu clinked glasses with him and laughed, “No need to be polite.”

The two of them did not talk about work. They ate while cursing Lin Yiran, and the more they cursed, the more they clicked. After three rounds of drinks, Xu Dongxu said he was going to the restroom. Behind Chen Xi’s back, he went to the front desk and wanted to settle the bill, only to find that Chen Xi had already paid after ordering.

Xu Dongxu returned to their table, lit a cigarette, and slowly said, “I have to say, you are quite similar to Lin Yiran in some aspects.”

“Ha, is Brother Xu praising me for being smart, or calling me a bastard?”

Xu Dongxu exhaled a smoke ring and said, “I’ve only eaten with salespeople from two ad companies. One was you, and the other was Lin Yiran. Coincidentally, both were from Lanhai. Looks like I’m fated to have a disaster, destined to fall in Lanhai.”

–

Looks like the hour he spent cursing Lin Yiran had not been wasted. He had finally gotten to the main point.

Chen Xi put down his chopsticks and said solemnly, “I won’t let Brother Xu fall.”

Xu Dongxu said, “I’ve seen many salespeople who were all show and no substance, and a lot of them were top names in the advertising industry. Some were introduced by industry associations, some by acquaintances, and some came to lecture me as marketing planning experts… It’s not that they were bad to talk to, just too flashy, too floaty, and not aligned with Gulin’s brand culture. Their grand blueprint sounded great, but in actual execution, it would definitely fall apart.”

“The last time I talked with Brother Wang, your ad slogan moved me right away, and Brother Wang was very satisfied too. If it were not for your dogshit boss, we should have moved on to further cooperation.”

Chen Xi smiled. “Brother Xu, this meal was really comfortable. Whether we cooperate or not, I think we can become friends.”

That dogshit boss taught me that the essence of talking to clients in KA was to be “oily”, and when chatting with a male client who was more than ten years older than yourself, you had to be even more oily. If one sentence could disgust yourself for one full minute after saying it, then the effect had been achieved.

Xu Dongxu sighed. “If you had come to me last quarter, maybe this thing could still have been discussed. But now we have already signed a 30 million annual framework with Tianyu, and Q4 is about to start rollout.”

“So it was Tianyu.” Chen Xi had heard of Tianyu, a top-tier Four A advertising company in Beishi, and its advertising placement volume was conservatively estimated to be ten times Lanhai’s.

Purely in terms of ad operation strength, objectively speaking, Lanhai was inferior to Tianyu. Now Gulin also had grievances with Lanhai, so Lanhai was at a huge disadvantage.

“Brother Xu, we just signed the contract and have not even paid yet. Look at this, what should I do to have a chance?” If there were no chance in this matter, you would not have told me at all that the competing bidder was Tianyu, so you definitely had a method.

Xu Dongxu thought for a while. It was not until his cigarette had burned out that he said, “We settle accounts on the 15th of every month, and Brother Wang also comes to the company on the 15th. Before the 10th, we will report this month’s work situation to him. I can include Lanhai’s ad planning content, but the final decision still belongs to Brother Wang.”

“I’m deeply grateful!” Chen Xi clasped his hands in salute, then opened a bottle of beer to show respect and gulped down more than half of it. He had originally wanted to drink the whole bottle, but there were too many bubbles inside the beer bottle, and drinking it straight down could choke him to death.

Xu Dongxu had only looked at Chen Xi’s face before and thought he was a soft and weak little guy, but he had not expected that not only was he highly professional, he also handled things quickly and spoke directly. He was very much the kind of Northeast man he got along with. When Xu Dongxu had previously worked with Tianyu sales, they only talked about ad business and nothing else. Tianyu, the Four A company in Beishi, was highly professional, but after all there were regional differences, so communication was inconvenient and the people were not the right fit.

Compared with Tianyu’s sales, Xu Dongxu was more willing to talk with Chen Xi. Although the two of them had a big age gap, they shared the common topic of cursing the Lin bastard.

“I’ll send you the ad proposal Tianyu made later. When you’re not busy, discuss it with your planning team and come up with a plan.” Xu Dongxu judged cooperation by first impression and made friends by temperament. He felt Chen Xi was not bad, so he simply decided to do a good deed to the end.

“Brother Xu, you’re my real brother. I won’t say anything else, it’s all in the wine.” Chen Xi picked up the beer bottle and gulped down the remaining half-bottle. He drank too fast, and tears were forced out of his eyes from the choking, making him look pitiful.

Chen Xi called the waiter to bring more wine, clearly showing the momentum of not getting drunk and not going home today. Xu Dongxu did not want to bully a kid, so he waved a hand and said, “You still have work tomorrow, just drink enough. Don’t drink too much.”

“How can that work, I…” If he was going to act, he had to act all the way through. Anyway, he had already said so many greasy things that he had disgusted himself enough. Drinking a bit more would make it just right for throwing up together later.

Xu Dongxu interrupted Chen Xi and finally told him the real reason: “We chose Tianyu because of your sister-in-law, that is, Brother Wang’s wife. Her nephew works at Tianyu.”

“Fuck?” Chen Xi had been drinking so hard just now that his stomach was souring up. He could not help cursing along with him.

You say Lin-ge is a bastard, but you’re even more of a bastard! When we first met, you shot me dead on the spot, then gave me a hard time after that, and now you’re dropping a reversal halfway through the sentence. First you got close to me so I would pay the bill, then you made me drink to show sincerity, and in the end you told me your cooperation with Tianyu was because of a relative!

Going to stir things up when there was a real relative connection, was I not just waiting to die? The meal was wasted, the wine was wasted! SB[○｀Д′ ○]

–

“Ten years ago, I was screwed by Lin Yiran and demoted. The one who replaced me as Gulin’s marketing director was your sister-in-law’s nephew. Back then his nephew had just graduated, and he was pretty arrogant. He worked for a little over half a year and insisted on going out to start a business. Only after he left did I get reinstated.”

Chen Xi: A family business is just NB, able to suppress a marketing director in minutes. Xu Dongxu was petty enough to hold a grudge against Lin Yiran for 10 years, and of course he could also hold a grudge against the “nephew” for 10 years. He was angry now, and the purpose of helping me was that he did not want Tianyu to close the deal.

Lin Yiran was right, the enemy of my enemy was my friend. From the current situation, Tianyu was the common enemy of me and Xu Dongxu, so we were becoming closer than family and turning into sworn friends in minutes.

“Brother Xu, you’ve said this much. If I still can’t handle it, wouldn’t I be an idiot?” Chen Xi clasped his hands on the tabletop and leaned slightly forward, then said in a low voice, “I can guarantee that no one will know Tianyu’s proposal came from you, but if Lanhai wants to successfully snatch the bid under sister-in-law’s nose, that alone is not enough.”

Chen Xi looked at Xu Dongxu, his gaze sharp as a torch, and said bluntly, “Brother Xu, I need you to tell me how we should write this proposal, and what the focus should be.”

Traditional telesales sold products to advertisers, marketing consultants combined the client’s needs to make plans, and KA had to, on the basis of deeply understanding the client’s needs, win over the other side’s core KP and create a win-win cooperation situation for both sides. Only then could the cooperation go deep.

Lin Yiran had used this method to win over Pinsheng, and now Chen Xi was copying this thinking onto Gulin.

No one knew Gulin better than Xu Dongxu, so rather than letting the planning department rack their brains studying Tianyu’s proposal and then output a creative plan with targeted tactics, it was better to directly ask Xu Dongxu for the needs.

This was just like an exam. Tianyu entered the exam room an hour ahead of Lanhai, and by the time their answer sheet was almost done, Lanhai had only just entered the room. At that point, if they wanted to win, they could not solve the problems normally. They had to directly copy the correct answers.

Xu Dongxu was Chen Xi’s correct answer.