Chapter 881: With Qiu Wen by My Side, Success Is Certain!

The day after Huang Panpan came over to pay a New Year’s visit, which was the sixth day of the lunar month, Su Zelin and Qin Shiqing went back to the company, because the holiday ended on the seventh.

There was a whole pile of post–New Year matters; aside from anything else, many investors had seen how booming the sales were at the company’s chain stores, and franchise applications had surged, which alone would take a huge amount of time to deal with—there was no way not to be busy.

On the morning of the seventh, when they arrived at headquarters in Dingsheng Mansion, the staff were all in high spirits.

For this special Spring Festival, New World started the holiday later than most companies and ended it earlier than most, yet nobody had any complaints.

New Era had always emphasized and cultivated team spirit; employees shared a sense that they rose and fell with the company, and on top of that the company also took a portion of profits to fund departmental bonus incentives.

In other words, the better the company’s performance and the more outstanding the department’s results, the higher one’s monthly and year-end bonuses.

Unlike some miserly private firms, where no matter how hard employees toil, working overtime every day, their income stays the same, or the bonuses are pitifully small, naturally leaving them with no enthusiasm.

New Era’s first battle in its push into the national market had been an overwhelming victory; this was the result of the collective effort of the entire team, and everyone felt proud of it. Plus, this month’s bonuses were expected to surge, so nobody harbored any resentment about coming back to work a few days earlier.

What’s more, on the very first day back at the company, they handed out opening-of-the-year red envelopes, with at least 300 yuan each, which was far more generous than the 100 yuan or even 50 yuan red envelopes most companies gave.

The employees couldn’t help but be overjoyed, feeling lucky that they had joined such a good company.

With passion and drive, they kicked off their Year of the Rooster struggle.

In the blink of an eye, two months passed.

In the balmy March of early spring, when grass grows and orioles fly, the footsteps of winter receded, the breeze turned gentle; it was the season when Lin’an was as beautiful as a painting. This world-famous ancient city of culture had also entered peak tourist season, with visitor numbers surging.

After a week of continuous plum rains, the long-lost spring sunshine finally returned to the earth, putting people in the mood to go out and enjoy the countryside.

At New Era’s headquarters, in his office, looking at the report handed over by the finance department, Su Zelin was in a very good mood as well.

The nationwide sales data for the directly operated stores after Spring Festival had already been compiled; in just these two months, a lot of cash flow had been replenished. The effect of increased brand influence from sponsoring the Spring Festival Gala was also extremely evident; including the home base of the Jiang-Zhe-Lu region, the second month’s performance was very impressive.

Just then, Yan Qiuwen walked in.

“Qiu Wen, you came at the right time. What do you think of this financial report?”

The slacker handed her the report. Although such sales data were company secrets, the female strategist had been involved in virtually all of New Era’s most important affairs, and Su Zelin needed her opinion.

Yan Qiuwen took it, glanced through it briefly, and then gave a detailed analysis.

“On the surface, sales in the second month after Spring Festival are down quite a bit month-on-month.”

“However, the first month was an atypical result, boosted by Spring Festival Gala hype and large-scale marketing campaigns.”

“By the second month, consumers’ desire to purchase had already returned to rational levels. Achieving this level of sales is already quite good; take the Jiang-Zhe-Lu region’s stores as an example—there’s a sizable increase compared with last year’s peak season!”

“Considering that the second month after Spring Festival happens to be the so-called ‘lean months’ of March and April, traditionally the hardest time of year to do business, when the vast majority of merchants perform worse than in other months, our company has instead gone against the tide. This report card is truly outstanding. Barring any surprises, sales after April will be able to climb another step!”

Su Zelin clapped his hands and said, “Nicely put; that’s exactly what I was thinking. This time we can count it as a huge win—those 300 million weren’t spent in vain! But having won the first battle, we can’t stop; we have to strike while the iron is hot, continue to segment the market down to the county level, and then into townships!”

The counties and townships in the Jiang-Zhe-Lu region had already been laid out, but in other provinces they had previously only opened stores at the prefecture level. After all, time was limited; from the decision to go nationwide to having directly operated stores set up in every province had taken only three months. It was impossible to swallow a fat man in one bite.

Still, over these two months, both directly operated and franchised stores at the prefecture level had been opening in increasing numbers; the next step was to start turning their sights toward county towns.

“Our advertising and marketing strategies targeting county and township consumers will have to be different. I’ve put together a new proposal—Qiu Wen, take a look!”

This was the main reason he had called Yan Qiuwen into the office.

Whenever he drew up an important plan, he would bring the female strategist into the discussion; Yan Qiuwen often provided many highly constructive additions—each of those ideas was worth its weight in gold.

As he spoke, Su Zelin took a document out of the drawer, went over to the sofa in the office, sat down, placed it on the coffee table, and then began making tea.

These large-scale plans usually couldn’t be covered in a short chat; discussions often lasted an hour or more, even several hours, so Su Zelin had gotten into the habit of talking over tea—less boring, and it helped keep him alert.

Yan Qiuwen sat beside him, her gaze falling on the title page of the proposal—”Thousand-County Plan.”

Clear and straightforward.

At present, there were more than 1,600 county-level cities and counties nationwide. Subtracting the Jiang-Zhe-Lu region, where they had already completely captured the market, that left just over a thousand.

The earliest digital giants to work the county markets were the Blue and Green factories, though the Green factory had just been established last year and had yet to take shape. For the moment, its main focus was MP3 players; it wouldn’t launch its first mobile phone until 2008, and its fellow-school junior Blue factory, which came out of the same lineage as Bu Gao, would be a few years later still.