Chapter 376: Payday

At Futong Commerce, Yang Wei now came to Dan Biao’s office just as often as Dan Biao went into Li Yang’s office.

“Xiaoyang, you told me yesterday that you were working hard to turn things around. Take a look at yesterday’s sales data. The year-over-year and month-over-month numbers have dropped even further. And look at your progress toward your performance goals. If you don’t find a way to remedy this, you, your team, and many of the store staff won’t receive a bonus this month. Then, we’ll start losing people in droves again.”

Yang Wei hung his head, at a loss for an explanation. The results spoke for themselves; any excuse would just sound feeble.

“And another thing. You promised me in-store sales livestreams. When are those actually going to happen? I’m not even asking you to bring in hundreds of thousands or millions in sales from a single stream. The company is only asking each store to stream for four hours a day with a sales target of 5,000. You can’t even achieve that. I’m starting to seriously doubt your ability to execute.”

‘When Yang Hui was in charge, they were all so obedient. Why have they all become such troublemakers since I took over?’ Yang Wei felt a surge of frustration at the thought. “President Shan, I’ve told them time and time again, but they just refuse to do it.”

After he spoke, he realized Dan Biao was giving him a strange look. A moment later, Dan Biao said, “You give an order, and your own employees won’t carry it out. Yes, that’s a problem with them, but have you ever stopped to analyze why your leadership is so weak?”

‘Weak leadership?’ ‘That was probably the most severe criticism a manager could receive.’ To put it bluntly, it meant: ‘You’re not competent enough to be a leader.’

Yang Wei naturally understood the implication, and his face instantly flushed crimson. He had spoken too rashly, complaining about his own team. ‘Had he forgotten that doing so only made him look even more incompetent?’

“One more thing, Xiaoyang. Cheng Jun from Xinyue Group messaged me today. She said that from now on, you are not to go looking for her. What exactly did you do? She said there’s a problem with your communication style.”

At the mention of this, Yang Wei looked utterly wronged. “President Shan, I had an appointment with her today. I waited outside her office for over two hours, and then Yang Hui just cut in line! All I did was express my dissatisfaction. How can that be my fault?”

Dan Biao fell silent. ‘Express your dissatisfaction?’ he thought. ‘You have to know your place. What right do you have to be dissatisfied? Forget Yang Wei; even if it were me, Dan Biao, Cheng Jun would still see Yang Hui first. You either suck it up and accept the loss, or you insist on arguing about who’s right and wrong. Do that, and see if she ever gives you the time of day again.’

“Alright, just don’t go looking for her anymore. She probably won’t give you the time of day even if you do. Was Yang Hui there to see her today, too?”

Dan Biao had all but given up on Yang Wei. ‘Let him be the scapegoat for a while,’ he thought. He was, however, very interested in Yang Hui’s whereabouts.

Yang Wei shook his head. “I think he went into the Regional General Manager’s office. He was in there for a good two hours. He was just passing by Cheng Jun’s office when she called him over, which is why I was so mad. I was there for an appointment, he was just walking by, and he still got to cut in line!”

Dan Biao’s eyelid twitched. ‘Fucking idiot,’ he silently cursed. ‘You knew he was just passing by to say hello, and you still managed to offend Cheng Jun over something so trivial. Is your brain filled with shit?’

His thoughts had already drifted to Yang Hui. ‘The man’s a legend.’ The new Regional General Manager had just arrived, and he’d already spent two hours in her office. Dan Biao still remembered what Li Yang had said when he’d called him into his office that morning: “Xiaodan, you and Zhang Li need to hurry up and boost NLB’s performance. When Old Tian was around, he always favored Yanghe Commerce, so we couldn’t compete. Now that the new Regional GM is here, this is our chance. But since she’s new, she’s not meeting with anyone for the first two weeks, and she hasn’t even given out her contact information.

“But that’s fine. With our company’s status in Qingzhou and my reputation in the business community, I’ll definitely be one of the first people she meets with when she starts seeing clients in two weeks. I’m going to go all out to secure our partnership with Xinyue Group. In the meantime, you two have to get NLB’s performance up. Otherwise, when performance is brought up, I won’t have a leg to stand on.”

Li Yang couldn’t get a meeting with the new Regional General Manager, let alone her contact information. And yet Yang Hui? He had apparently sat in her office for two hours. ‘A Regional GM is an incredibly busy person; you’d be lucky if she gave you ten minutes of her time. What did two hours even mean? Did she just drop everything to sit and chat with him?’

Dan Biao couldn’t help but be impressed. Yang Hui was just that damn good. ‘I wonder when the incredible President Yang will think of me and pull me out of this swamp.’

He decided against telling Li Yang that Yang Hui had met with Zong Lan. Li Yang would just fly into an impotent rage, and Dan Biao would be the one to suffer for it. Ever since he’d learned about Yanghe Commerce’s business operations and employee compensation, Dan Biao’s own mindset had started to change.

As the Director of Operations, he was well aware of the company’s current financial state. Overall profits for June looked decent, but that was only because Yang Hui had managed to scrape together a few million in extra earnings for the company. Without that contribution, the company’s year-over-year growth and profits were actually in sharp decline. He had pored over the financial statements and done the math himself: excluding the deals Yang Hui had secured, Futong Commerce’s net profit margin for June was less than 5%.

Although June wasn’t a peak season, that profit margin was alarmingly low. Another dip, and they would be operating at a loss. It was easy to understand why Li Yang had been so on edge lately.

Yang Hui had originally planned to stop by Mansu Company today. He sent Hu Mei a message, only to find out she had gone to the NLB Brand Company in Shanghai to process her resignation. It was then that he remembered not everyone could be like him, juggling a day job while running their own business. Since he was a hands-off boss, Hu Mei had to personally handle everything. That meant she needed to wrap up her job at NLB as soon as possible.