Chapter 378: Payday 3

‘Good. No one asked him to, but he can identify key issues from the company’s operational data and even seeks out urgent tasks on his own. He seems like a real self-starter.’

“Contact the regional leasing department at Xinyue Group today. Have them send over the renewal contracts for our 21 stores. Once you get the contracts, file the company’s renewal application through the system.”

Li Chao thought President Yang was tasking him with negotiating the renewal. He nodded and left the office with a heavy heart. ‘Xinyue Group… they won’t be easy to handle.’ Before joining Ruijing Commerce, he had just negotiated a renewal for a Xinyue Square project in a prefecture-level city at his previous company. By the end of the negotiations, the rent had increased by 9%. He was on good terms with the regional leasing manager, but even they said it was the absolute minimum, as the square’s average rent was already 500 yuan per square meter per day.

When he first joined Ruijing Commerce, he had checked the company’s partnership terms with Xinyue Square. For the very same project he had just finished negotiating, Ruijing Commerce’s terms were an astonishing 280 yuan per square meter per day. A rate that low was simply unconscionable. So, he looked up the business terms for Ruijing Commerce’s other Xinyue Square projects, and what he found made his scalp tingle. Even the rate for the Qingzhou Xinyue Plaza First Store was only 400 yuan per square meter per day—just a little over half the market rate.

So, the mere mention of renewal made his head buzz. At his previous company, the rent was approaching 500 yuan per square meter per day, and even after lengthy negotiations, it still went up by 9%. The thought of negotiating a renewal with Xinyue Group was suffocatingly stressful. It wasn’t just him—few in the entire Qingjiang Business District could hold their own against Xinyue Group’s dominance. Most other clients were completely at their mercy. Take it or leave it; if you didn’t like their terms, you could get lost.

‘But if the negotiations don’t go well… I just got to Ruijing Commerce. How am I going to explain it to the boss?’ The pay and benefits here were great; Li Chao really wanted to settle in and do a good job. He sighed. He’d heard his predecessor left precisely because he could never handle Xinyue Group. The man was supposedly an acting general manager, and even he couldn’t manage it. The scale of the challenge was obvious.

Fortunately, he understood. ‘A company gives you great pay and benefits for a reason—to get things done. If it were an easy win, why would they need me?’

He adjusted his attitude and pulled himself together. ‘No matter how difficult the road ahead, I have to charge forward—for this great job that was so hard to get.’

The two most urgent tasks at hand were: first, the Xinyue Group renewal assigned by President Yang, and second, also from President Yang, the channel development plan for the second half of the year.

He had conveniently overlooked the fact that Yang Hui’s original instruction was for him to simply *get* the contracts from Xinyue Group. He had misinterpreted it as a mission to *negotiate* the renewal, finalize the terms, and then bring back the signed agreements.

He nervously scheduled a meeting with Xinyue Group’s regional leasing manager. As luck would have it, the manager was available today. Li Chao felt a small surge of confidence. ‘This must be a sign from heaven!’ In the past, he wasn’t always able to secure a meeting. The Xinyue Group regional office was genuinely swamped, and the leasing managers frequently traveled to out-of-town stores. Most of the time, being able to catch one in Qingzhou after several attempts was considered fortunate, and the chances of them actually having free time were even slimmer.

Li Chao didn’t dare to delay for a second. He grabbed his briefcase and rushed out.

Today was the 10th of the month, payday for many companies. After a whole month of hard work, this was the day many people had been waiting for. The anticipation was especially high for those with sales bonuses; they were far more excited than employees on a fixed salary.

Xia Jie and Zhu Jing were doing their store inspections at Xinyue Square. Each of them was now responsible for a different brand, but since both brands were located in the same mall, they always went together.

On the subway, Zhu Jing’s phone buzzed with a notification. She picked it up for a look. Noticing Xia Jie watching her, she figured Xia Jie must think it was a message from their company, so she explained, “It’s Futong Commerce. Payday.”

She put her phone away. ‘Last month’s pay was decent. Because Yang Hui had fought for them, the whole team’s base salary had been raised to 8,000. I also got the full 2,000 yuan performance bonus. Since our performance was outstanding, there was even a small extra reward. It all added up to a little over 10,000 before taxes and insurance. After deductions for insurance and the housing fund, it was just under 10,000.’

Now at Yanghe Commerce, her base salary alone was 18,000, so she couldn’t care less about the paycheck from Futong Commerce. “Payday,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s always around this time.”

Xia Jie nodded. BUZZ. Her phone went off with a message as well.

“Mine probably just arrived too.” She had worked a few days at Futong Commerce last month, so she had about a thousand yuan in wages coming. ‘Better than nothing,’ she thought. Just as she was about to put her phone away, another message arrived. She tapped it open—this one was from Yanghe Commerce.

‘Since I hadn’t worked a full month at Yanghe Commerce, I didn’t get my full base salary of 18,000, only a prorated 12,000. But last month, the two stores I manage had sales of 4.5 million. My bonus was calculated at a 0.2 percent commission, which added another 9,000 yuan. That meant my total income for the month broke the 20,000 mark. It’s the most I have ever earned from a job, and I’m incredibly excited. I have to remind myself to stay calm, though. As I manage more stores in the future, my income will only grow. This is just the beginning.’

But when she and Zhu Jing arrived at the store and saw the pure, unadulterated joy on the faces of the store manager and the team, Xia Jie couldn’t hold back a smile. She was genuinely happy for them.

These team members had joined at the beginning of last month and had received a base salary even during their training period, so they all received their full base pay. However, the base salary wasn’t the most important part—it was all about the bonus.