Chapter 147 Meeting with Ancient Dragon
Chapter 147 Meeting with Ancient Dragon
Qin Zhiye asked: "Will our headquarters be in Central?"
"If not in Central, then where? Do you think it's still around here?" Yang Wendong smiled and said, "The newspaper's main customer base is in Hong Kong Island, and the various talents the newspaper needs are also in Hong Kong Island. No matter from which angle, it should not be placed here."
Qin Zhiye said with a smile: "Sorry, I have a preconceived notion. Many bosses in Hong Kong like to put various companies together."
Yang Wendong shook his head and said, "Changxing Industrial will be my main industry, and Hong Kong China Daily will also be in the future, but there is no direct connection between the two at present, so you don't need to worry about this."
"Okay." Qin Zhiye nodded and said, "Then I need to make a detailed plan and budget when I go back. I will bring it to you for your review, and then we can discuss the location and size of the rental house."
"Okay." Yang Wendong thought for a moment and said, "Lao Qin, I am also an outsider in the newspaper industry, and I don't understand a lot of things, so I need to rely on you;
But don't worry, I will recruit some assistants for you, and they will also be veterans in the Hong Kong newspaper industry."
"Okay, Mr. Yang." Qin Zhiye immediately understood what Yang Wendong meant.
Saying that you don't understand means that you are prepared to delegate power appropriately and recruit people for yourself, rather than recruiting on your own, which means that there will be someone supervising you.
But this is normal and it is also common in many companies in Hong Kong. Hong Kong bosses like to diversify their investments and enter fields they don’t understand. Naturally, they need to recruit professionals, but if they delegate power to someone they just met, the risk will be too great.
The best way is to find a few more people and let them form a balance within the new company, just like the way ancient emperors ruled their subordinates.
Yang Wendong smiled, took out a business card from his pocket, and said, "Okay, that's it for now. This is my business card. If you have any questions or want to know, you can call me.
Or if your information is almost ready, you can call me directly to make an appointment. "
"I understand. Mr. Yang, I'll take my leave now." Qin Zhiye stood up, said a few polite words, and then said goodbye and left.
Yang Wendong also politely saw the person off to the door. After seeing the person leave, Yang Wendong returned to the office and made a phone call;
After a while, Lin Haoyu rushed over.
"Come and sit down, have a bottle of ice cola." Yang Wendong took out a bottle of glass cola from the refrigerator nearby, opened it with a bottle opener, and handed it to Lin Haoyu.
"Coke? I haven't had it for a long time." Lin Haoyu took it, took a sip and said, "This thing is actually equivalent to a worker's daily salary in our factory."
"Income varies from place to place, but Coke is an international product, so this is normal," Yang Wendong explained casually.
This phenomenon also existed in previous lives. For example, for normal food, in economically developed regions such as Europe and the United States, a person could buy one kilogram of rice with the salary earned from working for a few minutes. But in Africa, many people might not earn even one kilogram of rice after working hard for a whole day.
The situation in Hong Kong is similar now. Many people don’t even have jobs and are starving. Labor is the least valuable and it is good enough if it can fill their stomachs. This problem can only be solved if the industry continues to develop.
After Lin Haoyu drank two sips, he looked very satisfied. He then put down the Coke bottle and asked, "Brother Dong, why did you ask me to come here?"
Yang Wendong asked: "How is your business going?"
"It's been a bit busy. It's getting hotter now and there are more rats." Lin Haoyu said, "But I haven't found any new customers in the past month. The sticky mouse boards are very effective in killing rats. Many warehouses and office buildings just buy the sticky mouse boards and put them up themselves. They don't need us anymore."
Yang Wendong smiled and said, "It seems that our own business has been affected by our other business."
"That's true." Lin Haoyu nodded and said, "But the mousetrap business is much better than my pest control service company."
“The market for pest control companies is actually not small, but they can only operate in a small area and cannot expand greatly,” Yang Wendong added.
Not to mention Hong Kong, even in some big countries, this kind of business is generally only done on a small scale.
"Yes." Lin Haoyu also said: "It's very troublesome for us to do business in Hong Kong Island. There is no place to stay, and the time spent on the road back and forth is too long."
Yang Wendong asked: "Are all your men from the squatters? How many are there?"
"They are all from the squatters, about 120 people." Lin Haoyu replied, "It's the same with Liming, a lot of them are from the squatters, he probably has to people."
"Yeah, I know that." Yang Wendong nodded. He positioned several core industries under his company. Among them, one of the main purposes of the mouse trap board is to promote employment for people living in squatters. The purely handmade mouse trap board has a high demand for employment.
The production of post-it notes requires people with a certain degree of cultural literacy, after all, it involves complex quality management.
Then he said, "Haoyu, I asked you to come here today to help me do something. I need you to find someone in Taiwan."
"Taiwan?" Lin Haoyu asked in confusion: "Brother Dong, I haven't been to Taiwan either?"
Yang Wendong smiled and said, "I haven't been there either. There's always a first time. Just think of it as a trip. When you get there, you don't need to go looking for people in person. You can just find a local agent."
"Oh." Lin Haoyu asked again: "What kind of person is that?"
Yang Wendong said: "This man's surname is Xiong, and he is a literary scholar. He may have published some novels in Taiwan. When you go there, explain it to the local agent and ask them to look for him among some published authors."
The person we are looking for is naturally Gu Long, but there is no Internet in this era. Hong Kong generally doesn't know what happened in Taiwan, so someone needs to investigate.
"Okay, I'll write it down." Lin Haoyu quickly took out a small notebook from his chest pocket and wrote down what he needed to do.
Yang Wendong looked at the words on the paper and said with a smile: "The words are not bad. It seems that there should be no big problem with literacy?"
"I know all the normal words, but reading some newspapers is still a bit difficult. I need to look up the dictionary or ask people." Lin Haoyu said after recording, "And I can't write many words. I can only remember them vaguely and look them up later.
I carry this notebook with me, not only to record things, but also to test myself. If I don’t know how to write a word or write it wrong, I will write it down again.”
"It's a very good method." Yang Wendong nodded and said, "It's been more than a year, and you can be considered to have basically completed your apprenticeship. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement in Chinese characters, it is sufficient for now."
"Yeah, if it was more than a year ago, I would never have thought that I could read." Lin Haoyu said, "And I can live the life I have today."
"Life will be better in the future." Yang Wendong smiled and said, "Your pest control business is relatively small. The reason I wanted this business was to help the people in the squatters.
But now it has really reached its limit, you don't have to keep doing this, help me find someone in Taiwan first, and then we can discuss what you want to do. "
Lin Haoyu said with a smile: "I will do whatever Brother Dong tells me to do. I don't care. I can be a worker." "Haha, not really. But it's impossible to be too good. No matter what position you are in, you must first have the ability to match it." Yang Wendong smiled and said: "Or, you can be like Liming and just be responsible for recruiting people from the squatters, screening those who are in urgent need of work and meet our requirements."
"That's good too." Lin Haoyu nodded.
"Well, let's talk about it later." Yang Wendong said again: "Get ready to go to Taiwan, but don't go alone, bring two more people, preferably college students, who will be better able to handle any problems."
Today, Changxing Industrial is one of the largest factories in Hong Kong, so it naturally has no shortage of college students.
"Okay." Lin Haoyu agreed.
In the following week, with the help of the agent, Yang Wendong interviewed several people with experience in the newspaper industry. Finally, after negotiations between the two sides, three more people joined the Hong Kong Chinese Daily.
At this point, the original team of the Hong Kong Chinese Daily was officially established.
On August 8, everyone gathered again.
Qin Zhiye took out the information he had prepared and said to Yang Wendong, "Mr. Yang, this is the photo of the color newspaper equipment I mentioned. The price is 11.2 Hong Kong dollars. It can print up to 5 20-page newspapers a day. This speed is not even possible with ordinary black and white newspaper equipment."
"5 copies a day? Isn't that too high?" Yang Wendong asked.
In the 20s and s in Hong Kong, newspaper sales easily exceeded copies. But this is no longer the case. Both the economic level and the ratio of literate people are much worse now than they were years later.
Qin Zhiye replied, "Mr. Yang, I chose this equipment with this capacity mainly for two reasons. The first is that the price of equipment with different capacities is related to the capacity, but it is not a pure numerical ratio relationship;
For example, the same equipment that prints 9 newspapers a day costs about HK$. For us, it is not cost-effective to buy a small equipment.”
"Yeah, that's right." Yang Wendong nodded. This principle was easy to understand. If the equipment was smaller, it would only have less material, but the costs of R&D, labor, and marketing would be the same.
Qin Zhiye added: “The second reason is that newspapers often have urgent news that needs to be produced quickly in a short period of time, otherwise it will be too late;
So it's not just us. The production capacity of equipment of many newspapers in Hong Kong will be planned to be increased by one level.
Moreover, in our spare time, we can also take on external business and print some less urgent weekly and comic books. Our equipment will be the first color newspaper and magazine equipment in Hong Kong, and there will definitely be people interested in it.”
"Well, okay, then let's buy 5 units per day." Yang Wendong also thought it made sense after listening.
As long as it makes sense, he would naturally agree. Now that the production capacity of post-it notes is still increasing and the return of funds is getting faster and faster, 10 Hong Kong dollars is nothing to him.
Furthermore, Hong Kong's newspaper industry will also experience a rapid overall market growth in the 60s.
"Mr. Yang, Mr. Qin." A middle-aged man sitting next to them said, "In fact, it's not just Hong Kong. Our newspapers can also expand into the Taiwan and even Southeast Asian markets."
Yang Wendong looked at the person who was speaking and asked, "Old Wu, your Galaxy Daily has done a good job in this area before. In the future, we will need to rely on you."
When recruiting people, it is natural to poach them from several old-established newspapers. As Galaxy Daily has been a leader in Hong Kong's newspaper industry in recent years, Yang Wendong naturally attracted more attention from headhunters.
The name of the Hong Kong Chinese Daily represents that it focuses on the Hong Kong market. If it wants to enter overseas markets in the future, it can just change its name. Many newspapers operate in this way because the content cannot be the same.
Old Wu smiled and said, "Okay, Mr. Yang, I know some distributors in Taiwan and Malaysia. As long as our sales in Hong Kong are good, they will be interested in this."
"Well, so the key is to do it well in Hong Kong." Yang Wendong nodded and said.
Just like ordinary physical goods, they can only be sold to other places after they have achieved success in their own territory. In another ten years, Hong Kong movies will also become popular, and the same principle applies to selling overseas.
Qin Zhiye continued, "Mr. Yang, we need to go to Germany to take a look at this equipment. Would you like to go?"
"I won't go, you guys can go." Yang Wendong said, "In addition, I will arrange for a lawyer who specializes in international business to go with you. You can negotiate the price together, and you can also go and look at other companies' equipment."
Although 100,000 Hong Kong dollars is a lot, it is no longer worth it for Yang Wendong to make a personal trip, especially when he has to go abroad. It would take only half a month to go back and forth.
Although I don't have 100% trust in the newly hired people, the lawyers I arranged for have been working with for some time. It will be fine if several people go together and they can call me at any time.
Otherwise, it is unrealistic to do everything by yourself. Appropriate delegation of power is necessary for any company.
Qin Zhiye said: "Okay, then I'll be ready."
"Okay, this is the lawyer's business card. Tell me the time when you make an appointment." Yang Wendong took out a business card from the table.
"Thank you, Mr. Yang." Qin Zhiye said after taking the business card
A few days later, Qin Zhiye, Lao Wu and a lawyer named Wang boarded a plane to Germany together.
Yang Wendong was in remote command in Hong Kong, but he also experienced the troubles of no network communication. Many things could only be communicated through phone calls, but many problems could not be explained clearly over the phone;
The relevant photos and data sent back from Germany will take at least three days to reach Hong Kong.
In the end, they could only let the few people in Germany negotiate internally and then report to Yang Wendong. After seeing that everyone had reached a consensus, he agreed to buy a piece of equipment from Heidelberg, Germany, for HK$10.8 based on his limited information.
The manufacture and transportation of the equipment took about two months. Qin Zhiye and others also returned to Hong Kong and began the preliminary preparations for the opening of the newspaper.
Time soon came to September 9st. On this day, Lin Haoyu returned from Taiwan and brought back a man in his early 1s.
Yang Wendong was also ready to welcome him. When he saw the visitor, he smiled and said, "Hello, Mr. Xiong. Welcome to Hong Kong."
The person who came was naturally Gu Long, whose real name was Xiong Yaohua. After Yang Wendong provided some basic information, Lin Haoyu led people to Taiwan and entrusted a local intermediary company to investigate.
Taiwan is not very big, there are not many writers, and the surname Xiong itself is rare, so naturally, it was easy to find.
Seeking monthly ticket
(End of this chapter)