Chapter 386: Changing the Man is Like Changing the Blade (Part 2)

President Cao said sheepishly, “Boss, how is that possible? Xinyue Group plays hardball. It’s impossible to renew a lease if the annual rent increase is less than 8%. Speaking of which, didn’t all that bull the Qingjiang Branch was spouting over a month ago just blow up in their faces? They couldn’t get the renewals done. Forget a flat renewal—I heard some were offered with an 80% increase, and Xinyue Group still refused to renew, forcing them to give up a lot of their storefronts.”

He had, of course, learned this from his contacts at Xinyue Group in his own region. There are no secrets in the business world.

“That was the bull *Fang Zheng* was spouting, which is why he got the boot. This is the real deal. They secured flat renewals for all 21 projects, and on top of that, Xinyue Group is giving them massive marketing support for all of them. Haven’t you seen this month’s year-over-year data? The Qingjiang Branch has already climbed to number two in the country.”

‘Holy shit.’ President Cao had, of course, seen the Qingjiang Branch’s operational data. He’d just assumed it was a fluke at the start of the month that would settle back down after a while. He never imagined it was because Xinyue Group was giving them massive marketing support, on top of the renewals the COO had just mentioned.

‘So that big talk from Fang Zheng at the Qingjiang Branch… Yang Hui actually went and made it happen.’

“Uh… Boss, actually, our current salary levels are manageable. We can hold out. How about you just give us a bigger budget during the year-end salary review?”

After the call ended abruptly, the COO didn’t bother calling him a wimp. ‘A guy like Yang Hui is a freak of nature. You can encourage people to learn from him, but you can never expect everyone to be like him.’

Yang Hui was in his office, waiting for Li Chao’s report. ‘Now that I have a head of the Channel Development Department, I certainly can’t be the one scouting out and handling individual store renewals myself. What would be the point of being a general manager then? A leader’s job is to make good use of his people, not to micromanage every little thing. I should only step in personally for major issues that my subordinates can’t handle.’

‘If I solve every problem myself, my people will never get the experience they need. I’d just be raising an incompetent team that can’t function without me. Then, in the future, I’d either have to do everything myself and work myself to death, or, if I’m not around, nothing would get solved at all. That would be the worst-case scenario.’

“Boss, the lease for the street-front shop on Guoqing Road is up in three months. The rent is 500,000 yuan a year. This year, its average monthly sales are 100,000 yuan, and it’s currently losing about 10,000 yuan a month. The lease is up in three months. Should we renew?”

Yang Hui put down his pen and leaned back in his executive chair, his eyes fixed on Li Chao. “What’s your recommendation?”

‘I don’t like subordinates who are just mouthpieces. They should have their own thoughts, be able to discuss and explore ideas with me, not just come to me for an opinion on every single thing.’

It wasn’t that Li Chao didn’t have his own ideas. He just didn’t understand his new boss’s personality yet, so he made a point to report everything and ask for guidance on every matter.

“Boss, the retail environment has been tough for the past two years, and business in street-front shopping areas is in steady decline. This store’s average monthly sales for the year are 100,000 yuan, but that figure includes the sales spike from the Chinese New Year. Last month, sales were less than 70,000 yuan. So, I don’t think there’s any reason to keep this store. Unless we can get a drastic rent reduction, we should close it down when the lease expires.”

Yang Hui took the report Li Chao handed him. It detailed the store’s sales data and profits over the past year. From a profit-and-loss perspective, it was clear the store wasn’t worth keeping. ‘If this were a Yanghe Commerce store with monthly sales of only 70,000 yuan,’ he thought, ‘I wouldn’t keep it open even if it were rent-free, let alone with such high rent. The sales staff at a store like that would work themselves to the bone all month and still barely make any money.’

‘Of course, this is Ruijing Commerce. I can’t just apply Yanghe Commerce’s business philosophy here. If I used my standard of only opening stores that could hit 800,000 yuan in monthly sales, Ruijing Commerce would have to shut down every single one of its stores nationwide.’

‘Given Ruijing Commerce’s current situation, the nationwide strategy is simply to avoid closing stores as long as they aren’t losing money, preserving the company’s overall scale as much as possible.’

“Go handle the negotiations. If the annual rent is more than 250,000 yuan, we walk.”

With that, Yang Hui made his final decision. Based on the current situation, hitting 1.2 million in annual sales would be considered pretty good. At 250,000 yuan a year, the rent-to-sales ratio would be over 20%, which was a lot of pressure on their costs. But he also knew that negotiating down to 250,000 would be tough. ‘These are private landlords. Asking them to drop the rent from 500,000 to 250,000 is like asking for blood.’ He was already prepared to close the store.

‘Truthfully, I could just ignore this whole thing. By the time the contract expires, I’ll be gone from Ruijing Commerce anyway. But since I’m still in the role and Li Chao came to me for guidance, I’ll give him my opinion.’

After dealing with a few more matters, Yang Hui stood up, grabbed his briefcase, and headed out. The company had a GL8 business van available, but when he was in the city, he preferred to drive his own Mercedes E-Class. Besides, having a driver was inconvenient for many things—for instance, you couldn’t have a pretty girl riding shotgun.

When he arrived at Yanghe Commerce, he was surprised to see Zhu Jing was still at the office. He gave her a wave and called her into a meeting room to see how she’d been doing lately.

Things couldn’t have been better, of course. Back at Futong Commerce, Zhu Jing had been a top performer, but the work there felt like a chore; it was exhausting. It was different at Yanghe Commerce. Here, she approached her job as if it were a hobby and genuinely enjoyed it. Her colleagues, subordinates, and bosses were all incredibly easy to get along with. Before coming here, she could never have imagined a work environment like this.

She brought Yang Hui a cup of coffee. He’d been busy with Ruijing Commerce business lately, so it had been a few days since he’d run into her. He listened quietly as she told him some fun stories about the company, and it was clear she was in a very good mood.