Ability appraisal in the business field: I would like to point out first that making money by doing business and pursuing a career are two different things. Here, I only talk about small businesses, which means ordinary people opening a store, becoming a distributor, starting a small trading company, or white-collar workers quitting their jobs to start a small consulting company, etc., these are common small businesses for ordinary Chinese people; if you have ambitions to pursue a big career, or you think you have the potential and ambition to become a millionaire or billionaire, then you should measure and learn from examples like Li Ka-shing: having lofty aspirations, noble character, foresight, and firm willpower, etc. Here, we only discuss the standards of qualities for those who are content with doing small businesses and earning a little money.
As an ordinary Chinese person, being able to make 100,000 to 200,000 yuan every year from small businesses with confidence, and having freedom, is already enough for an ordinary Chinese person in mainland China to live a relatively free and comfortable life.
I believe that most books on the market teaching people how to make money in business are misleading opportunities for making money because all these books use successful business examples such as Li Ka-shing, Liu Yonghao, Zhang Ruimin, Liu Chuanzhi, etc., to teach you the art of commerce and grand concepts: how to be extraordinary, how to have far-sightedness, how to be noble, how to be incredibly tenacious, how to persevere, etc. But people who are content with succeeding in small businesses may need exactly the opposite abilities: short-sightedness, survival first, profit first, opportunism, etc.
For friends who start small stores or small companies, we do not need to look at those unreachable business philosophies and texts that often use P&G, Walmart, Li Ka-shing as cases. Perhaps we just need to learn one or two tricks from successful small businesspeople around us like people from Chaoshan and Wenzhou, imitating a few business techniques at the tactical level, which could possibly lead to entrepreneurial success. You just need to ponder and practice according to the following standards to be well-fed and clothed for life.
The essence of the business world is to bring out one's ugly side. To become a businessman, one must hide their refined tastes, nobility, and kindness in their personal lives because doing business itself is a very vulgar thing, unrelated to elegance. Since ancient times, businessmen have been equated with unscrupulous merchants: valuing profit over everything else, easily leaving, calculating, scheming. Conversely, these are precisely the basic qualities needed to succeed in small businesses. For small businesses, one only needs to uphold conscience and abide by the law, and everything should be guided by the principle of seeking benefits and avoiding harm: including true businessmen's friendships, if this person cannot bring you business benefits, don't associate with them. If something cannot bring you immediate benefit, don't waste time and energy on it.
I have personally experienced three startups: opening a mobile phone store with my wife in Shenzhen, founding my own brand planning company in Shenzhen, and opening a Buddhist chain specialty store in China with the boss of Mei Yuanchun. I have personally experienced the failure and success of starting a business. Moreover, for many years, I have always observed more than 20 good friends who started businesses around me. Additionally, when I worked in the health product industry, I was closely associated with dozens of small bosses who were health product distributors. I have always been intentionally contemplating and summarizing their gains and losses in doing business. I always feel that most successful business cases on books and online are embellished false cases, most of which have no substantial value to emulate. Especially, the cases and experiences written by journalists, planners, and other literati often ignore the most valuable essential parts for doing business (because they are the ones who know the least about doing business; generally speaking, literary temperament is often the biggest enemy of doing business). I feel that the examples around you are more valuable. The examples around you are much more realistic than those wealth myth cases seen in books that seem distant and intangible. This time, I want to tear off the hypocritical mask and show everyone the naked rules of the business world.
Therefore, I believe the following standards I summarize are more pragmatic, especially for many white-collar friends hesitating between working and starting their own business, unsure if they have what it takes to do business. These standards can provide you with good references (some seemingly negative or derogatory adjectives in the following standards should be viewed with a neutral perspective), you can score yourself accordingly, to see if you are a qualified businessman or have the potential qualities to do business:
1. Ability to calculate (20 points)
The ability to calculate is the most basic ability for a person to do business. Calculation ability is not just the ability to compute; even a computer or a math Ph.D. often cannot match an inexperienced but experienced businessman in the marketplace, which is very normal.
Although calculation ability primarily involves sensitivity to numbers and mental arithmetic, this ability is not closely related to cultural literacy or mathematical ability. Small businesses are generally done over the phone and at the dinner table. Sometimes, when a partner quotes a price, you need to quickly judge whether it is beneficial to you, and the counteroffer needs to be reasonably calculated so that the other party can accept it and make the deal happen. If you say you need to consider or take out a calculator and fumble with it, your business opportunity has already been lost.
The essence of business is buying low and selling high. A person who does not know how to calculate their costs (buying low) or does not know how to increase the price through calculation (selling high) basically has no chance in business.
I have personally experienced several examples of calculating quotes that left a deep impression on me: A few years ago, I did real estate planning for a small construction contractor who was just starting out in county-level real estate business. During market research, we encountered a car repair shop owner who had not graduated from elementary school. He wanted to buy one-sixteenth of the commercial land in our planned site and asked us to quote on the spot. Cutting two small rectangular plots from a rectangular plot of land is a simple math problem that even middle school students can solve, but since each side has different values, the value of the land facing the street is different from the non-facing part, the value of the land at the crossroads is also different, various transfer fees need to be considered, and the pros and cons of the entire real estate project also need to be taken into account. The simple math problem suddenly became complicated. My partner and I spent a whole day researching before we came up with a quote. We called the boss to consult, he paused, and gave the most reasonable yet businesslike calculation method, quoted a reasonable price, and took into account many factors such as taxes and public relations costs, which were roughly consistent with the car repair shop owner's and our quotes. Two years later, this contractor became a real estate billionaire in Jiangxi, and the car repair shop owner became the owner of the largest automobile repair factory in Yugan County, Jiangxi, worth tens of millions.
Another time, we planned a recruitment website to cooperate comprehensively with China's largest on-site job fair, also bringing in the largest newspaper recruitment in southern China. Three companies collaborated to jointly sell a recruitment product. Due to the involvement of three parties' interests, salesperson commissions, competitor prices, and many other factors, with the job fair approaching and tight time constraints, our group of senior white-collar workers worked overtime for an entire night considering various factors before calculating the quote. The next day, when we confidently negotiated with the job fair boss (who learned about this cooperation plan for the first time), without hesitation, he quoted a price acceptable to all three parties and proved that our group of overseas master's degree holders and university talents had made incorrect and unreasonable quotes.
Sometimes we have to admit: a boss is a boss, and a worker is a worker. Even if you become the president of a multinational corporation, since you are a worker, your calculation ability might still not match that of a street vendor.
The recent popular thinking mode of the Shanghai taxi driver with an MBA, its core success lies in the calculation ability: calculating time cost, waiting opportunity cost, fuel cost, different groups of people, etc.
A person who cannot calculate, unwilling to calculate, or unable to calculate, for example, if you dislike remembering cards or calculating cards while playing cards, I would advise you not to work or start a business.
2. Ability to scheme (20 points)
The ability to scheme may enable a person to make money in business more than the ability to calculate, and even if a person possesses extraordinary single scheming abilities, regardless of other capabilities, they will definitely succeed.
After the famous Chinese health product Mei Yuanchun Company where I used to work was acquired, including myself, more than 30 branch managers resigned to start businesses. However, only one person succeeded in entrepreneurship. Later, when we gathered, we said that this person's scheming ability was too strong, and it was impossible for him not to succeed in business. For example, when he did pharmaceutical agency, he could analyze any common drug presented to him: estimate the composition, the cost per gram, the type of paper used for printing the box, the cost, how many such drugs exist in China, and the operating status of each manufacturer. He had a bed behind his office and spent all day scheming and studying his business matters tirelessly (a businessman must be energetic). I once saw him wanting to print posters for promotion, with a market price of 2000 yuan for printing fees. He painstakingly sought quotes from 10 printing factories and eventually reduced the price to 1500 yuan for printing. Moreover, every professional from the printing factory could only act as a student in front of him regarding printing knowledge. To reduce his promotional costs, he had thoroughly studied every aspect of the printing process. Saving every penny in small businesses is profit.
Other people around him could only sigh and feel that he deserved to make money.
The ability to scheme is not only manifested in doing business but can also be said that the vast majority of people in China who can rise to official positions are scheming experts. They are all meticulous and do not miss any opportunity to improve positive performance or flatter negatively.
You might say that it's my own business and my hard-earned money, so of course, I am willing to deeply scheme, but do you possess the ability to scheme?
3. Ability to hustle (20 points)
I have observed people around me who successfully make money in business, and I found that none of them made money on their first attempt at business. Generally, after two failures, they would become prosperous because business skills cannot be learned from textbooks. Often, experience is necessary, and experience is very important. An ordinary person can only understand what business is after two failures.
Can you withstand the hustle? This is really a kind of ability. The friend I mentioned earlier who succeeded in business lost everything in his first attempt at environmental protection business and operated in debt during his second attempt in health product agency. It wasn't until his third attempt in pharmaceutical agency that he succeeded.
Later, the original Mei Yuanchun boss with whom I started a company, the famous Chinese entrepreneur Mr. Chen Jugen, due to my year-long close observation of him, I deeply understood that people who can start businesses are truly capable of hustling: he turned a county-level enterprise, Mei Yuanchun, into a scale of 300 million yuan, then sold it to the Yinhai Group. Later, he founded Mei Yuanchun cosmetics and sold it to the Hengan Group, then represented Run Du Group to acquire Mei Yuanchun and served as general manager, entering and exiting the enterprise three times. A businessperson who starts a business must be good at hustling, skilled at hustling, and even in good situations, should actively hustle.
If you cannot withstand borrowing money everywhere, being chased by debts, the despair and persistence after failure, I advise you not to start a business or engage in commerce. People who are good at hustling will eventually make money in business.
4. Ability to get things done (10 points)
People who make money in business are often not talented or professionally capable individuals but rather those who can handle all kinds of large and small matters; doing any business in China requires handling many things personally, and those who cannot allocate resources or handle relevant resources effectively will not make money even with the best startup projects.
The most profound impression I have is from a detail in New Oriental School founder Yu Minhong's entrepreneurship: When he started an English training class, he was caught by the Industrial and Commercial Bureau for putting up flyers and was fined. Later, someone through connections found the relevant industrial and commercial leadership to smooth things over, but when this bookish man invited the Industrial and Commercial Bureau people to dinner, he couldn't say a word throughout the meal. He completely lacked social skills, making the situation extremely awkward. After this unforgettable blow, he suddenly realized the true essence of doing business, transformed himself completely, and transitioned from a bookish person to a businessman who could handle everything, ultimately achieving great success.
If you can generally accomplish most things you usually handle, congratulations, you have the potential to do business.
5. Social Networking Skills (10 points)
Successful people in business, regardless of the industry, mostly have a personality imbued with a sense of social righteousness. Because doing business often involves dealing with people; for example, when you purchase goods, the seller usually requires a 50% deposit, but because of your social righteousness and familiarity, they might only ask for a 30% deposit. Your righteous aura gives you an advantage in business.
As a boss, your employees may be loyal to you due to your social elder brother-like charisma, even if they earn less money. In small businesses, social righteousness also manifests in your ability to drink a bit, your understanding of social norms, and your worldly nature matching the fact that small businesses often serve worldly people.
If you lack social awareness, are naive and indulge in fictional stories from magazines like "Reader", "Sound of Love", and "Family", I would advise you not to go into business or enter the social world. It's better to maintain a simple and pure life.
6. Ability to Be Stingy (10 points)
Workers often feel this way: why are all bosses so stingy? But stinginess is almost a treasure for successful businessmen. Those who fundamentally do not understand stinginess will not prosper in business.
A judgment standard is: when you shop, if you think everything is cheap, then you are not a potentially successful businessman; if you not only blurt out "too expensive" for everything but also genuinely feel that everything is expensive and have the motivation to bargain and lower prices, then you should be a decent boss. A relentless pursuit of lowering costs is a characteristic of businessmen; you should always feel there is a lower cost. This is the attitude a boss should have. If even you, the boss, think the price is okay, then your employees won't save money for you, and it will be difficult for you to make money.
In small businesses, saving money is equivalent to making money, and being nitpicky is essential, and this principle must be adhered to consistently. As long as you soften once, you will keep conceding in future business negotiations until you lose everything.
If you say you don't want to be a stingy, nitpicky person, then I advise you not to do business.
7. Realistic Ability (10 points)
It is also very important for a person to maintain a highly realistic attitude towards any matter in business or, simply put, a profit-driven attitude.
Many people hold onto ideals or ambitions when doing business, which generally leads to failure. The sole and ultimate purpose of doing business is to make money. A merchant who doesn't make money is immoral. Nowadays, young people in Japan believe that "making money is the greatest virtue," which reflects the truth of doing business from ancient times to the present.
A few years ago, a former superior of mine opened a company and invited me to dinner to talk about his ambitions, which he hadn't achieved while working. He took out his new business card and explained the meaning of the company name and logo, and pulled out thick plans, regulations, and systems indicating his determination to become the most standardized health product dealer in China. I told him that he just needed to consider how to make a few thousand dollars in cash tomorrow to keep the company alive, and everything else could come later. He didn't listen, and within a year, his business failed, and he is still paying off debts now. One could say that the greater the ambitions of a starting merchant, the faster they fail. Most small enterprises with so-called grand visions of "being the best in China" end up failing. Successful merchants often write about their initial grand ambitions after they've succeeded, but most of it isn't true—it's just propaganda.
However, humans have emotions and dreams. Keeping a realistic and pragmatic alert mindset is difficult but also a significant capability. Many people appear moral and childish on the surface but are actually very realistic inside. I've met many such successful businessmen in the past. Business is sometimes synonymous with reality.
The total score for the above standards is 100 points. If you find words like "calculate, scheme, hustle, get things done, social network, stingy, realistic" repulsive at first glance, then you have already failed and should not do business (unless you have the great talent of a Confucian merchant).
1. Please introduce yourself.
Answer Tip: Most people answer this question too casually, only mentioning their name, age, hobbies, and work experience, all of which are already on their resumes. Actually, companies most want to know if the applicant is competent for the job, including: strongest skills, most deeply studied knowledge fields, the most positive aspects of personality, the most successful things done, main achievements, etc. These can be unrelated to study or related to study, but they should highlight positive personality traits and the ability to get things done, making it reasonable and believable for the company. Companies value politeness; applicants should respect the interviewer and say "thank you" after answering each question. Companies like polite applicants.
2. What do you think is your greatest strength in terms of personality?
Answer Tip: Composure, clarity, steadfastness, and upward striving.
Helpfulness and concern for others, adaptability, and a sense of humor, optimism, and friendship. Through one to two years of training and project practice at Baidu Qingniao, along with internship work, I have become suitable for this job. I believe I can succeed.
3. What is your biggest weakness?
Answer Tip: This is a question companies often ask. Usually, they don't expect direct answers about weaknesses. If an applicant says they are petty, jealous, very lazy, bad-tempered, or inefficient, the company definitely won't hire them. Absolutely don't cleverly answer "my biggest weakness is being overly perfectionist." Some people think this makes them seem outstanding, but in fact, they are already in trouble. Companies like applicants who start with their strengths, add a little weakness in the middle, and then shift back to their strengths, highlighting their strengths. Companies like smart applicants.
4. What is your view on overtime?
Answer Tip: Actually, many companies ask this question not necessarily implying overtime is required. It's just testing whether you're willing to dedicate yourself to the company.
Sample Answer: If work requires it, I would willingly work overtime without hesitation. I'm currently single, with no family burdens, so I can fully devote myself to work. At the same time, I will improve my work efficiency to reduce unnecessary overtime.
5. What are your salary requirements?
Answer Tip: If your salary requirement is too low,